Mark Geragos (2:58)

So for those who aren't following us closely or my other podcast closely. I have said for months now that it's obvious to any sentient being who practices law in Los Angeles county that the LAPD and the coroner are at odds. And usually it's a very symbiotic relationship, as you two know, between the coroner, the pathologist, and usually the chief coroner and law enforcement. This has had all the earmarks from day one of them at loggerheads, and that has been confirmed in the dueling press releases that we've seen in the last couple of weeks, not the least of which is is then what happened was the LADA.

Mark Geragos (3:50)

Basically at the behest, or actually I think it was the LAPD went in, got a first. They went in to try to get an order to shut down the ME from ME talking or releasing anything. They were rebuffed, if you believe what's being reported. Then they went in again and they got a judge to shut it down, shut them down. The ME issued a statement saying, you know, I'm calling BS on this. We should be transparent. And so the reaction was to then go to the grand jury for those who are not practitioners. In California and specifically LA county, unlike other jurisdictions, it's very rare to have the grand jury do this. And they usually do it in very high profile or secretive cases. That's exactly what's going on here. And it's highly, highly unusual. I don't know what's going on at the lapd, but I will tell you that this is not business as usual.

Matt Murphy (4:53)

Let me read the quote from the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. This is Dr. Oday Okpo, if I'm pronouncing that right, and his response to this publicly. Quote, quote, the practice of security holds is virtually unheard of in other counties and has not been proven to improve outcomes in the legal system. We are dedicated to serving our community with full transparency. However, the law precludes us from doing so while the court order remains in this case. Phil, you've done a lot of murders. You ever had a case for a.

Phil Holloway (5:27)

Wait a minute. Be careful how you couch that.

Matt Murphy (5:29)

Yeah, sorry. You've. You've been involved in the legal system with many murders not committed by you. How's that?

Phil Holloway (5:35)

Yeah.

Matt Murphy (5:37)

Ever heard of such a thing? I mean. Yeah, well, unproven, as they say.

Mark Geragos (5:41)

Yeah.

Phil Holloway (5:41)

So I've been trying. I don't have the inside perspective, obviously, out in LA like you guys do. And Mark, your insight is just. It's really fascinating to hear this because I can't really tell, like, does the medical examiner, the coroner? Is that individual saying, I believe this was a homicide and the police are investigating it, not as a homicide, or is it the other way around? I can't figure out what. What side of the fence these warring parties are seem to be at. The thing is, with this investigative grand jury, it's rare here in Georgia where I practice as well, it's not unheard of, but it is rare. Normally, the law enforcement agency investigating a case can do all the investigation, work up their case, present it to a district attorney, who then takes the case to a normal grand jury and secure an indictment. They don't need to do this. And I'm curious as to why they're doing it. The only thing that really pops into my mind, and this is because I'm. I'm a cynic. I'm always cynical about these things. A prosecutor can use a grand jury for their own purposes, right? They can take advantage of the secrecy in a grand jury. If, let's say. Let's say a prosecutor wants to dump a case where the public might be out, there might be a public outcry for criminal charges, they can use a grand jury and steer it in some direction. And if the grand jury says, look, we're not going to recommend charges, then the prosecutor throws their hand up, says, well, you know, the grand jury said there wasn't a crime, so it's not on us. Which the truth of the matter is the grand jury is going to do whatever the prosecutor wants, whether it's a regular grand jury or an investigative grand jury. And I don't really have a whole lot more to add because it's just secret. And I understand why they need to do this.

Mark Geragos (7:27)

I tell you, Phil, we got some breadcrumbs. And this is what got me initially kind of interested in what was happening here. The. The breadcrumbs are first. The LAPD had shut down. I mean, they. Look, I have had a long relationship, and I call that. I say that with a smile on my face with the lapd, but they normally leak like a sieve. In this case, they were not leaking. And they were incredibly tight lipped initially. Then there was some reporting that was done, and they came out and did something I'd never seen them do in recent memory, where they basically were saying something to the effect of we're not even sure a crime was committed, which was kind of inferred. That. Or you could take from that. Okay, maybe the working Hypothesis was she OD'd. This poor girl OD'd on some drug, and then the body was disposed of. Well, that's still a. That's still arguably a crime. So I don't know what that. What that statement, how that statement advanced things. Then there was the kind of the leaks, so to speak, that there was a trip to Santa Barbara that has been bandied back and forth. First it was denied, then it was confirmed. Now it's clearly been confirmed. And when I say the trip to Santa Barbara, all the Internet sleuths will tell you, where was LAPD all along? Because there were posts. And if you take a look at the posts related to two of the people who are under suspicion, those are geo fenced to rural areas of Santa Barbara. The Internet, Internet had already solved that. Then you come to this last piece, which was, was the body either decapitated or frozen? And lapd, that blew their minds, apparently. And there was reporting that was done, that clearly the body was decapitated and that the body was frozen. And they now have said, the ME has said that the fingers were water logged, which is consistent with having been frozen. That's right around the time LAPD was trying to shut all of this down. You, I think, hit on it, Phil. And I'm interested in what Matt's saying is. I think there is a disconnect between whether the ME in my belief is saying this is a homicide already and LAPD is saying we're not so sure. I think that's where this disconnect is, and that's driving LAPD to the point of distraction, which is why they ran in and got Judge Richmond to shut down. Any kind of public transparency on this.

