357. The Murder of Jade Beasley Part 1 of 5 -- Songbird

Summary

The Prosecutors – Episode 357: The Murder of Jade Beasley Part 1 of 4 – Songbird

Date: April 7, 2026
Hosts: Brett and Alice
Podcast: The Prosecutors (PodcastOne)

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Episode Overview

In this first of a four-part series, Brett and Alice, both prosecutors, dig into the brutal 2020 murder of 11-year-old Jade Beasley in Illinois. The case centers on Jade's stepmother, Julia Beverly, who claimed an unknown assailant killed Jade, but was later convicted herself. The episode explores the facts as presented at trial, focusing on the initial 911 call, the unfolding investigation, Julia’s statements, and the early discrepancies and unique features of the case, including the challenge of piecing together a timeline in the midst of shocking tragedy.

The hosts emphasize their methodology: following the evidence, avoiding speculation about demeanor, and presenting both prosecution and innocence perspectives. They also direct listeners to other podcasts and resources for alternative views and case files.

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Table of Contents

1. Background & Case Context
2. The Day of the Murder
3. 911 Call Breakdown [09:03-21:33]
4. Police Response and Initial Findings
5. Julia’s Story and Interview
6. The Investigation: Timeline & Evidence
7. Timeline According to Julia [51:49-63:11]
8. Initial Assessment by Hosts
9. Notable Quotes
10. Important Timestamps

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1. Background & Case Context

• Case takes place in Illinois, December 2020.
• Victim: Jade Beasley, 11, spending time at her father Michael's house, where stepmother Julia Beverly is present; Julia and Michael have other kids together (siblings in a blended family).
• Custody arrangement: Jade splits weeks between her divorced parents' homes.
• Case coverage:
  • "Murder on Songbird Road" – innocence-focused podcast with perspective of Julia's mother.
  • "Viper Pit" – deep-dive, often satirical commentary, but did a factual series on Jade's case.
• The hosts stress transparency; trial transcripts and evidence are shared on their website.

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2. The Day of the Murder

Saturday, December 5, 2020

• Julia Beverly working from home (COVID era), just her and Jade at home. Other siblings with their dad or grandparents.
• Julia decides to do some holiday shopping at a Walmart about 30 minutes away.
• Around noon, she returns home.

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3. 911 Call Breakdown [09:03–21:33]

Summary

• Caller: Julia Beverly
• Nature: Julia reports returning home to find the door open, an unknown man (described as male, all in black) running out, and then discovers Jade unresponsive in the bathtub, reporting multiple wounds.

Key Details:

• Julia is “hysterical,” struggles to answer some questions.
• Describes the alleged intruder: male, all-black clothing, black gloves, knife, possibly blond eyebrows.
• The dispatcher presses for details (vehicle vs. on-foot escape, direction, description).
• Julia repeatedly says “I don’t know” to key questions.
• Admits only she and Jade were home; confirms identity details.

“I came in to check on Jade... She’s in the bathtub... Got multiple wounds all over her..." – Julia [12:34–12:44]

Host Commentary Post-Call [26:45]:

• Calls attention to the length and content of the call.
• Host Brett: “This is Julia’s first statement of the facts to the police.” [28:01]
• Notes that demeanor analysis is unreliable but factual content is important for investigation.

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4. Police Response and Initial Findings

• Immediate Response: Officers race to the scene; another begins looking locally for a “man in black.”
• No intruder or person matching that description found—only a woman walking her dog.
• Inside the house: Blood “everywhere,” but notably, the blood is dry (“already dry” per first officer).
  • Jade found in half-full bathtub with running, clear water.
  • Attempts at resuscitation fail; Jade is cold to touch, “massive cut to her chest,” not bleeding—a sign she was dead before being put in water.
  • Scene timing and physical evidence already contradicting Julia’s version of events.

"It's not just that this is an incredibly bloody scene, it's that the blood's already dry..." – Alice [29:38]

Initial Forensic Observations:

• Blood dry at crime scene—suggests Jade died some time before Julia’s return and 911 call.
• Clear bath water (not bloodied), running tap, Jade’s body cold.

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5. Julia’s Story and Interview

911 Call vs. Interview

• 911 Call: Short, general—claims she saw a man fleeing as she arrived, then found Jade.
• Police Interview:
  • Offers a more detailed and partly different account:
    • Says she forgot her credit cards at Walmart and turned back home.
    • As she approached the door, she noticed main door open; while opening screen door, alleged man in black ran out with a knife.
    • Claims she attempted to grab the knife, resulting in cuts to the sides of her hands (not palms).
    • Has bite marks on her arms—she says from self-harm, not the intruder.
    • Officers note inconsistencies and gaps (injuries don’t fully align with her story).

“The wounds on her hand aren’t like on her palms where you might expect them... rather, they see that the wounds are on the sides of her hands.” – Alice [36:38]

• Julia willingly gives a statement at the police station, and gives casts of her teeth (and Jade’s) for possible bite mark comparisons.

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6. The Investigation: Timeline & Evidence

• Julia’s employer: Logs show she was working remotely. Scheduled: 7:30 am–12:30 pm with 9:30 am break (supposed to be 15 min, actually lasted 45 min).
  • At 11:05 am, she requests unplanned time off and is approved at 11:07 am. She does not log back in for work.
• Walmart alibi check:
  • Julia claims she drove the 30 minutes to Walmart but forgot her cards and returned without shopping.
  • Surveillance along the route and at Walmart show no trace of her or her car.
• Surveillance Break:
  • A neighbor's camera catches Julia’s gray Nissan Pathfinder at a Hucks gas station (11:42 am). She is seen throwing away a large object wrapped in a trash bag.
  • She is at Hucks for four minutes, then returns in the direction of her home.
• Cell phone GPS: Confirms trip to Hucks, not Walmart.

“By 11:46… this Pathfinder pulls into the Hucks gas station, it’s heading back towards… Julia’s home.” – Alice [44:52]

• Garbage already taken to landfill by time police investigate Hucks.
• Officers note: No evidence of an intruder (no footprints, no canine scent/trail outside, etc.).
• Julia is ultimately arrested for murder.

