The Delphi Murders: Richard Allen on Trial: Day Sixteen: The Bullet

Summary

Episode Summary: Murder Sheet - "The Delphi Murders: Richard Allen on Trial: Day Sixteen: The Bullet"

Release Date: November 6, 2024

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Murder Sheet, hosts Áine Cain, a seasoned journalist, and Kevin Greenlee, an experienced attorney, delve into the sixteenth day of the trial of Richard Allen, the accused in the Delphi murders. Titled "The Bullet", the episode offers an in-depth analysis of pivotal courtroom moments, witness testimonies, and the evolving dynamics of the trial.

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Courtroom Challenges and Media Accuracy ([05:07] - [08:45])

The episode opens with Áine and Kevin addressing the challenges they face in accessing live court sessions. Due to ever-changing courtroom rules, the hosts express frustration over missed afternoon sessions, emphasizing the impact of external factors on their reporting:

Kevin Greenlee [05:07]: "We did not make it into the afternoon session today. It's a crazy situation. Rules are changing constantly."

They lament the spread of misinformation stemming from inaccurate media coverage, stressing the importance of accurate reporting to honor the victims and their families:

Áine Kane [09:13]: "This is how rumors start. And it's just... these are real people."

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Witness Examination: Dr. Stuart Grassian ([20:46] - [37:16])

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the testimony of Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist specializing in the effects of solitary confinement. Presented by the defense attorney Brad Rosie, Dr. Grassian discusses the psychological toll of prolonged isolation:

Brad Rosie [23:59]: "Solitary confinement is an enormously lonely, helpless environment."

During cross-examination, Stacey Deener probes Dr. Grassian's methodology, questioning the validity of his conclusions based solely on photographic evidence:

Stacey Deener [25:13]: "You need to have a motion in lemonade for Anya not to steal cereal."

Áine and Kevin critique the limitations of Dr. Grassian's testimony, arguing that his rambling explanations detract from the trial's focus:

Áine Kane [37:16]: "I think, yes. I agree. At this rate, we have not."

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Forensic Analysis: Eric Warren and the Bullet Evidence ([37:16] - [77:04])

The heart of the episode centers on the forensic examination of the bullet found at the crime scene. Eric Warren, a forensic consultant from SEP Forensic Consultants, is introduced to challenge the prosecution's ballistic evidence linking the bullet to Richard Allen's gun.

Key Points:

• Methodology Concerns: Warren critiques the documentation process used by Melissa Oberg from the Indiana State Police, highlighting the reliance on photographs rather than direct examination:

  Áine Kane [59:14]: "Could a bullet change? Could, like, could... could the markings change if a gun was disassembled?"

• Cross-Examination Tactics: Defense attorney Luttrell employs strategic questioning to undermine Warren's credibility, emphasizing inconsistencies in his analysis and questioning his accreditation standards:

  Kevin Greenlee [63:35]: "What does it say to your note?"

• Impact on Prosecution's Case: The hosts discuss how the defense's successful cross-examination could cast doubts on the forensic evidence, potentially weakening the prosecution's position:

  Kevin Greenlee [64:26]: "If this witness is accepted by the jury and is not discredited, that could possibly be a problem for the prosecution."

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Technical Discussions and Jury Implications ([77:04] - [86:37])

Áine and Kevin explore the technical aspects of the forensic evidence, including the use of Consecutive Matching Striae (CMS) and its reliability in ballistic analysis:

Áine Kane [64:35]: "CMS is consecutive matching striae, and it's essentially used by forensics to quantify..."

They also touch upon smartphone evidence challenges, referencing phone expert Stacy Eldridge's testimony regarding the manipulation of Libby German's phone:

Kevin Greenlee [78:18]: "Phone was lying in dirt... may have been falsely reading that it had been manipulated due to water damage."

The hosts express their concern over the trial's trajectory, noting the heightened tensions and potential for further complications as the trial nears its conclusion:

Áine Kane [86:28]: "It's gotten so chaotic and people are just behaving so bizarrely..."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts ([86:37] - [91:10])

As the trial approaches its final stages, Áine and Kevin reflect on their role as reporters, emphasizing their commitment to truthful and accurate reporting amidst the chaos:

Áine Kane [86:37]: "Thank you all so much for your patience with us."

They express hope for resolution in the case, acknowledging the emotional toll it has taken on all parties involved:

Kevin Greenlee [86:15]: "We fully expect this to get to the jury this week."

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Notable Quotes

• Kevin Greenlee [05:07]: "We did not make it into the afternoon session today. It's a crazy situation. Rules are changing constantly."

• Áine Kane [09:13]: "This is how rumors start. And it's just... these are real people."

• Áine Kane [59:14]: "Could a bullet change? Could, like, could... could the markings change if a gun was disassembled?"

• Kevin Greenlee [64:26]: "If this witness is accepted by the jury and is not discredited, that could possibly be a problem for the prosecution."

• Áine Kane [64:35]: "CMS is consecutive matching striae, and it's essentially used by forensics to quantify..."

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Final Remarks

This episode of Murder Sheet masterfully navigates the complexities of a high-profile trial, offering listeners a nuanced understanding of the legal strategies, forensic debates, and emotional undercurrents that define the quest for justice in the Delphi murders case. Áine and Kevin's insightful commentary serves as a valuable resource for true crime enthusiasts seeking depth and clarity amidst the often-clouded landscape of courtroom proceedings.

Transcript

[Anya Kane]

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[Anya Kane]

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[Anya Kane]

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[Anya Kane]

Content Warning this episode contains discussion of the brutal murder of two girls as well as topics in mental health like suicide.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So today we will continue our coverage of the trial of Richard Allen and we will be discussing what happened in trial this morning and a little bit about this afternoon, but we'll explain that in just a moment.

[Anya Kane]

My name is Anya Kane, I'm a.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee.

[Anya Kane]

I'm an attorney and this is the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the murder sheet.

[Anya Kane]

And this is the Delphi murders. Richard Allen on trial, day 15. The bullet. Jack.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let's start, as we have in recent days, by doing a bit of housekeeping. Particularly by that, I mean that homage must be paid to our Lifesavers. Anya, please. Okay, so give them their due.

[Anya Kane]

I will. Thank you so much to Sierra Bowman and Kay Heidenreich. I'm really sorry if I said both of your last names wrong or your first names. Things are. Things are quickly devolving here. But we really appreciate. Appreciate both of you for doing this. And they're both two timers now, so.

[Kevin Greenlee]

They'Re in the two timers wing of the Lifesavers Club.

[Anya Kane]

Yes. And we just appreciate them so much, we couldn't.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Anya, what. What is this Lifesavers Club you speak of?

[Anya Kane]

What is this, like an infomercial? So, yes, the Lifesavers are our wonderful line sitters who help us get in every day. Without them, we would be very sleep deprived and probably not getting in as much as we are.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Without them, we literally would not be able to do the show because in order to get in to Tuesday's session, you need to line up starting before Monday session ends.

[Anya Kane]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So there would literally be no time to record at all.

[Anya Kane]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And then you would all be deprived of our valuable blathering.

[Anya Kane]

Valuable blathering. And I just want to say, the other day, I just used first names because I was rushing. But the other lifesaver was Julie Wood. And I want to thank her too. I felt bad. I was haunted by that. I'm like, I did. I keep saying everyone's last name and then I kind of flunked out on that one. So sorry about that, everybody. But. But here we go.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Especially to Julie.

[Anya Kane]

Especially to Julie. But I. We appreciate all of you guys.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Homage must be paid.

[Anya Kane]

Okay, We're. We're paying the. The homage. And. Yeah, so I guess we can go into.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, so there's some more housekeeping. As I alluded very mysteriously in the. We call in the business the cold open.

[Anya Kane]

What is this Law and order? Geez.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, as I alluded, we did not make it into the morning. Pardon me? We did not make it into the afternoon session today. It's a crazy situation. Rules are changing constantly. Some rules we thought we definitely had an end to get in all day, and the rules changed about in the middle of the morning session, and suddenly we didn't have that method, and we didn't have time to come up with something else. Behind the scenes, the rules are Changing constantly.

[Anya Kane]

I feel like next we're going to like, Judge Go is going to make it so that no one can come in unless they're wearing a very silly hat, like it's getting to the point or no one can come in unless they plan an elaborate heist in order to get into the building in the first 10 teams get in.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So the rules are changing constantly. And behind the scenes, even though we have stopped talking about it so much, we are actually expending a great deal of time and effort and mental energy to try to continue navigating all those rules changes so we can continue to get in. But the rules change so abruptly today that that didn't happen and we did not make it in this afternoon. Optimistic for tomorrow, but who knows?

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, I'm not. I mean, like, I am, but like, at this point, I don't know. Who knows?

[Kevin Greenlee]

One thing that has different now is that there are groups of people who are rabidly pro defense and they have made the decision that they want to block from the courtroom anyone who is not themselves rapidly defense. And so what they would do is they would get a lot of seats. They would get in line early and get lots and lots of seats. And then as soon as the court starts its session, many of them will leave.

