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MK True Crime
Diddy Release DELAYED, Cheerleader’s Death on Cruise, and Bizarre Antics of Missing 9-Year-Old's Mom
00:54:11
MK True Crime contributors Mark Geragos, Matt Murphy, and Phil Holloway join the show to discuss Diddy’s delayed prison release date amidst allegations of breaking the rules in jail, why the Los Angeles Police Department hasn’t brought any criminal charges yet in the case of teen Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the girl found dead in the trunk of singer D4vd’s Tesla, a judge’s denial to dismiss murder charges against Fraser Bohm, the man who killed four Pepperdine University sorority sisters in a terrible car crash, the mysterious death of a teen cheerleader who died while aboard a Carnival Cruise, and the bizarre antics of missing nine-year-old Melodee Buzzard’s mom. Mark Geragos: https://geragos.com Matt Murphy: https://www.mattmurphylaw.com Phil Holloway: https://x.com/PhilHollowayEsq Geviti: Go to https://gogeviti.com/megyn and get 20% off with code MEGYN. Chapter: For Free and unbiased Medicare help dial 27-MEDICARE (276-334-2273) or go to https://askchapter.org/kelly Disclai...
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- [00:01]
A
If you could hear love, what would it sound like?
- [00:11]
B
Son, can we talk about your drinking?
- [00:16]
A
Yeah, Dad, I think we should. Helping those closest to you think about their excessive drinking. Maybe that's what love sounds like. More@rethinkthedrink.com An OHA initiative.
- [00:30]
C
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D
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C
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- [00:59]
B
Welcome to MK True Crime. I'm Mark Garrigus. I'm your host today. Although you know, usually with these two gentlemen, Matt Murphy and Phil, we kind of co host. So I like to look at it as a triple header here. So we've got Matt Murphy, we've got Phil Holloway, and we've got quite a bit to talk about today, not the least of which is my erstwhile client Diddy, who we're going to start off with. We brought you reports, I believe, on Wednesday's show about infractions that are being reported by Sean while he's in Fort Dix. And I guess at first it was he was chugging hooch out of the toilet that was being percolated that later got kind of walked back into a. Using the, the three way, calling on the phones. Matt Murphy, I'm sure you've got some comments about this.
- [02:02]
C
I just don't understand, Mark, why the guy can't stay out of trouble. You know, I think that, remember he got into trouble very early on by using other inmates calling codes. Remember that? And, and you and I, I think we talked about this before, Mark, where in the, in the world of federal judges they say almost nothing's more powerful on earth than other than God and the power of judge. Right. You literally need a Senate impeachment in order to remove them from the bench. And they tend to take that stuff personally.
- [02:33]
B
I forget the lead up to it, but it was basically a guy's golfing with a federal judge and the federal judge cheats and he calls him on it. And then the, and the federal judge says, hey, I'm a federal judge. And he says, well then fuck you under the federal rules. So they let's see if the, the last thing that you want to do, I agree, is piss off the federal judge. But Phil, at this Point. Does he care since he's already been sentenced?
- [03:02]
A
Well, you know, it's, it's one of these things where he gets an extra month, as I understand it, is the way that the calculation as to Diddy's parole, because as you mentioned, he was make drinking the homemade hooch. I guess they made some kind of wine or something in the, in the toilet. But then of course, using a three way call. You know, inmates always use three way calling. They're not supposed to, but they always do. And if they kept people in jail an extra month every time that happened, nobody would ever get out of jail. So on the one hand, I think these things are just a little bit on the petty side. But on the other hand, it does show that despite what may have been presented at the sentencing hearing by very, very good defense counsel, I should say he may not be quite able to follow rules and regulations to the point that he's an excellent candidate for parole. But hey, that's just my opinion. You know, he's Diddy. He's gonna do what he does. And apparently that doesn't include following jail rules. But hey, look, if you're in prison, why not drink a little homemade wine?
- [04:04]
B
I, you know, I was gonna say, you got, you have a quite a history of the wine being made in the prison system, as you well know. The one interesting things and considerations is he does have, I think, a marvelous appeal in the circuit that's pending and he was granted. I want to call it expedited. I don't know if that's the formal term there. Matt Murphy, who's sitting in New York, I always have fun with the different nomenclature between the east coast and the West Coast. Where I'm sitting in California, we say we continue our cases when they're on the east Coast. They say they adjourn the. And then when you're in trial in California, you say, I'm on trial when you're on the East Coast. But anyway, he's got Alexander Shapiro, who has argued basically two different basis. One is this idea of using acquitted conduct, meaning that you took the conduct he was found not guilty for, and then that you import that into the sentencing on the conduct he was found guilty on. And then the other one is the application of the man act. And you know, a judge, judges are human. And you want to hope the judges don't take it out on you because you're engaged or at least being reported. I haven't talked to him since he's been transferred, so I don't know if there's any truth to any of it, but it would appear based on the changing of the date, that at least the prison authorities think there is. Matt?
