The Murder of Scott Macklem: The Guilt of Temujin Kensu: A Conversation With Brett from the Prosecutors and Julia Cowley from the Consult: Part One

Summary

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The Murder of Scott Macklem: The Guilt of Temujin Kensu—A Conversation With Brett from The Prosecutors and Julia Cowley from The Consult (Part One)

Podcast: Murder Sheet
Hosts: Áine Cain (journalist), Kevin Greenlee (attorney)
Guests: Brett (The Prosecutors), Julia Cowley (The Consult)
Air Date: March 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth roundtable discussion on the 1986 murder of Scott Macklem and the controversial conviction of Temujin Kensu (formerly known as Fred Freeman). Hosts Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee are joined by Brett from The Prosecutors and Julia Cowley from The Consult, both of whom have previously covered the case and expressed the belief that Kensu may be innocent. The group explores their own perspectives, the case’s complex portrayal in the media, the reliability of Kensu’s alibi, his character, and the challenges inherent in assessing wrongful conviction claims.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How the Podcasters Became Interested in the Case [04:23–12:35]

• Brett (The Prosecutors):

  • Discussed initial skepticism and trust in the justice system:

    “My presumption was, I'm gonna read the trial transcript, probably think this guy did it...when we got finished, we fell into...the consensus at the time—okay, yeah, it seems like there's not a lot of evidence here...it was the first case where we said we thought the person was not guilty.” (05:07)

  • Noted that only a small fraction of their 'innocence cases' result in them endorsing a claim of wrongful conviction.

• Julia (The Consult):

  • Became interested more by chance after a broad outreach from the defense.
  • Her approach:

    “We wanted to approach it how we would approach every case...profile that [the crime] first, without really consideration of who the suspect was, who was convicted of it, and just look at the murder of Scott Macklem and profile that first.” (07:04)

• Kevin (Murder Sheet):

  • Entered the case with deep skepticism regarding claims of innocence, particularly as the media often touted multiple alibi witnesses.
  • His skepticism increased when reading court documents:

    “As I read it, I'll be blunt, I thought, this has to be bullshit, because if even half of these claims are true, there's no way...a jury would have convicted him, and...no way that this verdict would have been upheld repeatedly.” (08:35)

• Áine (Murder Sheet):

  • Played the “devil’s advocate,” hoping the hosts could represent opposing viewpoints for a more dynamic coverage.
  • Saw their own role shifting from legal analysis to investigative reporting after diving deeper.

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2. Critique of Media Coverage & Innocence Narratives [12:35–20:39]

• All panelists expressed concern that media pieces often frame possible innocence cases as clear-cut narratives with dramatic heroes and villains, which oversimplifies the facts.
  • Brett:

    “There's always—the person is an angel...they're the greatest person ever. How could they ever have even been arrested?...and you see that a lot in this case. That was...not us.” (12:54)

  • Julia:

    “It’s really easy to fall into ‘if you believe in a wrongful conviction, it means everyone’s corrupt or lied.’ My opinion is not based on calling everyone liars whatsoever, or even corruption.” (14:25)

  • Áine:

    “Nuance doesn’t sell...when we’re looking at just mass media—like, to get the most people, you don’t want your headline to say, ‘Maybe the prosecution went overboard...but also, a lot of people say he was a bad guy.’ But you know, you want everything’s good or bad.” (19:30)

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3. Temujin Kensu’s Personality & Character [20:39–28:24]

• Julia:
  • Described Kensu as:

    “Manipulative, abusive, self-centered, dangerous...somewhat intelligent...can be charismatic to a point. He was diagnosed...with antisocial personality disorder...I take no issue with that...based on his criminal and personal history.” (20:53)

• Brett:
  • Agreed Kensu is his own worst enemy:

    “I really believe he thinks he can convince anybody...He’s this almost Svengali-type guy. And...he’s been fairly successful at that.” (22:12)

• Áine:
  • Called Kensu “a rapist and a sexual predator and a serial perpetrator of intimate partner violence,” based on interviews with women close to him. (26:40)
  • Noted his explosive and controlling reactions to perceived criticism, even from journalists.
• Julia:
  • Noted Kensu’s reaction patterns:

    “Eventually you will displease him, and he will control and attack and abuse...That’s his personality type. He is very explosive when he isn’t getting his way.” (29:01)

• General Consensus:
  • Regardless of their takes on Kensu’s guilt, all agreed he’s dangerous and deeply manipulative, making assessments of his claims and actions more challenging.

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4. Evaluating Kensu’s Alibi: Strengths, Weaknesses, and the Jury’s View [31:59–65:33]

Brett & Julia: Alibi Witnesses Favor Innocence

• Brett:
  • Found the alibi witnesses “especially convincing” because of their “independent recollections, anchored to specific events.”
  • “There were enough witnesses who felt like they had these independent recollections that it would’ve made the timing very difficult for him to accomplish the murder.” (32:10)
• Julia:
  • Looked for “anchors,” “corroboration,” and “lack of incentive to lie.” Felt the karate studio witnesses were “pretty solid,” and saw “no incentive” they’d lie for him. She emphasized the logistical improbability of Kensu committing the crime and returning undetected. (36:23, 38:33)

Kevin & Áine: Alibi Is Fatally Undermined

• Áine:

  • Dug into how the alibi fell apart:
    • Cross-contamination of memories (“chatter” between witnesses)
    • Witnesses adjusting times after speaking to Kensu
    • Contradictory testimony from others he contacted for an alibi
    • Direct evidence of him threatening witnesses (e.g., a woman’s family tipped police he threatened to kill her if she didn’t provide an alibi) (41:40–49:59)
  • “The testimony of the alibi witnesses did not hold up on the stand...I truly think he called and was trying to set something up, and they were the only ones it worked with.” (47:56)

• Brett’s Counter:

  • Noted that Kensu’s manipulativeness might show more if his alibis were obviously fabricated, but most had independent recollections and little reason to lie.

General Rebuttals and Discussion

• Both sides agreed that if Kensu’s afternoon alibi (karate studio) was reliable, it would exonerate him.
• All agreed on the difficulties introduced by potential witness contamination and memory distortion.
• Julia:
  • Added the jury’s real-world vantage point is valuable—they may reject even well-intentioned alibi witnesses if they sense contamination or uncertainty.

Jury Verdict & Its Impact

• Brett:
  • “Once he’s found guilty, rightly, the mechanisms of the law are all pointed towards finality and preserving the conviction...the prosecution did a really good job of conditioning the jury to not believing Temujin Kinsu’s alibi.” (57:44)
• Julia:
  • “I think it really worked against him that he likely acted very similar to how he acted in the commutation hearing. That is really powerful for a jury to observe, and that is something you do not observe just reading the trial transcripts.” (59:58)
• Áine:
  • Added that Kensu had given multiple shifting versions of the alibi to police, impacting credibility (61:32).