[Anya Kane]

These are public access warriors. They want to deprive the public access even more than Judge Gall on that level.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So it's now a situation where they would then leave and go downstairs and get in line for the afternoon session, which means that there are no seats available for the afternoon session unless you choose to skip the morning session. And to me, this reminds me of a bit of, I think we all know instances where a person, for whatever reason, they have a grudge against a particular company. So they say, oh, I know what I'll do. I'll buy one of that company's products and then set it on fire. And the fact is, by doing that, you've still given that company your money and attention, and so you've kind of shot yourself in the foot. And when they do this sort of thing, they're basically keeping people out of the courtroom and keeping those people from hearing the defense message, which they ostensibly believe is a good one. And I would think if I thought, if I believed rapidly in the defense and I thought they had a great message, I'd want the world to hear it. They seem to want to keep the world out, which to me signifies that perhaps even the most rabid fans of this defense team ultimately don't have much confidence in what this defense team is putting forward.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, they're like. It's like trying to, like, shield your elderly relative from the scrutiny of the world as they, like, stumbled down the stairs or something. It's bizarre behavior. And, I mean, it's not really that surprising to either of us because we've been doing this for a while, so we've kind of seen some of the mentality behind some of this bizarre behavior. But.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I want to apologize because in some way I feel, and I think Anya feels, too, that. That we've let you down by not being able to get in this afternoon.

[Anya Kane]

Yep, we did. I mean, we did because we. I mean, like, there's no pretty ing that up. No offense. Like, I don't feel anything anymore because I'm just, like, dead inside at this point. But, like, I'm like, if we don't get in, and if nobody with, like, any sort of rational perspective gets in, I feel like a lot gets lost.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It. It's really been striking to me. I haven't. I've not spent much time looking at other coverage of the trial, but when I have looked at other coverage of the trial, it is striking to me how much that is reported. That just is completely different from what I'm seeing in that court.

[Anya Kane]

It just didn't happen. People are getting stuff wrong left and right. I don't think most of it is malicious. Some of it is, but I don't think most of it is. It's just people do not know what they're talking about.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Even. Even this morning, something happened in court that for whatever reason, maybe people got confused. You may have heard this, that there was. There was stories going around that this morning in court, the prosecution was objecting to a defense witness who was trying to answer a question. And supposedly, in frustration, a male juror cried out, let him answer. And that didn't happen.

[Anya Kane]

No. That would have been a huge deal.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And when you hear a story about that, you should ask yourself, well, if this is real, if it did happen, what would we have expected to happen next? And I think if a juror had an outburst like that, the very least, Judge Gould would make a big deal about it and they would no longer be on the jury.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, it would be a huge deal. You can't do that on a jury. There was, remember. Can I talk about the one that happened yesterday?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, before that. Let's. Let's continue talking about this and explain what really did happen.

[Anya Kane]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So there really was a defense witness on the stand, and the prosecution really was making Many objections. And we will get to that in a bit. And at one point, as the prosecutor, the very able prosecutor, you know the name. Yes. He, as he was making his objections, someone did cry out. Let him finish. But the person who cried that out was defense attorney Brad Rosie.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So I think what happened is that someone heard Rosie's voice saying that and then for whatever reason leapt to the conclusion. The person saying that was actually a juror and that didn't happen. And so my concern is if we continue to miss Sessions, more and more things will get out there that just aren't true. Do you want to talk about yesterday?

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. The other day it was reported, I don't even know where, but it was reported that Brittany Allen, when she was rather. I'm sorry, Britney Zaponta, Richard Allen's daughter, when she was on the stand, that when she was questioned about whether she loved her father, she said no.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And it was reported that the person doing the questioning was Andrew Baldwin.

[Anya Kane]

Yes. So first of all, I mean the Andrew Baldwin thing may not feel like a big deal, but Jennifer O.J. was doing the direct examination. First of all, she deserves credit for the work she's doing. And second of all, like that's a basic. It's not, you can't, like you're not going to confuse.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Ask yourself this. Would the defense have put Britney Zapata on the stand to say that she didn't love her father? Obviously they would not. Britney Zaponta on the stand said she loved her father.

[Anya Kane]

If she had said I don't love my father, the oxygen would have gone out of the room and that would have been like the headline for everyone of the day. Because that would have been a huge deal and a shocker because you would have been like, why did they put her on?

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I think the very least we owe the people in this case, whether they are associated with the prosecution or the defense or whoever, or the families of the victim. The very least we owe them is to take care to accurately report things they actually say and do.

[Anya Kane]

And now, like, I am sympathetic because I do feel like there's a bit of a fog of war situation going on here. I think this is where we were concerned about public access issues. It's not just self serving, although, heck, it would have been nice to get a media pass. But at the end of the day, some of the lack of access and maybe some of the inflexibility around things like overflow rooms and you know what, not have just, I think led to a lot more inaccurate sloppiness than we would have seen otherwise. I think there's a. There's something to be said for an overflow room where at least members of the press can get together and say, hey, did you. Did she say that? No. Oh, okay. I wrote that down wrong. That's not really happening as much as you would want it to, although I'm sure it's happening outside to a certain degree. But it's just. It's. It's very troubling to see because these are real people. And listen, everyone's capable of getting it wrong. We're not trying to, like, call anything or, like, oh, my God, these are the worst mistakes. It's just been more of, like, this is an ongoing issue that keeps happening, and as the listening public, you should be aware of it because, you know, I mean, even if you're hearing something just from us and, like, we're the outlier, then, like, pay attention to what the outlier is, because this is how rumors start. And it's just, again, like, I. I liken it. Like, this is a case we've. We've been so involved in for so long. Sometimes when I see all this stuff swirling around and there's so much of it, it feels like, you know, like the raiders have come into my village and they're burning it down, and I'm helpless to stop it because we're just one podcast. We're not perfect, and we're just trying our best to get in, doing our best, and, like, I don't even know what the heck we're saying half of the time. So maybe, like, you know, like, it's like, oh, man. Like, I just. We can't stop it. It's. We just. We're powerless. It's. It's very. I used to think, oh, if we put out the truth, then people will like that, and they will want to know more about it, and everything will be nice and rational and, like, damn, how naive was I? I was so naive.

[Kevin Greenlee]

In fairness, all the good people listening now care about the truth.

[Anya Kane]

They do.

[Kevin Greenlee]

But, like, we have a great audience. We have the best audience in the biz.

[Anya Kane]

I know. We really do. I love you guys. And just some, like, just. You're. You're wonderful, and we just appreciate you listening. But it's like. But the. But we're in a bubble with you guys, and I feel sometimes the wider world doesn't. Doesn't care. And I. I feel. I feel I've said this before, but I. I'm not. Like, people, like, don't feel bad, Anya. No, I do, because we're not. We're choosing to be here. And in order to justify us even being here, we need to be doing a good job clearing up stuff and making it so factual. Accuracy is carrying the day. And I don't feel like that's been happening. And I feel like we're, like, letting people down. And it bothers me because it's like this. The people associated with this case on all sides of it have been through a lot, and it's just. It's not. It's not fair. And it's like, what are we doing?

[Kevin Greenlee]

We owe them all the truth. Certainly there are some people on YouTube who. Part of the way they make their money is by basically, frankly, to be blunt, lying about the cave.

[Anya Kane]

Yes, that's so.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So. So there is that. And. But there's also a lot of mainstream coverage of this trial that is giving people completely the wrong impression about what is actually happening. And personally, if I felt that there were other venues doing a great job covering this case, I think I'd say, let's just go home.

[Anya Kane]

It's all very inconsistent and touch and go. And again, we're not calling out other reporters. It's like, again, it's a fog of war situation. We're all running around. But I don't. I've been really surprised by the amount of errors I've seen. Just, like, basic things, like, people confusing. Like a YouTuber who's friends with the Allen family for Janice Allen, Richard Allen's mother. They're not the same person.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, there was.

[Anya Kane]

Assumptions. Assumptions are just being made.

[Kevin Greenlee]

There was. We talked about a male YouTuber there. There's also a female YouTuber who sits with the Allens. I don't think she actually puts out an awful lot of content.

[Anya Kane]

No, no.

[Kevin Greenlee]

But she's basically a friend.

[Anya Kane]

My understanding is like a family friend at this point.

[Kevin Greenlee]

She is a friend of the Allen family. She is there to support them. The other day, after some of the videos that were shown, she got up to leave, and it was reported that that was Richard Allen's mother leaving. And she wasn't his mother. She's just a friend of the family.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, it's like. And it's like, again, that seems minor. Like, we're not trying to. But like, when you have, like, if that happened once, it's one thing, but there's just, like, this, like, death by a thousand cuts going on where it's like, I'm reading stuff, and it's like, none of this happened or like, or people are putting some spin on it because they don't understand how the legal system works. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's like. It is. To quote Dr. Polly Westcott from last night, it's like being in a fun house. I don't know which way is like.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I mean like, only with no fun.

[Anya Kane]

There's no fun.

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[Anya Kane]

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Moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at K L A V I y o.com but anyways, that's enough ranting. We just wanted to like apologize and.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let you know, I feel bad. I feel like we let all of you down.

[Anya Kane]

We did.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We did. We did. There's no. I love to talk.