- [05:42]
C
Yeah, there it's. It's interesting. My, my gut, Mark, tells me that both of those are losers on this one. It's interesting. And I know that, you know, we've talked about or the judges cannot consider acquitted conduct. However, it's a little bit vague what that means, you know, because this was. This came down to the predicate acts that were all real. He wasn't acquitted for the arson and he wasn't acquitted on the domestic violence. He was acquitted on the rico. So it's an interesting sort of hair splitting argument. My guess is it goes nowhere. What I think is interesting about, you know, in California, again, I don't know what they call it here on the east coast, but it's called pruno. They call homemade jail alcohol pruno because they take raisins and stuff and they ferment them. And there's a whole culture inside custody on how to make shockingly stuff that gets you high. Right?
- [06:34]
A
Oh, my God.
- [06:35]
C
But what's interesting to me, Mark, and you actually know this better than I do, how could that potentially impact his. There's a special federal program where you are able to cut substantial parts of your sentence off if you're participating in rehab. And I don't know what the, what it takes to qualify for that. But I mean, he. And all that stuff about him being sober in trial, I guess so much for that. If he's already getting busted, you know, making pruno or drinking pruno.
- [07:03]
B
But. Well, and one of the. You mentioned it. It's called the RDAP program and we use it for clients all the time because it shaves off significant time off of what you have to do. I was one of the reasons I was handicapping, I think at the time, Matt and Phil, we were doing the over under on what he'd be sentenced to was almost the. You almost want to get the extra time so that you can go through the RDAP program. And it's a great program, by the way, notwithstanding the fact that there's an incentive there that you get released early. But they really do an intensive kind of reshuffling of your emotional and neurological deck to get you to the point where you're equipped, once you get out, to try to walk the straight and narrow, at least sobriety wise.
- [07:54]
C
Well, I should probably, just for the viewers, I was rooting for Mark's daughter. I wasn't really rooting For Diddy, just so, so nobody.
- [08:03]
B
Are you afraid you're going to get some of those, the comments that beaten down by them.
- [08:08]
C
They say read the comments and I always do. And I, I've been, I've been. I, I did Heather McDonald's Juicy Scoop podcast a little while ago. We were talking about Karen Reed and we're going to get to that a little bit and I took a down the middle like position on that mark and kind of explain it. You would not believe the hate that I got. It was days and days of like, well by the way and Reed supporters telling me how I was out of my mind and I hated women and like I got, I got a full dose of like loony Internet nonsense. So.
- [08:42]
B
Yeah, well I tell you. Yes, Phil, go.
- [08:45]
A
Well look, I mean as interesting as prison hooch and Diddy and his three way calls are, I got a question for you two guys. I know you're in.
- [08:53]
B
Don't you find your funny though? Don't you find it funny though Phil, that he was prosecuted for three ways and then he's in prison?
- [09:00]
A
Well, I was going to let somebody else do the math and come up with that. The thought may have crossed my mind.
- [09:06]
B
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- [09:38]
A
Guys, I know you're in New York right now as we, as we speak, Matt, but I want to ask you guys about this. Well I, I promised my wife I wouldn't call him D4VD so let's just call him the singer known as David. What? So what is going on out there? The readout on this is that the Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed last week with KTLA that no additional criminal charges have been substantiated in the investigation surrounding the 13 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez whose body was found discovered earlier this year after she was reported missing. So they say that despite the dismembered corpse in this car that there's no other crimes other than concealment of a death. Matt Murphy, you prosecuted cases, murder cases, homicide cases right there. How can you not make some other kind of case out of this?
- [10:32]
C
I don't know, honestly. And we you know, there's parts of this investigation we know nothing about, but she didn't dismember herself. And you know, this is one of the things. So Mark, Mark has been practicing for a long time in, throughout Southern California and in la. But also Mark's done a lot of cases in Orange county in case investigations like this are handled very differently one county away. So in, in Orange county, the way we did it, we did it in what's known as a vertical prosecution system, where when you have a murder investigation like this, right along with the detectives, you have a prosecutor who's, who's embedded with them, essentially helping them do warrants and things in the investigation. So the prosecutor is aware of every development. Nathan Hockman, the DA of L. A, came out with a statement saying that no case has been presented yet to the lad's office, which I think Mark indicates to me that there's no vertical role right now. But the LAPD is doing this on their own. And I was always a big believer that, you know, it's, there's plenty of room for opinions and different thoughts. And when I, when I did these as a prosecutor, I welcomed as much input as I could get on cases like this. And it doesn't seem like that's happening here. And I would hate to see them screw this up because this of course is a, she's a minor child, she wasn't even 15 years old yet, and somebody cut her up and left her in that car. And I want to believe that the LAPD behind the scenes is doing this right? But yeah, to answer your question, Phil, I have no idea. Obviously this involves a lot more than just improper disposal of human remains, which in California guys is a six month misdemeanor.
- [12:14]
B
So, you know, it's easy when you say one county away because in LA we always say behind the Orange curtain, as you know, Matt. And you're, I think you're number two or three in Orange County. I call you because for, for the rest of your life, Matt, I'm going to view you as Orange county da. But Pat Dixon, who used to be head of the Major crimes unit in LA, the LA County DA's office is now Special Assistant down in Orange County. Pat would have been all over this and involved. And I do know, in fact, Habib Valian, who was on the, the Menendez cases, the assistant head deputy in LA for Major Crimes, and Craig Humm, who I've known forever, is the head of Major Crimes. It would be shocking to me and I'm sure I'LL get a call from one of them lambasting me. But shocking for one of those two not to be involved in the. But I'm with you. I don't get it. Why do you come out and announce kind of that there is no other crime? I mean, that may be the case. I've said since day one that it could have been an overdose, somebody panicked, it could have been some other kind of medical emergency and this was a way to dispose. But clearly they know more than what they are letting out. So we're doing what we do best. Which is rank speculation, informed by our experience.