Phil Holloway (10:10)

Mark?

Matt Murphy (10:10)

Yeah, I watched a lot of murders, guys with a lot of. I did a lot of grand jury work. And, you know, exclusively in the homicide unit for 17 years, I've never even heard of a coroner trying to comment during the pen and even investigation. Our coroner in Orange County, Mark, as you know, you've probably dealt with Dr. Huglan before. He was. He let. He understood his lane, he understood his role, and.

Matt Murphy (10:36)

He never stepped out of line. This is really interesting, and it's interesting.

Mark Geragos (10:42)

To see Would it be rude for me to say that as a former homicide prosecutor, where you and I did battle for many years, that the reason that he did that is because he was subservient to the Orange County DA's office and he knew what his lane was, which was to be your handmaiden and to do your bidding as the da? Because that's certainly the cross examinations that I normally would engage in with the OC Coroner's office.

Matt Murphy (11:12)

So first of all, he's still there. He's awesome. I don't know if you've ever crossed him. The guy's phenomenal. But some people might be tempted to believe that if they didn't see my colleague Mike Murray, who's now a superior court judge. Mike wanted time of death estimations by Dr. Huguelen. And as you know, Mark, that's a gift to almost every defense lawyer. It's never right time of death like we see on quincy or on TV. TV is never accurate.

Mark Geragos (11:37)

Exactly. It's an.

Matt Murphy (11:39)

Dr. Hugo on his own was like, this is kind of. This is. Guys, this never works. You're asking. These are the. The parameters are so broad. Everybody sees it on tv, but it's not real. I don't want to do it anymore. And he went round and round, I think correctly. No offense to my Buddy Mike, but Dr. Hugon was exactly right on this one. So if you didn't see the battles going on behind the scenes where that man was standing up for what was right and what he believed, people could be tempted to believe.

Mark Geragos (12:07)

I think you're right, Matt. But I think the genesis. I have a different genesis that I think it was after he had been subjected in his office, had been subjected to a couple of withering cross examinations that I actually witnessed in a courtroom on the time of death on a couple of very high profile cases down in your county. And then he said, I'm not going there anymore. I'm not defending this. This is nonsense.

Matt Murphy (12:32)

Yeah, I don't know. It's an issue.

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Matt Murphy (14:37)

I don't want to burn too much more time on David. Guys, I, I really want to get into this Brian Walsh case and, and let's, let's, let's play SOT1 if we can. This is the Crossing examination. One of the police officers. For those who don't know, this is a, it's a no body case taking place out of Massachusetts. I personally love the accents. And this is a guy who's on trial for the murder of his wife where they got into some forensic examination of his computers and boy oh boy, was that a jackpot. If we could play Thought 1.

Courtroom Officer (15:09)

What is the title on page 735? Record 2638?

Matt Murphy (15:17)

Can you be charged with murder without a body? Google search.

Courtroom Officer (15:20)

What is the title on page 738?

Matt Murphy (15:23)

Record 2647 Murder conviction without a body Dash Wikipedia.

Courtroom Officer (15:30)

What is the title on page 738? Record 2649?

Matt Murphy (15:38)

No Corpse Question mark. No problem. Notable murder convictions without a body dash? Amy True crime.

Mark Geragos (15:46)

You know the defense lawyer, you're praying that these searches were after the. The finger of suspicion Was pointed at your client. Praying. Although I will tell you, I had a. I was. My search history probably has the same general things on a case I just picked up down in San Diego. So I'm not gonna.

Matt Murphy (16:08)

Yeah, the problem is he's not a defense lawyer working on murder cases. And those were at. They started about 3 o' clock in the morning on January 1, 2023, which is right when she went missing. And they, they continue for hours. And it's like there's that old adage that you haven't invented a machine that can read your mind yet. But we kind of have in Google these searches. This is like my Daniel Wozniak case where there was.

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Matt Murphy (16:33)

You could see the guy as he's planning it and it would be like loud. What. What is a loud gunshot? How many decibels? Loud gunshot. And he was planning his. He was stealing money, so he's planning a vacation with his soon to be wife. And it was gunshots to awesome cruises, you know, awesome honeymoons and. Anyway, Phil, what do you think about this one?

Phil Holloway (16:55)