[Anya Kane]

Sorry.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I love to talk my way around it. But we did. We've been doing our best. We've had pretty good luck so far.

[Anya Kane]

Thanks to a lot of help from a lot of wonderful people.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes, we could not do this alone. We are eternally grateful to everybody who has helped and we are sorry that we blew it this afternoon.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. But hopefully we can get back on the horse and just kind of figure it out.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And our understanding is this case is very near to ending. Very.

[Anya Kane]

It feels like it's on its last legs to me. But you know, I'm always very reluctant to get my hopes up because I, I do on some personal level would, would just want this to be done because it's, it's, it's rough.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's been over seven years.

[Anya Kane]

It's, it's Rough. It's. It's rough on us. But it's like these families have been waiting for this for years.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And over seven years, Ana and I have not. People often say that any. And I started covering this case from the beginning.

[Anya Kane]

We didn't even know each other in 2017.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I did not even know Anya Kane in 2017. But the families have been waiting for a decision in this case for seven and a half years. And I, I think I expect this trial to reach the jury within the next few days.

[Anya Kane]

I agree. At this rate. Yes. And I just, you know, so, like, it's. Hopefully we'll be able to see that all happen.

[Kevin Greenlee]

But we'll, but we'll see very much want that. So let's talk about what happened this morning that we did see.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, we saw all this. So.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So 8:45am Richard Allen walked into the courtroom accompanied by guards, as always. He looked around and he said, loud enough to be heard from the back of the room. He comes in, he's in the front of the room, we are all the way in the back, and he says, loud enough to be heard in the back of the room. Wow.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, he did. I wonder what he was talking about. I have no idea. It wasn't horrified or anything. It was just like, wow. Was that kind of basically it?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah.

[Anya Kane]

I will say that I saw that his. At some point in the morning, I saw his sister, Jamie Jones, his mother, Janice Allen, and his stepfather, Marvin Allen, and his wife, Kathy Allen. So it was a, it was a kind of a. Not quite a full turnout from the Allens, but certainly a robust turnout from the Allens today. Britney Zaponta, his daughter, was not there, but. But other than that, you know, that's having all of them there. And again, we mentioned his mother, Janice. We had heard sort of through courtroom talk that she may have had a fall, unfortunately, on one of the stairs at one point.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And what I've heard is that she may have broken her nose.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. Injured her nose. Broken her nose in some way. So she had not been there for a while, but it seemed like there was certainly a good reason for that. And I will say those stairs are, you know, they're marble, they're beautiful, but they can, they can be a bit scary to be on. So I think that would be reasonable to assume. But she was back today. So having not been there for a while anyways, let's see.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So there was a bit of talk before we actually got to witnesses concerning a filing which Anya and I had not seen. So I was a little confused.

[Anya Kane]

You were like motions in lemonade. What?

[Kevin Greenlee]

And they did not really talk about it in court at that time in a way that made it easy to understand. And I don't know, maybe some of you have had the experience where you're like, having a heated discussion with a spouse or a friend, and you're in front of other people. You don't necessarily want them to understand everything. So you kind of talk in a code language. And I felt they were initially talking in a code language, at least for those of us who hadn't read the filing. And I'll tell you now what it was about. Not the first witness of the day, but the second witness was a doctor, Dr. Grassian, Dr. Stuart Grassian. And he was going to testify about how being in solitary confinement can affect a person. And the prosecution was concerned that he would say, well, a person in solitary confinement might lose his mind and say things that aren't true, just like Richard Allen said things that aren't true. So, in essence, they did not want him to be able to testify about the falsity or the alleged falsity of Richard Allen's confessions. They go ahead and talk about solitary confinement till you're blue in the face. Just don't try to reach any conclusions about the credibility or lack thereof of other witnesses or other statements.

[Anya Kane]

Kind of. Why would it. Why would they be allowed to do that? Like, why shouldn't he just come to a conclusion? Is like, is there anything with. Like, he's not qualified to. Or like, what. What's the issue there?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, the thing is, the thing to remember is the ultimate trier of fact are the jury members. And by that, I mean, it is up to the jury to decide who is credible or not. This guy's not on the jury. It's not up to him to come up and say, well, here's. Here's who tells her the. Here's who's telling the truth, folks, and here's who's not telling the truth. That's not his. That's not his role. Certainly at the end, you know, the defense can try to make that argument, but that's not what a witness is there to do. Does that make sense?

[Anya Kane]

It makes a lot of sense. What I thought was funny was some of the back and forth on this.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Tell us about it.

[Anya Kane]

So Stacey Deener was the one doing cross on that, and Brad Rosie was doing direct. And so they're kind of going back and forth. And at one point, you know, Judge Gull ultimately sort of sided with Rosie but there was a caveat. So she was like, well, you know, the motion in lemonade says this, but according to these. This trial rule, this guy's not supposed to kind of. He's supposed to stay in his lane in that sense. He's supposed to do what the motion in lemonade is asking for. Is that basically what she said?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, that's like saying, I need to have. I need to file a motion in lemonade for Anya not to steal cereal. In theory, she shouldn't need to have a legal motion in order to stop her from doing that.

[Anya Kane]

Right. And so what. What she's saying is, like, you don't really. I don't need to grant this motion because this is what the defense is supposed to do. And, you know, and then she kind of looks at Rosie and is like, I basically. I trust that you've had this conversation with your witness, that he has to do this. This.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And she said, by the way, if he does start doing this, then we're going to have to have a conversation that won't be so pleasant out of the. The hearing of the jury and rules. He said, well, you know, just as a matter of courtesy, professional courtesy, I think I'm gonna go out there and have another conversation with this witness.

[Anya Kane]

I don't feel like the. I don't. I don't feel like that conversation ended up really sticking based on what we saw today. But, yeah, so, you know, he goes running out at some point, and I guess had that conversation with him, but I just thought that was funny. There's some tension, but she ended up not granting that. And I guess we'll talk about the first witness of the day.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The first witness of the day was actually someone we'd seen earlier in the trial.

[Anya Kane]

It was Elizabeth Betsy Blair. And she was done direct examination by Andrew Baldwin.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Remind us, if you will, Dear Anya. Aw. What did she testify to before?

[Anya Kane]

Betsy Blair is a woman who was walking on the trails that day, and she had a pretty important witness sighting. So she did. Would do loops of the trail for exercise. And she reported doing two loops and then coming back and reaching the Monon High Bridge. Those are doing two loops. Going to the restroom at the Delphi Library, coming back for the third loop that. For her kind of final loop, and comes up to the Monon High Bridge and finds bridge guy standing on the first platform of the bridge. He seems to be expecting someone. He turns and looks at her, and then she moves along. And she was one of the source for the. The younger guy sketch that was released Second, although it was drawn first and although she's since said that he could have been older and she may have been mistaking his poofy red, reddish brown hair for a hat, so, or rather she vice versa, switched those two things. The hat for the. She basically, she may have seen a hat instead of hair. And that's very important because a key part of Richard Allen's original story to law enforcement was that he was also on the first platform of the bridge, standing and watching the fish below. So this is yet another time when people are seeing bridge guy. And again, she very clearly identified bridge guy. She said the guy in Libby's video is the guy I saw. So people are seeing bridge guy. And then Richard Allen is putting himself in bridge guy's shoes in the place bridge guy was standing. So she's an important witness for the prosecution. And what the defense wanted, though, was for her to be an important witness.

[Kevin Greenlee]

For them too, because they said, well, that's not all she saw. What else did she see?

[Anya Kane]

Well, I'll give the defense some credit here. We've been disapproving of a lot of their witnesses, which I've again, we've rather colorfully likened to a hot Reddit post from 2019 that would have gotten everyone on, on the Delphi subs pretty excited. But now is just kind of useless because like, if Cheyenne Mill and her friends are hanging out at 3pm and the girls are dead at 2:32 or thereabouts, then who cares? It's too late. And even by the defense's own theory, if they're being transported in a vehicle, they're gone. So who cares what happens later in the day? All it tells us is data is like nothing was going on. But we already kind of figured out from the data that's been kind of put forward so far. But I will say this, at least with Blair today, the defense was a little bit more. Like this was a little bit more relevant. It's. It's not really. You had a different feeling about it where it's not quite as relevant, but like, I felt like I kind of got this more. So I was like, okay, let's hear them out on this. What Blair told police was that she saw a car at the old CPS building and that it basically didn't fit the description of Allen's Ford Focus.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And the car was parked near the CPS building, as Anya mentioned, which is empty. And it was parked, they said, in reverse, essentially, it was backed into the parking place. And Baldwin said, yes, as if someone Wanted to make a quick getaway.

[Anya Kane]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And Blair said the overall shape of the vehicle stood out. It had sharp angles, reminder of her car her father had. Had. She did not recall the color of the car, but she said it was not bright.