- [13:42]
A
Well, there's a private investigator in LA known as his name Steve Fisher and he posted on X. He says nowhere in the press release or in any official statements has there been mention of an investigation into the relationship David has had with or had with Celeste. Yes, that could be a difficult case to prove because Celeste is no longer here to testify. But that does not mean it should not be pursued. I mean, look, she's a very young girl and he's in a. He's a grown man. And there could at least be some kind of investigation into the nature and the scope of this relationship. There's all sorts of things that have been discovered. I mean, they were seen together, they've known to be together at the same place at a, at a amusement park in California and all sorts of things. How come we can't investigate the relationship using social media and digital forensics and all those types of tools?
- [14:41]
B
You know, there's. My response to that is probably it's not as sexy to investigate statutory rape. Presumably this is a young lady who, if you believe the reporting is run away multiple times from the environment she was in, went straight here. There's not a huge age gap. Which does, whether you like it or not, inform how prosecutors look at these cases. It informs how the legislator, legislature views these cases. Because, you know, there's special treatment if you're more than 10 years of special treatment for other kinds of factors. And, and so I assume that's it and that, you know, the, the prosecutors are like everybody else. They've got a limited or they're supposed to at least have a finite amount of time and resources and deploy them where they're most needed.
- [15:36]
A
Well, Matt, on another topic, have you ever been to Dead Man's Curve?
- [15:41]
C
Oh, yeah. So I grew up surfing in la, as Mark knows. And this is this stretch of road in Malibu. Ironically, it's not far from where Paul Walker of Fast and Furious fame, where his beach House was just kind of an ironic twist to this whole thing. But yeah, this is, this is a well traveled, well known stretch of road there, you know, nestled in between a bunch of different surf spots that every young surfer in LA is very familiar with and certainly every resident of Malibu is very familiar.
- [16:14]
A
Well, well what about the Frazier Baum case? I mean what's tell us about that? What's going on? That's all still out there in you guys neck of the woods.
- [16:21]
C
The Fraser bond case is really, it's interesting, it's, they're proceeding on what's known as an implied malice murder theory. And essentially what that means is that under certain circumstances, even if you have no intent to kill somebody else, the malice or the intent to kill can be implied based on the person's conduct. So in other words, if somebody has subjective knowledge that something's inherently dangerous to human life and they consciously disregard the safety of everybody else and do it anyway, you can be charged with a murder. So the sort of textbook quintessential example of that and marks done, many of these are what are known as Watson murders, that's pupil versus Watson, where somebody has prior DUIs and they get behind the wheel and they've been drinking heavily and they kill some poor kid on a bike or another motorist. That is a very common type of implied malice murder that we do. I've prosecuted several of them and in this one however, there's no allegation of drug or alcohol use. What's been alleged is that based on the data recorder of the car, this is a BMW, it's a young guy, parents have a lot of money and he's going down pch, hitting that curve that he's driven presumably many times before. And he's going about 104 miles an hour according to the electronic data recorder. He stacks it as the Australians would say he crashed into a parked car and this chain reaction happens and he winds up killing these four beautiful young sorority sisters on their way to a party right before their graduation at Pepperdine. And so it's these four young women and they have families that love them to death and they are, they're tragically killed. So the question then becomes legally does that, it's a combination of the law and the facts here. Does that conduct rise to the level where he can be said to be consciously disregarding the safety of others on the road? Alan Jackson, who's a friend of mine and Mark's going back many years, he was the defense lawyer on the Karen Reid case, famously Alan Just did what's called a 995 motion where he challenged the sufficiency the facts on this under an implied malice theory. This Boem has also been charged in the alternative with.
- [18:32]
A
Well, hang on, hang on a second, let me interrupt you. I think we got some video on that. Maybe we want to see what Alan Jackson has to say about that speed, is that okay?
- [18:39]
B
Sure, let's do it. It starts with one truth, a legal truth.
- [18:44]
C
Here in California, speed cannot be treated as malice.
- [18:52]
B
Speed cannot be treated as malice.
- [18:55]
C
That is the rule in the state of California.
- [18:58]
B
It's not made up by the defense.
- [18:59]
A
Not made up by me.
- [19:00]
C
It's not a tagline, it's the rule of law in California.
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B
Recited in a statement handed down to the lower courts by the Supreme Court Justice Kelly Evans. What happened on Pacific Coast Highway I.
- [19:15]
C
Could not be clearer about.
- [19:17]
B
This was a tragic homogeneous but two.
- [19:20]
C
Tragedy does not equal murder and the.
- [19:23]
A
Law does not permit the district attorney.
- [19:25]
C
To convert a fatal accident into second.