Well, you know, this, this one is crazy. So let me start with the, the, the. The defense strategy was, okay, we're going to plead guilty to everything related to the disp. Body. And by the way, I think we have some video that was played in court which basically the prosecutors say shows defendant Brian Walsh just kind of casually cruising around in his car, tossing out, you know, trash bags with the body parts in it. But the, the strategy was to plead guilty to everything related to destroying the body and all that sort of stuff and say, you know, she died of some other kind of cause and I just kind of woke up and she was deceased in the bed. But people have said, what kind of strategy is that? But interestingly enough, it's not unheard of. Our MK True Crime colleague Ashley Merchant and I were co counsel on a murder case a number of years ago and we did just the same thing and we won the thing that we were fighting about, which was the murder. We pled not guilty to the murder and guilty to everything else. And you say to the jury, look, my client has admitted his or her role in this and admitted to the things that he or she did but didn't do this part. So we're going to plead not guilty to that and let you decide. So it's not exactly unheard of. And sometimes it does work. It's worked for me. But in this particular case, this, my case was a legal issue. This is a factual issue. And Mark or Matt, you talked about the timing of these Google searches, right? And this starts early in the morning. It goes, I'm looking at it just like back to back to back to back, all the way from the wee hours of the morning to in the afternoon. And, and it's like, okay, you're googling about whether or not you can use your wife's credit card and she's missing. Can I use it? My wife is missing, what should I do? Best ways to dispose of body parts after a murder. And you're Googling all these things and you wonder what's he doing in between these searches, right? And it's almost like you wonder, is this somebody who's coked up? Is this somebody who's on some kind of drugs that they're just, just like intensely, you know, doing these Google searches and awake in the middle of the night and did he just find out that she had been having an affair? Which has now been confirmed with the, the lover who's testified in the case. But the Google searches themselves, to your point, do give a snapshot into what he's thinking about. And these things all point to one thing, and that is consciousness of guilt. We've talked about that in the context of other cases. These Google searches, in my opinion, prove without any doubt that he had he killed her. He may not have thought about it for a long time. Malice can be developed in an instant. Premeditation and deliberation is not the kind of thing that requires extensive planning. It can be formed in an instant. I think something happened, he got mad and he purposely killed her. And then he's like, oh shit. And then he starts hitting Google trying to figure out what to do. The jury's gonna see through this. This is a transparent defense. The defense lawyer probably is hating his job right now because the defense is not going to work in my view. And I see a conviction next week.

Mark Geragos (20:03)

You know what's.

Matt Murphy (20:04)

Let me just read. Sorry, go ahead, Mark.

Mark Geragos (20:07)

I was just going to say I didn't know about Ashley and you obviously on the, on another case. What had occurred to me. I don't know if you guys remember. I think it was almost 25 years ago. I was just Googling myself to. I remember Dick Dagarian, who's the great criminal defense lawyer in Texas, tried the case with Robert Durst, as I remember, and Durst was acquitted of a case where the body was dismembered. I think the guy was name was black. And the argument there was that it was a self defense. Obviously nobody to contradict that. And that he dismembered the body afterwards and he was acquitted. Dick1 got a not guilty on that. Durst was later convicted here in Los Angeles after doing the TV show on HBO and being caught on a microphone and, and, and saying something to that was very incriminating. But what, and Matt, to you, one of the things that has perplexed me about this, I thought originally, why would you, on a nobody case, when you have these searches, why would you plead guilty to the disposal? Because that seems to undercut part of your defense. And then I was told that basically it's exceedingly rare to plead guilty in Massachusetts to a first degree murder for a variety of reasons. Had you heard this?

Matt Murphy (21:42)

I had not heard that. But one of the thoughts I had on this, Mark, now, so everybody knows in opening statement, the defense got up and said he woke up, his wife was dead and they called it so sudden, unexplained death. And he panicked. And that's the explanation for all of it. So I guess we've got sids with babies now we have suds with adults, which I've never heard of before. But what's, what really struck me, Mark, is when you have an affair like this, you've just got a good argument for a vol or a voluntary manslaughter. And for the viewer, the difference in sentencing between a voluntary manslaughter, where somebody acts in the heat of passion when they commit a homicide, or versus first degree murder is light years away from each other. Voluntary manslaughter.

Mark Geragos (22:27)

Yeah, that's the point, Matt, because as I understand the statutory scheme in Massachusetts, a first degree murder, the judge has no, first of all, you have to get judicial consent. Judge has to accept it. Second of all, there is basically no upside to the defense because it's a mandatory lwop, life without parole. And, and for the prosecutor, you gained nothing by offering a second because the second has a safety valve. And to your point, you could take it to trial, you could get a voluntary, and you're right in any time you've got. Speaking of Texas, that used to be Texas, you wouldn't even argue a voluntary manslaughter. Back in the day, we used to joke that in defense, in defense land in Texas, if you catch your lover with your, your current or the, her lover together, you got a free pass on a murder. So there you go. I mean, but apparently you get a.

Matt Murphy (23:27)

Pro in California, and every state's different. In California, what, Mark, you get a, for a voluntary mansfolder conviction, you get one year enhancement for the knife you get a parole hearing in like seven or eight years.

Mark Geragos (23:39)

It's exactly.

Matt Murphy (23:40)

Probably getting out.

Mark Geragos (23:41)

Back in the day. I'm old enough to remember one of the cases my father prosecuted. The guy, Lou Schindler, was in and out on a second degree murder in five years back in the day.

Matt Murphy (23:52)

That's why I think behind the scenes, it's like what you said, Phil, about how you don't envy the job of the defense lawyers. Are they hating their life? One of the Google searches, I just got to read this to you guys. This is my favorite six ways to dispose of a body. Murder, murder, murder.

Matt Murphy (24:11)

Kind of tough to stick with that opening statement when you got Google searches like that. And hey, but I toss this out to you, Phil. If this, if the defense lawyer gets up and says that and gives the, this, this kind of elaborate explanation about how he wakes up next to his dead wife and panics, I think the only way without a body that you get that, you get that evidence is he's got to take the stand. Right. Is there. Am I missing something?