[Anya Kane]

She said, I think, I believe her dad had a 1965 Ford Comet. It was not bright, it was not red or yellow. And then Baldwin said, you know, basically you said it wasn't black. And of course I believe Alan's car was black. And she said, I don't recall saying that. But then he brought up her deposition from April 2, 2019. And in that she indicated she didn't think it was black. She. It wasn't black. So she said it was a non descript color. And once you also. She sketched it. She sketched it for police. She drew it just kind of like an outline of it. And she said it looked like a. Did not look like a hatchback. It looked like a four door sedan. What were you going to say? Boo.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I was like, why don't you go ahead and go through the cross and then I will explain my, my feelings about the, the ultimate value or lack thereof of today's testimony.

[Anya Kane]

Yes, sir. So Stacy Deer handled cross examination. She also. Now this is something where, you know, everyone keeps on this. You know, it's always like, well, you said this later, but then like the day after the murders that you're saying like, like everyone. It's kind of like a arms race to see who can get the best statement earliest. Because I think we all, if you ask me what happened today, tomorrow I could probably give you a good summary. But like a year from now, it might be a struggle to recall all the details. So it turned out. So we mentioned the 2019 deposition had some more of those details. But February 17, 2017, Blair gave a statement to investigators and that included the following information. She noticed a car closer to the building and found it odd just where it was parked because it wasn't parked where people usually parked there and it was not shiny, it was not new, it was a nondescript color and maybe an older model vehicle. And where I got where Diener was going with this is we heard from another defense witness, Brad Heath, who said he saw kind of an older looking car in that area. Is that fair?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

And Diener said that basically like now I didn't get this, so feel free to like fill in for me. But had, had Diener deposed Blair recently or had they talked?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I wasn't clear on that.

[Anya Kane]

It was not clear, but there was some kind of thing where it changed Blair's recollection. And she said, quote, you know, talking about, I believe, talking about the type of car that he described, which he said was not parked at the CPS but very nearby.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Right.

[Anya Kane]

She said, quote, I feel certain that that's the shape of the car at this time, end quote. And die also asked about her eyesight. She indicated that she wears contact lenses and has them on all the time. Baldwin did not do any follow ups.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And doing the juror questions and I'll.

[Anya Kane]

Say my piece, sure, but I mean like blah, blah. So what is my analysis of that? What you took away from it, that's.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What I took away from it.

[Anya Kane]

Basically Diener pushed it into being the Brad Heath car, which was already shown to not really be at cps.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Right.

[Anya Kane]

So it made it sound like Blair made. It may have made Muda may have made a mistake, but an understandable one because I mean it's a minor detail. And she, she indicated very strongly in 2017. I didn't get a lot of details on this. I think this witness was pushed and pushed and pushed over time to like, hey, do you remember this? Hey, do you remember this? And I think like that's a risky thing and I can understand why law enforcement was desperate to have those details. But it almost sounds like maybe that wasn't, you know, the best thing because maybe sometimes if someone just doesn't remember, they just don't remember. And so the jury questions seem to reflect some kind of misunderstanding about the CPS building. One was, is it possible the car belonged to an employee of the cps and what Blair indicated was correctly at the time the building was abandoned. And also the second question was, has anyone checked to see if it was an employee? And again, no, because the building was abandoned, there were no employees.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So here was my reaction to this and we can go back and forth about it. I don't know if you entirely agree with my reaction or not. So the, the inherent premise of the defense's questioning is that the state has claimed that the car parked at the CPS lot was the car of bridge guy, the car of the person who kidnapped and brutally murdered Abby and Libby. But the thing is, the other day when Lieutenant Jerry Holman of the United States Police testified, he clearly said, we don't have a theory about where he parked. We don't really care where he parked. We don't need to prove that because we know he was there by his own admission he was there. So we don't need to prove where he parked. It would be as if I said, anya, I promise you, I did not go to Captain D's last night. And then somehow you are able to get a picture of the parking lot two blocks away where I always park when I tried to sneak in a visit to Captain D's and say, ah, Kevin, there's your car. You were there. It's not a situation like that. It is if I said, anya, I went to Captain D's last night, and you said, oh, yeah, here's a picture of your car there, or here's a picture of another car there. Who cares?

[Anya Kane]

So you're basically saying you don't care where he parked.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters if this was his car or not, because we know by his own admission that he was there. And if we know that, why does it matter if this was his car or not? And the state, in the form of Jerry Holman, has explicitly said we don't have a theory about where he parked. Our theory covers what he did on that bridge and what he did immediately after.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, I hear you. I understand the need for people to want to fill in all the details. And this kind of element of it has long been something that's been raised by the state is important. But at the same time, I think also just the fact that I think Betsy Blair did the right thing, came forward, tried to give what she knew. But I don't feel like this was like a solid, yes, I saw the car, and I completely remember it. And here's exact. Like, this is vague. This is vague. And she's driving by, noticing something going about her day, not thinking in, you know, like, this is going to be really important later. Just like any of us driving by a building would not necessarily think it was going to be really important later. So to me, it's like, maybe she saw a different guard. Maybe she and Brad Heath saw the same car. That's totally unrelated. Maybe he was parked there. Maybe he wasn't. It. I guess I just, like, this seemed like a little bit more of an elevated version of some of what we've gotten from the defense, because at least it kind of had some bearing on things. But I think you're right.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Ultimately, I would just be more concerned about finding his car somewhere in the vicinity if I needed to prove that he was there. And we don't need to prove that he was there because he himself tells us I was there.

[Anya Kane]

Why?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Like, yeah, and there's a lot of different places he could have parked.

[Anya Kane]

I want to know more about what he was doing that day. Like, I know we know that his. Like, but, like, I don't know, how did the family breakfast go or whatever they were doing at his mom's house in the Peru, Mexico area? You know what I mean? Like, I. Like that would, like, was it a tense family get together? Was it normal? Was it, like, when did he see his wife that afternoon? Like, did he seem normal afterwards? Like, I know, like, they're not going to get into that, most likely, but I would love to know. And that would, for me, like, if I were on a jury, I'd be really wondering more about their client at this point and less about some of this kind of what feels like almost marginalia or minutia.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah. What was Richard Allen like in February of 2017, and what exactly was he doing on the 13th? Try to create some reasonable doubt. Shall we move on to the next witness?

[Anya Kane]

Can I just say something about his alcoholism? Because I've been thinking this, and I don't know if I said this yet on the show, but I apologize if I did just that. Like, he talked about there. Like, I forget when this came up when in the neuropsych or whatnot, but it was talked about where he was an alcoholic twice in his life. And that's terminology that I find confusing and disturbing because someone in recovery will tell you, like, you don't, you know, like, I'm not. Like, I haven't had a drink in years, but I'm not. I'm still an alcoholic. I. I'm not. Like, you don't. It's. You're not cured. You know, it's. You accept that about yourself and you realize that you're powerless over alcohol, and that's it. You don't. See, you can be 20 years sober, you can be 40 years sober, you're still an alcoholic. And part of winning or not winning, part of recovery is just knowing that. That about yourself. So you don't. You don't make, you know, relapse, essentially. And so the fact that he talked about descending into alcoholism twice, and it. And, and also the fact that he talks about then just kind of, you know, in his confession, possibly casually knocking out three beers and more later. It just seems like I would have loved to have more discussion about how his alcoholism kind of came about or, like, what, what. How that manifested itself. Like, would he become very belligerent when drunk or would he become more subdued? You know, like, I mean, there, There's. I mean, all kinds of different Possibilities. No alcoholic is going to be the same. No person. If you've ever, you know, even if you're not an alcoholic, a lot of people have different kind of modes of being drunk. Some people might get more aggressive, others might get more withdrawn, morose, silly, affectionate. I mean, all sorts of things. So I just, I don't know. That's something I've been really curious about for a while, but I don't think we're going to get any more information on that.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, I don't think we are, but.

[Anya Kane]

It was just, it was just telling the way he said that, that, like, that doesn't really, it doesn't sound like he was in any sort of, like, I don't know, I'd be curious if he did any sort of program. But if he did, I would not expect him to be like, yeah, I was an alcoholic, then I beat it, then I'm an alcoholic again, now I'm not. It's like, no, that's not, that's really not how it's talked about, how it works. No, not at all. So next we got to meet Dr.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Stuart Graciat, another witness for the defense. This witness was presented by lead counsel Bradley Rosie.

[Anya Kane]

And you know, this guy had a very impressive background. Education at Harvard, Brandeis, NYU Medical, more Harvard. He has a J.D. he's like, you know, and one of my, like, favorite books as a teenager was Dracula. And Van Helsing is, I believe he's a lawyer. He's J.D. and a physician. So this guy is also, he's a, he's got his jurist doctor, and he's got his medical school. He is a psychiatrist, board certified. He's taught on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. He also does clinical work out of his house. But what he's important about what he's. His importance to this trial is that he has become essentially an expert on the effects of solitary confinement.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You mentioned he was board certified. Was this the witness where Rosie said, well, I assume when you talk about being certified by a board, that means, like, there's a, a board that certifies you. Did that happen? In my imagination?

[Anya Kane]

No, that did happen. I heard you chuckle when he said that. Yeah, he's trying to be casual. I don't know. I think he's done a way better job, Rosie, on direct than he has on cross.

[Kevin Greenlee]

He is much better on direct.

[Anya Kane]

He's way better on direct. Like, I, I like he was terrible on cross examination, to be totally blunt. Like, for the most part, like, there were good ideas in There that just got lost in the woods of like, just nonsense. But on direct, I think he's, he's, he's much better. So gotta.