- [19:28]
B
Degree murder simply by calling speed malice. So I've had and I told I, I think I swore and I think I've. Eight years ago I tried my last one of these. I tried it about 30 miles away from here in LA county and it was a 17 year old young man, wonderful kid from a wonderful family and the implied malice that Matt was talking about so that people understand originally the Watson admonition or the Watson theory was drug or alcohol. What has happened is prosecutors have pushed that, pushed the envelope so that now things any kind of warning. I've had cases where somebody was warned that they were speeding by a CHP and they actually had the body cam four months before and said that was sufficient to know. I've had ones where they said somebody attended traffic school and that traffic school supplied the mens rea so that you could imply the malice in this case. What And I've tried this identical case and the reason I bring it up is it is to my mind people always say how do you do this? Or how do you sleep at night? I lost more sleep over defending that 17 year old than virtually any case I can think of. And not just because of him and his family but, but therefore the grace of God, the victims in that case, I mean destroy a family there, destroy families on both sides. The jury ended up in that case with when you don't have drugs, don't have alcohol and it's just speed and you've got a kid that presents well. They hung nine to three for acquittal and the murder Was dismissed. But what ends up happening? Even if you try the greatest case in the world, from a defense standpoint, the jurors tend to compromise. If you charge the implied malice murder, and you're arguing as the defense a not guilty, what comes in in between is that lesser of a vehicular manslaughter. And that's where jurors tend to land.
- [21:41]
A
Well, I have, I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. I mean, I agree with the attorney, Alan Jackson, that speed in and of itself, that's not malice. But if we can roll SOT2, I'll talk about what the prosecutor says and I can explain why I'm somewhere in the middle. In regards to the defense saying that.
- [22:03]
C
We are relying simply on a slogan.
- [22:06]
A
To prove that the defendant had subjective.
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C
Knowledge of the dangers of his feeding.
- [22:12]
B
It was the defendant himself in the statement who turned the slogan into something personal to him, that he had two of his best friends die as a result of speed.
- [22:29]
A
The knowledge. He admitted that he had the knowledge. So, you know, I, I am, I like to describe malice as an abandoned and malignant heart and that I didn't just make that up. It comes out of the law. And so you gotta take, I think speed along with all the other factors that may be present in the case. Knowledge of the, of the curve is one thing. Deliberately, maybe increasing speed despite his vehicle's own automatic safety features, trying to disengage, things like that, you'd have to make the argument and prove, I think, beyond a reasonable doubt, right. To prove malice, that he was using that speed and making that car drive so fast in a malicious way more than just, you know, extreme recklessness or even criminal negligence. Right. It's got to be the speed almost as part of the murder weapon. But that's just my take on it. The judge for now agreed with the prosecutor and let it stand, at least for now, on the malice murder charges.
- [23:32]
B
Well, and it's going to stand that way. I mean, you use the term 995. Matt and I deal with this all the time. You do the preliminary hearing or you get indicted. And California is different than a lot of jurisdictions. We almost always go by way of a preliminary hearing, which is a probable cause proceeding. And I have joked on the kidding on the square. Probable cause in California basically means, is your client breathing? And so a 995 is post probable cause proceeding. And you're telling the judge, take a look at the transcript on the four corners of the transcript, they don't have enough. And the Mother of the judge has not been born. Who's going to grant a 995 when you've got four deaths on a case like this? He's going to say, let the jury deal with that.
- [24:21]
C
Another interesting aspect of this guys, is that when you don't have alcohol involved in California, Phil, the way it works is a gross vehicular manslaughter has a max maximum of six years and that's at 50%. So the, you go from the potential of stacking 15 to life. That's the sentence for second degree murder under implied malice or any theory, 15 years to life. The judge would have the option of stacking all four of those together, which is truly, you know, I mean, I think, I think it's. They're getting parole hearings. What mark? In about 12 years now.
- [24:53]
B
So that's 12 and that's. And Matt, you hit exactly why I lose so much sleep and I haven't tried another one of these. You've got some kid that's sitting there whose life is in your hands with his family and you're rolling the dice. When you go to trial where you're talking about, especially when there's multiple, you're talking life and never getting out for somebody for their entire adult life versus, you know, being out by the time you're 30 or 25. I mean, it's mind boggling.
- [25:23]
C
Yeah, he would be out. And that's the thing. So ford us. There's a huge range here. And what's also interesting is the prosecution elected to char both. So each victim has a second degree murder allegation and a gross vehicular manslaughter. I. That's always tough, Mark. Right. Strategically, I didn't do it that way as a prosecutor because that allows the defense lawyer, especially one as good as Alan, to stand up and say they don't even know what it is. You know, if they, if they can't, if they can't tell you this is just a murder and they're giving you this option, it means they're not even sure. And that tends to get a lot of traction, I think, in front of juries. It's true.
- [25:59]
B
And there's kind of a squirrely distinction on lesser related versus lesser included that I won't bore the non lawyers with. But it does. I mean, it really is a, an incredibly tough situation because, and I will tell you, like almost every single criminal case, it really comes down to jury selection as to whether or not you're going to be able to roll the dice. But I I've been on both sides of it. It's just a horrific, horrific kind of a situation to be faced.