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5. Notable Quotes

“My presumption was...if someone’s been convicted, you really should start off with the assumption that they’re probably guilty...and then I read the transcript and...man, there’s some weird stuff in this.”
—Brett [04:23]

“It’s really easy to fall into ‘if you believe in a wrongful conviction, it means everyone’s corrupt or lied.’ My opinion is not based on calling everyone liars whatsoever, or even corruption. Not at all.”
—Julia [14:25]

“I would characterize [Kensu] as a rapist and a sexual predator and a serial perpetrator of intimate partner violence. Like, we’re not talking about even just the murderer, just from women we interviewed about him, about their experiences.”
—Áine [26:40]

“...if those people really saw him at the karate studio, he couldn’t have done it. So I think in a lot of ways, how you fall out on this case probably comes down to whether or not you think the couple who saw him...actually saw him.”
—Brett [51:09]

“There’s nothing else like sitting and seeing the witness testifying, because you see their demeanor, you see if they get shaken, you don’t get that from the transcript...That jury, I think, probably didn’t like him, saw his behavior, hears what the prosecution is saying...that is really powerful for a jury to observe.”
—Julia [59:58]

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6. Timestamps of Important Segments

• Intro of all panelists and their initial biases/approaches: [04:23–12:35]
• Media coverage and the mythologizing of innocence cases: [12:35–20:39]
• In-depth discussion of Kensu’s personality and manipativeness: [20:39–28:24]
• Detailed breakdown of Kensu’s alibi and timeline: [31:59–55:09]
• How alibi discrepancies and external witness testimony shaped jury's decision: [55:18–65:33]
• Discussion, wrap-up, and light humor on Kensu’s social circle: [64:31–65:33]

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Memorable/Notable Moments

• Analogy about personal credibility and “eligible bachelorettes” by Áine to reflect how implausible Kensu’s alibi pool felt to the jury. [47:56]
• Ninja/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles humor to lighten the discussion on Kensu’s “big fish in a little pond” attitude. [65:17]
• Openness among disagreeing podcasters: “Hopefully it shows that you can deeply disagree with someone but still respect them and be friends with them.” (Intro)

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Tone & Language

The panel maintained a respectful, conversational, and deeply analytical tone—even in disagreement. Legal and investigative jargon was balanced with journalistic clarity. Memorable quotes and humor were used to underscore complex points and keep the discussion approachable for listeners.

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Closing Notes

This is Part One of a multi-part conversation. The panel plans to continue exploring the case’s details, including further discussion of the evidence for and against Kensu’s guilt, the broader implications for innocence narratives, and the pros and cons of the justice system’s handling of such murky cases.

For listeners, this episode stands out for its candor, its examination of nuance over narrative, and its willingness to explore ambiguity, even in a field rife with black-and-white headlines.

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Transcript

[A]

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by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[D]

I'm Kevin and we'll be presenting today a conversation with some podcasters we respect, even though we disagree with them on this one particular case.

[B]

Content Warning this episode contains discussion of murder, rape, and sexual abuse.

[D]

Since we started covering the Temujin Kinzu case, people have been asking us to do an episode with Julia Cowley from the Consult and Brett from the Prosecutors, both of whom earlier did episodes in which they indicated they believed Kinzu was innocent of the murder.

[B]

We had a chance to have that conversation with them last week. Hopefully it shows that you can deeply disagree with someone but still respect them and be friends with them. I think that's an important lesson in true crime.

[D]

A quick note Due to the complexities of everyone's schedule, we record this episode on an evening to the annoyance of our dog, who feels that evening time should be devoted exclusively to him. We edited him out of the episode as best we could, but just note that if you hear someone laughing when you don't expect them to, they are likely reacting to something our dog is doing. We apologize on his behalf, although I'm

[B]

certain that he thinks that we should apologize to him. My name is Anya Cain, I'm a

[D]

journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee.

[B]

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

[D]

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

[B]

We're the Murder Sheet and this is

[D]

the Murder of Scott Macklemore. The Guilt of Temujin A conversation with Brett from the prosecutors and Julia from the consult part.

[C]

Sam.

[B]

Okay, first of all, Julia and Brett, thank you guys both so much for. For coming on the murder sheet to talk about this case. We really appreciate it.

[C]

Thank you for inviting us. I'm happy to be here.

[A]

Thanks, guys. Always happy to be here.

[C]

Yay.

[B]

Awesome. Well, yeah, we were thrilled. I think it'll be a really cool conversation. And as we sort of, you know, we're just going to be kind of going around sharing different thoughts. It's not a debate, it's just a conversation. And people can kind of, you know, just get different perspectives and different viewpoints. And I think it'll be great, I think, to start off with, I guess one good place to start is the beginning, right? And this was something I was curious. Maybe we can all go around and sort of share what got us interested in this case. It certainly prompted a good amount of media coverage. What sort of, like, pulled us all into that?

[A]

Well, I guess I can start. We did this episode, I guess. I don't know. It's been a While back in 2021, maybe 20, 2300 episodes or so ago, which is kind of hard to believe, but at the time we were doing, we were just getting into some of the, like, innocence cases, and we had done a few. And I, you know, it's funny to look back on it because I listen to the episodes again, I can't believe people listened to us back then because, like, the audio's terrible and everything, but I feel like we were just getting into the innocent stuff. And we had done several cases where we thought people were definitely guilty. And I had asked around, I was like, hey, I want you to give me. Give me one that, like, people think the person is innocent, like, really believe the people person's innocent. And several of the podcasters I reached out to, well, you should do Tim Kinsey now. I never heard of Tim. Like, I listened to podcasts where I started doing podcasts, but I completely missed it. So the extent it was, like, big and true crime or whatever. And so that's sort of how we got into it. And it was one of those where my assumption, I, you know, I hate to. This is going to make me sound like I'm biased, but I'm not biased. But typically, I have a lot of faith in the justice system. So my perspective is, if someone's been convicted, you really should start off with the assumption that they're probably guilty. Right? I mean, that's the way you should come at it. From A jury has heard the evidence. They found them guilty. And so my presumption was, I'm gonna read the child transcript, probably think this guy did it, and that'll be fine. And we'll just do another episode on how somebody who everybody says is innocent is guilty. And I admit I don't remember as many of the details as I would like for this discussion, but I do recall Alice and I were going through the transcript and just felt like, man, there's some weird stuff in this. And when we got finished, we fell into, I guess what was the consensus at the time was, okay, yeah, it seems like there's not a lot of evidence here. The evidence that there is has some issues and think it was the first case where we said we thought the person was not guilty. I don't know if that may not be true, but. And we haven't. We know we've done a lot of cases since then. Like I said, I think we've had 300 more episodes since then and only a couple where we said we think this person didn't do it, that was convicted or whatever. So it's always stood out in my mind for that reason.