[Kevin Greenlee]

100, 100%.

[Anya Kane]

Gotta give him the credit on that. And he. Yeah, so there's the board. He's certified by the board. He completed his residency in 77. And he's, he's testified and we looked him up. He's testified in a lot of important high profile cases. One that comes to mind is the Millennium Bomber. He mentioned that, although I thought it was funny when Rosie tried to coax him to. One thing that's interesting is Rosie did not ask him about payment. Nobody did. So I don't know whether that means he's doing a pro bono or. I think he would have said that probably they could have. I mean, that would have been a nice layup for the defense. But no one asked him how much he was getting paid to be here. But he talked about working with the federal defenders on the Millennium Bomber case. And that was in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigations Behavioral Analysis Unit, according to him, where the guy had been cooperating. But then he went into solitary confinement and he stopped cooperating. And they wanted to get him back so he could cooperate more. So he was using that, even though he was working with the defense is like, I'll be willing to work with law enforcement because in this case, like it was to get this guy better so he could give us more information. So, you know, I mean, I didn't think that was a great example because he was working with the defense still. But like, I, I saw what he was saying. And he talks about how he basically his job is, with this to come in, talk about solitary confinement to jurors and talk about the psychological effects of it, psychiatric effects, to kind of understand the mental illness and how that's affected. And he's done cases where money has been awarded to prisoners who I think were wrongfully solitarily confined.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And he got involved in this case because Brad, Rosie reached out to him at some point and let him know that Richard Allen had made some incriminating statements while in solitary confinement. And so Rosie gave him a variety of reports, transcripts, of interviews, et cetera, et cetera. I believe most if not all of them were from November 22 to June of 23. And then Rosie said, well, what do you think about the incriminating statements he made? And the man began to say, well, it's no doubt that. And then Stacy Diener said, may we approach.

[Anya Kane]

The one thing he wasn't supposed to do. And I really wonder, did Brad Rosie really prep him at all, other than maybe a short conversation in the hallway? Because at times it didn't seem like it, or it didn't seem like this guy was regarding it anyway. But he talked about how he looked at Dr. Westcott's report, medical records, videos, but it sounded like the most problematic videos, frankly. Audio interviews with other inmates, you know, blah, blah, blah. And this is. This is all informing where he is. There's the sidebar, white noise machine goes on. Then they get back. So Brad Rosie starts out, let's talk about solitary confinement. What does that phrase mean, clinically? And he talked about how. What, what this confined. Like, basically individual confinement, usually in a small space, limited opportunities for different kinds of stimulation. Quote, it's an enormously lonely, helpless environment. End quote. That he also described as toxic for mental health. And yeah, I guess they. One thing that I think Diener asked a couple of foundational questions here.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

And one of them was like, did you ever visit the wcu? Did you ever visit Allen there?

[Kevin Greenlee]

And he did not.

[Anya Kane]

No. And one thing that I want to. I want to be clear. I thought Dr. Grassian was very impressive. His credentials are very impressive. He's worked on a lot of important cases and. And obviously feels very passionately about the fact that, you know, he believes that solitary confinement is always wrong. Even in instances, perhaps when it's done for safekeeping, like in Richard Allen's case, that's just too mentally toxic. And like, I mean, again, I found him very credible in that sense. But one thing with academic witnesses in particular is, I think, here we go. Well, no, it's not even really a criticism. It's more of just like a reality that you see. They can be very, very well informed and factual and. Or, you know, just passionate, perhaps. And. But the problem is sometimes they can be a little bit like, here we go. I don't know how to say it. Like, he would ramble a lot. He would kind of go off. He was kind of very professorial. And when you're in a lecture hall or like, kind of listening to someone like that, that might be exciting. Of like, ah, yes, it reminds me of a study I did. But. But what the attorneys want is a lot narrower.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, think of it like this. If I have a car, if I have problems with my car, and you said, kevin, what's wrong with your car? I'd say, oh, it won't start. But if I am a car mechanic and you ask me what's wrong with my car, I'll go into a lot more detail about what exactly is wrong with the car that is making it unable to start. And I don't even know what that would be.

[Anya Kane]

You can't even cite an example.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I can't. So he was more like that. He was giving a lot of unnecessary detail. They just one and the. Oh, the car doesn't start.

[Anya Kane]

And so, and especially when there's constraints on this because he's not supposed to be getting up there and saying Richard Allen was lying when he confessed to murder. And he didn't seem to really get that at times. Cuz he kept on like walking up to the third rail. And at times I remember there were times where the judge, Rosie and Dean are all like no, no, no, no, no. Like, like stop. You know what I mean? Like sir, wait a minute. You know. And I don't know whether that was cuz he wasn't prepped appropriately or because perhaps he just wasn't used to that. But you know, again, like he's, he's informative, he's credible. It's not really a criticism, it's just more of an observation where you can have this kind of thing happen, I think where someone, it's almost like they have a hard time turning it off. I mean like I get like that with Jamestown and the Lincoln assassination. Like if you get me started, run. Like you don't want to be there all day, you don't want to be dealing with this all day. But like, you know, like if you put me up on the stand, I'm sure everyone would be screaming at me by the end. The jurors would be throwing their notes at me to get me to stop. But like this guy was.

[Kevin Greenlee]

No matter what you were tested.

[Anya Kane]

No matter what they. No, enough. But this guy wasn't. Wasn't that bad. Not at all. But there was a little bit of a. It would just kind of like he was talking over Diener. She's trying to interject with an objection. Rosie's saying wait. Like it just would get a little chaotic at times. Not, not too bad. But just a, just a little bit of that. Is that fair to say?

[Kevin Greenlee]

That's fair to say.

[Anya Kane]

But I mean he had some really interesting points to make and I thought his, his. I mean I think there's, I think when it comes to these topics, I think issues like how we treat people who may or may not be mental, ill, mentally ill in prison. What does. What should safekeeping look like? You know, is solitary confinement even in the context of safekeeping, like solitary and confinement for punishment is something different, obviously, than, like, doing it when you're trying to make sure the other prisoners don't, you know, shank your, you know, the defendant. But at the same time, like, how do we deal with all this? These are all kind of big picture, interesting questions. I don't think they really bear that much on the guilt or innocence of Richard Allen, frankly. But I can understand why the defense is raising them. But, yeah, I guess it's just kind of.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Did you want to talk about the delirium stuff?

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, sure, Go ahead.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Go ahead.

[Anya Kane]

Well, you, you, you queued it up where you.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I was queuing it up for you to take care of.

[Anya Kane]

Oh, my God. Thank you.

[Kevin Greenlee]

No problem.

[Anya Kane]

Me up. So I'm looking delirium, quote. Delirium is the inability to maintain an adequate state of awareness. End quote. It can be due to things like sepsis, respiratory fair failure, heart failure, or then, okay, then somehow we went okay.

[Kevin Greenlee]

When he was saying that he felt, he listened to some of Richard Allen's phone to his wife, and he felt that Richard Allen was exhibiting symptoms that were consistent with a state of delirium. Now is when you want to get into the false memories.

[Anya Kane]

No, I want to get into the eye patch. Where did that come out of? Suddenly he's talking about eye patches and iron lungs. Did I, am I delirious? Did I imagine that?

[Kevin Greenlee]

I remember the iron lung part.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. He was like, sometimes people, I think it was like, sometimes people come delirious in kind of unique situations. Almost like someone with.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, if you're an iron lung, you're pretty isolated.

[Anya Kane]

You're isolated. But there's something, There was something about an eye patch. Okay, well, maybe there wasn't. I don't know. See, this is what we're talking about. See, like, I have the ey patch. No one else does. Maybe you don't listen to me. It's a good example of what we're talking about. There was something about an, Like I wrote.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What does it say to your note?

[Anya Kane]

It just says ey patch, and it has a bunch of question marks next to it. And I circled it like I.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So you circle it.

[Anya Kane]

Well, thanks, Anya of the past, for taking great notes there, because now I'll never know. But okay, so I, I, I'm sure.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It was my fault. Sure. Your notes are completely accurate. I do not have eyes.

[Anya Kane]

He seemed. But again, he's kind of the professorial type, so we kind of did ramble a bit. But even the iron lung thing, like I get what he was saying, but it was like, could be a little bit narrower. And, and what happened next?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, Rosie started talking about false memories. Sometimes people in some of these states start remembering things that didn't happen in otherwise. In other words, they have false memories. And so when Stacy Deener took over for the cross exam, that's what she wanted to focus on. In essence, his testimony is only relevant to the case if he is arguing that Richard Allen had false memories when he made the confessions. So she wanted to talk about that and she asked him some questions. But for some reason, he interpreted her questions as wanting to hear about false memories in child sexual abuse cases.

[Anya Kane]

Oh, like, because he, like he, he almost did he, did she think he referenced a study or he referenced some kind of study and then he was indicating. No, I was actually talking about a different study that I did. She's like, no, tell me about the other. Like there was a, this went on.