Phil Holloway (24:36)

Yeah. If you stand up and you tell the jury what you know, the evidence is going to show X, Y and Z according to your, you know, version of the facts. You're going to have to have some evidence to back it up because otherwise you're going to get hamm by the prosecutor's clothes. They're going to say, look, the defense lawyer told you all this stuff was going to be proven. You've been seeing no evidence of it. And so the credibility of the lawyer is just in the tank. Speaking of which, if we can, if I could call for SOT2, we have the some sound here and video the defense lawyer cross examining that state trooper whose name is Nicholas Guarino. And I want to talk on the other side of this site about what he's suggesting.

Mark Geragos (25:17)

If someone enters specific search terms like.

Phil Holloway (25:21)

How to dispose of a body, the results could simply be here. Take the body to a cemetery, something like that.

Matt Murphy (25:29)

Again, I would have to search it to see. I can't say definitively for that specific one.

Mark Geragos (25:34)

No.

Phil Holloway (25:36)

So he's trying to say that this was something, that some alternative explanation is something reasonable like going to a cemetery. But it just flies in the face of common sense and reason when you look at these Google searches, how to dismember a body.

Phil Holloway (25:53)

The best tool for dismembering a body, that's, you know, to me, look, I'm not trying to be too hypercritical of a person. A lawyer who's doing probably the Best he can, maybe with a really terrible set of facts. But I don't think that my cross examination would have suggested that he's trying to find an appropriate cemetery at 4 o' clock in the morning doing this kind of Google search.

Mark Geragos (26:17)

Well, in the defense and I look, I'm not looking at the discovery. One of the things, as I'm sure you guys know, when you get a forensic analysis of a computer search, it's a very interesting document. I mean, whether they're using ncase, whether they're using one or the other. I'm not here to promote anybody's software program. But the, there's a way that it reads out and one of the ways that it reads out, and I've done this cross examination countless times, it, it does a very interesting kind of. When you do a Google search, it doesn't just produce it the way you get it. For instance, if you search on chat GPT, it's a much more complicated kind of analysis and you could see search terms or search queries that were not originally entered in that the search engine is actually performing. So if there was the kind of a query that said, how do I dispose of a body? I'm with you, you've lost the jury on that. If it was some other query and part of the NK system, and I'm using that just as a shorthand, but part of the forensic analysis shows that it hits on other queries while searching for an answer. ChatGPT calls it thinking, if you want, for lack of a better term, you can make an argument there and it hues to the truth in terms of the AI is doing, or the search engine is doing an analysis that isn't necessarily going on in the user's brain.

Phil Holloway (28:02)

Well, we've been watching this trial now for several days and I haven't seen that proposition. I understand what you're saying is that maybe he didn't actually type in those specific queries, yet it showed up somehow because of the way the Google algorithm works. I have not seen that come out. It seems to me that the prosecutor is saying he literally typed in these Google searches all through the night, all through the, excuse me, all through the early hours of the morning, the regular morning and into the afternoon. And it's just one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in terms of forensic computer analysis. But hey, what do I know?

Mark Geragos (28:40)

Well, do we know? Do we know if he's calling his own expert?

Matt Murphy (28:45)

We don't know that yet. However, I can, I can answer his first query that first thought, no, no corpse, no problem. That's really similar to what Skyler de Leon in one of my old cases said to his wife in the jail on a cord line. He said, hey, remember, no bodies, no murder and no corpse still equals big problem.

Mark Geragos (29:06)

By the way, both of you, both of you weren't even born when there was an Lada by the name of J. Miller Levy who's legendary in the prosecutorial lore, who was the first guy I think in 1954 who got a conviction with nobody and became kind of the premier trial lawyer prosecutor who prosecuted no body cases. You would think that the AI or the search engines would know that.

Matt Murphy (29:30)

I did, I did five of these. As you know, Mark, I do know that juries do not like to give the benefit of successfully disposing of of their victim to accused murderers. In my experience, I never, never had any issue.

Mark Geragos (29:45)

It's interesting you say that, Matt. I find from a defense standpoint it is you get more traction with jurors if you own the act and you focus on the mens rea as opposed to denying what seems to be the obvious act and trying to say, you know, speaking of sods, some other guy did it. You know, the sadat defense.

Phil Holloway (30:12)

Right.

Matt Murphy (30:12)

Well this is, and you're absolutely right, this is a very interesting one. And we'll keep everybody informed on this. We're going to be watching it. I'm kind of pacing the silence. This is one that makes me want to be a prosecutor again but for the next time.

Mark Geragos (30:24)

You always want to be a prosecutor.

Phil Holloway (30:26)

That's most the easiest thing.

Mark Geragos (30:30)

Exactly. I could train a, I could train my 3 year old granddaughter to say what happened next.

Matt Murphy (30:38)

A little more complicated than that, but okay. So next up we've got a Texas A and M student who plummeted 17 stories after a football game and a missing woman from Michigan was found dead and her parents, parents are the suspects. That is a very, very interesting one. Remember you can email us, we love to read your comments and story suggestions. Everybody can email us@mktruecrimelmaycare media.com hey, Ryan.

