← Juicy Crimes with Heather McDonald
Juicy Crimes with Heather McDonald
Matt Murphy On The Kouri Richins Case. Did She Poison Her Husband?
01:13:48
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- [00:10]
Heather McDonald
Hello and welcome to juicy crimes. I got a real good one. I have your favorite surfer turned prosecutor turned author turned Juicy crimes favorite Matt Murphy. Welcome back.
- [00:23]
Matt Murphy
Thank you. Thank you.
- [00:24]
Heather McDonald
To the juicy scoop, juicy crimes world. Well, you know, we're recording this a little bit before you guys hear it. So I don't know where we'll be on this case, but as of the time that we recorded it this morning, Savannah Guthrie did a heartfelt plea. She did a selfie video tmz, and everybody picked it up, in which she said, we are now offering 1 million to anybody that gives information that leads to finding her mother, whether she's alive or has passed to have closure. I don't know if it. In that reward, did it also say leading to the arrest of the person or just finding Nancy?
- [01:07]
Matt Murphy
You know, I didn't actually see. I saw that she did that. I didn't see the exact language. But we're kind of at that point right now, Right. We're picking apart. We're picking apart language on that. We're picking apart language on this sheriff who. You know, I want to be fair here.
- [01:22]
Heather McDonald
Yeah.
- [01:23]
Matt Murphy
But that guy is not ready for primetime.
- [01:26]
Heather McDonald
Well, he's got a TV show.
- [01:27]
Matt Murphy
He's got a TV show.
- [01:28]
Heather McDonald
Yeah, he has a show on A and e. He's a consulting producer on it, where it's been on for a while, and it follows the Pima county sheriff's department and their adventures.
- [01:39]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. So I got for better or worse, I was on a bunch of these cases where we work with the FBI and from escapes to Samantha Runyon was my first where it was a task force. We're trying to find the little girl who got kidnapped.
- [01:55]
Heather McDonald
And I've got some familiarity remind us of that story.
- [01:58]
Matt Murphy
It was famous back in the day. This was in 2002 or 2003. Little six year old got kidnapped out of Stanton, California, and turns out her body was found a week later near a hiking trail off Ortega canyon.
- [02:10]
Heather McDonald
Did they ever find out who did it?
- [02:11]
Matt Murphy
Oh, yeah. We did it working with the FBI. Who put it together? This guy named Alejandro Avila. And he was tried for two child molestations the year before in Riverside county. And the jury acquitted him. And he got into an argument with his girlfriend, drove his car to orange county and snatched this little girl off.
- [02:31]
Heather McDonald
Just randomly.
- [02:32]
Matt Murphy
Randomly. Yep. Predatory sex offenders don't get better. And we're gonna talk about another case on that this morning.
- [02:38]
Heather McDonald
But this episode of juicy crimes is sponsored by rakuten. Rakuten is the most rewarding way to shop because you can stack cash back on top of sales and deals at your favor stores. I'm talking Target, cvs, Ulta, Macy's. It's so easy to use. And you get your cash back sent to you through paypal or check. Download the free Rakuten app or go to rakuten.com to start saving today. That's r a k u t e n rakuten.com why have I asked my
- [03:11]
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- [03:25]
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- [03:28]
Matt Murphy
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- [03:30]
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- [04:19]
Matt Murphy
So, yeah, and I got to work with them a bunch. The FBI agents are. The field agents are absolutely wonderful. You deal with their. A lot of people don't know this. A lot of them went to law school. A lot of them have accounting degrees. FBI agents at the field agent level are fantastic to work with, and they have resources that are not available to local police. They can do these things called administrative drop warrants where they can basically just get phone records. You know, we take. Takes us like two weeks we gotta serve. You know, there has to be a court order either a subpoena under the right circumstances. But to get phone records now we have a new law that it's gotta be pursuant to a warrant. So it's just they can do things that rapidly improve investigation.
- [05:00]
Heather McDonald
So, I mean, in this particular case, we only see the sheriff. And it seems, you know, again, it's the weirdest case. I've talked about it so much. We're on day 24, I think now. And, you know, there is connection to her, you know, being who she Is a reporter being one of the first people to even talk to any victims of Epstein to the husband having a career in which he worked in politics as well with the Clintons specifically. This was happened right after a big drop of the files. And then, you know, and then all the weird and the fact that it seems like there's like no clues. And then it's like, well, we don't really want people to helping to look right now. Like, we don't need that.
- [05:42]
Matt Murphy
And that's after he went. Look, that guy went public. As soon as you bring in the media and ask for the public's health, you don't get to walk that back and say, now you're hurting us. Which is exactly what this Chris Nanos guy has done. Look, in my opinion, that guy. The way these are supposed to work is that you have to involve. This is a state case. The FBI comes in as a helping authority. Basically, they're there spending resources trying to solve the crime. But ultimately, if they catch the guy, it'll be prosecuted. There's no federal angle here. There. It's going to be Prosecuted by the DA's office in Pima County. That the DA is a woman named Laura Conover. She has been a ghost in this whole thing. And if you want to do this right, you need the prosecutorial authority involved.
- [06:25]
Heather McDonald
Okay, so then let me ask you, not conspiracy theory, but isn't that weird?
- [06:29]
Matt Murphy
It's super weird.
- [06:30]
Heather McDonald
It is really weird. And like, it doesn't make sense. And why they're like, dragging their feet and I'm sorry to Savannah. I believe these tears and this confusion and this sadness is real. But why on day 24, do you offer a million dollars? Why wouldn't you have offered that the first day? Is that because you're listening to the FBI tell you what to do? Or if it was, I shouldn't put it out there, but I would be
- [07:02]
Matt Murphy
sure.
- [07:02]
Heather McDonald
And you know, they have the, you know, sorry. You know, like a million dollars to her and her husband. I mean, just assuming is not going to be that they don't have retirement. You know what I mean? Like, they. I think that they can afford that. And so I feel at this point she just is like, I don't want this to go on. Months and months and months and months. Let's just see if we can even if we just find her and never find the person that did it. I just want to know. That's what I think she's coming from.
- [07:29]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. Number one, my heart breaks for her completely. I mean, it's awful. What the family's gone through is the worst thing the family can go through. All of the stuff to Harvey Levin, all of that is fake. I can tell you right now. It has always been fake. Those are scammers trying to take advantage of this, which is about as low, I think, as you can get as a human being. But at the end of the day, the leadership, the person who has pretty much. First of all, you don't feud with the FBI when they come in to help. And that appears to be happening.
- [07:57]
Heather McDonald
Why does it. I used to joke about that was always in every movie. This is my case. And I'm like, why wouldn't you want that help?
- [08:05]
Matt Murphy
In reality, the way it works. And I've had more than my fair share of fights with the feds. But in the investigative stage like this, that's a movie thing. In real life, you say thank you, and what happens is everybody comes together. And you've got really dedicated, smart law enforcement with amazing resources in the form of the FBI, and you assist them, are not making a move to prosecute this case. So this is. Nobody's trying to take it from Pima County. They're trying to help. And the idea that the sheriff, you know, the rumors are he's been feuding, and there's this where they're gonna send the DNA. And first he denied it, and then he said, oh, well, okay, there was, but I just wanted to go to our lab in Florida that we use. All of that is weird. But my biggest problem here is. And nobody's talking about this, where's the D.A. because when you. When you send SWAT teams out and start throwing handcuffs on people, that, in my opinion. Look, I did homicide exclusively for 17 years. I did sex crimes for four years before that. So 21 years of dealing with, you know, these task forces and things like that, I don't think in a single case we ever had a SWAT team go out and arrest somebody like that. Like, a couple armed cops is more than enough. I think just my opinion here, I think that stuff is performative, and I think that there should be an adult in the room. It should be the DA who is working with the sheriff, who puts kibosh on stuff like that because it's a terrible look. Like, imagine if you have nothing to do with this, and SWAT team rolls out. There's media everywhere. Everybody knows that it's reasonably foreseeable they put you in handcuffs. And everybody. I keep hearing the word detained that the Uber Eats guy that they detained, apparently he said he Was handcuffed. And then somebody within the investigation working for the government releases your name and picture, and that's out. And for a week, you're the potential suspect on this horrible case. Like, they have a civil suit there.