[Kevin Greenlee]

For a while and, but, and then she tried to hone in and she wanted him to talk about, if you have, would a false memory be detailed and logical? Because Richard Allen's confessions, especially his confessions to Dr. Walla was very detailed and logical, had cause and effect. And she wanted to know, would a false memory be like that? I think he kind of hemmed and hawed.

[Anya Kane]

He basically said, like, it, quote, that's not an intrinsic trait or no, I'm sorry, quote, that's not intrinsic to it, end quote. And she asked like, would real memories include like how it made you feel or like, would that be a true memory? And he said, I'm really confused by your question. And then, then she asked about like, are there critical factors when you're like looking like at safekeeping and having someone in a one man cell versus, like solitary confinement for punishment? And he basically indicated, like, no matter what the reason the effects are, you know, that's what he's for focused on.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, I believe she was trying to highlight the fact that Richard Allen was in a cell by himself, but it wasn't to punish him, it was rather to protect him from the other inmates.

[Anya Kane]

Right. And Rosie doubled down on that in his redirect saying, you know, where he got him to say, basically the conditions of confinement are the defining factor. So the reason isn't, you know, the intent isn't what matters, it's what it, what is. What is the person experiencing?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

So jury questions.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Do you believe psych psychotic behavior could go away after the end of solitary confinement? And he said, yes. And do you believe a normal Person can become psychotic after just six to 12 months in solitary confinement.

[Anya Kane]

He said, yes, yes, absolutely. Was that it?

[Kevin Greenlee]

That was it. Now we are going to move on to a very important witness.

[Anya Kane]

Yes. Actually the title of the episode is the Bullet. I believe the Bullet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The Bullet, I believe.

[Anya Kane]

I really shouldn't have called it that because it's a cartridge. So apologies to all the forensic exams.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So you should have called it Cartilage.

[Anya Kane]

Oh.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So the witness was presented by Brad Rosie, and it was Eric Warren. So the bullet, of course, this is the bullet that was discovered at the crime scene near the bodies of the girls. And this bullet, according to the Indiana State Police, can be ballistically linked to a gun that was found in Richard Allen's home, a gun that Richard Allen told police no one but him had access to. So if a bullet from his gun ends up near the bodies of two deceased girls, that's obviously bad for him. And so it's important for the defense to say, hey, that's not necessarily his bullet, folks. And so they called this gentleman, Eric Warren in to try to raise doubts about the validity of the testing that got that result about the bullet.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. And it's interesting you did. You mentioned Rosie asking some of the witnesses their age the other day, but he didn't ask, I believe Grassian or Warren that. So maybe. I don't know.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So maybe I had a point.

[Anya Kane]

Maybe you did. I don't know. You're just a general.

[Kevin Greenlee]

What a shock. He only asked the women their age.

[Anya Kane]

At least that I'm sure it was just an oversight. I don't know. But. So Warren is from near Memphis, Tennessee, and he was. He's now with his own company, SEP Forensic Consultants. He previously worked, I believe, for six years with the. Yeah, I remember that.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We'll talk about that in a minute.

[Anya Kane]

With the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Six years is going to become important later. And he went to Vanderbilt, he got his doctorate in biochemistry, had a BA in molecular biology, and he was a special agent of forensic science for working specifically on forensic firearm. He's also a board member of afd. Right. I'm going to look up what that stands for because they said it, but you know, it's hard to write everything down.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's like firearms and tool mark examination.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, but I like. I don't want to guess, you know, let's see. Afti. Let's see. Yeah, no, that's not that one.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's ironic. This is totally unplanned, but in the middle of an episode. Anya is doing research via A Google search. So put a, put a pin in that. And we will discuss something later. In the episode that happened after we were no longer in court, but we heard about from a couple of people who were there.

[Anya Kane]

I like that a lot and I think I said it wrong. It's the association of firearm and tool mark examiners. So it's a F, T E not I, I wrote down I some reason because I don't know, I wasn't thinking about it. All right, so what?

[Kevin Greenlee]

So Brad Rosie asked him. Asked Dr. Warren to. Dr. Warren. Brad Rosie asked Warren to invest.

[Anya Kane]

He was a doctor.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Was a doctor.

[Anya Kane]

He's a doctor.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So Brad Rosie asked Dr. Warren to review the work product done by Melissa Oberg, who was the analyst for the United States Police who did the work that tied the bullet to the gun. He wanted her to examine her work product and look at what she documented and determine if he felt that her result was sufficiently documented by the pictures and stuff that she took. And Warren indicated, well, I feel that the defense lawyers gave me all the data I needed in order to do this.

[Anya Kane]

Twill be important later.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And the documentation they gave him included lots of pictures. Lots of pictures.

[Anya Kane]

Now if you recall some things we may have reported, I don't really remember in our episode about Oberg, the picture aspect is going to become important later. We're doing a lot of foreshadowing here, I think.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

About like whether you can actually determine and sort of check another examiner's work based on photographs alone.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Right, right.

[Anya Kane]

Might be. Might be. Might come up. I don't know.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So yeah, this is important to stress. He did not do his own analysis on the bullet itself or the gun. He was just looking at pictures.

[Anya Kane]

Yes. And Melissa Oberg's reports and her reports. Right.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And he, I mean, cut to the chase. He indicated he had doubts whether or not the results were justified by the documentation.

[Anya Kane]

Yes, he, he felt it was under documented. He raised issues around subass characteristics and these are sort of to break down the different types of, of classes. There's classical, which is characteristic of like lots of guns. Like it's hard. Like that's the broadest group individuals the narrowest group where you're like the unique to a specific firearm and subass are more like you can narrow it down more but it's not going to tell you what gun did it just maybe more like what type of gun or like kind of like it'll get you closer but it's not quite. You can't identify a gun based on that. Right. Is that. Did I do that right?

[Kevin Greenlee]

To my understanding, there's a lot of.

[Anya Kane]

He did mention in the beginning that like when you're looking at. So the pictures are from a microscope. Right. So the, like they're. The pictures are from like when they're looking under a microscope. And what he said is like, that is a very thin slice and microscopes have like very narrow depth of depth, essentially fields. And like, you kind of like you can't necessarily capture what you're seeing with a photograph. In other words, what Oberg compared it to is like a movie. If you, if you freeze a movie and you get a frame, you're not getting the same experience as the movie. It's just a part of a movie.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes. She said, for instance, you could be how take a frame from ET and maybe it's just a guy on the bike. That doesn't really give you the flavor of the entire film of E.T. the extraterrestrial.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. It's not like a movie about a cyclist. So. Yeah, let's see. Talked with some talk about cycled rounds. He mentioned that that would be from a semi automatic firearm which had the capability of extracting from the chamber and ejecting the, the cart, the cartridges. And then he talked about like extraction and ejection. Those are the kind of pieces that kind of get. Get rid of that. Gosh.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Should we move on to the cross?

[Anya Kane]

Well, I just want to make sure we're not missing anything. I think again, Rosie, Rosie was doing a good job. You know, I feel like he's doing a good job with his directs Just, just in terms of lawyering. And there was discussion about, like he said that you don't want to. So there was discussion of. Oberg basically did the experiment with like a fired round. Yeah, right. Because that mark showed up better on that than the unfired round. And what Warren said is that typically you want to have apples to apples, not apples to oranges. So he would have done it differently. He would have just not fired the round because, quote, you want to make sure you get the closest end quote to whatever was the original situation. Was there anything else? Oh, they're talking about like ISP protocols, error rates. We went into that.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You know, I remember at some point during all this, you're talking about ISP protocols at some point, Rosie and this witness wanted to talk about, hey, folks, you know, there's a ballistics lab in Rhode island that sure had some problems.

[Anya Kane]

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And the prosecution was saying, what relative Luttrell.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, you Got it.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Literal.

[Anya Kane]

You nailed it.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, Prosecutor Electrol, you don't have to.

[Anya Kane]

Apologize to that man in this family anymore.

[Kevin Greenlee]

He was saying, what possible relevance does a lab in. In Rhode island have to this case?

[Anya Kane]

And that was a very fair point.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Should we move on to.

[Anya Kane]

I think at one point Gull was like, but the ISP lab hasn't been disgraced nationally. She didn't say it like that, but it was like she was.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Unlike the Rhode island laboratory, the ISP lab is just fine.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Should we move on to Luttrell's cross?

[Anya Kane]

Luttrell, these. Yeah. So also, like, I think he was raising a lot of it. Listen, I don't feel like I'm smart enough to understand a lot of this.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let's move on to the cross.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So this cross examination is also important because if the jury is let. If Dr. Warren gives persuasive testimony that is believed by the jury, that could possibly be a problem for the prosecution. The bullet is by no means the only evidence against Richard Allen. It's one piece of many. But if. If it was knocked out, that would be a problem.

[Anya Kane]

Can I say one thing?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Please do.

[Anya Kane]

Cms. Let's just define this before we get A lot of the. A lot of the fireworks are about cms.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Okay, before we get to it. Go ahead, Interrupt with the CMS talk.