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7. Timeline According to Julia [51:49–63:11]

Julia’s Detailed Timeline:

• 7:30 am – Starts work; makes breakfast for Jade (Jade awake).
• 9:30 am – Takes a break (planned for 15 minutes; actually 45). She later claims she was having a serious heart-to-heart with Jade.
• 10:39 am – Texts Mike (Jade’s father) to check when he’ll be off work (he replies: around 1 pm).
• 11:05 am – Requests unplanned time off; is approved at 11:07 am.
• ~11:10 am – Says she looks in on Jade (sees her asleep).
• 11:23 am – Julia tells Mike okay (re: his "1pm" text), leaves house, puts dogs in backyard, drives off for shopping.
• 11:45 am – According to her, arrives at Walmart, realizes she forgot her credit cards, and turns back (no evidence supports this segment).
• ~12:20 pm–12:24 pm – Returns home, sees the door ajar, interacts with fleeing man in black, receives minor injuries, goes inside, washes hands, then checks on Jade in bathtub, finds her unresponsive, calls 911 at 12:24 pm.
• Police arrive – Within 10-15 minutes of call.

Host Analysis:

• Julia’s timeline, if accurate, fits perfectly with the events (“the timeline is perfect”), but surveillance and evidence show her in a different location and order of actions.
• Minor discrepancies (e.g., Jade’s state between supposedly being awake/talking and then asleep) noted.

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8. Initial Assessment by Hosts

• “Initial facts already aren’t lining up”—blood dry upon police arrivals, bath water clear, no sign of forced entry or of a “man in black” (no physical or canine trails).
• Julia’s evolving story—from sparse detail (911) to far more elaborate (interview)—causes suspicion.
• The hosts stress not reading too much into demeanor or first reactions, but to focus on facts, timelines, and evidence.
• Emphasize that stranger-perpetrated “home invasion” child murders are extremely rare.
• Both see the need for patience, forensics, and cross-referencing of alibis.
• The timeline Julia presents is neat, but evidence and surveillance begin to break down her alibi.

“What we can say here is Julia doesn’t do that... She doesn’t grab Jade, doesn’t pull her out of the bathtub, doesn’t wrap her arms around her and weep. There’s nothing like that.” – Brett [63:11]

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9. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We just go by the facts. We have a really brutal story that we’re going to tell you.” – Brett [02:41]
• “One officer arrives at the house... what he immediately notices is not just that this is an incredibly bloody scene, it's that the blood's already dry.” – Alice [29:38]
• “...the police are not having any luck finding the man in black. They form a task force, and they’re starting to wonder about Julia.” – Brett [42:45]
• “The timeline she gives, if accurate, really is great for her and great for her alibi... But it’s not what happened.” – Brett [63:11]
• “Some honest people are terrible truth-tellers and some liars are great at what they do... You have to just stick with the evidence.” – Brett [73:14]

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10. Important Timestamps

• 00:41 – Introduction to Jade Beasley case and setup.
• 04:00-05:00 – Other podcast coverage and case accessibility.
• 06:12-07:48 – Family background and custody context.
• 09:03-21:33 – 911 call audio segment.
• 26:45 – First officer’s account, forensic scene overview.
• 29:38-32:23 – Hosts discuss initial scene contradictions.
• 36:38-38:46 – Julia’s physical injuries and explanation.
• 42:45-44:52 – Surveillance evidence and breakdown of Julia’s statement.
• 51:49-63:11 – Detailed step-by-step through Julia’s version of events, with host analysis.
• 63:11– – Ending and preview of upcoming episodes.

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Episode Takeaways

• The prosecution’s theory is that not only did Julia’s story not hold up under scrutiny, but forensic timing, surveillance, and a lack of any sign of an intruder all pointed away from the “man in black” narrative.
• The episode ends with a promise of a deeper look in Part 2: the investigative timeline, evidence from the trial, autopsy details, forensics, DNA, bite mark analysis, full interview clips, and closing in on what most likely happened to Jade Beasley.
• Hosts emphasize the need for thoughtful, evidence-based investigation—not gut feelings, surface impressions, or narrative sympathy.
• True crime analysis should focus on facts, evolving stories, and confrontation between claimed and confirmed timelines, with empathy for the victim and family.

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Next Episode Preview:
A closer look at the true timeline as established by investigators, full breakdown of the forensic evidence, review of Julia’s lengthy police interview, autopsy results, and beginning to answer the central question: Did Julia Beverly kill Jade Beasley, or was an innocent person wrongly convicted?

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Contact and Further Reading:

• Prosecutorspodcast.com for transcripts, trial materials, and links.
• For direct commentary, questions, or alternate theories: prosecutorspodmail.com and @prosecutorspod on socials.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Juliet.

[B]

Hi, I'm Juliet Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of the true crime podcast the Real FBI Profilers. If you're fascinated with true crime and criminal profiling, then join us as we discuss real cases and examine the behavior exhibited before, during and after the commission of the crime. You can listen to the consult wherever you get your podcasts. It's as close as it gets to being in the room with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

[C]

I'm brett.

[B]

And I'm alice.

[C]

And we are the prosecutors. Today on the prosecutors, an 11 year old is brutally stabbed to death by an intruder dressed all in black. Or at least that's what her stepmother said. According to prosecutors, the truth in the murder of Jade Beasley is far more disturbing. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my generative co host, Alice.

[B]

Like as in I am AI.

[C]

Exactly, Alice. That's exactly right.

[B]

So brilliant.

[C]

Yes, you're so brilliant. You have all the knowledge of the entire history of humanity all in your mind.

[B]

I don't know about that or I'm full of it. Because that's also true. It could also be that because I will say I went to the aquarium with my 6 and 8 year old and the 8 year old, as you all know, reads encyclopedia. So he literally has an encyclopedic knowledge about animals, specifically animals. Nothing else doesn't know about world wars. Nothing. And so the six year old really wanted to keep up with him and it was like I had my own little AI bot because all of the facts sounded vaguely plausible, but I knew they were 100% made up. And I was like, this is how AI works. Like he says it with such conviction. And there are supporting facts, but all those supporting facts are also false.

[C]

That's, that's how some podcasts work as well.

[B]

That is true. Not to hear.

[C]

Not this one. Not this, not this one. That's right. We just go by the facts. We have a really brutal story that we're going to tell you. It's, there's a lot of tragedy in this one. We are going to be talking about the murder of an 11 year old girl, Jade Beasley, and what exactly happened and whether or not the person who was ultimately convicted of that crime is actually guilty. This is a case you may or may not be familiar with. Not a lot of podcasts have covered it. There's really only two. The first is called Murder on Songbird Road and that's a podcast by the Same people who did Murder in Illinois, I believe is the name of it. And that podcast was pretty famous. A lot of people have asked us to cover that. They've asked us to cover this one as well. Murder on Songbird Road is an innocence podcast heavily influenced by the mother of Julia Beverly, who was convicted of this crime and maintains her innocence to this day. So if you want to get sort of the innocence perspective, there's that. The other podcast that has covered this extensively is the Viper Pit podcast, which typically is, how would I describe it? A sort of. I wouldn't call it satire. It's like it's commentary. Commentary. There you go.