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Matt Murphy (33:01)

Welcome back to MK True Crime. And this is a horrific case. A missing pregnant woman, Rebecca park was found dead late last month. And now her biological mom and her stepfather are charged with her murder. Rebecca was 38 weeks pregnant at the time she was killed and allegedly her parents cut her baby from her abdomen. This is one, guys, I got to tell you, it's almost, it's so horrific. It's almost a family feel good story for the holidays. And what I mean by that is, as we all gather for Thanksgiving and the holidays, we've all got that one relative that we're not maybe necessarily looking forward to seeing. And whatever you got going on for the viewer in your family, I guarantee you're going to feel a little better about your family after hearing this. This is something else. Phil, why don't you start us off, give us a little background on this one.

Phil Holloway (33:57)

Well.

Phil Holloway (33:59)

This is just evil incarnate. I mean, look.

Phil Holloway (34:05)

The biological father, right, I guess, and his wife are accused of.

Phil Holloway (34:11)

Literally tearing this baby from the womb of their own biological daughters. Not the people that raised Rebecca park as we understand it. But it's almost like this. We've seen this before, unfortunately, where people will steal a baby from a, from a pregnant or expecting mother. But we don't always see it where, you know, the parents do it. We also have some interesting sort of side developments on this. The same day her body was found, her older fiance, which is a 43 year old repeat offender by the name of Richard Lee Fowler, was arrested and charged with distributing methamphetamine. Park's sister, by the way, Kimberly Park, 21 years old, was arrested on November 26, charged with tampering with evidence in a criminal case, lying to a police officer during a violent crime and filing a false report of a felony. Kimberly's arraignment. At that arraignment, the detectives alleged that she lied to police when she claimed their stepfather had struck park in the head, causing a seizure and then took her body away. So here we have this just bizarre set of facts where even the sister, I guess, is trying to cover for the alleged murder. I don't really understand this other than to say this is, this is evil. And if they're guilty, everybody's presumed innocent, of course, but this is the kind of thing that is truly evil. And.

Phil Holloway (35:41)

I just can't really wrap my head around it. We've seen all kinds of crazy motives. We've seen cases where, you know, mothers and grandmothers will kill their, their son in law. Right. Like down in Florida. But we just don't see this kind of an evil murder involving family members too often, fortunately. But this is one that, that we're going to have to keep watching. I'm very curious to see if my theory is correct, that the motive was that these folks just really wanted to have a baby because they'd been trying. And I think it's been sort of established more or less that they had had difficulty having a child of their own. So they wanted to go to this kind of crime, cruel, depraved act to kind of steal one. But it's just one of these things that we hope we don't see very often. Your point, Matt, is a good one, that this is truly the most dysfunctional family we've seen in a very, very long time.

Matt Murphy (36:38)

Yeah, Mark, you represent the rich and famous, but I know you've had a little experience with what they call the kingdom of tweakerdom, where you're talking about methamphetamine, because that was what her, her Fiance was actually charged with and by. Every man in this from. Has been charged with sex crimes. And I think two or three of the individuals involved in various stages of this are registered sex offenders. Her fiance allegedly is a registered sex offender who's arrested for methamphetamine distribution the very same day her body was found. So this is a rough group of people. Mark, what are your thoughts?

Mark Geragos (37:20)

So this reminds me of a case I tried. I was on the third retrial in Riverside many years ago, and I. On the third retrial, all of a sudden, the cop who was the last witness and the investigator was testifying about my client and said, did. He was asked the question by the da. Did he? Did. Did. I'm not going to say his name because he was never convicted. But did he tell you why he had dolphin porn in his possession? And he.

Matt Murphy (37:54)

You said dolphin porn?

Mark Geragos (37:56)

Dolphin porn. And. And the. And I. I admittedly am asleep at the wheel. And he answers, yeah, he said his first wife used to like to, you know, screw the German shepherd. And he got kind of addicted to it. And I then asked to approach. You know, it was one of those things. You guys have both been there when, you know, maybe you haven't. But I. The last thing you want to show the jury is that you've just fucked up royally. So I asked to approach and say, your honor, I'm ineffective as a matter of law. I didn't object. I should have motion and eliminate this. I. I don't know what happened. Anyway, judge denies it, says, you know, sorry, and the jury hangs. And I. I mean, I lost sleep for two days. I could not sleep. And I. Afterwards, I'm asking the jurors, how did you hang after hearing that? And the. One of the. I would never forget. Juror number four said, oh, Mr. Gerrigas, you gotta see what happens here in Riverside on a Saturday night. And I, you know, speak to you.

Matt Murphy (38:58)

Are you suggesting there's methamphetamine in Riverside County, California? Mark?

Mark Geragos (39:01)

I'm going to leave it at that because I don't want the chamber of commerce to send us nasty emails. But there are various pockets in the state of California where there's, as you can, to quote my jurors, you can't believe what goes on on a Saturday night.