[Anya Kane]

CMS confused me because at my old job, the CMS was the system we put our stories online with. So I kept on being like, what? But CMS is consecutive matching striae, and it's essentially used by forensic. It's supposed to kind of quantify, like, we found this many, like, striae that matched. Like you're supposed to find, like a certain number. And then that, you know, is regarded in some circles as better, more. More accurate, it sounds like. Is that fair to say? Or at least that's how Warren sort of put it forward.

[Kevin Greenlee]

That sounds great to me.

[Anya Kane]

Okay, moving on.

[Kevin Greenlee]

So as I was. As I was saying before that this cross examination, tremendously important because if this witness is accepted by the jury and is not discredited, that could possibly be an issue for the prosecution. Could possibly be a problem for the prosecution. So l does this cross examination. And I. I want to say it was a very well done cross examination. Spoilers. But it was interesting to me. First of all, he did do an extraordinary job, but he has a very different style in cross examination than prosecutor Nick McLeland. We saw Nick McLeland do a very devastating cross exam of Don Perlmutter back in the July and August hearings. And that cross exam was like someone taking a giant cartoon mallet and slamming it into someone and just destroying them. Yeah, this, this cross examination wasn't quite that inherently dramatic, but the end result, I think, was quite similar. This cross exam was like, imagine you're playing Jenga with someone and this is what Luttrell was doing. He would take away one piece here and one piece there very subtly, and you think, well, that doesn't really make much of a difference. And he keeps on picking away and taking out these pieces and pieces, and then all of a sudden the whole structure just falls.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, it was brutal.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It was a very impressive performance, and I'm sorry we missed this afternoon, but it was a treat to see this.

[Anya Kane]

I feel like I would rather see because, like, he went off on this witness. Like, he. You're right, McLean's was more fiery, but he got pretty fiery at a few points when he felt that this guy wasn't answering his questions. Like, it was like, he has been, I would say, one of the more low key attorneys in terms of his style. So it was kind of fun to see him. Kind of like there was more of it. It was more explosive. I think a couple of times I was just like. Because again, I'm like, okay, it's a lot of talk about striations and suddenly people are yelling.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You know, I'm like, whoa, it was really great lawyering. Congratulations to him and his family.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, exactly. I'm like, no, seriously, like, he was really. He was really good. And, and I think, well, we'll talk about what it got into. But I think, you know, I think it got. It got heated and it got very dramatic. And I think judging by the jury questions, he may have had a pretty big impact on how they perceived this witness.

[Kevin Greenlee]

He l started by saying, oh, Melissa Oberg, who did this examination of the United States Police, she has many, many more years of experience than you.

[Anya Kane]

He would. He would at times slightly sneeringly refer to this guy's six years of experience with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. That's why we remembered it in the beginning. And he's like, would you be surprised to find out that she has much more experience than you? It was just like, oh, my God. There was a. What was the part when they started going? Because I think Warren got heated back. And I think to his credit, like, he. He started off like, you know, more conversational, but I think the intensity of the cross ultimately did get to him.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes, it did.

[Anya Kane]

He seemed to get pretty frustrated. Yeah. And Then there was a lot of, like, he was like. He was like, so how many years did, like, you. Like. Like, you know, at first, he was like, well, I worked there six to seven years. And then. Then Luttrell pulls out his CV, and it says, so you started in August 2009 and then went till October 2017. So he's like. He's like, kind of calling into question everything. Then they get into him not answering the question. So it was basically like, did Oberg indicate concerns about subclass characteristics on the ejector marks? Was that. Was that. Was that the dramatic question where things completely exploded? Not exactly the most, like, you know, dramatic question in the world, but Warren kept on giving a long, complicated answer. And at one point, Luttrell's just yelling, you didn't answer my question.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

And then it was like, did she articulate any concern about subclass characteristics in the testing? And what he kept on. What Dr. Warren kept on saying was, like, you can't tell because of the way she documented this. And then it's back and forth like, they're just going at it. And then at some point. At some point, Luttrell accused him, quote, he's giving a speech to the jury, like, I'm. Like, I. The conflict. And then.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, as we mentioned before, basically, he did not do tests on this bullet. He just looked at pictures of the bullet and said, hey, here's what I think. And so Littrell said, hey, do you remember when you once testified. You once testified that you could not come to court and offer a conclusion or a result just by looking at pictures alone? You said in your testimony that you need to look at the exhibit yourself under a microscope.

[Anya Kane]

That was brutal.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And Warren was like, I'm sure when I said that, I just meant that one specific case.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. Also, at some point, he said, no, that Oberg did not see the subclass. Like, it was like, he was. He was getting a lot of wins. I feel like Luttrell. Yeah. Over this guy.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And then Latrell says to him, well, you have your own lab, but it's not accredited. And Warren said, well, we meet the standards of accreditation. And Lutrell said, but isn't the whole point of accreditation that an outside body and not you makes the determination of whether or not you meet those standards? And he then gets. Latrell then gets him to admit that Warren does not personally have a high opinion of accreditation in the first place.

[Anya Kane]

And he kept on then using like, oh, you can take or leave accreditation. So then he kept on using like, well, you could take or leave your microscope. Because at one point he asked Warren, what's the most important tool in your arsenal?

[Kevin Greenlee]

And Dr. Warren said that my most important tool is myself.

[Anya Kane]

I get what he meant. I think he was saying, like, I need to be able to interpret it as a human being. Like, that's an important aspect of what I do. So, like, I get what he was.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Saying, but, like, it didn't have the impact he wanted.

[Anya Kane]

No, no. And there's a lot of fighting about microscopes. I. I, like, at one point, like, I feel like. I feel like. I don't know whether this was during jury questions, but, like, I. I think, like. Like, Luttrell almost started, like, laughing at one point or like, he. Like. Like, it was. It's like it was. It was like, I felt very tense during this part. Like, I didn't expect the. And also, like, one thing that I think, because I kind of contrasted it, because obviously, Rosie and Luttrell are like the gun people for their teams, their respective teams. And one thing, Rosie's was fiery. Rosie's got. You know, he was clashing and, like. But I think one thing that made Luttrell's better was, first of all, he seemed to be getting under Warren's skin more. Again, to Warren's credit, I think he kind of held it off for a while, but he ultimately got frustrated. And I think when you do that, it open, it lets the person doing the cross examination kind of needle you more. And I also think that Rosie's just went on way too long, whereas this felt a lot shorter. I mean, it certainly was a lot shorter. And it just felt like he was kind of knocking down all the pillars that he needed to do and, like, not. Not being like, hey, how do you define sufficient, you know, not bringing out, like, the. The online dictionary. Oh, my gosh. Do you remember the part where he got him to say. He talked about, like, all these interviews he did and talked about cms, which Warren says he now uses. He said, do you remember a case in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 2021? You didn't use the CMS methodology. And in a quote, he said. He. He said that Warren said, quote, it's a West coast thing, and end quote, and not something that, like, he does in the Midwest, like some west coast fad. Yeah. So the big thing, though, I think that got. Got this kind of going was the fact that Warren did not examine the bullet himself. And what Luttrell said was that he would have been able to. Basically, there would have been A court order, ISP lab would have gotten it to him and he could have looked at it himself. And you know why that didn't happen, you know. Yeah. And. And he. And I think. Didn't Warren say he didn't remember if he asked to do that or not?

[Kevin Greenlee]

And also it came out that he didn't even prepare any kind of report, so he just looked at the images and came to a conclusion. I guess that was it. You want to get into these jury questions.

[Anya Kane]

At one point, l said, quote, you wouldn't have a take it or leave it approach to the comparison microscope, if that in that situation, would you? So, yeah, let's get to the jury questions. These were also very brutal for the defense. This was an opportunity for them to really maybe turn things around with the bullet, especially because I think there's been a lot of criticism of ballistics and firearms and, like, so this was the time to shine. And I think the jury questions kind of speak for themselves. So one was. I. I don't remember what the answer to this was. Like, how would CMS be used? I think he just kind of explained what it was. Again.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah.

[Anya Kane]

Could. Could a bullet change? Could, like, could. Could, like, the markings change if a gun was disassembled? Cleaned. And he said, not cleaned, maybe if there was damage in the disassembly, but otherwise, no.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let me get to the brutal questions. Is there a reason you did not conduct your own analysis instead of just looking at pictures? And he said, well, I was just asked to look at the documents. I wasn't asked to do anything else. And then the next question was, would your own analysis have been more conclusive? And he said, well, it's hard to say. Maybe if I'd done my own analysis, maybe I would have agreed with her or maybe I wouldn't. I don't know. Yeah. So if you have your witness saying, well, after all, you know, on the second thought, maybe I would have agreed with her. That's not a compelling way for the witness to conclude his appearance on the stand.

[Anya Kane]

No. And they said, didn't you know that Oberg's results were verified by somebody else.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Who agreed with her, agreed with her findings?

[Anya Kane]

And he tried to say, well, I don't really look too favorably on situations where it's just colleagues almost having a conversation and getting to that? And then Luttrell confronted him on that, saying, well, you were very well aware if you read the report or something, that her supervisor didn't know what her conclusions were when he made his findings, Right?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, I felt. I don't. I don't really love conflict. I felt kind of bad for this guy by the end of it.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Well, then why are you coming to trial?