- [26:34]
A
Yeah, anytime you're talking about any kind of, certainly a death or a murder or homicide, but particularly deaths of young people, it's just one of those things that's just heartbreaking on all sides of it. I guess after the break we're going to have to talk about that again because, guys, a teenage cheerleader, a high school cheerleader has been found deceased on a cruise ship and now the FBI is investigating. Stay tuned.
- [26:58]
C
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- [28:41]
A
Coming up we have the case of a missing nine year old. Melody Brady. Buzzard has taken a very weird turn. But first, a teenage cheerleader was found deceased on a cruise ship this past weekend. The Carnival cruise ship returned to Miami on November 8 after a trip to the Caribbean. The body of the Anna Harper, an 18 year old Titusville teenager was found deceased on board the Carnival Horizon. She was a senior at Temple Christian, which is a private K through 12 school in Titusville, Florida. It's unknown what the cause of death is or what the manner of death is. But you guys know that once there's going, once there's an autopsy result, we're going to know more about the circumstances of this. But this certainly doesn't look good. We have too many kids dying on cruise ships, it seems to me.
- [29:31]
B
Mark, I was going to say nothing ever good happens on a cruise ship. I know on my bachelor party, I think I got arrested out of Catalina many years ago. So the cruise ships are kind of a teeming mass of hormones, testosterone and everything else. Yeah, yeah. Bad decisions, unlimited booze and. And being out in international waters is generally not a great combination in my experience.
- [30:03]
A
Matt. Her father has now given an interview, I think, to the Daily Mail and he said they were traveling together. Previously, it was unknown whether she was traveling alone or with other people, but he says that they're still in the dark. And I got to believe that once the coroner or the medical examiner, I should say, does the postmortem examination, they're going to know whether this was an accident, whether it was some kind of a homicide, whether it may have been undetermined or even potentially a suicide. And by the way, I want to get your thoughts on this, Matt, because we do have some social media posts that she made in, you know, the weeks before this. I think she kind of went almost radio silent on social media, but there were some things that she had put out there on social media that indicated she might have been under some type of emotional distress.
- [30:56]
C
Yeah. So it's important for everybody to remember that a case like this, it really is a collage. Right. And, and we have to keep. It's like as a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, the decisions have already been made by the time it winds up on your desk. But as a prosecutor, you really have to keep an open, as we all do as this goes forward, Phil, they'll figure this out in the autopsy for sure. What's interesting to me is they really rolled out a lot of visible FBI presence. And, you know, it could be a lot of things right now. Could be an od, could be a natural death. We don't know what she's posted on social media. It looks like she went through some sort of a breakup recently, but then again, she's a 17 year old high school kid and I think they've all, they've all gone through or about to go through breakups like we all did when we were that age. So I don't know, you know, but it's, it's a Factor. Right. She's, it looks like she'd gone through some sort of emotional thing recently. So maybe that played in or maybe it didn't. I, I, when I first saw this case, I was thinking about that great Agatha Christie story, Death on the Nile, you know, and it's a, it's a great movie from the, I think early 80s where the, the famous French detective comes out and it's, it's like a game of Clue, but it's on a, it's on a luxury boat on the Nile and it's set in like the 1920s. And I was just thinking it's almost like the same thing, only instead of a dozen suspects, you've got maybe 12,000 or however many people fit on that boat. So. But they will. You know, there are videotapes on those boats, there's video cameras, but they don't cover everything, especially in Carnival. And it's going to be really interesting to see. It's, it's might sound weird to be hoping for a natural death, but I just, I, I hope it's something along those lines because if this is a, a murder, especially if she's with her dad, it just, it's going to be a heartbreaking one.
- [32:46]
A
Well, something equally troubling and this goes back now to California. We've got this and this case is getting very strange. It's the missing nine year old Melody Buzzard, I guess from the Santa Barbara area. Have you guys been following this? Because this child has been missing now for at least several weeks and there's some allegations that maybe her mother has taken her somewhere out of state and perhaps left her with someone else. And she was charged recently with an unrelated false imprisonment from someone like a local paralegal who was trying to go help. He's alleging that the mother, you know, imprisoned him, wouldn't let him go and all this. And so she was held for false imprisonment. He says she's completely lost her mind, she's got mental problems. What is going on with this case?
- [33:38]
B
Well, if you're sitting here in California, I don't know about nationally, but in, if you're watching local news here, this is on an endless loop and I think part of the reason is this woman for I don't know what her status is on the false imprisonment. I've heard that she wouldn't let somebody go. I've heard there was a box cutter. She was released yesterday on 100 gram bail with a electronic monitor. The one thing I do know is that she's got horrendous taste in wigs and the endless loop of her wig selections is what has intrigued the local news producers here.
- [34:18]
C
Yeah, let me give you a quick plug here to. To our friend Mark Aragos on this one. Mark and I talked about this case right when it happened. And Mark made a great point last time we were. We were discussing it, and that is, this is one where there appears to be. And Mark called it right at the beginning, before it even came out. If there's a custody dispute, this could be anything. And it looks like there, in fact has been an ongoing custody dispute with the dad. So there's been a rumor that she might be in Utah. And Mark Ergos called it very early. Like, this isn't necessarily a dead child. The, the, the twist recently that's kind of disturbing is these mental health issues, because all bets are off. When you're dealing with somebody who's truly mentally ill and she's, you know, that's kind of scary. If you got somebody who's schizophrenic, God only knows what happened to that kid. But they're like Mark said, it's huge news and there's a lot of press, hopefully correct resources go into this. Phil, that they'll figure it out. But.