Matt Murphy (39:17)

Yeah, I had. In my. In my homicide case at one point, I had about a dozen cases, And I think nine of the 12, even in the cities that I represented or that. That I prosecuted for Newport, Costa Mesa, Laguna and Irvine, nine of the 12 murders that were assigned to me at that point were somehow meth related, methamphetamine on board. And what you see for the viewer. And Phil, you've probably seen a ton of this too, down in Georgia. You know, people make unbelievably bizarre decisions when they're, when they're using substances like that. And a lot of times you hear stuff like, how does the sister get charged with tampering with the evidence regarding the murder of her own sister? This is the kind of stuff that happens in that world. And again, it's all allegations at this point. These people, of course, are presumed innocent, but the prosecutor involved in this said that this was one of the most evil things that she had ever seen. So this will be a sad one to watch, but boy, it is. Yeah, it's just a horrific one. Let's move on to this Texas A and M student. This one is really sad. Apparently this afternoon, just a few minutes.

Mark Geragos (40:21)

Ago.

Matt Murphy (40:24)

The coroner ruled this a suicide. And the police released information that a forensic review of her phone showed deleted suicide note. This was a young woman who fell to her death or jumped to her death. She was 19 years old, Texas A and M. And her mother is insisting that something happen in the party. I'm sure each one of you has dealt that. Let me toss this one to you, Phil. Have you ever had one of those cases before where the evidence is pretty clear, but the parents can't wrap their head around the idea of a suicide?

Phil Holloway (41:02)

Well, I go back to my days in law enforcement, and the answer is yes. It's, you know, obviously the kind of thing that no parent wants to have to go through experiencing the, the death of a child. It seems like maybe it might be something that they can eat more easily accept if, if it was something other than the self, self inflicted intentional death. This was one, though, where law enforcement was taking a lot of heat from the mother and other people. And so law enforcement has come out now and, you know, basically issued some information to the media that showed that there were.

Phil Holloway (41:46)

There were signs, okay, there were text messages where she had expressed suicidal ideation and there was a fight with the boyfriend. Just like a moment on the phone, like, just like a moment. But before she fell to her death in law school, I took a course. I forget the name of it, but one of the things that we were studying about was something called a psychological autopsy, which is where law enforcement will look at the person's mental status. They'll look at whether there was any signs that might lend towards suicide versus homicide. It basically Does a deep dive into the person's psyche. This was before we studied this, before the. Of social media and computer search history. But obviously that's going to be a big part of it as well. She actually went so far, according to law enforcement, as to have written a suicide note and had then deleted it off of her phone. I think it was probably on the notes application or something along those lines. So the mother is understandably very upset. She believes that. And I believe we have slot three on this. The mother has come out and said that this was obviously not a homicide, but it was not a suicide, but it was a homicide. We can roll that sod.

Courtroom Officer (43:01)

There's a lot of inconsistencies with the story. He told me that they said she jumped, and then he told me that the friends said that they didn't know her whereabouts. Now, there was a fight that happened between my daughter and another girl, and they were all staying in the same apartment that I have actual text messages, messages of. And the detective just, he disregarded them.

Phil Holloway (43:26)

So I think, like, and I'll turn this back over to you guys, but. But like, when you have so many people that were interviewed that were, you know, potential witnesses in this case, there's no way that they're going to be able to get their story straight and all give, you know, essentially the same version unless it's the truth. So I feel like the. The evidence in this case supports the law enforcement conclusion that this was not a homicide. But obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the family of this young lady who did die so tragically.

Matt Murphy (43:57)

Yeah, Let me share a quick story. I had a case once where this guy was a. What we call a thumper and a choker. So he'd been married a couple times, and he had this really well documented history of domestic violence where he would choke his former partners. And this guy was pretty successful guy in the financial world, but he had that this weird thing. And he had a young woman that he was dating. It was actually his fiance. And she wound up. She was discovered. Rigor had already set in. That's rigor mortis. She had finger marks on her neck, and she'd been asphyxiated. And we charged murder because it looked like a domestic violence case where the parents or the neighbors had heard lots of. Of fighting and banging inside the apartment. And so I went ahead and I pulled the trigger. And we were waiting for tox results. Mark, you've probably had this happen to you before or seen cases like this where I'm full speed ahead. I Charge this guy with a. It looks like your standard domestic violence murder, which is the bread and butter of any, any homicide unit. That's the vast majority.

Mark Geragos (45:07)

Boy, I know where this is headed.

Matt Murphy (45:08)

You know where this is going. And turns out we get the tox results back. She's got a stomach full of sleeping pills. And when you, when you commit suicide with sleeping pills, you die of asphyxia. You stop breathing. So the, the initial cause of death was correct, but we just hadn't gotten the tox back. And what happened was sure enough, they had a big fight. Sure enough, this guy, true to his character, choked her unconscious and. But he didn't kill her. And she woke up and went in and. And committed suicide. And I actually had to make that phone call to her mom because I charged murder. And I had to break the news to this poor mother that her daughter actually had suicided out of depression.

Mark Geragos (45:52)

And I cannot imagine that phone call because. Yeah, I don't know about you in private practice or you, Phil, but I have this with great frequency. When a coroner rules suicide, often the parents can't accept it. And it's one of the toughest things in the world. It's unimaginable, frankly, as a parent and God, Matt, for you to have to charge murder, which gives some kind of momentary relief, is not the right word, but gives you a pause in your grief and then have to say, no, I was wrong.