[B]

Commentary.

[C]

On other podcasts, often not safe for work. Not one to listen to their kids in the car, unless you want to add to their vocabulary. But they occasionally do deep dives into cases. They did a deep dive into this one, so you can check that out as well. And we're going to be covering this from the case file. We have the case file in this case. We've already put some important documents up on our website. If you want to read the trial transcript in this case, it is there. If you want to listen to the 911 call, if you want to read the transcript of the 911 call, it's all there. You've also linked to some videos that the Viper Pit podcast put up on their YouTube page, including the interview of Julia Beverly when she was. I'll call it an interrogation. If you watch it, it's not that intense an interview, but she did an interview with the police. It's lengthy. It's about two hours. Alice, is that two hours? About two hours. And also some other relevant videos are up there as well. So lots of stuff for you to dig into to do your own research on. Once again, we always encourage you to do that, particularly in these cases where there is that sort of innocence aspect. There's the controversy, the claim of a false conviction, and it's always really good to be able to access those. We're going to walk through this trial not in a witness by witness style, but as we typically do it, discussing the facts as they were testified to a trial. We what's reflected in the case file, things like the autopsy, all that sort of stuff, as we typically do. And then at the end we will come to a conclusion about what we think happened here. But I will tell you, this one is brutal. It always is when it's the murder of a child. We have an 11 year old here who was, at least according to the police, and the state of Illinois was murdered by her stepmother. I call her stepmother. As you're going to see, she and Jade's dad, they weren't married, but she'd been in Jade's life for seven years. I mean, they were long term relationship really since, you know, Jade was four years old. So I think stepmother is a good way to describe her and just to

[B]

kind of show the closeness of the relationship. Beverly lives with Jade's father and Jade's mother is still in the picture and so they have joint custody of Jade. So but Jade spends like what, every other weekend at Beverly and her father's home. So the seven years relationship is she lives with them, not full time, but you know, with her mother and then also with them as well. And Jade's father and Beverly have additional kids together as well. So there are siblings who are her half siblings through this stepmother.

[C]

Yes. I mean this is not just a girlfriend. I mean this is someone. There's a very deep relationship here, as Alice said, their half brothers and sisters that Jade would have had. But with all that said, let's get into the story so those of you who aren't familiar with this and maybe haven't listened to those other podcasts can get oriented to what we're going to be talking about. So on Saturday, December 5, 2020, Jade Beasley, who is an 11 year old girl, she's finishing up her week with her father and her stepmother, Julia. Beverly, her mom, is due to pick her up at 1pm that day. She and her stepmom are the only people in the home. It is a typical Saturday, nothing unusual about this at all.

[B]

So Jade was also a typical girl. She loved Legos and playing Minecraft. And to this point there was nothing unusual in her home life either. Her parents were divorced, but they were as amicable as they could be. They shared custody on a week by week basis.

[D]

And.

[B]

And Jade's stepmom Julia worked for Hyatt as a customer service rep. And she was actually working from home that day. Because if you take us back to December 2020, this was kind of in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Many of us, I think both of us, Britt, were working from home at that time. And so during this kind of COVID time, Jade's stepmother Julia was working from home. And because she was working from home and it was just a Saturday, there was no school and Jade and Julia were the only people in the house because her father Michael was at work that day. And Julia, I mentioned earlier, had two other children With Michael. Those two other children were actually with their grandparents. And Julia had another son who was not a direct half brother to Jade. Her other son, Jaden, was at his father's. So in other words, there's four total kids in this family, but three of them are elsewhere with other family members at the time. So just Jade and Julia at home now. December Christmas is approaching, so Julia decides to go buy some presents at a Walmart in the town of Carbondale, which is about 30 minutes drive from their home.

[C]

So typical day, early December. You know, you're trying to get those Black Friday and post Black Friday deals. She goes off to this Walmart in Carbondale and then something went horribly wrong. At 12:24, a 911 call comes in. It's Julia. She says that she's returned home to find someone has broken into her house and she thinks her stepdaughter is dead. She says when she got home, someone was running out and her front door was open. She says the man she saw was dressed all in black. Okay, we're going to play the 911 call for you so you can hear it and then we will be back after it is over.

[A]

No, it's emergency. Okay, okay, okay, listen. Calm down. What is. Listen, listen to me. Calm down. What's your address?

[D]

Songbird, Rodentarian, Illinois.

[A]

Okay, okay, okay, listen. You said 1304 songbird.

[D]

113 04.

[A]

Okay, you said someone had broken into your house.

[D]

They were running out as I was coming home from my stomp bar.

[A]

Okay, listen, listen to me. You're gonna take a breath. I can't understand what you'. Okay, you said someone came running out of your house.

[D]

Yeah, they came running out whenever I got home and all my door was open.

[A]

Okay, which way did they go?

[D]

I don't know. They just ran out and I came in to check on Jade.

[A]

Okay, stay on the line here. Okay, you said 11304 songbird, right? Okay, 11304 songbird. 11304 songbird. RP says she came home, saw someone running. Go ahead and have her mind still not sure what quiet what's going on, but. Okay. What is your name?

[D]

My name is Joy.

[A]

Joy. Okay. Okay, Joy. Who else is in the residence?

[D]

It's just me right now, but Jen, look at his dad. He's in the bathtub. Dude got multiple wounds all over her.

[A]

Okay, Who is this in the bathtub?

[D]

It's much time. Daughter.

[A]

Okay. How old is she? Okay? Is she awake?

[D]

No, I don't think so. She's not moving.

[A]

Okay, hold on. When that person left, did they leave in a vehicle or on foot?

[D]

They were on play, they just took off running.

[A]

Okay, could you tell if it was a male or a female?

[D]

It was male.

[A]

Could you tell what color shirt he was wearing?

[D]

He was in all black.

[A]

Okay, That's fine. Get an ambulance to stage. Okay Joy, I've got plenty of people coming to help you. Okay, where are you still in the house or did you go outside?

[D]

No, yeah, I'm still inside.

[A]

Okay, Joy, what is your last name?

[D]

Beverly.

[A]

Do you know if anybody else was supposed to have been at the residence?