- [35:19]
B
Well, it has all the earmarks, Matt, of that. And I've had. And I talked to you about it, because I did. The last one I did of this was in Orange County. What happens is when you hear that they're wearing wigs, that they're going to the border, so to speak, and that they're coming, she's coming back without her. It is classic. I mean, I've seen this 100 times. And then the mental health, whatever mental health challenges you have once you get into that family law system in the custody fight, it seems to amplify. It's one of the reasons my father used to say he'd rather sell oranges on the side of the freeway than practice family law. And this is exactly what you're dealing with. You just.
- [36:06]
A
Well, I've got a more maybe darker theory because the reason I say that, the guy who says that this child may be alive in Utah, I think his name is Tyler Brewer. He's the one that is alleging that he was falsely imprisoned as well. He told News Nation that Melody could still be alive in the state of Utah and that he's got reasons for this, you know, and he has grave concerns. He says the mother is extremely paranoid, a totally different person when they first met. He believes that she could be missing and specifically In Utah. He says he specifically, you know, knows where she is out there. And I'm just wondering if this is a case where. And this has happened before. I hope that I'm wrong. I hope this isn't a case where a parent has somehow like sold a child or delivered a child into the hands of someone or some persons who might do that child harm.
- [37:04]
B
Well, I sure hope not. I mean, I, I'm, I'm the Pollyannish. I just want to believe that she took the child to somebody to, for safekeeping, so to speak, outside the jurisdiction and that. And so I think one of the.
- [37:18]
C
Videos actually had the little girl ship one of those wigs on her daughter, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, right.
- [37:23]
B
So, yeah.
- [37:24]
C
So that's, that's one of those things. Means one of two things. She's either disguising her so that she can move her someplace and then as a part of a custody problem with the husband, which really does. Mark was right. It appears to exist, or it's a sign of some sort of mental break. That. And that's the scary part. God on the nose, we've seen that with the Lori Vallows and so many others where you mix in a little mental health and some of that family court drama that Mark was talking about. And God, those kids really can be in great danger. You'd think that at this point, with all the pressure, if there was an actual human out there that was taking care of this girl, like a family member or something, that there'd be enough heat on them that they would step forward and cooperate. Because if they're, if there is somebody harboring that child on behalf of this mother, they're going to be in huge trouble if that's ever discovered.
- [38:13]
A
So it would seem to be easy. And I mean, it would, I say easy to solve, but I mean, look, if, if they have actionable information on specifically, you know, where to look for this child, I'm surprised. Maybe, maybe, maybe this is happening and we just don't know it. But like all the resources of state, local and even federal law enforcement need to be poured into to finding this child before, God forbid, something awful happens, something worse, if something hasn't already happened, and we certainly hope it's not coming back. On the other side of the break, we're going to get to your questions. Don't forget, you can email us@mktruecrimelmaycaremedia.com that's MK True Crime, that Devil May Care Media. Up next. We'll get to that mailbag and we'll get to our closing arguments as well.
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C
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- [40:30]
A
All right, we'll get to our closing arguments and rants here in just a moment as well as your mail. But first, guys, we have to talk about about Megyn Kelly's tour. The, the Megyn Kelly Live Tour that just a couple of days ago this past Saturday night here in Atlanta, Ashley Merchant and I had the really, it was, it was a lot of fun. I want to say the honor, and it is an honor, but it was so much fun to be sort of the, the opening act, if you will, or one of them for the live tour to sort of get to see and interact with some of the folks from the Megyn Kelly team that we sometimes just to see or deal with on text or email and, and otherwise to see some of these folks in person and to talk about this show with a live audience was really a lot of fun. And I know you guys are getting ready to do that soon in California.
- [41:19]
B
Well, you, you did it with the heartthrob that is Ashley. I'm doing it in California on the 21st with the heartthrob that is Matt Murphy. Yeah. On his home turf. Left. And so appropriately it is Devil May Care. So I'm going to have to play Devil to Heartthrob's angel on the 21st. I'm looking forward to going behind the orange curtain and seeing Matt there.
- [41:47]
C
I think Mark and I, Mark, I think we're going to get the hook so fast. They're going to, they really. Everybody's going to be there to see Megan. Not us. But correct. Hopefully they give us the full five minutes and it is, it's a, it's a hometown crew for me that's basically be. We're going to be standing in front of my, my jury pool for the first 26 years of my career right there in, in the Honda center in Anaheim. So that's going to be, it's going to be a fun night.
- [42:12]
B
I can see where that will be part of what part of the shtick for the three minutes that they allow us out there.
- [42:18]
C
Yeah, we'll have to do something.