- [09:59]
Heather McDonald
Yeah.
- [09:59]
Matt Murphy
And that's just. In my. Just my opinion here. That's amateur hour. And Pima county, you got to remember this in your next election, because they are being failed by their law enforcement leadership, in my opinion.
- [10:11]
Heather McDonald
Okay, in your opinion, in your theory, totally hypothetical opinion, whatever you want to call it, what do you think happened?
- [10:20]
Matt Murphy
Look, from the very beginning, we see. You see that video. But even before that, this has. You know, a lot of people think you can age out of sexual assault. You don't. Okay, sorry, everybody, but. And this case is so weird on so many different levels, But a lot of people have eliminated that because of her age. That is. That's not the case. It's could very well be that. It could be a serial killer. Could be any number of things. But another thing that we keep hearing from the sheriff in all of these, like, inconsistent walking things back and throwing out the wrong breadcrumbs. And he, like, one of the things. Last week, I was on with Elizabeth Vargas, and she interviewed him that night on News Nation, and she said, so the gloves. Remember, we had the gloves. There was DNA on the gloves. And by the way, whenever you do a canvas search, you always find gloves, gardening gloves, you know, mechanics gloves. There's always gloves. If you look, you're always going to get DNA. And then if you get unknown male DNA, you've just created a great issue for the defense. But anyway, we heard about the gloves on the side of the road, I don't know, a couple miles down the road. Chances of those being involved in this were always slim. But she asked him, so was Mrs. Guthrie's DNA on the gloves? And he did not know the answer to that, which, in my mind, like, I don't know who's running the ship. And that guy wants to be in charge. And I don't know how you can't know. And then, of course, we got the basketball game that he visited. You know, as an. Imagine that your mom is missing. You're going through the worst apoplectic grief of your life. And the man who's in charge with. To the exclusion of the district attorney's office, which, again, shouldn't be happening, but it is, apparently, is at a basketball game, enjoying himself. That's entertainment. That was a horrible look for law enforcement. And again, this is zero criticism of the rank and file officers. I did a case with Pima County. The Hawks case involved Pima county because they were from Arizona and we had to deal with law enforcement there. The cops we dealt with were wonderful. I mean, real pros. So look, I don't know what's going on, but they need to do a better job.
- [12:25]
Heather McDonald
Well, I do feel like this is a moment of just. She's put it out there. And I predict, sadly, the news will stop. People like me will move on to other things to talk about. And if we don't get any answer in the next week, I don't think it's gonna go into March and April
- [12:50]
Matt Murphy
with the blood on that step. I've always believed that she was dead inside the house. And again, I hope I'm wrong. I pray to God I'm wrong. But that has. I had a no body case. And you can prosecute no body cases. You know, I've done five of them. I had a no body case, my Judy Vla case, where the. Even the tile looked the same. And she murdered her boyfriend inside the house. And a hundred pound woman managed to get a 220 pound man out of the house, out of the bedroom.
- [13:17]
Heather McDonald
Oh, like dragged him on a carpet out.
- [13:19]
Matt Murphy
I mean, we'll never really know. We never recovered the body. But she killed him in the house, shot him, loaded them up into a truck. And on the tiles, the blood, like the graphic match in my mind on that one, it just looks almost the same. And again, I look at this through the most jaded lens that anybody could. Because you know what I saw on sexual assault in the homicide unit. But I think that poor lady was dead inside the house. You exponentially increase your risk of getting caught by trying to move a body like that. But people that do this sort of thing don't think like the rest of us do. It's an awful case. My heart breaks for Savannah Guthrie and her whole family. But in my opinion, it's a clown show right now.
- [14:07]
Heather McDonald
Yeah. Wow. Okay. I also wanna talk about this trial just started. They predict it'll be five weeks. And it's Utah versus Corey Richens. And this is a story I don't know that I ever. I may have touched on it a long time ago. It happened a couple years ago. But she's a pretty woman now, in her late 30s, on trial for poisoning her husband. They were married. They had three young boys, like 5, 7 and 9. And she said she served him a drink like a Moscow mule. And then she would sleep, like get her one kid to Sleep. So she fell asleep in the kid's bed. And when she went back to the marital bed, she. He felt cold. And she called 911 in the middle of the night. They have the 911 call, and then they found out that he died from fentanyl. And I mean, there's so much to get into.
- [15:00]
Matt Murphy
There's so much to get into in this case. I mean, and this is really. You talk about juicy crimes. This is a fascinating case. This is one of those that as I started reading up for it, to do some commentary a couple days ago for ABC and others, just to get
- [15:18]
Heather McDonald
a couple more facts out. So she was a professional woman. She would buy homes in the nice Utah area and flip them. And some very high one was she bought for a few million dollars. And the hope was eventually to flip it and make it a resort and they would maybe profit like up to 10 or 12 million dollars. I mean, she was doing a real big thing. He was a businessman, but he also was really into hunting, and he would take off for, like, months at a time to hunt. And he also had an affair, which she found out about, but they went to counseling to make it work. They have also found out that she had a boyfriend on the side.
- [16:02]
Matt Murphy
She's had a couple.
- [16:03]
Heather McDonald
Oh, she had a couple. Okay, you'll have to. We'll have to get that. But as far as the. Why they think she's responsible for this is because she had a housekeeper that I think also may have cleaned some of her other properties in which that woman who does have a criminal record, who was approached by the police, then shared that she went to her and said, can you get me oxycontin or Fentanyl or whatever? And so basically the heart of the defense is, is whatever. She was not the one that put this in the drink that he did. He was into, like, you know, pot gummies. And he did have a back injury and he would buy street drugs. And so it's very possible that he was doing these recreational drugs himself and got a. A bad batch of something that had fentanyl in it, which does happen to a lot of people and has been happening to a lot of people where they die from a fentanyl overdose. And they had no intention of dying. They were thought they did a line of cocaine at a party and it had fentanyl in it. So that's the bulk of the defense. But the prosecution has so much. And I'll let you get into what the prosecution has.
- [17:21]
Matt Murphy
They have so much. I miss being A prosecutor on this one. You know what case this is really similar to is my Bill McLaughlin case, which is the case that I met you down in Newport case.
- [17:30]
Heather McDonald
Yes.
- [17:30]
Matt Murphy
There's a lot of parallels in the sense that.
- [17:34]
Heather McDonald
Which is where the girlfriend allegedly got her boyfriend to go to her older boyfriend's house and kill him dead.
- [17:42]
Matt Murphy
You know what I love about. What I love about a conviction is we don't have to say the word allegedly anymore. It has been proven in court that that's exactly what she did. So we. And basically, in that one, it's the plot to Body Heat. You got a young pretty woman, you got an older rich guy, and it becomes an idea. She starts having an affair behind the scenes, and it becomes a question of how does she maximize her financial take once she realized that he probably wasn't going to marry her. And the way she solved that problem was she manipulated her side paramour, an ex NFL football player named Eric Naposki, convinced him to go in and murder Bill McLaughlin, which he did. Also convicted. Not allegedly
- [18:24]
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- [18:26]
Matt Murphy
But it was. There's two things. Yeah, yeah. No, going back to that. Here are the parallels. She's having an affair with a handyman that she worked for in her business. And there's some really steamy text messages between the two of them. You know, I love you. And some of them are really, really damning. Like, I hope you can just hold out. It would be better. Yeah. She said it to a friend. It would be better if my husband was dead. And then she tells him, oh, if you can just hold out till Friday. And then Friday was the day that he.
- [18:59]
Heather McDonald
She actually said Friday.
- [19:00]
Matt Murphy
And it was just like.
- [19:01]
Heather McDonald
Because I saw the moment where she was like, I want a future for you with you. And something like, if you could just be here once he's gone. Then I think in her brain, if in fact she did it, that it was like she was trying to justify it in that. But they would have a father figure, the boys. Because I'm with this great guy.