[D]

No, nobody was.

[A]

OK. For. Joy, what is your middle initial and your date of birth?

[D]

423 91.

[A]

Step it up. I'm going to give you their phone number. Give them a call by phone. [phone]. Yeah. Anybody, anybody available to respond to a call for county? 11304. 304 songbird had an 11 year old, multiple wounds. 10 4. When mother came home she advised she saw someone fleeing from the residence. Believed to be a male subject wearing all black, not sure where. He has gone to. 11304. Songbird 11,302. Okay, we've got an ambulance coming and I've got Marion and county officers coming to you also. Okay, have you heard any vehicles or anything that might have started up?

[D]

No, I ran to town to go to the store and then I came back. That's when I saw the door was open.

[A]

Okay, okay. As you were coming, as you said you saw them running from the house. When you were facing the house, did they run towards off towards the left or towards the right?

[D]

I don't know.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

I don't know.

[A]

Okay. Okay. Trying to put on my map here, make sure we're going. I'm trying to see if I can see anything else out in that area. You, you said she's 11, is that correct? Okay, I think it's gonna be faster if you go down but yeah, you can get there from normal. Actually if you can go to Corey League enough too, that's be about as quick either way. Okay, I've got some that are on Koi League and I've got some that are coming from Pittsburgh Road. So I just. Just letting you know. Okay, 13 go ahead and start heading towards this call too if you're not already. We probably will need canine for this. Male subject flooded residence. I have his male subject, dark clothes. She is not sure which direction she went. She's pretty hysterical. Okay, it looks like he's Just, just right down the road from you now. Okay? There's an officer should be pulling in. Okay, Joy, I'm gonna let you talk to them. Okay? Okay, thank you,

[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[C]

Okay, so that's the 911 call from Julia to the police, letting know what's happening in case you had any trouble with that. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you, but just some highlights. Basically, she calls. It starts off, hi, this is Julia. Beverly come over there. And someone broke into my house. They asked the address she gives it. She says, somebody broke in. They were running out as I was coming home. And my stepdaughter, I think she's dead. And goes on to say, the dispatcher asks about this person. I don't know. They just ran out. I saw the blood and I came in to check on Jade. And then it sort of goes forward. Obviously, as you. You heard, she's crying a lot. She's difficult to understand at times. She says, it's just me right now. But Jade, I think she's dead in the bathtub. She's got multiple wounds all over her. Who is that in the bathtub? It's my stepdaughter. How old is she? She's 11. So doesn't have a whole lot to offer, just that it's definitely a man, someone dressed in dark clothing who was running out of the house as she arrived on the scene. And she doesn't know exactly what direction they headed for when they left.

[B]

And, you know, we've always said it's hard to judge a 911 call because people react differently in different circumstances. But some things to note because we will get more facts. As we've noted earlier, she's going to have a pretty long interview with the police. More facts are going to come out. But it's helpful to note that this is a relatively long 911 call, partly because she's holding while they're calling for dispatch. But everything Brett, just read, those are all the facts that we know from this call. That.

[C]

And look, I think a lot of people hate 911 calls. I get that a lot. They don't like to hear 911 calls. And I think one of the reasons is because so many people focus on the demeanor of the caller. And are they crying enough? Are they crying too much? Are they hysterical enough? Are they too hysterical? All that stuff. And maybe all that's Great. And you can read into that whenever you want to. But you have to remember this is Julia's first statement of the facts to the police. This is the very first time that she is talking to someone about what happened that day. So just sort of going through what she says and the facts that she gives to the police is important, particularly because they're going to be more detailed discussions later. Now look, this is obviously a very stressful time, frankly, whether she's involved or not, this is a very stressful time. So it's not that you necessarily hold her to every thing she says and say, aha. She said he went left and he couldn't have gone left, he must have gone right. So therefore she's lying. She doesn't even know what direction he went. But I think it is useful to just see how she describes the situation in this first time that she speaks

[B]

to the police and also to note that there is a lot of downtime in this call. We've heard calls where it hangs up abruptly because they're running to something or they're cut off because the call's cut off for whatever reason. And you know, you hear a dial tone or something like that. There actually is a lot of downtime where you hear her crying and someone in the background dispatch, you know, repeating the information to dispatch to get someone there. So this isn't a situation, at least in terms of the timing of the call, where people are cut off from being able to provide information. So with that with relatively limited information at this point. And look, if you walk in where someone's running out and you think your stepdaughter is dead, that's a lot of information to process. But that's all we have right here and that's all dispatch has right now. So they know that there is probably someone they should be looking for. So one officer, they race to the scene because we have a potential 11 year old who's dead here and potentially someone who's dangerous out on the streets. Now the other one starts looking for a man in black, but all he finds is a woman who's wearing black walking her dog. Now, he doesn't see the dog, but the woman mentions her dog to him. So when the other officer arrives at the house, he finds Julia in the kitchen who's still on 911 and there's blood everywhere. You're going to hear about this a lot from multiple law enforcement who show up. But what he immediately notices is not just that this is an incredibly bloody scene, it's that the blood's already dry. So he makes his way to the bathroom where Julia had kind of gestured towards that's where Jade is. So he walks back to the bathroom, and he sees that Jade is in the bathtub, which is now half full of water, and the water is running. So he pulls Jade out of the tub and he tries to do cpr, but he notices that Jade is cold to his touch. He also notices that there's a massive cut to her chest and it's not bleeding and that the water in the bathtub is clear. So a couple things to note here. You only bleed even if you have a cut, if your heart's pumping. So if your heart is no longer pumping, you're dead. Even if you have gaping wounds, blood doesn't come out. And it's notable that the water is continuing to run here and that if she were bleeding at the time she were in the water, you'd expect the water to be bloody. But the fact that the water is clear and that blood is not coming out of her wound, a gaping wound that you would expect blood to be coming out of, suggests timing of whether she was alive or dead at the time she was put in the tub here. So it seems pretty clear to this officer Jade is dead. And it actually seems like she's been dead for some time. When he walks back into the kitchen, Julia is sitting on the floor, and all she says is, she dead.