[B]

Oh, Julie, do you want to go next? We'll go in order.

[C]

I had reached out to, and I don't recall exactly what piqued my interest in the case. I'd heard about it. I didn't really know a lot about it, but I had reached out to the attorneys that were representing Temujin and asked, just said I was interested in maybe covering the case on the show. I never heard anything back, so I just let it go. And then several months later, I got some sort of, what I think was maybe an email that went out to a lot of people, and I might have been blind copied on it, but are you interested in covering the case of Temujin Kensou? And so I responded, say, actually I had reached out to attorneys several months ago to ask about it. So I would be interested in covering it. And not for any specific reason other than it just seemed like an interesting case. And like Brett, I tend to trust the justice system. And usually I find when people are saying this person's innocent and they've been wrongly convicted, when you really look at the case, it, you know, it's not quite that cut and dry. So I thought it would be an interesting case. And the way we wanted to approach it is how we would approach every case without really consideration of who the suspect was, who was convicted of it, and just look at the murder of Scott Macklem and profile that first. And that's how we would start any case. And so that's how we decided to do it. And I. Like I said, I wasn't really particularly interested in the case. And now I find it to be a really fascinating case.

[D]

I guess I'm the one responsible for us covering it. About five or six years ago, I came across an article on NBC News which was all about, oh, there's 20, 30, 40 witnesses placing this guy somewhere else. Had to be a plane perjury, and just a long list of things like that. And as I read it, I'll be blunt, I thought, this has to be bullshit, because if even half of these claims are true, there's no way, number one, that a jury would have convicted him. And number two, there's no way that this verdict would have been upheld repeatedly by all the courts that have looked at it, which. Which it has been. And I went. I dug up some of the appellate court opinions and other things that got into it. And I quickly became convinced, yeah, this is pretty clear he's guilty. And I was reluctant to cover it on the show for two reasons, one of which was everybody seemed to think he was innocent. And I was already having a lot of controversy with the Delphi case, which in many ways, I think this is similar to the Delphi case. And in addition to that is one thing I think we can all definitely agree on. This is a very complicated case. And the idea of taking the time to go through thousands and thousands of pages of court documents and talking to as many people involved as I could, which I ended up doing, was just daunting, especially when we were covering Delphi. So I put it aside, and then after the Delphi case was over, and I just gone through this experience where prosecutors, investigators that I knew to be good people were unfairly smeared with charges of corruption, charges of conspiracy. That's all very fresh in my mind. About a month after the trial, and I'm sitting and an article is published.

[B]

No, let me tell the real story. Okay? No, we were on vacation after Delphi, and we were on the beach, and he starts, well, that. That's where I got so mad at him. I was just like, we're not doing this. I can't. Like, why are you. He's like, oh, this case, we have to cover it. And I was just like, because I. Kill me. Please go ahead.

[D]

Yeah, there was an article published that basically said, oh, this prosecutor is corrupt. It's a circus. It's. It's just a fake case, blah, blah, blah. And I just seen how things like that affected people.

[B]

And I was on vacation. Can we not.

[D]

And I knew that it wasn't true. And so I said, I feel I have a moral obligation to cover the case and bring out another perspective.

[B]

And I was. My. My role in this was. I was just like. At some point, I was just like, fine, go cover it. Like, I don't care. And then I was like, I'll review this after you're done. You know, I don't want you basically talking to me about it to a certain extent, like you could have your opinion. I was almost hoping, I thought this would be quite clever, is if Kevin, I knew, was very much on one side, I was sort of predisposed to hope that I would almost be the other side of it so we could have, like, some sort of fun. Mr. And Mrs. Smith, let's, you know, fire at each other on the show and have different opinions. And then I was convinced after reading the. I would say the trial transcript and the commutation hearing that it was not a wrongful conviction. And from there it just sort of went from that more of like the legal document analysis to reporting and talking to people on the ground. So it kind of shifted for us. Like, it started with one thing, and then I think it kind of got into more of the reporting, which we hadn't really anticipated doing, to be honest, because I was just, you know, partly because we didn't want to, because Delphi. But then we kind of just got sucked back into it. So that's, I guess, where our origin. Our mutual origin story was.

[A]

And I think I remember that article you're talking about, because I think I remember reading it. And. And I will say this about this case. I think this case suffers from. Maybe this is the media stuff that you were mentioning earlier. I feel like this case suffers from a lot of the same stuff that you see in a lot of innocence cases where. And I understand from a sort of how to make this attractive to the common person. Why. Why this happens so often. But there's always. The person is an angel. You know, they're the greatest person ever. How could they ever have even been arrested? How is it possible that anyone could ever. You know, there's no evidence against them. There's no even argument. You know, you hear this so often in the. In the sort of. In these innocent snipe cases. And you see that a lot in this case. And that was. I mean, that was. There are things about the prosecution that I think were interesting Clever things they did. There are things about the investigation that I thought were questionable, but we never fell into the whole, oh, the prosecution is like, you know, they, They've an innocent man. They just put him off the street for no reason. But, yeah, I mean, that happens a lot. And I remember, I think we're thinking about the same article. I remember reading that article and thinking, yeah, okay. It was very.

[C]

I think every article's like that.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. And I, I, I so appreciate you saying that, Rhett, because it does. It is kind of pervasive throughout the Innocence movement. And sometimes, Sometimes it's true. Sometimes it's like, wow, this was a real egregious situation. But oftentimes it's a little bit more nuanced. And you both sort of referred to that in your coverage. You've seen where that's happened sometimes, too.

[C]

I think it's really easy, too, to fall into. Well, if you believe it's a wrongful conviction, that means everyone's corrupt or everybody lied. My opinion is not based on calling everybody liars whatsoever or even corruption. Not at all. And I think. But people need to have that. They need to have the bad guy, the villain, and, you know, this defendant in this case and the person convicted, he's been mythologized, and a lot of that was his doing. But I think that is what happens. Like Brett said, you can't just have a really. It has to be attractive, and it has to be some sort of story where it was the bad guy who's really got a good heart, who was wrongfully convicted because he made a few mistakes here and there. And that's not this case at all. And I think that has. It has been mis. Portrayed from the beginning in media, almost from the beginning.