- [19:25]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [19:26]
Heather McDonald
And that's what I always just wonder when someone does commit a murder like this, where they take a mother or a father from the. When a person kills their spouse who is the parent of their children, no matter how much you hate them, I always wonder, how do they justify? Like, the kids will be fine or the kids will be better off if the person was not abusive.
- [19:50]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. Well, I think in her mind, she's not thinking about her kids.
- [19:54]
Heather McDonald
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So.
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- [22:36]
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- [23:12]
Matt Murphy
She's and in fact, in some of the text messages they recovered, she's talking about her concerns about him fighting for custody in the divorce. They're both talking to divorce attorneys. So all the stuff about her book and are you still with me? And all that stuff.
- [23:28]
Heather McDonald
So then also, a year after, yeah, he died, she wrote a children's book so that she could read something to her kids about Daddy's still here, just in a different way. And she actually was on like the local Utah daily Today show or whatever, promoting the book before she was arrested. Shortly before she was arrested. And with the boyfriend, there are a couple other things that were very bad. Was. And they retrieved the text messages and things from the old phone that she had to give over. And then she started to write on a new one. And it was. She had already prepaid for an all inclusive Cancun holiday to happen three months in advance after the death. Right now, someone would, okay, let's say, I mean, the defense attorney. Yeah, they had marital problems. She had a boyfriend. Whether she stayed with him or not, she was planning on doing a rendezvous and saying she was going on a solo yoga trip and meeting him again. That always is the defense, whether it's the husband who kills the wife or husband, yeah, my client's a cheater. They're not a murderer.
- [24:42]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, of course they're gonna say that. And that's where the parallels to McLaughlin really come in. So Nanette was cheating and Nanette was stealing. This woman had embezzled roughly $2 million apparently from her husband's businesses. And then she also, in like the four months leading up to his death, got about $2 million in life insurance policies that apparently he did not know about.
- [25:06]
Heather McDonald
Well, one was another policy that was only 100,000, but she forged.
- [25:10]
Matt Murphy
She forged that. Yeah. And they charged her with all those as forgeries. But. So the devil's always in the detail in these cases. And each one of these is like a collage. So it's a bunch of little tiny puzzle pieces. So she's got the affair. That's a big thing. But of course that's true. People have affairs all the time where they don't murder their spouses. But she was $4 million. She had that business, but she was really bad at it. She was $4 million in the hole. And at least 2 million of that were what they called hard money loans, which are those 20%. They're borderline. I mean, they're legal, but barely. There's limits to how much you can charge. Interest rate wise, it's called usury. And these are those legal loans, but they have incredibly high interest rates.
- [25:55]
Heather McDonald
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:55]
Matt Murphy
And she had to. She had. She had millions. Four million. And here's another thing. Like, everybody processes grief differently, right? Like we know that. But the. This husband dies apparently of this tragic OD with the boys, and. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. The very next day, she closed the deal on that big mansion that you talked about. And she had plans and, yeah, maybe they can sell it. Maybe she has a big profit. He was. According to her, he was all for it. And they were celebrating. According to his family. That's not true. He was far more savvy financially than she was, and he had big reservations about that, which makes sense because he's already talking to divorce lawyers. He's already taken all of his assets and put him in a trust for the boys. He's already divested her of the house and everything else that he owns. So he's already taken these steps. And the idea that he's celebrating this financial risk with the woman he's about to divorce. He's also embezzled a bunch of money. Makes no sense. But here's the. Here's the kicker that we can all understand. She then has a party within 24 hours of his death, celebrating closing the deal on this big mansion that she was buying, which. Sorry, people, People process.
- [27:01]
Heather McDonald
It wasn't really a party. Or as a defense attorney, would it be. No. Of course, when someone dies, friends come over, they bring wine, they bring food.
- [27:11]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, good luck with that one.
- [27:12]
Heather McDonald
Sometimes, even in the most tragic ways, sometimes those do turn out to be people getting a little drunk and having a chuckle.
- [27:19]
Matt Murphy
I'm Irish. I've been to more than one Irish wake. But that's.
- [27:22]
Heather McDonald
This was a legit party.
- [27:23]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, that's what the prosecution's saying. And she had. Yeah, it was a celebration of the deal closing Not a celebration of life the next day. And that's also. We know that that's. We've all been to those. That's after the funeral we go. It's the wake. And that's the celebration of a lifetime. Not hey, let's take some shots. And by the way, I closed a deal today. My husband's body literally at this point is not even cold yet. The core temperature of a human being who died 24 hours is still going to be above room temperature at that point. He is literally not cold. And she's having a celebration of. Of what? That just, you know, I.
- [28:03]
Heather McDonald
So there are a couple.
- [28:04]
Matt Murphy
I don't think a Utah jury is going to believe that.
- [28:06]
Heather McDonald
A couple other things that I find interesting is that this is one of the few cases in which the woman is killing who got herself in a financial business mess.
- [28:18]
Matt Murphy
Right.
- [28:18]
Heather McDonald
It's often times where men are running a Ponzi scheme or whatever and then they're driven to either suicide or murdering someone because they can't have someone know the truth that their business is shit now. When I first heard her business was flipping houses, I was like, ooh, this isn't going to be good. Because sometimes these flipping business can look like financial ruin because you are carrying all these loans and this equity because you will not be able to get the next house unless you sell this one. And sometimes you do have to take a loan to get this great deal over here and you're going to pay extra for it because this one still the cabinets aren't in and it'll be sold in a second, but not for six more weeks. But I don't wanna miss out on this one. So you are juggling a lot.
- [29:05]
Matt Murphy
Sure.
- [29:07]
Heather McDonald
One person did say she was talented at it and good at it. And the. And then there was accounts saying that they would fight about that, that he wanted her to be a stay at home mom. But then why is he going doing, you know, Brokeback mountain hunting trips for, you know, four to five months at a time. So. And then the other thing I was gonna say is then. So then he. After having the affair and they go to the counseling and they wanna make it work. But she's. She's also having an affair. So they're both cheaters. He. Which some people still don't get divorced. I would argue they still like have their side pieces. But what was crazy is she goes to. She does not know that he put all the money and everything in the trust with the sister.
- [29:51]
Matt Murphy
She did. She did not know.
- [29:52]
Heather McDonald
And she goes over there to, like, claims. I want to go in the safe to, like, get the paperwork because my husband died. And that's kind of when the sister's like, oh, no, everything's mine. And you did.
- [30:04]
Matt Murphy
She didn't say everything's fine. She didn't say everything's mine. She said, it's not yours. And they were doing it according. According to her. And I saw her testimony. I watched it. But I mean, imagine how mad you'd
- [30:14]
Heather McDonald
be if you killed your husband and then you found out you weren't getting any money.
- [30:17]
Matt Murphy
She assaulted her, punched her in the neck and had to plead guilty to that. And she, being the defendant.
- [30:22]
Heather McDonald
Right.
- [30:22]
Matt Murphy
Assaulted the sister because. Yeah, that. How's that? For a moment, you put together this whole plan.
- [30:27]
Heather McDonald
You killed your. Yeah, you killed your.
- [30:29]
Matt Murphy
Killed your husband.
- [30:30]
Heather McDonald
And apparently, according to the prosecution, they believe she attempted this poisoning on a couple of occasions. But I don't think either of those occasions ring true. You know, one was a sandwich, but then he still later that day was well enough to.
- [30:43]
Matt Murphy
Well, he took one bite and basically had one. Had one swallow. But he, you know, use his kids EpiPen. I wouldn't be surprised.
- [30:50]
Heather McDonald
She's coached a football game or something. So I'm like, I don't think. I don't think this. And then the other time was they were in Greece.
- [30:57]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:58]
Heather McDonald
And I'm like, I don't believe either one of those guys.