Matt Murphy (46:31)

Wow, that was brutal. It's brutal on the mom. But we did prosecute him for the domestic violence. A colleague of mine, Brahim Betai, who, you know, Mark and that guy wound up getting. I think Brahim got like six or seven years in state prison given his history and everything else. And so there was some justice at the end, but that is just. That is just brutal for the families. Okay, so next we're going to move on to viewer questions and our closing argument.

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Matt Murphy (48:55)

We will get to our closing arguments and your mail. But first, did you know that you can listen to NK True Crime on the Megyn Kelly Channel on Sirius XM as part of the Megyn Kelly podcast playlist? NK True Crime will air Tuesday at 10am Eastern and Saturdays at 9am and 10am on the Sirius XM channel 111. Now let's get into the mailbag. Phil, I'm going to toss this one to you if you could read. We got a question from Vivian.

Phil Holloway (49:24)

All right, so yeah, Vivian has written to us guys. And this is directed directly to you Mark, from Vivian. She says love the show. I listen every week. This is a question from Matt Murphy. In your experience prosecuting no body murders, has a body ever been found after a person was convicted? Does this ever happen? What steps are taken legally if that does happen? And thank you again for the terrific show. All right, Matt, that's for you. What you got bud?

Matt Murphy (49:51)

Yeah, so that is a really interesting question. So like we talked about before, I've done five of these cases and none of those five have the bodies been found. One, one of those was the Tom and Jackie Hawks, which Mark actually helped me with a little bit back in the day. I've told that story at the Megyn Kelly roadshow.

Mark Geragos (50:10)

But the.

Matt Murphy (50:11)

You know that it could potentially impact the appellate process, Vivian, depending on what's found on the body. In other words, if the prosecution theory is that somebody was shot or they were stabbed and they discover bones someplace that might not have injuries consistent, that could be the type of thing that's brought up on what's known as a habeas petition where new evidence has come to light. So it's always an interesting prospect. I have not had that happen on any mind, but I've got two cases where we got a pretty good idea of the area in the California desert where those bodies are. One was my Judy Velock case, and another was my Chris Smith case, where my. My victim, Chris Smith was. Was taken out to the desert by his business partner, Ed Shen. And that's one that I am convinced one day we will find that body. And that's going to be real interesting. I look forward to that day because it'll bring some closure to the family. I hate that word closure, but it will bring some finality once and for all to his poor family members. But that's a great question.

Phil Holloway (51:15)

All right. All right. Well, we're going to do, I guess, closing arguments. Mark had said he wanted to go last. Matt, you're the rebuttal here. Are you going to let him go last?

Mark Geragos (51:26)

Exactly. I want my rebuttal. I mean, so many times, you know, having that so people understand in criminal. Because the prosecution has the burden of proof. As a defense lawyer, you give, you know, the prosecutor gets up, they give their opening closing. You, as the defense lawyer, get up and give your one closing. And then the worst part of the trial, bar none, next to maybe waiting for the jury deliberation, is having to stand up and listen to Murphy just eviscerate your case. And so, Matt, to you.

Matt Murphy (52:01)

Well, we've been pretty easy on you today, Phil. Why don't you take us away on this one? I'll go second and then we'll give Mark his final rebuttal.

Phil Holloway (52:11)

All right, So a lot of times at this point in the show, for my closing argument, so to speak, I'll talk about problems exist in the justice system, things that lead to maybe, you know, wrongful convictions and things like that. I'm gonna go a little lighter now. And we got Christmas and Hanukkah and the holidays coming up. So what I want to do is Just take a brief moment and say thank you. Obviously, thank you to my fellow MK True Crime contributors, but thank you to our audience. Thank you for watching on YouTube, thank you for subscribing on YouTube, thank you for subscribing to the podcast and thank you, thank you for listening to us now on Sirius XM on the Megyn Kelly Channel. If, if it weren't for you folks in our viewing and listening audience, we would not be as successful as we have been now over the four months that we've been doing MK True Crime as part of the MK Media family. And so I just want to express my gratitude. We are now approaching, as we, as we speak here today, approaching 40,000 subscribers on YouTube. And by the way, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe. And if you like this content, if you like this kind of format, if you like the material, tell somebody, tell your, tell your neighbor, tell your mother, tell your father, tell your brother, even your mail carrier when they bring your Christmas cards. Look, if you like True Crime, check out this MK True Crime. Because I would like to see if you guys could do me a favor and help us grow this. I'd like to get to say, 45 or 50,000 subscribers maybe by Christmas before the end of the year. But in any event, I want to just say a sincere thank you because I feel like we have been very successful. We got, we started off, we were going to talk about the Brian Kohberger trial. We were going to launch this program around that trial and we got a curveball when he pled guilty. But we were able to pivot and start the show with other cases and other things that I think we've done, done very, very well. So thank you to our viewing audience and our listening audience for helping us be so successful. That's it. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy Holidays and thank you again.