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[C]

And almost every article I did read had that narrative that you had this guy who's a ninja and was just a bad boy, you know, but with a good heart, who was framed. And that's not what this case is at all.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's much more interesting than that, to be honest. It's, I think like what you're talking about is, is, is, is like exactly how it's been portrayed. But when you dig deep, it's like there's a lot more nuances, a lot more interest. I think one big problem I find just in journalism and this is someone who used to work at, as someone who used to work at a mainstream outlet, there is a lot of, it's like you want the big black and white kind of narratives. That's just this kind of big bombastic thing and nuance doesn't sell. I like to think that all of us occupy a bit of a space in true crime where our audiences do appreciate nuance and they do appreciate intellectual rigor and honesty and all those things. But when we're looking at like just mass media, like to get the most amount of people, you don't want your headline to say, well, maybe the prosecution went overboard with this or the investigators did this wrong. But also a lot of people say it was a bad guy. But you know, you don't want to have that see song. You want to have just this beautiful clear everything's good, everything's bad sort of thing to sell it to people. And I think that is, that kind of went into that. But I think you wanted to.

[D]

Oh, we were talking about how the media has portrayed him as an angel. I would be curious, what do the two of you think about Kemerjen Kenzu and what kind of a person he is?

[C]

I'll start. So I think he is manipulative, abusive, self centered, dangerous. I think he's somewhat intelligent. I don't think he's stupid. What else do I think? I think he can be charismatic to a point. I do not believe he has the ability to self regulate. I could go on. I don't know what else to say. There's just a lot of things that I think. He was diagnosed, which is not my area of expertise, as having antisocial personality disorder, which he disputes. But I'm not one to question that diagnosis. An expert evaluated him, and that was the diagnosis. And I take no issue with that or see anything that doesn't tell me that that would be accurate. Based on his criminal history and personal history.

[A]

Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that. I mean, he's definitely his own worst enemy. I don't have any question about that. My feeling about. To the extent, I think they're absolutely wrongfully convicted people out there, like I said, we've talked about several of them that I think are wrongfully convicted on our podcast. I really think that most people who are wrongfully convicted are bad people. I mean, I think they've done bad things. There's a reason. There's a reason that the police think this person's a good suspect. Right. There's a reason the investigation begins that way. And then if you can find evidence and build a case, you can go a long way on that. I think he's, you know, the thing. He used to. He used to message me on Facebook. I never messaged him back. But I really believe that he thinks he can convince anybody to be on his side. Right. Like he, Like. Like Julia was saying, like, he's. He's this almost like Svengali type guy. And, I mean, I guess he's been fairly successful at that in a lot of ways. I mean, there are a lot of people who. Who want him to be innocent. Not necessarily because of the evidence, but they've. They've decided he's innocent. And, you know, and then how. They're not going to say he's a bad person because it would hurt the thing, it would hurt the cause. Right. It doesn't seem like his time in prison has changed him. You see that. You see it a lot of times. I mean, we did a. We did a case with a guy who. We talked about exactly why he was convicted, because he was abusive when his wife was killed. And so obviously he was going to be the person that they focused on. But I really felt like he had changed while he was in prison. That is not the case with Jim Jenkinsey. He has not changed. But, I mean, I'll say this. You know, one of the things, when we talked about it, we spent a lot of time. And I think this is probably my bias as a prosecutor, somebody who spends a lot of time in criminal law. We're so trained to compartmentalize the bad character of defendants or suspects to try and avoid letting the fact. I mean, the number of times I've heard an officer or another lawyer say this Guy is a real scumbag, but, you know, X, Y and Z. And so for us, like, when we talked about the case, like, we talked about the rape allegations, but we really talked about it more. And what is the effect that's going to have on the jury? What is the, you know, what is the 403 analysis on that? I mean, that's usually our approach. So for me, it's one of those things where I recognize the kind of person he is. I don't want to mythologize him when it's funny, because when I went back and listened to it again, I was like, man, I hope we didn't do that now let's do it again. And I feel like we didn't. So that's good. But that only goes so far for me. His personality, his negative traits gets me to. To start, okay, this is a good guy to focus on. This is a good guy to investigate. You know, let's look into this guy. But it doesn't take me further than that. Then I want to see more of the evidence come in. And this is not a case where there's no evidence. There are witnesses. You know, there's a few things that. That point towards him. It's just when I looked at it and I compared witnesses against alibi witnesses and some of the things about his witnesses, that's why at the end of the day, I came out thinking, okay, he probably didn't do this, not because, oh, he's such a great guy. He couldn't have done this.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think it's two sides of the same coin. There's, he's such a great guy. He couldn't have done this. And there's. He's such a terrible guy. He must have done this. And I, and I reject. You mentioned Richard Allen before. I mean, the number of people who are like, oh, Richard Allen, he was just such a nice guy. He worked at the cvs. He couldn't have done something horrible like this. It's like, yeah, he absolutely could. And I feel like the opposite side of that might be Temple.

[D]

Yeah, I really feel in a lot of ways, this case is similar to the Richard Allen case. And in one way, it's because there's not a single piece of dramatic evidence which conclusively proves guilt. I think there is a mountain of evidence which points to Temujin Kinzu and Temujin Kinsu exclusively. But it's very easy to take, like, a tablespoon of that evidence and set it down and say, oh, this. This piece of Ev and of itself doesn't prove anything. Oh, this piece of evidence doesn't prove anything. And I think it's really important, like with the Richard Allen case, to consider it all in its totality.

[B]

I, I just want to add, because we were talking about what we thought about him as a person. Um, I, I think one thing that surprised me a bit, and this is, I think, you know, we've been pretty honest on the show that we, you know, we view him as a pretty negative person who I think I would characterize as a rapist and a sexual predator and a serial predator, perpetrator of intimate partner violence. Like, we're not talking about even just the murderer, just from women we interviewed about him, about their experiences. But what surprised me about him was I really, I don't know, maybe this is naive. When we reached out to sort of him and his team originally, we were candid with them that we were leaning towards guilt. And we felt like we should be candid because it would have felt really unsporting, like to just kind of go to them and be like, oh yeah, talk to us and then hit him with a bunch of questions he's frankly probably never been asked before. You know, like, that just didn't, that didn't feel right. So we were candid, but we also indicated we're still open minded, like, we'd love to talk to you and you know, we didn't hear back and that's no big deal. He. He has no obligation to talk to us, but I think him kind of like attacking us in the way he has. It was just surprising because it was like, dude, like, you know, like, you can't even like handle getting like some like a little bit of. Of that in the beginning. It was just surprising because. Cause it was like, wow, you know, you would have thought all these years there would have been something of like a pat answer for even like the doubters. But I thought it was interesting that he kind of seems not the person. I don't know. It was just, it was interesting. But you know, I think he. I think, Julia, the word that you said that I resonate with is dangerous. I think for me, if this guy gets let out of prison, a lot of people are probably in trouble.