- [31:01]
Matt Murphy
I'm with you. I don't like either one of those just because they don't need them. Another thing is she's one of these defendants. I'm pointing at the picture I see on Heather's iPad. She's one where if she would just keep her mouth shut, she'd be in a lot better position. Like the housekeeper thing. Housekeeper was a drug dealer who had a lot of brushes with the law. And so that's from a defense perspective. And I do defense work now. That's a vulnerable witness. And you can come in and you can really dirty her up. But this woman, on a recorded jail call to her mother, admitted getting this from the housekeeper. From the housekeeper. So that. So that gets blown out of the water. And then she wrote the. What's the walking the dog? Letter, Famously, which is. It's marked as attorney client mail, which it was not. It was a letter to a mother entitled on the top, walk the dog. And then there's very explicit instructions on how she wants her brother to testify and how she wants her mother to release photographs showing the sister's daughters and Wanted to release them publicly, which is absolutely ridiculous.
- [32:11]
Heather McDonald
What do the sister's daughters have to do with it?
- [32:14]
Matt Murphy
It's the sister that said you can't get into the safe and you actually don't own this house that she assaulted. She wanted her mother to release photographs of her according to this letter. And there's lots of LOLs too in there. LOL. LOL. LOL. If you're accused of murder you didn't commit, there's no L ever. There's no laughing ever. There's nothing, there's nothing funny about that if you're innocent. But she's basically in, you know, the prosecution's perspective on it. She's tampering with witnesses.
- [32:46]
Heather McDonald
What's with the daughters?
- [32:47]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, she wanted. Who knows what's going on in her head other than this. And she calls the sister a bitch. And this will essentially, you know, it's her way of getting back at the. At the bitch, at the sister. By releasing photographs of her daughters publicly. That's the prosecution's perspective and it's in the letter. And that makes her. If she's innocent or not, that alone, if she's trying to use little kids to somehow get back to the mom, that makes her a terrible person.
- [33:14]
Heather McDonald
Okay. Now I came across something else which I don't know if it's true. Okay. In my rabbit hole. That her mother.
- [33:23]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. Isn't that. I mean, I know where you're going. It's crazy.
- [33:27]
Heather McDonald
A boyfriend as like an adult had, you know, like maybe she was divorced, whatever. She had a boyfriend that also had a poisoning and he died.
- [33:37]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. And I think it was a. It wasn't fentanyl. It was, but some sort of, I think opiate based overdose. Yeah. And. And then same sort of thing. And had. I hate it when that happens. Right. Don't you hate it when that happens? It hasn't happened to me at least in two weeks.
- [33:53]
Heather McDonald
Just coincidence.
- [33:55]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. So yeah, the mom has been very vocal. She's been interviewed a bunch, which is another thing from the defense perspective. Don't you want everybody to shut the hell up? You don't want your client writing stupid letters. And that's not on the lawyers at all. And look, I think a psychologist, I mean, I've had them testify in cases where they talk a lot about true narcissism and how people that just can't shut up. A lot of times it's. They have a toxic narcissism problem where they just can't get out of their own way. We saw that with Lori Vallow, we've seen that. You know, how many times have we seen that in cases in America where they become their own worst enemy?
- [34:35]
Heather McDonald
How much do we know about the boyfriend?
- [34:38]
Matt Murphy
I think he's innocent.
- [34:40]
Heather McDonald
No, I think he's innocent. But like, I'm not saying he had some handicap.
- [34:44]
Matt Murphy
He's like a plumber or some blue collar handicap.
- [34:46]
Heather McDonald
Yeah, imagine you just like meet this hot guy and you're like having some like hot stand up sex and like, you know, in the room that still needs drywalling or whatever, and you again, do all this. And I'm sure that guy's not even writing her a letter. Like, he's like, lady, well, especially afterwards. And like, I. You think I'm going to like, whatever, protect you or want to be with you after this, even if she got off, you know, he's going to never want to talk to her again. And that's why I'm always just fascinated by cases like this where I'm like, did you really think some guy that you met within the last six months of your life is gonna be there?
- [35:29]
Matt Murphy
Right. And he was out immediately after all this happened. And so remember, there was a long period of time between the death and her arrest. They had to put it together. And during that period of time, there was a new guy that popped up. And that was a part of the walk the dog letter. There were instructions to her mom to communicate with him, you know, not that he had anything to do with it, but, you know, instructing her mother as her out of custody conduit, to accomplish all these tasks, some of which were arguably massively illegal, like instructing the brother what to testify to. And what she told him was, we need a Mexico connection. I need, you know, my brother to come in and say that my husband and he would go to Mexico and buy these drugs because they were friends, brothers. And gummies, by the way, are a pretty far cry from fentanyl. And this guy had sleep problems like we all do, and he was taking gummies to sleep, which is, you can include about half the people I know taking THC gummies because depending on how much you take, you don't even get high. But it puts you to sleep. So a lot of people do that to just sleep. So legal way to do it. Yeah.
- [36:39]
Heather McDonald
Oh my God.
- [36:40]
Matt Murphy
It's a good one, but it's going to be going on for weeks.
- [36:42]
Heather McDonald
But I mean, I think it's really just going to come down to what is this house cleaning lady who has access to drugs, you know, is she. Is she believable? Because it's still a hard thing to say that she poisoned him.
- [37:02]
Matt Murphy
I know. Another thing about it, though, is there's also. There's all these Google searches. One of the things she did, her phone apparently has a bunch of aspects. The night of the death, she is hammering away texting somebody. A bunch of text messages that were all deleted. She made a statement to the police that completely contradicts the forensic evaluation of her phone. They weren't able to recover the actual text messages. But then she goes on Google and says, can they access deleted text messages? Obviously, very concerned about that after the fact. So the defense is going to go, yeah, she was. She was questioning, but, like, end of
- [37:37]
Heather McDonald
the line, the defense is going to say, you know, she's having an affair. So of course she's like deleting stuff and deleting sexy photos and this and that.
- [37:46]
Matt Murphy
My prediction is she's going down. That's my prediction. But it's going to be going on for a while. Have me back on and we'll. We'll do an update. So.
- [37:54]
Heather McDonald
But you know what I'd have to say? I mean, if there. I think it is. I think it could happen. I mean, that's. What. If I was the defense, I would just be like, let me bring up local stories of people that accidentally died of fentanyl.
- [38:10]
Matt Murphy
It's horrible. People are ODing all the time.
- [38:12]
Heather McDonald
So, I mean, everybody knows somebody. I mean, I know somebody that got some cocaine in Orange county and it was laser fentanyl and they died. And absolutely not suicidal, not a drug addict, nothing. So it's like, that is a hard thing to. Even with all the cheating and even with all the money stuff. Look, they were both staying in the marriage with one foot and one eye out for each other. So they. There was no trust there anyway, you know, so, like, yeah, he didn't trust her, so he hid the money and all that to fuck her. And then she wasn't really trusting him either, which is why she was, you know, having an affair and. But, you know,
- [38:57]
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- [39:10]
Heather McDonald
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- [39:56]
Matt Murphy
they had a prenup. And this is also interesting. For the prenup, she was able to inherit basically his assets as long as they were still married. But if they got divorced, according to their prenup, it was out. So again, full circle to McLaughlin.
- [40:10]
Heather McDonald
It's also maybe true then, I would say. And so that's why then when he got caught cheating the first time, she was like, all right, I'll make it work, because I need. I'm in this mess, this debt of these houses.
- [40:24]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, the. The evidence for financial motive is very strong. And the stuff she did after is bad. And look, when you're innocent, the truth is your best friend. If the truth is you didn't do it, the truth is your best friend. And when the truth is your best friend, you don't build a ladder to the truth by telling a bunch of lies or getting your brother to come in and lie. You're not instructing your brother how to testify. You don't need to do any of that if you're innocent.
- [40:49]
Heather McDonald
That's a good point. Yeah.
- [40:50]
Matt Murphy
And I've read that letter, and it is pretty damning. So I would love to be the prosecutor in this case, actually, because I think. Yeah. And again, I have no inside knowledge of this. I don't know any of the people
- [41:03]
Heather McDonald
that involved in this.
- [41:03]
Matt Murphy
I mean, she looks.