- [42:20]
A
Well, you might get five because you got Matt with you. But look, it looks like. So there's three remaining dates. There's November 20th in Bakersfield, November 21st in Anaheim, and she wraps it up on November 22nd with Erica Kirk and Walter Kern in Glendale, Arizona. Tickets are still available, by the way, @megankelly.com and by the way, it was a lot of fun to tell the, you know, my hometown Atlanta crowd that we are now on Sirius XM, the Megyn Kelly Channel, channel 111. I think it's what, 10am on Tuesdays and a couple of times on Saturday mornings, 9 and 10am Eastern Time. This show and this product is really growing and we love that we have the support of our listeners and our audience because you guys are making it all possible. Matt, do you want to talk to us about the legal mailbag we have from listener. And I'm going to. I may. I don't want to even say this because I will butcher it, but it's snemac S N E E M A C and it's a question about Melody Buzzard. Matt, do you want to tell us what that question is?
- [43:27]
C
Yeah. So the. Let me, let me read this.
- [43:31]
B
Here.
- [43:32]
C
In the D.C. suburbs, juvenile runways who are returned home but who are at risk of running away again have to wear court ordered ankle monitors. Celeste Rivas reportedly ran away four times starting at the age of 12, why on earth does California not mandate ankle monitors for these at risk runaways? Seems like a missed opportunity to better support the families that struggle to keep their children safe and at home. Here's hoping that this case can shed some light on this issue and lead to a better, better policy. I think that's a great question. I think there's a lot of interesting layers to that from a legal perspective. You're talking about somebody who, she's a runaway, but she hasn't, she's not on probation. So that, you know, if somebody were to take that off their ankle, it's not like they can put them in juvenile hall or detain them because they haven't really committed a crime. They've left their parents. But it's an interesting idea and it's something I think that with greater technology, it's a question that I think our legislature really should address. Do I think that California is going to come down all of a sudden, lurch away from the direction they've been moving our legislature and require that? I can't see that ever happening, but it's. It sure would be better for some of these families.
- [44:49]
B
Matt, can you imagine if somebody introduced legislation that either an ankle monitor or implanting a chip into the child like they do on a lot of pets, how long the shelf life would be on that proposal?
- [45:09]
C
I think the person who proposed it would probably be kicked out of the state at the way we're going to. Yeah. That, that would not be a game winner of a proposition.
- [45:19]
B
That is not. That's, that's not a, that's not a winning strategy in the beautiful state of California, so to say, as much sense.
- [45:29]
C
As it may make. Yeah, I don't see it happening in California, unfortunately.
- [45:33]
A
In Georgia, you can file a petition in juvenile court if you're the parent of a child you believe is ungovernable. Right. You can file a petition in juvenile court, drag the kid into court and judge has wide latitude on what to do to sort of bring the, the resources of the state to the parents disposal. I don't know that that's necessarily always a great idea, but it is a mechanism that the law does permit in many states.
- [45:57]
B
But we have the opposite, Phil. In California, if you're ungovernable, the minor files a petition to be emancipated and then, then hits the street and then.
- [46:10]
A
They get elected to some kind of elected office.
- [46:12]
B
Exactly. We're, we're very, we're very independent here.
- [46:18]
A
Well, for. If I can, I go Ahead and give you guys my rant because I've got something that's been on my mind that I know that you guys deal with a lot as well in court. We've all heard about, you know, there's an eyewitness that did it. My favorite movie in law school was my cousin Vinnie where they were talking about, you know, the eyewitnesses said this and all this kind of thing. And then, and there's this cross examination that shows how really, really poorly the eyewitnesses really did to identify these folks. And that was a movie that was taught to us in law school because it has so many things about it that are real, that really occur in the real world. Eyewitness testimony is usually hailed as the gold standard of evidence in courtroom. Psychological research, however, has revealed that it is far more unreliable than most people realize human memory is. It's not like a tape recorder. It's a reconstructive process and it's susceptible to distortion at every stage. Those being the encoding stage, the storage stage. And what happens in a courtroom is the retrieval stage. People are asking to retrieve that memory and explain it and talk about it. But when we're talking about crimes, a lot of times these are high stress situations, right? If you're trying to describe a burglar or a robber or an attacker, the high stress can impair memory. It leads to misremembered details like faces or even events, and it leads to false identifications that can of course lead to the very real problem of wrongful convictions. Pioneering studies by science by psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Loftus back in the 1970s highlighted the misinformation effect where post event suggestions like police leading questions and things like that can literally rewrite the memories of the witnesses. In 1974 she did this study, guys, where she had participants watch a car accident film and they were asked to make speed estimates using questions when they they would use verbs like contacted or smashed. The group that were asked questions with the verb smashed estimated higher speeds, 41 miles per hour versus 32. And the same group where they talked about smashing of the cars versus the contacting of the cars, they recalled broken glass that wasn't there. It's literally an implanted memory. Another 1978 study showed how misleading questions could swap things like a stop sign for a yield sign in people's memory. So we have these problems and there's of course the problems with things like weapon focus. If you're staring at a knife or a gun, you're not going to closely look at somebody's face or their height or their race or their gender. And witnesses will say they're very confident, even though studies have shown that that's oftentimes despite their confidence, the accuracy just isn't there. The Innocence project says that 69% of over 375 DNA exonerations are due to eyewitness errors. So I just. I talk about this because it's something that the public, I think, needs to know about. It's not necessarily intuitive. In fact, I think it's counterintuitive. Law enforcement needs to be better trained on it. I know there's initiatives underway in almost every state to train law enforcement on this risk. Prosecutors also need to be mindful of it, but so do defense counsel, judges, and particularly juries. So eyewitness testimony is not all bad. Don't get me wrong. It can be an important piece, but we've got to have corroboration. And those who consider eyewitness testimony need to be aware that it can be flawed. And so to treat it with the proper safeguards. That's it. That's my rent.