[C]

Okay, so Alice went through that, and I think it's worth just noting a few things. And we're going to go over this several times because we're going to go over the timeline as Julia delivers it. We're going to go over the timeline as the state presented. We're going to go over a lot of the facts. So, and that's the thing about this. I feel like when you're dealing with these complex cases, it's good to talk about the facts a lot, and we're going to do that this time. And I think it's worth stopping here to talk about some of this stuff, because this is really important. You heard the 911 call. It was a long 911 call for what we typically experience, but it wasn't that long a call. And according to her story, she arrives and she sees this guy running out. She goes inside, she sees the blood. She goes to check on Jade. She finds her in the bathtub. She rushes to the phone, she calls 91 1. And then that period between when the 911 call begins and the police arrive, very short matter of minutes is how long it takes them to get there. And then the police arrive, and they don't see what they would have expected to see. You know, they see all this blood, but it's dry. They go in the bathroom, she's still in the bathtub, the water is running. And this is important, right, because imagine a situation in which Jade had been killed 30 minutes before. You know, Julia's gone. The reason the blood is dry is because the murderer killed Jade immediately upon entering the home. Stayed in the home for a while, maybe, heard the car pulling up and was like, oh, I gotta get out of here, and runs out. So the reason the blood is dry and everything else is because he was in the home for a long time. Imagine that's true. Well, then you have the problem with this running bathtub. Like, the water is running, the bathtub is filling up. The water is clear and it's not overflowing. So it's a strange situation where the timing, just this initial thoughts for these police officers, the things they're seeing are not lining up with a story that they're hearing. They're seeing all this stuff that indicates the murder happened a while ago. But the bathtub situation is very strange. It seems like she was put in the bathtub maybe after she was already dead. The water is running, she's cold to the touch, she's been dead for a while. And yet we have this person who's telling us this all just happened. So it's a very. Just initially a strange thing for the police to walk into. But, you know, they've got this story that a man in black did this. So they begin to arrive and they're fanning out and they're looking for this man. This is not a case where the police show up and say, whatever, there's no man in black. She did it. Arrest her. Let's be done with this. No, they start looking for this guy, and it seems like their job should be easy. With as much blood as is in that trailer, they think he's going to have left a trail. And even if he didn't leave a trail in blood, the area around the trailer, it's a pretty rural area. I mean, there are houses and neighbors and sort of a normal distance away, but there's lots of foliage, there's lots of grass, the kind of thing that a person running through, it would break. And one of the ways dogs track people think, you know, you give them, like, a hat the guy wore, and the dog is now tracking that person's scent. Well, A lot of times in these cases, you don't have anything like that. And what the dogs are actually tracking is the smell of broken grass. So they know if a person's running through a field, they're stepping on grass, they're breaking grass. Have you ever. The first time somebody cuts the grass in the spring, it has a very distinctive smell. It's probably the only time you as a human can really smell broken grass. Well, dogs obviously are much better at it than you are. So that's one of the things they're looking for, is a trail for these dogs to follow. But the canine units arrive and they can't find anything. The police have been looking for 45 minutes at this point. They can't find any track, the dogs can't pick up any scent. And it seems as though this man in black were a phantom. He's able to move through the trailer and the surrounding area without leaving a trace. And so the police, now sort of stymied in their initial search, begin to ask Julia if she has any more information.

[B]

So it's at this point that her story becomes more detailed than what she said on that 911 call, which we've said is relatively limited information. When she came home, Julia says a man was coming out the door and he had a knife. He was wearing a black hoodie and had black gloves. She said that he also had blonde hair, at least as far as she could tell, based on his eyebrows. As the search for this man continues, the police take her to the station to give a full statement. Now, at the station, and we should know that she goes willingly, right? I think it's pretty normal if you have a death in the house, you're going to want witness statements to understand what happened. So she agrees to go to the station and she says that she was off work early that day, so she decided to go to Walmart in Carbondale in her dark gray Nissan Pathfinder. She gets all the way to Walmart, which is about a 29, 30 minute drive away. And when she gets to the parking lot, she realizes that she forgot her credit cards. So instead of going in, she turns around and, and goes back home. As she arrives, that's when she notices that the front door is wide open. She walks up to the screen door and just as she's opening it, she says that the man in black comes rushing out and he has a knife in his hand, which she at that point tries to grab from him. And she does indeed have wounds on her hand that the police can observe. And they Take pictures of it. But the wounds on her hand aren't like on her palms where you might expect them. If you're grabbing at something sharp, you'd expect where you're grabbing the insides of your palms to have wounds. Rather they see that the wounds are on the sides of her hands. So she also has this scrape between her eyes, a scrape on her chin, and what appears to be like a bite mark on both of her arms. And when they note that she has what appears to be bite marks, she says, yes, you're right, those are actually bite marks on my arms. But I didn't get those from the intruder or anybody else. She explains that she self harms and she had bitten herself the night before in one of her, I guess, episodes of self harm.

[C]

So one thing that's interesting to note and in a later episode we'll play some of these clips for you. You heard the 911 call and as I said, the 911 calls. The first time she's speaking to the police. Now obviously she's trying to get help. That is her main objective. It's not necessarily to tell the exact story of what happened, but in the 911 call it's much more like, you know, if you're just imagining what she's seeing, it's like she's pulling up to the home and all of a sudden a guy runs out of the trailer, runs to the front door and runs off. And she's like freaked out by that and she kind of goes inside to check on Jade because she knows she left Jade in the trailer. This is a trailer, it's like a double wide trailer. She goes into the home and she finds Jade dead. And so then she calls 91 1. But now when we're having this additional conversation with the police, the much more detailed conversation, a much more detailed story comes out. Now it's not that she pulled up and saw the man run out, it's that she pulled up, got out, was walking, you know, to her front door, noticed that the door was open, which was weird, but I mean I could totally see myself doing this. Wow, that's weird. I must left the door open. I remember one time. Sorry, the sides always come with these kind of episodes. I remember one time I had left my doors unlocked on my car and of course somebody in the middle of the night came by pulling door handles and like stole the 75 cents and change out of the cup. And I remember the next day I like got up and I went down to my car and opened the door. And like everything was kind of out of place and the middle console was up and it, you know, it had obviously been rifled through. And I. And I thought to myself, man, I must have just left all this stuff just wide open last night. I wonder when I did that. And it was only after like a second that I was like, oh, somebody's been in my car. But initially I didn't even realize that's what had happened. I was so oblivious to it, I didn't even think about it. They could have been in the back seat ready to shoot me and I wouldn't even known, right? So it's that kind of thing. And so she walks up, she sees this door open. She sort of opens the screen door and as she does, this guy comes rushing out and he has a knife in his hand. And this is a very brief interaction, as you're going to see, but when he comes rushing out with this knife, she instinctively grabs at the knife. And this, she explains, is how she got these cuts on her hand, is grabbing at the knife. And the guy, she doesn't get the knife away from him. He doesn't try and stab her any like that. He just keeps going with a knife. But now her hands are cut, so she's got these wounds on her hand. She's got these wounds on her face, which aren't really that well explained, but maybe you could say, well, traumatic event. It only took a few seconds. He probably bumped into her head. She didn't even realize it. And that's why she has these scrapes on her head. And the police also notice these bite marks and they think this is a very strange thing, that there are these bite marks on her arm. And this isn't speculation. Bite mark analysis is one of those things that people are very critical of for good reason, because oftentimes things that look like bite marks turn out not to even be bite marks, much less bite marks that you can compare to somebody else. But in this case, we know they're bite marks because she says, oh yeah, those are definitely bite marks because I bite myself. I tend to self harm and I don't really know anything about self harm. But I know that probably sounds very strange to some of you, maybe even some of you who know someone or maybe have been through that yourself. But she says it, and I'm going to assume that is something that people might do who are in that circumstance. So what we can say for certain though is she has bite marks on