- [41:05]
Heather McDonald
She looks like she's, you know, from the photos of attractive now, you know, then I love talking about Shannon with my sister about it. Of like, how you want to downplay your looks. You don't. Especially if involves affairs and killing her husband.
- [41:21]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [41:21]
Heather McDonald
They come because there is that thing of like, let's get. Let's put the scarlet letter on her and let's, you know, get her for this.
- [41:29]
Matt Murphy
And, well, they start prosecuting everybody for having affairs. Our judicial systems.
- [41:36]
Heather McDonald
How do you feel about poisoning as a thing?
- [41:38]
Matt Murphy
It's utterly ruthless in every way. And I've done some of those cases.
- [41:42]
Heather McDonald
No, but I'm Saying to prove. It's not like I have a gun and there's gunpowder on me, you know, or there's a. I had a knife, and my fingers were on the knife. So it's like. And now we're the only two people in the room. So it is.
- [41:56]
Matt Murphy
Here's the thing on this one is that they just. We had testimony about this yesterday. They searched. They didn't find any of those pills. Okay? So if this guy is doing it himself, a. There's no evidence to support it outside of her and her frigging bullshit letter to her brother. The. The idea that this guy has been. Take. Like, according to the housekeeper, I think she got her 45 pills, something like that. It's dozens. So if you.
- [42:23]
Heather McDonald
And then they were. She said they were Oxycontin, but then they were laced with fentanyl.
- [42:27]
Matt Murphy
Right. So where are the rest of the pills if she didn't get rid of them? You know what I mean? Like, the chances of this guy going through an entire bottle.
- [42:34]
Heather McDonald
Yeah. She'd be like, oh, my God, this
- [42:35]
Matt Murphy
is what he was saying and having no problem. And then the last pill is the one that gets him. Makes no sense. What makes sense is she gets the pills, and it's five times, by the way. It's five. Five times a fatal dose of fentanyl, according to the pathologist. So, you know, from the prosecution standpoint, the fact they didn't recover those means that's because it's consistent with the killer poisoning him and then getting rid of it and saying, hey, he must have had an aneurysm, which was the original thing. Another thing.
- [43:00]
Heather McDonald
Oh, that was the original.
- [43:00]
Matt Murphy
Another thing to keep in mind, based on the body cam and everything else, originally, the first responders thought it was an aneurysm. But also, remember, during the 911 call. 911, she calls in and she's like, yeah, I'm giving chest compressions. The first responders who showed up as soon as they gave one chest compression. This is kind of gross. But he immediately aspirated a bunch of stuff, indicating to them right off the bat that she hadn't given any chest compressions at all, that she was not trying to give him CPR at all.
- [43:29]
Heather McDonald
Yeah. And also in the call, the 911 person is, like, trying to tell her how to do it, and she's like, well, I just don't know how to do that.
- [43:36]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My husband's dying in front of me. Well, I don't know how to give cpr. I'LL tell you how to do cpr. Well, I'm sorry, I just don't know. Okay, I'll give him chest compressions. And then they roll in and it's like, clearly you haven't given him chest compressions because as soon as we did, he's essentially aspirating a bunch of stuff up which was not on his face when they first went in. So.
- [43:56]
Heather McDonald
Yeah.
- [43:57]
Matt Murphy
So again, it's a collage. It's all these little pieces that come together. And in this county, in Utah, this is going to be, I predict, a very hard hitting, no nonsense jury. And look, his sister, I thought her testimony was very compelling.
- [44:14]
Heather McDonald
What did she say? What was she saying?
- [44:16]
Matt Murphy
Number one, she was emotional. She described the incident in the house. But also just my old boss had a great saying. You can always see the soul of your victim reflected in the eyes of those who love them. It's a great one. That was my old boss, Lee Rosenblum, when I got homicide. And that it's profound and it's exactly right. I think that we saw that his sister came out, I think very sympathetic. She clearly loved her brother. And I think that if the jury sees the eyes, the soul reflected in the eyes of those who loved him. The defense had a very bad day yesterday, so we'll see what happens today.
- [44:54]
Heather McDonald
Okay, now this story is getting some press because this guy, his wife was found shot in the head three times. He claims a burglar came in there, shot her. Right. And then ran out. Or did he say he arrived and she was killed?
- [45:14]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, I think it was. His story makes no sense at all. And essentially he tells 911. He seems panicked. And the story is some guy came into the house and just shot my wife in the head multiple times and then ran out. To enter a home, you're either. You have to have a reason to do that. It's not like the Hamburglar. Even the Hamburglar has a motive. He's there to steal hamburgers. Right. Like for somebody to take the risk of entering a home, there's a purpose for that. And the purpose is going to be either sexual assault or theft or it's a hit. And that's about it. You don't just have people randomly going into homes, shooting women in the head and running out without an attempt to steal anything. So right off the bat, it's problematic. But there's another. There's a very interesting statistic that when it comes to women in America, depending on the year, female homicide victims, it's almost 50% of the time they're killed by an intimate partner. So there's a reason why the police look at spouses and boyfriends first. And statistically, because it is almost always borne out. Men, it's a totally different story. But for women, it is overwhelmingly their spouse or their boyfriend that does it. And then you layer on a story like this that makes no sense. It doesn't mean he did it. But they've.
- [46:41]
Heather McDonald
Well, they arrested him like within 48 hours.
- [46:45]
Matt Murphy
Right. He's presumed innocent. Of course. That's a real thing.
- [46:47]
Heather McDonald
And he's trying to get out saying, I've got to watch my children. The defense attorney's like, he didn't do it.
- [46:53]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. And the judge said it at $2 million bail. But yeah, he's a pastor.
- [46:57]
Heather McDonald
So $2 million bail means someone needs to come up with 200,000. Right.
- [47:01]
Matt Murphy
Generally, a bondsman requires 10%. That's kind of the going rate. Usually you can negotiate a little bit below that. But this guy, he probably has enough assets to cover that.
- [47:14]
Heather McDonald
Well, he's a pastor.
- [47:15]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [47:16]
Heather McDonald
So he's a pastor. And he was on American Idol and he was like, one day, I'd love to just have my own church where I sit.
- [47:24]
Matt Murphy
What's with the game shows? You know, like, Lori Vala was on a game show. So many of these guys have been on game shows.
- [47:31]
Heather McDonald
Well, I mean, I just think, you know, you want to be a star and that's a quick way to do it.
- [47:36]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [47:36]
Heather McDonald
And maybe that goes with the personality of narcissism. And you'd probably have to be pretty narcissistic to think that you could shoot your wife in the head three times and blame it on a burglar and get away with it.
- [47:48]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [47:49]
Heather McDonald
So. And now the other side of this, a little deeper, allegedly, is there was a girl that worked at the church with him that he would sing with. And the rumor at the church in the Facebook deep hole that there's something going on with them.
- [48:09]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. I don't mean to laugh and make light of it. It's obviously a horrible case, but come on. Of course there's a girl. Of course there's, you know, and that's. Look, there's. They've been very tight lipped about the evidence on this case, as they. As they should be, you know, and
- [48:23]
Heather McDonald
so it's so sad.
- [48:24]
Matt Murphy
It's hard for us to spitball. But they did arrest him very fast. They're going to do. They. They certainly tested him for GSR gunshot residue. There's reasons why they made that Arrest that quick. And they, they know some things that haven't released yet that. Yeah, I think it's going to, I
- [48:38]
Heather McDonald
feel like it's so quick. Like normally something like this, you take
- [48:41]
Matt Murphy
your time because you, because you don't want to arrest the wrong person ever. Of course.
- [48:46]
Heather McDonald
Speaking of this other crime that I think I briefly covered last week, but being that you're a surfer, do you know the guy in Costa Rica? Did you hear that case?
- [48:57]
Matt Murphy
I heard about the case. I didn't know him personally, but yeah,
- [49:00]
Heather McDonald
well, to me that seems weird.