[C]

And that's when you look back at the commutation hearing. They're not retrying the case and I think he was hoping that would happen. That's not what's happening. They're trying to decide are they going to let him out. That's my understanding. And That's a real dilemma for people, that even if you think maybe he didn't do it, boy, he can still hurt somebody. Look what's happened. Look what he's done to other people. And that's a big burden. So that's what they're trying to decide is this person, you know, we're not retrying the case, but is this person safe to let out? And based on the testimony at that hearing and his behavior during the hearing, I can understand why they wouldn't take that chance. It's a whole different thing. And I do think he's dangerous, and I think he's dangerous for many reasons. But, you know, you talked about. You were really surprised at his reaction toward you. I'm not at all. That's him. He reacts to everything. I mean, it's so. To me, it was very obvious. And if you just go along with what he says, it's fine. But eventually, eventually you will displease him, and he will control and attack and abuse and it'll be verbal or physical, whatever he's, you know, whatever available to him that eventually will happen with everybody, because that's his personality type. But the minute, you know, you speak against him in any way, shape or form, he will attack you. And that's to his detriment. This is why people, he just, like Brett said, he's his own worst enemy. So that reaction toward you does not surprise me at all. Now, I didn't have a lot of contact with him other than I wanted to make sure I would have access to materials that we would be able to evaluate the murder of Scott Macklem. So that was my only contact with him because I didn't need to hear his side of the story. I knew his side of the story, and I knew he would try to force it and give me a narrative. And that, you know, that's not what I wanted to hear. But when I let them know, meaning Temujin and Paula, I think I let Paula know because I didn't have direct contact with Temujin, that we were going to be covering the commutation hearing. That did not go over very well. So, you know, and I expected that it wouldn't because that, you know, having analyzed the. And we don't do. We're not an investigative podcast. Just like as FBI profilers, we're not out there doing the investigation. We're reviewing the case files, transcripts and things like that. But after reviewing the police files, the commutation hearing, the trial transcripts, what else? I can't remember but a lot of thousands of pages of documents. I was aware that's how he would react because it just time and time and time again, he's very explosive when he is not getting his way. And he will react violently or very verbally and it will be very cruel. Can be very cruel and hurtful as well.

[D]

Brett, I'm curious. You said that one of the things that really convinced you was his alibi witnesses. What about his alibi witnesses did you find especially convincing?

[A]

Well, I mean, I'll say this, and I want to take a moment because you've mentioned the Richard Allen case a couple times and the thing of the thing where I'll disagree with you on the Rich Allen case, I mean, you're right, the Richard Allen case and Temujin Kinsu case, they're both circumstantial evidence cases and that's perfectly fine. The Temujin case, though, has a lot of direct evidence, right? It's got witnesses, it's got alibi witnesses who were conflicting in a lot of ways. The thing about the Richard Allen case, though is, you know, to the extent there's direct evidence in the Richard Allen, I mean, obviously I don't think either, and you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong about this, I don't think either case has a witness who says I saw. I mean, I know in the Richard Allen case, it's true. I saw Temujin do it, right? There's my recollection is there's a guy who saw him in a vehicle and maybe a guy who saw him crouching in the bushes, right? I think that's the testimony. So in neither case do you have direct evidence. That's like, I saw him do it. Now, you do have witness evidence in the Richard Allen case. The thing that I always found so convincing is the way and part of this was just a brilliant prosecution team, but the way they were able to marry all the evidence together so that everything supports each other, right? And, and builds this really strong case. It's like the girl there. There are people who say they saw bridge guy, right? Who saw a person matching bridge guy's description at the same time, Richard Allen saying he was on the bridge wearing the same clothes as bridge guy. The lady who sees muddy and bloody man walking down the street and you've got the video of a car that matches his car passing at the time it would need to pass. And the fact that you have the bullet evidence, which by itself, you know, there might be some, some questions about the about the. About the ballistics, you know, if you want to question that sort of thing, but never. But when you connect it to everything else, like, those questions kind of fall away. And then obviously, his own statements and the. And the van, the white van, all that stuff in the. In the Temase, it always seemed to me that it was more sort of. You had these kind of opposing things, right? Like, there's no one that says, I saw Richard Allen at the CVS when the girls were being murdered, right? So on the alibi witnesses there, the things that I recall being convincing were the people who seem to have independent recollections of anything that was said to them about where they were on the specific day for certain reasons, like, you know, my kid had his in service day and had to go meet the teacher or whatever, like. Or we did a particular class at the martial arts studio. And those I found to be pretty powerful because it didn't seem like, you know, this wasn't something that was made up. It wasn't something where it was a different day and they got the day wrong. I know there are questions about Kinsu pressuring people or calling people, and I'm sure he did that. I'm not. One thing I'd be curious about. I don't know the answer to this question. You guys have done a much deeper dive on this case as far as those allegations. Did he do that before he became sort of an obvious suspect, or was it after the investigation had begun? That timing would be important to me because if before he's an obvious suspect, he's shoring up his alibi, that feels to me a lot more problematic than if he knows he's a suspect and he's calling people. Because if I knew I was a suspect in the murder, I'd probably call people, too, that I thought were around me. It doesn't surprise me that his interactions with those people has been described as pushy or manipulative or whatever, because I think that's the kind of person he is. But there were enough witnesses who felt like they had these independent recollections that it would have made the timing very difficult for him to accomplish the murder. So that. That was sort of my position on the. The alibis.

[B]

And to answer your question, and Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I do believe most of the calls, at least the ones that have been documented and sort of come up in the police file, were from jail. So it would have been after he was arrested. Is that your understanding? So it would have been afterwards.

[C]

Yeah, that's my understanding. That's my understanding as well, is that it was after he knew he was a suspect. And I'm not sure I can add much more to Brett. But what I was also looking for and what I look for in my own investigations, when there are alibi witnesses, I'm looking for corroboration, I'm looking for anchors, and I'm looking for incentives. And with the alibi witnesses, particularly at the karate studio, I saw none of that or I saw that there's no incentive for any of them to have lied. They corroborated each other with what had occurred that day. And there was an anchor, a very strong anchor, I thought. And so that was pretty significant for me. And first of all, I do want to go back Prior to analyzing what I thought were the important things presented against him, we went through and created our profile of the offender, so to speak, the characteristics. And then we evaluated, okay, let's look at the evidence. You know, eyewitness testimony versus alibi witness. So I just wanted to clarify that. But. And I looked at that. The witnesses the night before similar looking at. Is there a reason they would lie for him? Is there an anchor? I did think that it was pretty reliable that he was probably last seen in the upper Peninsula around 1:30am I think the times are all depending on who you talk to. They get pushed later. No, it was 3:00am you know, just. But, you know, you really have to kind of go with the most conservative time frame rather than try to push that time to make it less plausible that he could have done it. And then the afternoon witnesses, while not impossible, they place him as early as 3:15 in Escanaba. But later, I think it could been later, but it was like 3:15, maybe 3:30, maybe 3:45, maybe 4. Somebody saw him at 5, but he's definitely in downtown Escanaba that afternoon.