[B]

her arms and she confirms their bite marks. And since she's the recipient of them, they're just trying to confirm her story here, just like they're trying to confirm this black hooded man who's out on the streets. And that's why they're stopping people who are walking dogs to figure out, what are you doing here? What have you seen?

[C]

So then the police are interested in these bite marks. So they call a local dentist who comes down. He makes casts of Julia's teeth and Jade's teeth as well. He's not a forensic odontologist, but he doesn't have to be because all he's doing is what he does every day. He's making these casts of the teeth. Somebody else who's an expert, if they want to take a look at that, can take a look at it later. And this will become important later. So at this point, you know, the police are not having any luck finding the man in black. They form a task force and they're starting to wonder about Julia. And as we've said before, in all these cases, really, in any case, murder case, typically the way you start is you look at the people closest to the victim, you eliminate those people, you sort of go out in concentric circles. And maybe eventually you do get to this as some sort of stranger murder. They happen. They are rare. We do have an indication here, a witness here who's saying it's a stranger. Well, that means the first thing we really need to do is eliminate her as a suspect. If we can eliminate Julia as a suspect, then this man in black story becomes much stronger. So we want to confirm her story. And they start with her work. They find that she was scheduled to work that day from 7:30am to 12:30pm with a 15 minute break starting at 9:30. She did take that break, but it didn't last 15 minutes. In fact, it ended up lasting 45 minutes. And then at 11:05, she requested an unapproved time off. This is sort of weird because it's called unapproved time off. It sounds like absent without leave, but I think what it means is not previously approved time off. So in the middle of the work day, she's saying, hey, can I have the rest of the day off? And that is granted two minutes later. As Alice said, this is what, nine months into the COVID thing, she works for a hotel. She probably can get time off whenever she wants. At this time, she gets time off and she never logs on again.

[B]

So putting this in perspective, she works from 7:30 to 9:30, takes that break. We now know that the call comes for 91 1, around what, 12:30, something like that. One thing I wanted to note, cause I see some people beginning to talk about it in the chat. So we're talking about Jade, who is an 11 year old. Those of you who have kids in this age range know that you can vary greatly and like you can have a tiny 11 year old who's like 50 pounds and you can have like a linebacker. 11 year old Jade was over 5ft tall. She was about 130 pounds. I think she was actually maybe a little bit taller in fact than Julia. So this isn't a situation where you have like a parent in the house with a very small child, like a toddler. She weighs like an adult. And so we will see as we begin to look at the crime scene that this reflects a struggle and this reflects taking down someone who is of adult size. So though she is just an 11 year old girl and she looks like a small child, I mean her face still looks like a kid. But we are not talking about like a small mouth. For example, some people are starting to talk about the bite marks. Can't you just tell if it's like a little kid's bite marks or an adult's? Not so much when you're talking about an 11 year old who has kind of reached probably what her close to her adult height will be. And this is going to be relevant as we talk about the crime scene later. So continuing down this investigation to try and confirm Julia's story, the police go to that Walmart in Carbondale that she said she went to. It's 19 miles from their house and depending on traffic, it takes about 33 minutes to get there. So the police pull up surveillance footage from various businesses along the path looking for Julia's car. Julia also tells police where she parked at Walmart, so they pull up that footage too. But despite viewing kind of footage of security cameras on the path these 19 miles from her house all the way to Walmart, as well as in the Walmart parking lot, they don't see her Pathfinder, they don't see her car as she describes driving to this Walmart. But then they catch a break because as part of their search they'd pulled camera footage from every neighbor they could. And one of these neighbors, who was about a half mile from the Beverly's home, catches a gray Nissan Pathfinder heading westbound into Marion. Now this Pathfinder pulls into a Hucks gas station at 11:42. Despite pulling up to the pumps though, Julia gets out of this car and she doesn't get gas Instead, police watch as a woman dressed in dark clothes gets out and throws away what looks to be like a large package like object wrapped in a trash bag. Unfortunately for the police, the garbage had already been taken to the landfill from that gas station. When they see this footage and they realize that, hey, maybe this is the Pathfinder we've been looking for. And maybe this woman who's getting out of the car throwing something away is actually Julia. By 11:46. So about four minutes after this Pathfinder pulls into the Hucks gas station, it's heading back towards the direction of Julia's home. So police take Julia's cell phone and they pull the GPS data off that phone. They find that the GPS is consistent with the travel that neighbor's footage found. It's consistent with this Nissan Pathfinder going to Huck's gas station, staying for four minutes and coming back towards the Beverly's home. So soon thereafter, Julia is arrested for the murder of Jade Beasley.