- [49:03]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [49:03]
Heather McDonald
Now I know Costa Rica. You know, I went to Costa Rica like 10 years ago and it's felt very safe. A lot of people vacation there. I don't know what's going on, but the story again was weird. That they killed him and just tied up the 31 year old girlfriend and then left.
- [49:23]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [49:24]
Heather McDonald
So you don't assault the girlfriend, you don't kill the girlfriend also, you don't kidnap the girlfriend. Yeah, I feel, I mean, I think that's screaming that she could be involved. And I mean, just, you know, a big age difference. They were not married, you know.
- [49:41]
Matt Murphy
Well, remember that woman in Texas that killed the cyclist, the professional cyclist? A year and a half or so she fled to Costa Rica, to the yoga world of Costa Rica. Remember that?
- [49:51]
Heather McDonald
Yeah.
- [49:52]
Matt Murphy
And you know, I've worked with the law enforcement in almost every country in Central America in trying to get people back. And even though Costa Rica certainly they're like all the judicial systems down there, it's underfunded. But my personal experiences dealing with them was they were very professional, very cooperative and I'm sure that there will be some sort of investigation. I hope so for Costa Rica if nothing else. Yeah. Because you know, it's way better for them if it's the girlfriend that's involved somehow. Yes.
- [50:20]
Heather McDonald
They never want that story to be like, remember the story of the producer from Survivor who went to prison for killing his wife on. I always remember this in Cancun at a resort and I always just was obsessed with that story because, you know, again, there were affairs and there were fighting, but let's go on this one trip, one more trip together. And he said, oh, she woke up really early in the morning and left the resort to go into town to go shopping.
- [51:00]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [51:01]
Heather McDonald
I'm like, okay, I've been on vacations, I've had young kids. I'm in Cancun in like an all inclusive resort. I am not bailing on my kids to go to Cancun stores. They're not. This isn't Hong Kong where you're like, let me go and get the shirts made. Let me go to the Chanel place. There's nothing special there. There's no big tax break. There's no big nothing. So as a shopper, I was like, that is such a right.
- [51:30]
Matt Murphy
And the stores are like, you go from high end in the, in those, in those resorts. And I've been there, I've done dive trips down there to the cenotes and.
- [51:39]
Heather McDonald
But you try to put her in a place that, oh, maybe she was, you know, in a bad area.
- [51:43]
Matt Murphy
No, the local stores are like, it's like the stores in TJ or Ensenada, it's like, it's like they're selling huaraches and cheap stuff. Like, you don't go from a high end resort to that by yourself. And that, that never made sense.
- [51:55]
Heather McDonald
But, you know, that's one of those. Where he always claimed his innocence. I think he's still there in the prison there. And then they would argue, well, of course, Mexico doesn't need any more bad publicity. They of course want it to be the husband. And then they did find her body in this manhole within 48 hours. But that story I always think about,
- [52:20]
Matt Murphy
well, that's one of the things that is so good for your audience. And also what's so interesting about true crime in general is that when it comes to financial stuff, you need forensic accountants and there's algorithms that are used and there's some really complicated fraud schemes or DNA evidence. The organic chemistry involved in that is impossibly complex. But when it comes to murders like this, especially involving human relationships, the experts are those of us who've lived life and had relationships and we understand human behavior, like the party after the woman died, we don't need an expert to tell us that that's weird. And that's one of the things. You get to homicide and you study all this stuff and you get formalized training in all of these forensic sciences. And at the end of the day, they all boil down to common sense. So when something hits you wrong doesn't necessarily mean the person did it, but it hits you wrong for all the same reasons why it's going to hit detectives wrong, at least the good ones. And that's one of the things that's so interesting about this. And it's also the modern era, even though there's definitely a dark side to it. Like on this Savannah Guthrie thing, for example, some of the online commentary from a professional who's been in this space for decades. Some of it is really smart stuff. Oh, yeah. Some of it's crazy, but there's some really. There are some really smart people out there that can contribute to this.
- [53:50]
Heather McDonald
Well, that's why in talking about the Epstein files, I've talked about, like, well, we appreciate it, but then we don't. Because I'm like, why was it dumped on us? Us? Why was it dumped on people? And thank God for the people that are in this space that are doing their own detective work, that are taking the time to read the things and put it together and figure out that this redacted person had a ring on. That's this person and that per. And then they, like, put it all together and how it's related. And, like, I mean, and then when I try to tell. When you. When you are someone that's, like, watching the videos and getting down and I try to tell somebody, like, no, it goes really dark. Like, there's definitely conversations that make no sense, except that it's code for essaying kids and possibly murdering them and eating them. That is absolutely. Like, there isn't one account. Like, there. So many. And then someone will go, where? Show me where. Show me where? And I'm like, no, fucking open TikTok. Leave me alone. I can't do. Everybody's done the work for you. Like, if you don't want to see it, I get it. It's not on Good Morning America.
- [55:03]
Matt Murphy
Right.
- [55:04]
Heather McDonald
Okay. And it's not gonna be on Nightline, and it's not gonna be on any of those shows right now.
- [55:09]
Matt Murphy
It's amazing how. How much damage one person can do. Like the ripple effects, like the arrest of Prince Andrew.
- [55:16]
Heather McDonald
Yeah.
- [55:17]
Matt Murphy
Was. Was based on. On the Epstein stuff. And I've. Thank goodness I've done, like, a weird deep dive into Prince Andrew, which I didn't. I don't care about the royal family. Sorry. I don't. I don't care. I'm American. I'm not a subject to them. Like, I don't care. But his fall from grace has been rather fascinating. And apparently I saw an interview with one of his staff. Like, their. Their nickname for him was not kind. Apparently, he was a pretty. Wasn't very nice guy.
- [55:42]
Heather McDonald
Yeah. The C word.
- [55:43]
Matt Murphy
The C word.
- [55:43]
Heather McDonald
The red T word.
- [55:44]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. Yeah. He was like. Blue 42 was his actual official codename, but then they just call him the C word.
- [55:49]
Heather McDonald
A nightmare from the beginning, but he
- [55:52]
Matt Murphy
just went down for that. There's a law firm in New York, very big time. Paul Weiss, the managing partner Just stepped down because of some communications that he had. I personally think that was a little harsh. And I'd met the guy before and liked him. I'll leave his name out.
- [56:11]
Heather McDonald
But wait, is this the Peter Mendelssohn guy?
- [56:14]
Matt Murphy
No, his name's Brad Karp and he represented one of the figures involved in all the Epstein scandal properly as a lawyer. But because he had some communications with Jeffrey Epstein, you know, like he, you know, he reached out and asked for his, you know, if Epstein could get his son an internship. And this also isn't a good look with Woody Allen, but you know, it wasn't anything sorted. It had nothing to do with sexual assault.
- [56:38]
Heather McDonald
I mean, some of it is just that, you know, like I met this person or whatever and I don't know,
- [56:43]
Matt Murphy
you know, like I felt bad for him on that one. But that just happened a couple years.
- [56:48]
Heather McDonald
There's so many years, it spans decades. And even in doing some of it, I'd be like, wait a minute, well, so was this before Virginia Guthrie came out or was this after? And then was this, you know, like, it's just, it's massive, it's huge.
- [57:06]
Matt Murphy
It's a mess. Yep.
- [57:08]
Heather McDonald
I mean, when it's all said and done and we actually know of it and other people have gone down, other countries are doing things, then yes, somebody put together the frickin thing. Because it's like so many entities and so many connections.
- [57:25]
Matt Murphy
One of the most interesting articles, it's been out there for a while now. It was published in the New Yorker. Was. And for your viewers it's worth looking into. It's why didn't Vanity Fair run the Jeffrey Epstein article?
- [57:38]
Heather McDonald
Right.
- [57:38]
Matt Murphy
Because two sisters came out and made and reported to the Vanity Fair reporter. Her name is Vicky Ward. And the New Yorker article on that is fascinating. And it's why didn't they run the story? And they basically spiked it. And she blames the editors, the editors blame her. But it's a really interesting read. I'd encourage everybody to look into that if they're still into that.