[Anya Kane]

I don't know. I'm. I don't know why I'm. I don't know why I'm here.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Trial is just conflict. What did you expect? Did you expect it to be like.

[Anya Kane]

A fun sometimes, but it's like, oh, man, I'm just like, watching people getting, like, ripped apart on the stand. He, Lerl, was very effective here. This was maybe one of the, I think, very, very good cross at this, at this trial, maybe one of the best, because I think he was also an important one for the prosecution to kind of sink their teeth into. And they very much did. And I think your Jenga comparison was very good. It kind of started. Started like, okay, here we go. And then suddenly it's like everything's collapsing, but, yeah, geez.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Okay, so then we're done. We were out of court, and we didn't make it in for the afternoon. I'm. I'm loath to rely too much on other accounts of what happened this afternoon because of some of the reasons we addressed at the top of the show.

[Anya Kane]

But we're capable of doing. Doing our own reporting and cultivating what we feel are good sources of information that we're not going to go into nice and mysterious.

[Kevin Greenlee]

But I will say we could talk a little bit about something that happened in court. A defense witness named Stacy Eldridge, a former FBI forensic examiner. She offered testimony that the headphone jack to Libby German's phone apparently was manipulated a few minutes after the phone stopped moving, and then it was disconnected about five hours later. And so why is this significant? This is significant because the state's theory is that after the girls were taken, they were killed very soon after, and that the killer did not return to the crime scene and left the phone. Phone underneath the body of Abigail Williams. So if the phone is being manipulated hours later, that's a problem for the prosecution. And so this is what they were suggesting. There were. There were some problems with this because even though they got this indication that something was plugged into the phone jack 10 minutes or so after it stopped moving, the phone itself didn't track any more movement. So that was a problem. So that's kind of interesting. But then it turned out that a bit later on, Christopher Cecil, who is one of the Indiana State Police's phone experts, he indicated that. Give me a second here. As I look at some of my Notes, he indicated that he. During a break. During a break. During a break in questioning, he went on to Google and basically Googled what could cause this to happen. Why would there be indication that the headphone jack could show that it had been manipulated in some way? And his Google search returned the result that that is something that could often appear to happen if the phone is either wet or dirty.

[Anya Kane]

Oh, gosh.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And the thing is, obviously, the girls had just crossed the creek and they were. The phone was lying in dirt. So it seems possible, if not likely, that what happened is this phone was falsely reading that it had been manipulated with. Simply because of water damage or damage from dirt. And the defense tried to reply to this by saying, oh, you're doing research on Google. What's. What's wrong with you?

[Anya Kane]

Well, maybe your expert should have.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yes.

[Anya Kane]

Because. Okay, so the defense's contention. And again, we're kind of piecing this together from hearing about it and from reading about it. The defense's contention is that the phone was, I guess, like something was plugged into it shortly after it stopped moving, and then it's manipulated later on. So the killer's at the scene doing.

[Kevin Greenlee]

All this and apparently doing it without actually moving the phone.

[Anya Kane]

Right. So they're somehow. I don't even. Okay, I guess maybe that. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Move. The time of death of the girls, it's on the forest floor. They're plugging something into it, listening to it. Okay. Or it gets dirty and wet as the girls are being forced across the creek and up a bank.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Right.

[Anya Kane]

Well, I know which one I think is more realistic. But, you know, and if. I mean, you said it was. O.J. was the one doing the direct on that one.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Yeah, that's my understanding.

[Anya Kane]

And McLeland was doing the cross.

[Kevin Greenlee]

I believe so. But again, we were not there.

[Anya Kane]

But if Jennifer OJ's only comeback is, well, you just looked up on Google. Are you serious? Then, frankly, that's more of a criticism, I think, of her team than if people are disabled, to find that quickly of, like, this is when this happens. We all know. Anyone who has a smartphone, I should say, knows that sometimes they're doing stuff and you're not really sure why. And then you look it up and you're like, oh, that's why. You know, there's a crack that I can't see, and it's making it act weird in some way, or it's making the screen dim. You know, and maybe those are things that the defense probably should have, like, looked into or ruled out before they tried to piece it all together in a way that just fit their theory. Because if. If it's that easy to blow out of the water, so to speak, then that's not super good. So we missed their phone expert. What else? What was the phone expert's name again?

[Kevin Greenlee]

Let me get back there.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, I just. I want to be able to at least document it. So people, if they're cross referencing this with something else, they know what we're talking, if that makes sense. I know they had two phone people that they were looking out, at least according to their budget. One was a. A gentleman. But it sounds like they ended up using the. The lady.

[Kevin Greenlee]

The phone witness was Stacy Eldridge. They also recalled Christopher Cecil to the stand, and they also called one of the crime scene investigators to the standard. Brunner.

[Anya Kane]

Brunner. Okay, so that's what we missed.

[Kevin Greenlee]

That's what we missed.

[Anya Kane]

Well, listen, I'm gonna say I'm glad we. I'm glad we missed that. Not. Not the morning's cross examination.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's. It's interesting because it feels like, as time passes, the gap between the time when the defense makes an extraordinary, groundbreaking claim and the time when that claim is debunked, the time between those things is getting shorter and shorter.

[Anya Kane]

Center cannot hold. I mean, at some point. Yeah, I mean, I guess. Listen. I mean, they. The goal seems to have always been to get a hung jury. So if they can convince one person on that jury that what they're saying is more plausible than what the prosecution is saying, I think they'll have succeeded at something. I think, barring that, though. But, you know, that's always possible. You never know.

[Kevin Greenlee]

You never know. And again, our apologies for failing you and missing the afternoon sessions. Hopefully we will do better. I don't know if we will, but we will certainly try because we have some ideas. We have some ideas.

[Anya Kane]

We have some schemes. Yes, we're always scheming, as you know. No, I mean, not really, but, I mean, we do have some ideas. So I think we'll be able to make something happen. But we don't know. And frankly, I don't know. It's gotten so chaotic and people are just behaving so bizarrely that, I don't know, sometimes for a while there, there was kind of a bit of a Kumbaya vibe. I felt we're all like, kind of like in it together. And I think that that changed over the weekend. That changed over the weekend. That really changed around the time the Defense started its case because I think a new group came in that are more interested in playing games than anything else. And so I think, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm concerned frankly about like if thing. I hope things don't get much crazier because I don't like, we don't need, we don't need to be like brawls breaking out or anything like that. I mean we've not seen that yet. But like, I'm just like the vibe has gotten, we went from Kumbaya to a little bit more like, okay, this might, this might get nasty.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Good news. The good news is I don't think there is much time for things to get crazier. It doesn't take that long for things to get extra crazy. But we are very, very near the end of this process. I fully expect this to get to the jury this week.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, I completely agree. At this point. Feels like we're running on our. This, this is the last, I think this is the last leg, so. Well, I guess we'll kind of check in with you and see what happens.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Tomorrow and, and we're in our last legs ourselves. But we were checking with you couldn't come soon enough. Thank you all so much for your patience with us.

[Anya Kane]

Thanks everyone. We really appreciate your patience and you sticking with us and just thank you very much. All right, bye.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we covered, please email [e-mail]. if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[Anya Kane]

If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the [e-mail] if you're looking to talk with.

[Anya Kane]

Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode. Just as a quick post roll Ad we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook. This show is phenomenal. Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people overcoming tragedy, well, being like, he does it all, this is a show for you. He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space. Just interesting people with interesting life experiences. And Jason's gift, I think, is just being an incredibly empathetic and compassionate interviewer where he's really letting his guests tell their stories and asking really interesting questions along the way, guiding those conversations forward. I would liken it to, like, you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise, because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and really make it interesting for his audience.

[Kevin Greenlee]

On a personal level, Jason is, frankly, a great guy.

[Anya Kane]

Yes.

[Kevin Greenlee]

He's been a really good friend to us. And so it's. It's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want. It's a really terrific show. We really recommend it highly.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah, I think. I think our audience will like it. And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show. He's been on our show a couple times. We've been on his show. He's a terrific guest. I. I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always. I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this. That really resonated. Like, I do quote him in. In. In conversations sometimes, because he really has a good grasp of different, complicated.

[Kevin Greenlee]

She quotes him to me all the time.

[Anya Kane]

I do. I'm like, remember when Jason said this? That was so right. So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think, and. And you like us. You. You. I think you should give it a shot, give it a try. I think you'll really enjoy it. And again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that. There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice. And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it. But this is something that almost can be like, if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime. I think this is kind of the life affirming stuff that can, can be nice to listen to in a podcast.

[Kevin Greenlee]

It's, it's compassionate, it's affirming. But I, I also want to emphasize it's smart people. Jason is, is a very intelligent, articulate person. This is a smart show, but it's an accessible show. I think you'll all really enjoy it.

[Anya Kane]

Yeah. And he's got a great community that, that he's building. So we're really excited to be a part of that. We're really, we're fans of the show. We love it and we would strongly encourage you all just check it out, download some episodes, listen. I think you'll, so you'll understand what we're talking about once you do. But anyways, you can listen to the Silver Linings handbook wherever you listen to.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Podcasts, wherever you listen to podcasts. Very easy to find.

[Anya Kane]

Absolutely.