Matt Murphy (54:20)

Awesome. So I, I want to talk very briefly about the media and standing up to the mob. This is, it's an interesting thing going from being a DA and having some high profile cases and working with the media to now doing some defense work and seeing how public sentiment can be changed, manipulated or otherwise kind of get it wrong. I got a case right now involving a kid on an E bike and there was involving a man. Things were basically, there was a video that was released that only showed half of the story. And it, it's interesting from this side of the fence to see how things can go wrong when you've got evidence that you don't want to release, especially in a case involving juveniles that show the other side of the story. And in the South Bay where I live in Southern California, you get all these kids on e bikes riding around. I don't know if that's a national problem, but it's basically a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds who, you know as 14 and 15 year olds do. There's been some problems and they get together and they're like these little electric chopper gangs going around. And my community has kind of had it with these guys. Well, the straw that broke the camel's back is this case that I become involved in where we have the entire video. And I've got to say, despite public outrage and public sentiment, essentially what happens, there's an adult man who starts this entire confrontation with these kids. And what gets released to the media is, is just showing the end where they basically defend one of their buddies that he goes after. All the kids are 14 years old. And I gotta say, I've got a couple of young detectives on this, the Hermosa beach police department, who followed the evidence and did exactly what police officers are supposed to do. They put the, put together this case. They did an outstanding job. They, they maintained an open mind and they listened to the defense and they listened to the parents of this one kid who's basically at the bottom of the, this pile and realized that he was, he was a victim. And, and they kept an open mind despite the media. And I'm just, I'm. Every once in a while the process really does work the way it's supposed to. And sometimes they got to go against popular opinion to do that. So kudos to those detectives. And you know, it's. Again, it's one of the things you learn in this business as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer, you really do have to keep an open mind and hear all the evidence before you make any decisions. So that's my closing argument today. Takes a lot of integrity to do that. And sometimes the system actually works.

Mark Geragos (57:05)

You know, this is why.

Matt Murphy (57:07)

Yeah, let's kick it to you.

Mark Geragos (57:08)

Yeah, this is why Matt Murphy is so good. Because here I was hoping that he was going to take a prosecutorial stance and he was going to come in here that he was going to slam the defense like he wants to do, and instead what does he do? He tells a story about the Sisyphean task of a defense lawyer against all odds. So, you know, Matt, I give you kudos to you for taking all the wind out of my sails because I, I was actually going to talk about, and I'll just mention it because I saw it last night and the use of pardon power. And the President Trump used his pardon power last night yesterday to pardon a guy that I've run into over the years, Tim Leiwek. Tim used to be run right down the street here, the old Staples arena and the AEG for which is now crypto. And Tim was indicted by Trump's own Justice Department in July of this year. And the president pre trial just granted him a full and unconditional pardon last night. And I watched my usual channels for about an hour last night, which is all I could take with people freaking out and why is he doing this? And litter. And you know, it occurred to me that there are only two.

Mark Geragos (58:35)

Things that you can't appeal in the criminal law. And the pardon is one and the not guilty is the other. And if somebody presented to the President the idea that this was a ill informed and ill conceived prosecution, why do you have to wait? Because this was the argument yesterday. Oh, just wait and let the system work. You know, there's an old expression, you can beat the rap, but not the ride. And so I think if it was presented to the President, somebody got his ear and said this is ill conceived. And even though it's your own Justice Department. And he issued the pardon because of that. And full disclosure, I met Tim and I've always been a huge fan. I was glad to see it. And the pardon power, as I just indicated, is absolute and absolutely used appropriately here, in my opinion.

Matt Murphy (59:33)

All right guys, well.

Matt Murphy (59:37)

Great segment. I couldn't agree with you more, Mark, on that one.

Mark Geragos (59:42)

It's just why, why I, I didn't understand all the pearl clutching about. So somebody says, you know, they're going to own it and say, okay, this is conceived, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pardon, why not? What's the problem with that?

Phil Holloway (59:57)

I know we're wrapping up, but before we, before Matt closes us out, before the show Matt and I were talking about in the Fulton county fiasco that's recently wrapped up, how many people's lives were destroyed over the last three or four years of an ill conceived prosecution?

Mark Geragos (60:13)

Right, exactly to your point. That poor guy, you probably know him. Chesbrough, I can never pronounce his name right, but a lawyer, by the way, not a dyed in the wool Republican, a Democratic lawyer who decided to dispense legal advice and push the envelope. And he ends up. Because he doesn't want to, because this happens all too often. He pleads to a misdemeanor or something, which cascades his life out of control and his career and everything else. I mean, why do you have to force people through that on these kinds of forced legal theories that are unique, so to speak. And intellectually, we've got that in California. John Eastman is being presently. I think the recommendation is disbarment because God forbid he came up with a legal theory that didn't fit the norm.

Matt Murphy (61:04)

Yeah, that's prosecutorial power and politics. As Judge Greg Jones always used to say in Orange county, it is always a toxic cocktail. And I think he's exactly right on that. And look, right is right, wrong is wrong. And again, that public sentiment and politics kind of go hand in hand, too. And you can't write past injustices by creating new ones. And that's one of the things about America, right, guys? The Constitution gives us individual rights. That's why I still believe it's the best system in the world. And yeah, I really appreciate those comments, Mark. I'm glad you shared that with us. So I want to thank my fellow contributors, the great Mark Garagos and Phil Holloway. And thank you for joining us today at NK True Crime. I hope everybody has a wonderful weekend and a great holiday season.

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