- [58:00]
Heather McDonald
I've seen stuff, but you know, I interviewed a reporter that was doing a whole expose on the truth about Jay Shetty.
- [58:09]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, right.
- [58:10]
Heather McDonald
And he wrote the whole thing. And then they said we're not gonna run it.
- [58:13]
Matt Murphy
Yep. Which certainly happens.
- [58:14]
Heather McDonald
We're not gonna run it because he's very highly connected to these people. And we get this handshake and this person and this person. And this person, of course, Jay Shetty in the article was not being accused of anything like Jeffrey Epstein. But not a truthful origin story. Things, like, a lot of shady things, a lot of, you know, MLM type of coaching practices, that type of stuff, and nobody cares. They see those blue eyes and they're like, I'll be on your podcast, whatever. You know, But. And then. And then sometimes those stories are not bad enough to make people care.
- [58:59]
Matt Murphy
It's.
- [58:59]
Heather McDonald
And you're like, but he's a liar. And you're. Well, I don't care. Heather.
- [59:03]
Matt Murphy
It's an interesting ethical issue. We're talking about sexual assault. It's kind of funny. We can swear, but YouTube might blank that out.
- [59:14]
Heather McDonald
I sometimes say it sometimes, so I don't really know where it affects the.
- [59:18]
Matt Murphy
But when somebody reports to a reporter and they're victims of sexual abuse, and they go to the abuser and say, hey, these people are saying this. And then they don't go to the police and they don't run the article, it just seems like.
- [59:31]
Heather McDonald
Well, I mean, it was also happened with Harvey Weinstein a bunch of times where articles and things were just constantly squashed and all that stuff.
- [59:40]
Matt Murphy
Those are at least for adult women.
- [59:41]
Heather McDonald
Right.
- [59:42]
Matt Murphy
This involved children. I don't know. And I don't know what the answers
- [59:45]
Heather McDonald
are, but, yeah, it just goes to show you that whatever it is in entertainment, too, when someone's like, could you not. Because if you do talk about this on the podcast, that could affect, you know, relationships and possibly getting this other job and blah, blah, blah. And then you're like, all right. And so more and more people. I mean, the fact that nobody, you know, is making pins that say, no petas, no pedos, Is that gonna be at the Oscars?
- [60:15]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [60:16]
Heather McDonald
They're all acting like this isn't happening. They don't. And they. They're all. They all had to join Instagram and TikTok themselves. Every star, they're doing their own, you know, they're doing their own commercials for espresso and everything else. Every star is all over this.
- [60:34]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [60:34]
Heather McDonald
And then not a peep.
- [60:36]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [60:36]
Heather McDonald
Not. Hey, this is kind of weird, even. And they all have podcasts, too, and they're not saying anything about it either.
- [60:42]
Matt Murphy
Yeah.
- [60:43]
Heather McDonald
Because it's all connected and they're hearing, like, just don't talk about it.
- [60:46]
Matt Murphy
Yeah. Well, speaking of pedos.
- [60:48]
Heather McDonald
Yeah. Let's get to.
- [60:49]
Matt Murphy
Let's get. Yeah, I really want to talk. I really want to talk.
- [60:52]
Heather McDonald
This is a story out of la. Serial child molester could be released from Southern California prison. So tell me about this awful person.
- [60:59]
Matt Murphy
So this is something that everybody really needs to educate themselves on because this is scary stuff. Okay? So this is, you know, there's a range of sexual abusers of children when you're doing these. And again, four years in sexual assault. So 85% of those cases are these guys. And you've got like your cousins who molest, you know, at the family thing that are a little bit older. There's that kind of, there's that kind of sexual abuse. This guy is an absolute predator. And he would kidnap kids and visit the most horrific sexual abuse on them. Like kidnap them, drive them up into the mountains, horribly abuse them. He's the real dealer.
- [61:39]
Heather McDonald
But he wouldn't kill them.
- [61:41]
Matt Murphy
Wouldn't kill them. But he is, I mean look at this, even the expression on his face there. So California passed a law which was well intended by the legislature that has horrific effects. And it is this compassionate release law where essentially when you get old enough, you hit a certain age and they, and they mark it at like 55 by the way. So it's not even that old where you, regardless of what your sentence was, unless it's life without parole, even life sentences under California law, you are now, and this is insane, even if you are a multiple time convicted sex offender, you are entitled to a parole hearing. And there's a real pressure on the parole boards now from the legislature and from the current government in Sacramento to like a presumption towards release. So when you got a guy like this, who. And the sex offenders are depending on what yard they are, they're protected a lot more than people think. But they can be model prisoners and oftentimes they are.
- [62:42]
Heather McDonald
I just want to say about the model prisoner thing, right? I am so sick of the model prisoner thing. What else the fuck are you supposed to do, right?
- [62:50]
Matt Murphy
You followed the rules.
- [62:51]
Heather McDonald
And why would you want to get in a fight with someone? Because then you'll get killed. So you're just following the rules, correct? I mean, maybe so you taught some people how to read. Maybe you whatever were a delight when you had to work kitchen duty. I mean you're not around women and
- [63:08]
Matt Murphy
kids the way it works for these guys. Heather. And the end of my first week in sexual assault, I went and I talked to my buddy Ted Burnet. He was finishing his and sexual assault, they call them tours, like Vietnam tour of duty. He was finishing his second. So he'd spent eight years in sexual assault. Really cerebral guy. And I was at the end of my first week and I was like 28 and I go and I'm like, what's the deal with these guys, Ted, I know you figured it out, because, you know, it's how you. How you roll. And he looked at me and he said, it's green worms. He said they have green worms in the brain. It's the only thing that explains it. Nobody knows how the green worms get in. But I promise you, as long as these guys continue to draw breath once they've crossed the Rubicon into preying on kids, they will always do it. They will always be a danger until the day they die. It is the best explanation that I've heard. And that guy is an unreasonable risk of molesting more kids. In fact, I will guarantee he'll do it. And I have another case that. My defendant's on parole. And listen to this. This is my Douglas Hopper case. This guy was a break into the house, knife to the throat, rapist who committed a bunch of rapes, got caught, sent to prison. A forcible rape back then was eight years in state prison. He does eight years and they parole him and they let him go. Okay, what could possibly go wrong? Well, he rapes a bunch more people, goes back to prison. This time they make him what's called an svp. A sexual violent predator. They're trying to get this guy SVP status so they don't release him. But then what happens is you go to a mental health facility and then you're evaluated for release back into the community. Douglas Hopper, twice convicted rapists. Now they're like, yeah, you're good to go. And they release him again. So he's been to prison twice for violent stranger rapes, released twice. And now he goes and he starts raping real estate agents. And what he's doing is he'll find those pictures, you know, so it's almost like ordering takeout, takeout menu. And he would arrange for to view a house in a secluded location. He'd break into the house before the appointment and wait for the real estate agent to come in. And he would jump out, brutally rape them, rapes this woman, high speed Chase gets caught now for a third time. And during my prosecution of him, that guy, we got another cold DNA hit to a different real estate agent. I prosecute him again. We got a great judge. He gets convicted on both cases. He gets like a million years to life. And also qualified. He just had a parole hearing last week. It is absolute madness. California needs to change the law. Douglas Hopper will rape again. This guy will molest a kid again. And those are just the ones that we've heard About. Nobody knows about this. Juicy scoopers come alive here on this because this is something that is a real problem in California.
- [65:53]
Heather McDonald
How do you feel? I know this is, like, never gonna happen in America, but what do you feel about other countries that do the castration.