- [50:11]
B
I love it. Matt, you're going to do yours. I'm going to take advantage. I'm going to do something that Matt and I never do. I'm going to go after Matt because as a prosecutor, he always got the last word was totally unfair.
- [50:25]
A
Yeah.
- [50:25]
C
So I wanted to talk about the truth. I want to talk about the importance of the truth. And we've got a big story in the media right now, whether you love or hate Donald Trump. There's a speech that he gave after January 6th that was edited heavily by the BBC and it's a huge scandal in the UK right now. And anybody that's paying attention to that, essentially, they took something that he said later in his speech and they blended it with something he said at the beginning, and it completely changed the meaning. And it is a frigging lie. It's totally unfair to do that. I've got a case right now, believe it or not, in LA county, where I've got a police officer who's involved in an officer involved shooting and on another case, a traffic collision that had nothing to do with the shooting. He was involved in a text exchange with another police officer where he wrote, lmao, Laugh my ass off. That's a W. And the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, under George Cascoin took that text message and released it to the Los Angeles Times, making it appear that he was laughing about an officer involved shooting where he had to take the life of a young man who was reaching for what later turned to be a BB gun turned out to be a BB gun. It is. It is. Whether it's Donald Trump or whether it's my client, the truth should matter. Wrong is wrong and you can't. It's so easy in the digital era with AI and everything else to, to blend things, to edit things creatively and to completely change the meaning. And it's something that is, it's as wrong now as it was a hundred years ago where people would come together and just lie. Now we've got videos and we've got editing software and it's easier to do now than ever. So injustice results from that, whether it's the President of the United States or whether it's my poor client in this case. Wrong is wrong. Right is right. And we're so divided into teams that I think that when your team does something like that, we gotta own it and maintain the credibility. And here we are, guys. We are in the blend of the practice of law and media. I just wanted to call that out as we move forward together in this podcast. The truth matters and people's lives are at stake. And that's my rant for today. Wow.
- [52:40]
B
I'll tell you, Matt, I would have, I would have bet big money that you could not put George Gascon and Donald Trump and rant it. So I'll give you, I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to take and synthesize your two rants here because things that is interesting to me, Phil, is rant is what is called direct evidence. Eyewitness testimony is direct evidence. People seem to think if it's direct evidence that it's somehow better than circumstantial evidence. We actually have jury instructions on that. And the reason I bring that up, I was watching last night and this is to Matt's point, one of the teams, if you will be reporting on Donald Trump and the Epstein emails and there's been selective leaks of. When I say leaks. The Oversight committee of Congress subpoenaed the Epstein estate. They got, I don't know, 23,000 emails or something like that. A number of those emails have been released. One of the ones that has gotten wall to wall coverage last night is Epstein telling somebody else, not Donald Trump, somebody else. And I believe it was Joanne Maxwell that he is the dog that didn't bark. Now they are, that is being spun. This is circumstantial evidence. So as contrasted from eyewitness testimony which Phil was talking about circumstantial evidence is what do you. What does that email mean? If that were admissible, what could you do? Well, the spin that was given to that when I was watching is that somehow that was incriminating or that it was. That it shows that he's guilty of something, he being President Trump. This is what's astonishing to me, because if there is a way to interpret that and the law says this, if it's circumstantial evidence and you have two reasonable interpretations, they don't both have to be the same reasonableness, just too reasonable. The other reasonable is that the dog that wouldn't bark is that he was not interested in this Epstein activity or that he was not talking to or was not a snitch, so to speak, which you combine with Mike Johnson, the speaker who said that Trump was basically an informant or was implying that he was an informant.
- [55:14]
A
All.
- [55:14]
B
I guess my point is, is that before you, you run with the circumstantial evidence or interpretation that suits your ideological prism, or to borrow Matt's term, whatever team you're rooting for, try to stand back for a second and look at what the words are, the context and who's doing it. Because that's what you have to do when you're a juror. And I would submit to you, that's what you have to do if you're going to be fair.
- [55:43]
C
Well put.
- [55:45]
B
Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. Phil, thank you for doing the Omen's job of actually really doing the hosting. Matt, I will see you, I think, in a week on your home turf. And I'm appropriately waiting for you to get the standing ovation that I'm sure you'll get when we get to Orange County.
- [56:09]
A
Well, you ought to. You should. You guys should have seen they when we came out. Ash, they gave me a little, you know, courtesy clap. They went wild for Ashley Merchant. She's truly the hometown hero here after.
- [56:20]
B
After. Rightfully so. Although you're not chopped liver, Phil.
- [56:25]
A
Oh, thank you for saying that. Thanks for having me with you guys today.
- [56:28]
B
Thank you. It was great. Thanks, everybody.
- [56:30]
C
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