[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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I misstated certain things I messed up. Later on, her mother will actually call the police and say, hey, she didn't go to Walmart. She actually went to Hux. And Julia will point to, this is like, see, I wasn't really trying to hide it because my own mom called you and told you about this. Now, I think by that point, the police already had that footage, but I don't know that her mom knew that. And I think if you watch the jail calls between Julia and her mom, I mean, I think her mom is completely convinced that she's innocent, that she didn't do this, she didn't have anything to do with this. She was railroaded by the police, et cetera, et cetera. But these are the kind of things that are coming together that are making the police think we got a problem. And I think you see this. If we really get into the timelines, both of what Julia said she did and what the police found. And so we'll start off with Julia's timeline. So we're going back to Saturday, December 5, 2020. So Julia, she makes breakfast for Jade. You know, everything's fine, everybody's happy. She begins work at around 7:30am At 9:30am she takes that approved break. Now, you may recall the break was supposed to last for 15 minutes. It ends up lasting for 45 minutes. Now, that's a strange thing, number one, because anybody who's ever worked a 9 to 5 job knows, you know, as a lawyer, the worst thing about being a lawyer is to work all the time, including at night. The best thing is if I want to go get coffee, I just go get coffee. And I might be gone for 45 minutes and nobody ever asked me about it, right? But if I have a 9 to 5 job, back when I worked at the hotel, if I was a minute late from the hotel, it was a problem, right? And so the same thing here, it's a 15 minute break. You're supposed to log off, do whatever you do for 15 minutes, and then get back on, which doesn't get back on for 45 minutes. Granted, it's Covid, and everything is a little different in Covid, but she doesn't get back home. And that's led to a lot of people considering what's going to happen later to wonder if this is when it happened, Was it during those 45 minutes something happened and it kept her from being able to log back on. Well, she has an explanation for this. She will say on Murder on Songbird Road, that actually what was occurring during this time and she and Jade were having a bit of a heart to heart. Jade was dealing with some issues. She needed someone to confide in. She confided in Julia and it's not like she can say, you know, sorry honey, 15 minutes is up, good luck with your problems, I have to go back to work. No, she continued to talk to her for another 30 minutes. So that's what she says. So that's from 9:30 to 10:15 at 10:39. So 24 minutes after she logs back on, she texts Mike to see when he's getting off work. He works at the Cracker Barrel and he will later say in an interview with police this was unusual for her to text him like this. It wasn't as if it had never happened, but it wasn't something that happened every day. It wasn't like they kept in constant communication about when they were going to get off. And in fact, because business was a little slow, this being at best the post Covid period and really very much in the middle of COVID for a lot of people. He actually was going to get off work a little bit earlier than he expected. And he texts back that he'll be about one o' clock is when he's going to get off. At 11:05, Julia requests the rest of the day off. This is her unapproved leave request at 11:05. At 11:07 her time off request is granted. So at this point she goes and gets dressed because once again she's teleworking. So it's not like she has to wear anything, which took very little time. She would later say she looked in on Jade. So basically she looked into her room, she saw that she was asleep, so she doesn't think anything about that and she doesn't want to wake her up to tell her where she's going. She then leaves the dogs in the backyard. This will become important later. And she gets into her car, her Nissan Pathfinder, and she begins the 30 minute drive to Carbondale to shop at Walmart at 11:23. So as she's on her way to Walmart, according to her, she responds back to Mike, remember who has said around 1 o', clock? She says, oh, okay. So she responds that way at around 11:45, she arrives at Walmart. She parks. She tells the police exactly where she parks. She checks her phone to see if she has any messages, anything going on. She hasn't seen anything. And at that point she realizes, wouldn't you know it, she has forgotten her credit cards. So she's going to have to go back home because she doesn't have any credit cards. She's driven all the way to Walmart, doesn't have her credit cards. So she turns around and she drives home.

[B]

I guess in 2020 there wasn't so much like Apple Pay or like being able to. I actually think about how I never have my credit cards on me because this is just a commentary on how far we've come in like five or six years.

[C]

Yeah. You know, I thought about this a lot too. I was at a pizza place, I was picking up something and a guy comes in and he's like, hey, I forgot my credit cards, can I tap? And I was thinking, man, I've never felt older in my life because I have no idea what he's talking about.

[B]

I don't know what a tap is.

[C]

And the guy's like, yeah. And so he takes out his phone. This is a lot of you rolling your eyes at us right now. He takes out his phone and he like taps it up against the side of the register, I don't know. And paid for his food. So he was able to do that. Like I guess that I don't know anything about that, but that that was or is something you can do. But apparently, you know, she didn't have that capability or whatever. I don't know. So.

[B]

Wow. So again we're going through Julia's timeline here. She's the one in the home here saying all this. But again, kind of like we were saying with respect to the bite marks, saying she said that they were bite marks and the police are trying to confirm. A couple things to note about her timeline here is that at 7:30 Jade is awake because she's making her breakfast. At 9:30 they're having a heart to heart something serious that was taking about 45 minutes to talk about. So seems like something that was either very deep or took a lot of time. And then within about 45 minutes when she checks back in on Jade, she's asleep again. So this is worth noting kind of whether Jade is asleep, talking, eating breakfast or whatnot.

[C]

Right. And you know, this is, this is sort of her position on how this is going. This is the story that she's gonna tell. So she's driven off to Walmart. She doesn't have her cards. She has to come back. That's going to take another 30 minutes. At around 12:20, she arrives at home. The screen door is closed, but the main door is open. She opens the screen door, and here comes the man in black with the knife. They have a brief interaction. She says it was about five seconds. Give her the benefit of the doubt. Sam's a little bit longer than that. During which time she attempts to grab the knife. She actually will end up saying she has cuts on both her hands. So she'll end up saying she tried to grab it with one hand and I guess she got cut. And she tried to grab it with the other hand, she got cut on the other hand. And he takes off. He doesn't. He makes no effort to stab her or anything. She describes him as being about as tall as she is, maybe a little taller. She's like five foot tall. She's very short. So he's not a very tall guy. But he has a knife, and so what are you gonna do? And she tries to get the knife. She can't get the knife. She.

[B]

Her.

[C]

Now her hands are cut. So the man runs off. She goes inside, closes the door behind her, I suppose, and decides, you know, I've got these cut hands. I need to go wash my hands and get a towel. So she goes into the master bedroom area, which is very close to the front door. She goes to the master bedroom, washes her hands, she gets a towel, and then she thinks, I need to go make sure Jade's okay. Now, I will tell you from the case file, there's blood everywhere. So, I mean, like on the walls,

[B]

on the front door.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

On the ground. Like, the police, when they walk in are like, oh, my gosh, there's so much blood.