- [66:01]
Matt Murphy
Okay. The green worms, Heather. They live in the brain. I've had quads. I've had guys in wheelchairs do. May help somewhat, but I've had people. That was a thing in the 90s for a while. I'll voluntarily chemically castrate. I'm not a big believer in it. But as far as other judicial systems, there are places around the world where they. Again, they have underfunded judiciaries, and they have. In Latin America, you know, sex offenders are ubiquitous in the world. It's not a. It's not a US Problem. It is not a Western country problem. They're everywhere and they're. This is a common point of agreement that everybody. Democrat, Republican, Monarchist, whatever you are. This is something that every. Everybody should agree on, because these guys are. They prey on children. Children need our protection, whether we're Democrats or Republicans. I'm not a political guy. I don't do political commentary, but this is this. If we can't agree on this, we are lost. And in. In Central America, they have a thing called los lyncheni lynchenimientos, if I'm pronouncing it right, which literally translates into the lynchings. Because what happens in those cities or those, especially the rural areas, that are underserved by their judicial systems, the men of the village will just get together and show up in the middle of the night with balaclavs on and take these guys out in the jungle, and that's how they handle it. And I absolutely am not an advocate for vigilante justice. But hey, California legislature, you're gonna start seeing that here. The social contract is we do not do that for our families, because the state is supposed to do us. For us, for us. And if you start releasing guys like this, the next Poly Klaus is out there. It might just be that guy or one like him. These guys should not be eligible for parole. It's madness. This was poorly thought. Intentions were good. Hey, they're old. We should think about letting them go. When it comes to sex offenders, they. There's no fixing them. They are going to continue to do it. I've seen it over and over. I feel, obviously, very strongly about this. I'm glad you asked me about this case, because this is something that people need to wake up on. And, yeah, this is no good for anybody.
- [68:14]
Heather McDonald
Okay, this is some good news.
- [68:16]
Matt Murphy
Okay, sorry, sorry for my rant.
- [68:18]
Heather McDonald
This is some good news. So there's this company called Camelback moving in near Scottsdale. And part of their training is to. The training that they give a lot of people now, sadly, from flight attendants to people that work in hotels, how to spot any kind of trafficking, whatever. So they were coming up on, just on like a quick stop type of like CVS type of store. And this one guy, and they happened to film it, this one guy, because it's like, I think they had a camera in the car. Cause they're doing all the moving stuff so they want cameras. And he goes, I think that's this little girl that I just saw with this other person going into the store. So they pull up the missing Amber Alert, whatever, and it looks to be just like her. So then they take their big moving truck and they block the car and then they call the cops and she was rescued. The story of how she was kidnapped doesn't make me thrilled that she's going back to the parents, which was some unhoused person and they were being good Samaritans, let that person come and stay at their house. And then that person stole the little two or three year old girl. But anyway, I just thought Lincoln end on.
- [69:43]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, that's a good story. Yeah, no, that's a positive.
- [69:46]
Heather McDonald
I mean, of just.
- [69:46]
Matt Murphy
It's heroic really.
- [69:48]
Heather McDonald
You never hear like whenever I see like an Amber Alert and it's like a Hyundai with a blah, blah, blah, and I'm driving, you know, I'm listening to like, you know, FM radio or whatever. I'm always like, oh my God, I just want to see that car. I want to see that car. I want to see that car. I want to see that car.
- [70:02]
Matt Murphy
Perfect metaphor for what we were just talking about.
- [70:03]
Heather McDonald
Yeah.
- [70:04]
Matt Murphy
They have the best of intentions. They have, they have this empathy and it's, they have good intentions and it's the worst result possible. And that, that applies on the family level and that applies on the macro level with, with governments and, and legislatures. Like it's the same thing. Your feelings, you got to think through the impact and the result. We have a responsibility to protect kids and we shouldn't have to rely on heroes like those guys to save that little girl. Thankfully, they did. Yeah, but, but we gotta, there needs to be adults in the room when we, when we pass laws like this. And this is something that really needs to change. That guy was prosecuted by a friend of mine, Annmarie Schubert, who's the former DA of Sacramento, she's nails. I actually got sworn in on the Golden State Killer case. Yeah, sorry.
- [70:52]
Heather McDonald
Yeah, yeah.
- [70:53]
Matt Murphy
But he was sent away by one of the best prosecutors I've ever worked with. She actually swore me in as a Sacramento DA on the Golden State Killer case that I was the Orange county prosecutor on. She is nails. I saw an interview with her that just pissed me off. And she's calling for the legislature to make changes so that predatory sex offenders like this or like Douglas Hopper are not eligible under the law. And please help make it happen. Yeah, Juicy scoopers. Please help.
- [71:22]
Heather McDonald
Well, you have a lot going on. I was just on your show a little while ago, so tell everybody how they can follow you and what you have going on with your own podcast.
- [71:32]
Matt Murphy
Yeah, so I'm gonna start a podcast with my old friend Mark Gargos. I think it's going to be kind of a case of the day breakdown from two guys that we did cases against each other years back, which I
- [71:44]
Heather McDonald
think is so cool. When I'm like, oh, my God, I love that you guys have. Have done. But on opposite sides of the courtroom.
- [71:49]
Matt Murphy
Mark is one of those guys. And look, he's never represented anybody that I didn't pretty much hate, like, from the Menendez brothers to Scott Peterson. But Mark and I did cases back in the day. Mark represents kind of a dying breed of gentlemen defense lawyers, where it's like that Bugs Bunner Roadrunner cartoon where with the sheepdog and the wolf, and they'd clock in, good morning, Ralph. Good morning, Phil. And then they go try to kill each other all day. And then as they're leaving. See you tomorrow, Ralph. See you tomorrow. That's the professionalism. And Mark and I did that. We go. And, you know, and he's a fierce advocate for his clients, which I totally respect. But what I respect even more is the professionalism that. I mean, 100 years ago, before I did anything, anything media worthy, I had cases with Mark, and you'd shake your hand in the end and, like, just. He's a really good dude. I think he's got a big heart. And so, yeah, we're gonna do a podcast together. Can't wait. I'm working on book number two right now. It's coming along. I got a second book deal, HBO option, the first book. So fingers crossed. I'm working with an awesome writer, putting together a potential pilot for a show that's with Dylan Clark Productions, and they've been great to work with.
- [73:03]
Heather McDonald
All this success started because, you Came on Juicy Scoop.
- [73:05]
Matt Murphy
It's all because of Juicy Scoop. No.
- [73:09]
Heather McDonald
No other reason.
- [73:10]
Matt Murphy
No other reason. Yeah.
- [73:11]
Heather McDonald
I'll give you. I love it. No, it's great. I'm so happy for all your success that you've utilized.
- [73:19]
Matt Murphy
Come on our podcast again with me and Mark.
- [73:21]
Heather McDonald
We had a great time coming on. We talked about the case of the man that got. He ended up getting convicted along with his nanny for killing his wife. With the setup of the horrible story where they set it up, where they acted like she had a kink and the guy was coming to rape her when they set up the whole thing. Luckily he got convicted and she's doing 10 years. Thought that was a little. Little.
- [73:46]
Matt Murphy
It wasn't enough.
- [73:46]
Heather McDonald
It was not enough.
- [73:47]
Matt Murphy
But the judge maxed her out on
- [73:49]
Heather McDonald
that because she was cooperating, I guess.
- [73:51]
Matt Murphy
I didn't like that deal. I didn't like that deal at all. But they did what they thought they had to do. They rolled her. And that's what you do. You roll. You know, you always. The way you should do it is you roll the Slayer if you need him against the mastermind of the. That's. That's what you do. But she got an awful good deal. But they convicted the guy, and I think justice was done on that. But that was a horrible one, too. But there's so many of these interesting cases, and it's fun for me to be able to just be a talking head. I never liked it when I was prosecuting cases when people come in. I especially didn't like when I got heat from talking heads, but now I get to do that and prosecuting cases. You have about 20 murders going on at any given time. But it's interesting doing the commentary because there's so many interesting cases, and I get to kind of delve into a bunch of fascinating ones. Like today. And I'm on my way to ABC shoot, where we're gonna do the.
- [74:46]
Heather McDonald
I love it. Well, thanks for coming, my juicy crimes. And thank you, Everybody. Go to heathermcdonald.net for everything by.
- [74:57]
Matt Murphy
Foreign.
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Matt Murphy
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Matt Murphy
I think we should call a doctor.
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Heather McDonald
Are you my dad now?
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Matt Murphy
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