[A]

So.

[C]

So those were the things that I thought. I thought they were very strong. I didn't see any incentives for anyone to lie for him. In fact, I don't think people really liked him that much. And I saw the anchors. I felt the anchors were pretty strong. And then trying to take out the karate studio witnesses and looking at, is it still possible that he could have done it? And this is when we were like looking at him as a suspect, which came kind of later in the analysis. And, you know, you're thinking about, okay, he would have had to get the car, get the gun, get down there, commit the murder, come back, get rid of the car, get rid of the gun and do all of this and still be seen by the alibi witnesses on either end of the incident, not the karate studio. So I thought that was starting to make it even less. Like, that's a lot to do, and that's pretty darn lucky. If he did it, nothing could go wrong, and he did it without really a trace. So those were the things I was looking at and why I thought the alibi testimony was so strong. And I don't think every alibi. I don't think 100 alibi witnesses. I don't think we can count that there's like that many. And I'm just. I'm exaggerating, but I think there are a few that were pretty solid.

[B]

And I so appreciate you saying that because I think. I think you guys touched upon the alibi witnesses that we felt were most serious and worthy of and were truly alibi witnesses in the sense that they're giving him an alibi. I think we've seen cases where a defense attorney will be calling people who were there like, an hour later, and it's sort of like, who cares, right? You know, a lot of the witnesses that I think get lumped together, Some of them are in that bucket, and then others are legitimate. If these people are correct, then they are providing him an alibi. I think I'll describe some of the considerations that went into our sort of discussion about it and sort of what we weighed. And that was, you know, I think what we were looking at was escanaba to port Huron. We think you pretty much need about like six hours and 30 minutes for, like, a drive. Like, that was where we came down. I think police officers also made that drive. I think it took them 6, 40, and they were, like, doing restroom breaks and gas station and eating and whatever. That's where we kind of felt. So we were like, anything within that window is going to be a pretty big problem for the prosecution. And then let's analyze that.

[C]

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So to me the stuff at night is interesting and it's good to know but it doesn't preclude him from driving down there. Especially if we feel like he's a very determined, murderous guy who you know, wants to be sneaky and also get down there and wants to be, you know, I'm seeing all these people. How could I have done it? Well, I, the drive down is not a huge problem for us. The drive back is, has more issues because of the folks at the Cho's Black Belt Academy. And that's of course John Minali, Kathleen Dyer, Mark Sherman and they as sort of a trio are those alibi witnesses that I do feel like are legitimate. Mark Sherman I guess is debatable because he didn't see him but he provides part of the anchoring mechanism. And these are people where I really do not think these people were lying or doing anything bad. I do personally discount them and I'll kind of go into our reasoning on that. But I think there were good hearted people who were, you know, just like this is what they thought. For us when you're looking at things involving people's memories, time is not a friend, right? Time is not a friend to our memories. Memories tend to get worse or degraded over time. So when people are initially saying one thing and then they're kind of sliding back or things are changing, that's going to be a bit of a problem for us. And with the kind of combo of Manali Dyer and Sherman, the one where it's really the biggest Problem for us is Manali is initially saying, I don't remember, you know, the date. I'm, I'm not really sure. And you know, I think that was an honest answer. He's getting a call from Temujin saying, no, no, no, it wasn't, it wasn't Thursday, man, it was Wednesday. And okay, so that's already, I'm feeling like, okay, that's already kind of some tainting going on there potentially. But then from there, Manali is getting dire on the phone and they're jogging their memories. And listen, I think that is so well intentioned, but we know from on the record testimony that they're saying things like, wow, you just saved this guy's life. I don't think they were lying for him. But I think there is a bit of a rush when you realize you have important information and you're helping somebody. And I, I, some of the things they said on the stand where I think they were shakier than they ultimately convinced themselves that they were. I think when you have Cleland, who's the prosecutor able to cross examine Dyer and is asking her things like, well, how was this week different from other weeks? And she's not really giving him anything. What was your life like? It was really hectic. Do you remember the election day? Does that ring a bell for you in any way for November 5th? No. I think the jury saw somebody who was trying and they just didn't buy it. Like, I just think that these were folks who were kind of helpers, helping the helpless. They all get together. What do you think? And it's really interesting because this also happens with other witnesses. When these folks get together, their stories start to shift to be more favorable to Tenzu. This also happened with the three high school students who he sees originally. They say from 3:30 to 4, they're like, yeah, we saw him. It was after school. 3:30 to 4, they all get together. Suddenly it's 3 to 3:30. Not good enough for Kenzo. He says it's 2:30 to 3, but whatever. Like, I think it's interesting when these folks get together. They're talking, they're swapping stories. I feel like that's contamination. And again, like, it's understandable. I'm not, I think these folks are just, you know, they're doing their best. But when there's all this chatter, when there seems some subtle excitement about, you know, helping this guy out and having answers and when, you know, a lot of it, when you look at Dyer and Manali's testimony, it comes down to they seem to be almost taking it for granted that Kenzu is telling them the truth, that he saw them that day. And they're almost working back from that assumption of he's, he's right instead of being skeptical. And that's where the other attempted alibi witnesses come in for us. And that's the Dombrowskis. And that is. Who is the other one? Melvin Carlson. So Melvin Carlson is of course the landlord of Kenzo. Right? They, Kenzu claims, hey, I'm driving into town, I go to this guy's house, drop off some vitamins. I see him, you know, he called him up and said, hey, remember you saw me that day? And Melvin Carlson's like, no, I didn't. Like I saw your wife. They weren't really married, but he saw Michelle. That's a situation where the jury also hears that they don't just hear these witnesses, they hear the witnesses in the context of these other people, like Karen Dombroski, who co owned this music store with her husband. And they're hearing this guy's calling around, this guy's giving dates to people. This guy's trying to trick people. I really, when you look at Dombrowski in particular, it's pretty egregious. He says, karen, don't you remember I helped your husband Jim fix a door that day? And Karen's like, I don't remember. But like, I don't know. Jim's like, no, that was a Saturday. I remember that because we had this 8 year old kid with no teeth come in for his lesson. So like he's, he's being sneaky, he's calling around people. And then I guess the one thing that really leapt out to me was one of his girlfriends or I don't, I don't want to call them that. One of the, one of the women he was with at the time spoke. This comes up in the police files. I think it was her mother called in and tipped in that he had threatened to kill her. This woman's family, we call her Dee, her first initial is D. If she didn't provide him an alibi 700 miles away from the crime at the time. And that's just something where it's like, I don't know. So I definitely understand where you guys are coming from with like a different perspective. For us, there was just too much going on with this. And I think that also made me understand the jury's decision more because it's sort of like this, like I'm going to use the Stupidest example. You guys are going to die. It's going to be embarrassing. Like, if I was telling people, guys, I was one of New York City's most eligible bachelorettes, and 9, 10, 15, 20 men were after me, and they were all millionaires and professional athletes and men of fabulous wealth and celebrity. And then you guys called around, for some reason, you want to check up on this, and you find, you know, no one fits that description. And all the people who I say I was dating were actually. They were like, oh, yeah, that was like that weird woman I saw, like, you know, stalking me one day. Like, you might be like, I think Anya's, you know, maybe kind of full of it. And that's kind of where we came down on some of this. It's not that the Alibi witnesses are bad. People are lying. It's simply that I don't think their testimony held up on the stand. I think Cleland was able to get them on cross, and I truly think he called and was trying to set something up, and they were the only ones it worked with because nobody else places him in the relevant time zone. Everybody else is on the margins, and the margins are important because it rushes you along. But ultimately, for me, the margins are not damning to the prosecution's case, I guess.

[A]

You know, one thing I'll say, I think in my mind, if Temujin was making it up because he's an idiot, they would all be the him with the woman 700 miles away type thing, right? Like, that's the kind of thing he would make up. He would make up the, I'm the world's most eligible bachelor. I was in New York, you know, with the. With all the beauty queens, and they were falling all over me. And you can ask any of them, because look at me. I'm amazing. Yeah. I mean, I think there are sort of two ways to look at the Alibi witnesses. I feel like most people think what you were saying, that the 1:30 in the morning is solid and the downtown in the afternoon is solid. I think most people agree he was there really early and he was there by the afternoon. And, you know, could he make the drive? I mean, you know, and you're 100% right that I think you're right. I think the prosecution did a great job, and that's why the jury was convinced. I don't think this was a dumb jury. I don't think this was how people always are, that his lawyer was completely incompetent and the jury was a bunch of boobs. Or whatever. But I do think even if that's all you have, it's still a very difficult thing to accomplish. It does not. It does not take it outside the realm of possibility. I do think the. I think we all agree that if those people really saw him at the karate studio, he couldn't have done it. So I think in a lot of ways, how you fall out on this case probably comes down to whether or not you think the couple who saw him anchored by the one. I think the one who had the parent teacher conference is the anchorer.

[B]

That's Mark Sherman. Yes.

[A]

If you believe that they actually saw him, then you're going to think he's innocent. I will say my great regret from when we covered it was quoting Bob Ruff. Not that I did, until I re listened to it on alibis. But I will say that I wasn't gonna mention that. I will say this. I really don't like alibis. I don't like alibi cases, typically, because I just think there's so many ways an alibi can go wrong. And the thing that I thought was interesting about this case is unlike most, you know, unlike most cases where either the alibi is completely irrelevant, like you were saying, it's somebody who saw him, like, early in the morning. We did this one case out of Philadelphia where he has an alibi really early in the morning and really late in the afternoon. It's like, well, that's irrelevant. The murder happened at lunchtime. Right? Like, why are women talking about this? It's either that or it's now it's like their mother or their wife or, you know, irrelevant, or it is contradicted by some really damning piece of information. You know what I mean? And I keep going, I guess, because we've just brought him out so many times. Like, if somebody told me that, like Richard Allen's wife, and I think she. She may have even said this at some point, this, you know, could alibi him, like, whatever. That's completely irrelevant to me. In this case, I feel like you have somebody who arguably has really strong motive, who has a propensity to violence. So that's where you start with it. But then the main evidence you have against him is you have some witnesses, and then the best evidence for him is his witnesses. And you really do have this clash of the witnesses. And, you know, that's one reason I am able to accept this alibi when in most cases I wouldn't.

[C]

I guess just a couple things to add to the alibi. I think one of the things I thought was pretty strong as well when it came to Mark Sherman is that this was only the second week he'd been at the karate studio. So the second week, and he has the parent teacher conference. I thought it was pretty strong. And all three of them have the same memory of that day and that he left early. And yes, he didn't see Temujin. So I thought that was pretty compelling. I agree. I thought the prosecution did a good job of weakening the alibi witnesses. And, you know, that's not really my argument. I don't really necessarily evaluate trials. I just am reading, you know, reading the original police reports, reading the transcripts and that kind of thing. So it's not really about that. I don't think the prosecution didn't do a good job with the alibi witnesses. There's one other thing I wanted to say about. Oh, yeah. And kind of back to what Brett was saying. You know, I. He. If he's done this, he has to get a car, he has to get the gun. He's got to get those or have them ready to go before he leaves. And then he's got to hide them somewhere so they've never been found before he's seen again in Escanaba. So I think that makes it again. You're pushing those times a little bit, and I agree it's not impossible, but I think you push those. There was one other thing I was going to say about the alibi witnesses, and I forget it was something you said. Anya, I guess we could always come back to. Must not have been that important.

[B]

If you think of it, we can come back to it. I'll give you a moment, though, because I have one other thing I wanted to say about alibi. It's not the witnesses. It's about what Kenzu said himself.

[A]

Oh.

[C]

Oh, yes. So back to Kenzo. So this. This goes to, you know, him, you know, calling and threatening and not everybody didn't threaten everybody, but the people he had these maybe more intimate relationships with that he felt like he could act that way. He did. It was so over the top, and it was noisy and it was messy, and it made him look even more guilty than they were already thinking. And, you know, I go back to that. Just like this is. He is so obvious. And when I look at the murder, it's not obvious. So it's just like, this is all, to me, par for the course with him. This is, of course, how he's going to act if he's under the gun, so to speak. It's going to be noisy, messy, public, and everybody's going to talk about. He's going to look really bad. And I honestly don't understand how he's managed to fool people because he's so obvious. But that was what I wanted to say about him calling people because it's such a bad move. I mean, he couldn't stop calling people. He was even calling detectives and trying to. And talking to detectives without attorneys, and it just. He cannot help himself. And that's where I just feel like he has no control over himself.

[D]

It's almost a cliche when I talk to attorneys where they say, like, a trial transcript is great, but it doesn't beat being there in person, sitting in the jury box, watching the witnesses testify and seeing their demeanor. And so lawyers tend to give a lot of credence and credibility to how a jury chooses to evaluate witnesses. So I'm curious, how do the two of you feel about the fact that the jury explicitly rejected those alibi witnesses? I believe in the newspaper article, there was an interview with one of the jurors who said, we believe Dyer was mistaken about the time.

[A]

Well, I mean, as one of those lawyers who likes to say that often on the podcast. No, I mean, look, I mean, and this. This goes back to something we said earlier about sort of the. The position you start with. I think that is something that makes it very difficult for him to ever get this overturned.

[D]

Right.

[A]

Like, people ask sometimes, well, if he's so innocent, why can't he get it overturned? Well, because once he's found guilty, rightly, the mechanisms of the law are all pointed towards finality and preserving the conviction. Right. Um, so I. Yes, I give a lot of credibility to that. I will say this. I did think. And we talked about this a little bit in the podcast, I did think that the prosecution did a really good job, and we pointed this out a lot. And. And. And people always assume this means this was improper. I don't think it was improper, but I think they did a really good job of conditioning the jury to not believing Temujin Kinsu's alibi, which is something you want to do. I mean, you really, if you're the prosecution, by the time you sit down, you not only want to. Want to have convinced the jury that he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but have insulated yourself from any sort of pushback that you're going to get. And I think with the. I mean, the testimony about the rape, I think, is really powerful. I think there were probably, if I had been on that jury, I would have been you. You would have taken a lot at that point to convince me.

[D]

Right.

[A]

I thought the opening sort of presenting Temujin is. Is, you know, this sort of violent ninja guy was powerful. So I think that the argument that you would make if you were trying to get him out about why this is a case where you don't necessarily put as much weight on the jury's credibility determinations is that that the prosecution did such a good job of conditioning them that by the time they heard the alibis, they were not in a place where they were going to accept the alibi witnesses and their testimony over what they had heard from the prosecution. And I think in some cases, that's good. And I mentioned this earlier, if you give me a lot of solid evidence against somebody and then he puts on an alibi witness, sorry, not necessarily saying your alibi witness is lying, but there's something wrong with their testimony because stacked up against all that solid evidence, I'm not going to believe them over it. And I think a similar thing happened here. But I think you're 100% right. The jury is in a better position to judge credibility, and you have to give that weight. When you look at this case or

[C]

any other case, there's nothing else like sitting and seeing the witness testifying, because you see their demeanor, you see if they get shaken, you don't get that from the transcript. And in this case, I think this is where it's interesting when you read the trial transcripts versus the commutation hearing, because during the commutation hearing, the board is actually pointing out his behaviors in court. And so you're getting a sense of how he's presenting himself and how he acts. And I have no doubt that he acted the same way during trial. And the jury is observing that as well. They're observing his behavior. And that jury, I think, probably didn't like him, saw his behavior, hears what the prosecution is saying, sees that the prosecution is very good at rattling the defense witnesses and they're making these judgments. And that is. That's what they're supposed to do. That's their job, is to determine, okay, who's telling the truth, who am I going to believe, what am I going to give weight to? That's what they do. And I think it really worked against him that he likely acted very similar to how he acted in the commutation hearing. And I think that is really powerful for a jury to observe. And that is something you do not observe. Just reading the trial Transcripts. You only get that version of him through the commutation hearing transcripts.

[B]

And then, sorry to go back around to alibi. I did want to note that this is another thing that went into our thinking. It's. It's the fact that there are multiple different versions of the alibi that he gives to police. Kenzo himself contests this. He claims the police are lying. So I don't believe that. I believe he's given three different versions and they, the times shift around so slightly, not in a big way, but when we're talking about like things we're talking about credibility, when we're talking about like how good his alibi is, I think it does matter. He initially, I think, says, I think he gives a statement to Detective Reifert on the drive to Port Huron From Troy on November 14th after he's arrested, saying, basically, okay, you know, I Woke up at 10 or 11. I think later on there's a statement to Detective Hudson, he's waking up at 11. Nowadays at the commutation hearing, we're early rises at 9am so there's just like this flim flam around some of this stuff where I feel when I see some of the differences in the different versions of the alibis that he gives over time, he's almost tailoring it to kind of as he's, I think, alibi shopping as he's calling people and some people are telling him, no, I didn't see you, man. And other people are being like, no, I saw you Thursday, or I saw you at 4pm I feel like he's trying his best to sort of knit something together that's going to fit. And I feel like, I do think it's important to stress that the jury heard from Mr. Carlson and the Dombrowskis. And when you're seeing witnesses who are on the stand who are shaky, and then you're hearing from other witnesses who are not so shaky, who are saying, I absolutely did not see him and he was calling me and trying to. None of these people, by the way, felt he was being mean to them. Like, actually, I got the sense that at least with Karen Dombrowski, she thought he was really nice and she wanted to help him, but she just wasn't going to make something up for him. So she found him very pleasant. He wasn't even that pushy with her. I don't think it was just more of like, don't you remember the door?

[C]

And she's like, huh?

[B]

Ask Jim, ask Jim. Jim says, no, the door was on Saturday. I think he's capable of finessing people and situations. I think it's. Oftentimes he reacts in anger. But I think there is a side of him that can be very charming and manipulative when it suits him. It just. It just has to suit him. And if he thinks he can use the old razzle dazzle, anger and scariness, I think he'll do that. But I think with some of these people he recognized, like, I can't just start screaming at them. It's gonna have to be charming. And I think it was charming for Manali. At least I don't think he was. Manali testified like, hey, I didn't feel pressured or scared. Like, I was just, you know, he. He jogged my memory. But the problem is the jury hears that, and they're like, Was there anything else anyone wanted to say about the alibi?

[A]

In general, I'm good.

[B]

Other than I think it's really weird that he was hanging out with these high schoolers. I'm sorry. I'm just going to say that don't like.

[C]

Well, I think. Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you. I would agree. I don't think he had many friends of his own age or older. I don't think they would have tolerated him. And he could be the cool older guy with the high school kids and sort of fool them more so more easily, or at least he thought so. And he was sort of a big fish in a little sea in that way, you know, king of the high schoolers. So it just goes to his maturity. And I don't think he had true adult friends. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I was just like, oh, no. They're like, hey, how. How old are you? I'm in 10th grade. I was just like, no.

[C]

Yeah. He didn't have adult friends like Shredder.

[A]

Let's just go through all the different, like, possibilities. Ninja possibilities. If you've ever seen the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder, all his. All the foot soldiers are like high school kids who want to learn the same thing.

[B]

I feel like there's a lot of arrested development going on here, for sure. We want to thank Brett and Julia for taking the time to talk with us. We'll continue our conversation with them in our next episode.

[D]

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

[B]

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[D]

Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@Kevin TG.com if you're looking to talk

[B]

with 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.

[A]

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