[C]

Right. But once again, giving her the benefit of the doubt. Shock. Right. I mean, she's just seen a crazed man with a knife who stabbed her. Well, he didn't stab her, but she's cut herself twice on her hands, had this crazy interaction. Maybe she didn't even notice the blood. She just. She just goes in, she washes her hands, she gets the towel. It's only then she thinks, oh, oh, my goodness, I need to check on Jade. So that's when she goes to look for her and she finds her in the bathtub. And that's when she realizes she's stabbed. I want to say she shakes her. This is from. If you go and watch the. The interview, which is about two hours long. And it's worth watching. Like I said, we link to it on our, our website. She kind of describes like tapping her on the shoulder, you know, to see if she's okay. And she doesn't react. And I think she, she may even say she tried to feel for a pulse, but I'm not even. And that she, she said that she

[B]

just honestly sounded a little more. It sounded the opposite of what John Ramsey did when Jon found JonBenet. If you remember when we covered JonBenet, he, I mean, really ruining the crime scene. But he throws his body on top of JonBenet, lifts her up from where he finds her, and I think, no, when they get upstairs, they wrap her in a blanket, but carries her like a child and walks upstairs. Now she's a six year old child, so much easier to pick up. But if you can imagine that is one end of the spectrum of when a parent finds a child, this would be the other end of the spectrum. The way she's describing it in her interview, it sounds, honestly, you can make your own judgment a little more sterile, at least in the way she's describing of how she is interacting with the body of Jade that she has encountered in the bathtub.

[C]

One thing that's very clear, as Alice said. You know, some people even say that John Ramsey did that to ensure that his DNA would be all over his daughter. He's really thinking this through. He's making sure that no one can say he got there some other way. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. But what we can say here is Julia doesn't do that. Whatever it, whatever it means to you about her behavior, she, she does not grab Jade. She doesn't try and pull her out of the bathtub. She doesn't wrap her arms around her and weep. There's nothing like that. She, she touches her on the shoulder, she maybe kind of feels for a pulse on her neck, decides that I need to call 91 1. She runs out. She calls 91 1. And the 911 call goes out at 12:24pm and then the police arrive. I think the first officer arrives, you know, 10, 15 minutes later. Not, not much later. I'd have to go back and look at the exact time. But you've heard the time. You've heard the 911 call and you can hear the police arrive on the 911 call. So we're talking minutes here. It doesn't take them 30 minutes or an hour. They're arriving, I would say tops 15 minutes after this call. Now what's interesting about this timeline. This timeline is perfect. So it is perfect for what happened. If Julia's telling the truth, she's gone for about an hour. When she leaves, when she gets back, when she calls 91 1, line up perfectly. I mean, she's arriving back at this house, this trailer, a couple minutes before she calls 91 1, exactly the amount of time you'd expect to encounter the guy. Go in, wash your hands quickly, find Jade, check on her, see that she's, she's not well, rush into the to the kitchen and call 911. I mean, the timeline is perfect. So the timeline she gives the if accurate, really is great for her and great for her alibi and accounts for everything you would expect it to account for from Jade's murder to the blood drying, all of it. It is really a perfect timeline. And that's we're going to leave you for today. Next time, we're going to get into the timeline from the investigation. Because the problem is, as perfect as Julia's timeline is, it's not what happened. And everyone agrees, including Julia at this point, that it's not what happened. And you're going to see next time what did happen. And that's important for several reasons. It's important in the way it contradicts Julia's timeline. Yes. But it's also important for the amount of time that passes at various points and how you explain that Julia is innocent. So that's going to be something we really dive into next time. And then we're going to get into the trial, the investigation, the autopsy, the physical facts. We're going to talk DNA, we're going to talk blood. We'll talk a little bit about bite mark analysis. To the point that's, to the point that's important. Going to spend a lot of time on Julia's interview, going to play clips for you of what she's telling the police so that you can compare that to the facts and know them. And then at some point, probably not next episode, but at some point we'll talk about what ended up happening in this case, our theories in this case, and whether or not we think Julia is responsible for this crime. All right, well, like I said, this is a brutal one. You have an 11 year old who is murdered. Doesn't really matter. I mean, it does matter who did it, obviously, but whoever did it doesn't change the fact that this is a great tragedy. And you should keep Jade and her family in your thoughts and prayers as we talk about this case. If you're Interested in more. And as I said, we're, we've talked about the murder on Song Bird Road. You really get Julia's perspective from that podcast. Viper Pit podcast goes into a ton of detail, goes through the case file in a lot of detail. It don't end up doing probably twice as many episodes as we do on this case. So another really good thing to listen to if you're, if you really want to dive into this. And obviously, as I said, we've got the transcripts on the website. You can read this entire trial for yourself. If you're out there and you have a podcast and you want to cover this case. We have the entire case file with everything in it. The only thing I've taken out are the autopsy photos. Take out all the autopsy photos, but otherwise happy to share that with you if you want to cover this case. It doesn't really matter to me whether you're coming at it from innocence or guilt perspective. I just want you to have all the information as, as you go forward. Let me know if you're interested in the case. I can share that with you. So you have it. All right, Alice, anything else on this case before we move on?

[B]

No, except that, like you said, this is very devastating. We haven't even really gotten to the autopsy or the wounds of what happened to Jade. What happened to her and then who did it are two really brutal aspects of the story. But I hope you've learned something so far. And we've tried to keep kind of our commentary at a minimum so far because I think it's really helpful to know as the facts, just like if you're an investigator and learning them in real time and what facts you learn at what point in time matters. So the timeline itself matters where you learn it from, but also the timeline of how the facts develop and how they change and what we know and confirm to be the facts is also very relevant to what happens in this case.

[C]

All right, if you have thoughts already, shoot us an email. Prosecutors podmail.com prosecutors pod for all your social media. You can discuss this case on the gallery if you're so interested. If you want to see us record these early and ad free and join Patreon. Or if you just want to listen to them early, you can listen on Patreon or you can become a subscriber on and you'll get the episodes early and ad free on either one of those that you can only see our smiling faces early on Patreon. So consider that either way, you're paying three Bucks. So it's just whatever's important to you. Alice, do you have time for a question tonight before we sign off?

[B]

Course, of course. Especially whenever we. We do these child murders. I have to a question to be able to go to sleep at night.

[C]

Okay, well, let's do. Here's one. This is from credit one suck to kingdom come. I don't know what's going on in their life, but sounds like there's a problem. They want to know has the defendant ever surprised you, slash got one over on you, like personally, you believe them and you were proved wrong? Is that even how it works?

[B]

More often than not, the defendant thinks they're pulling on over me and you can see right through it. And we're talking people who have advanced degrees and are like by society standards, very smart and very accomplished in their fields. Those are the ones who always think they can pull one over me. I think I've told you guys, I've prosecuted a number of doctors who really think that they hung the moon. And every time they talk to me in a witness room, they are just swarmy as all get out and they take the stand and they think that they're pulling one over the jury. And every single time they get convicted.

[C]

So Alice missed this because she had Covid. This is an example of what she just described. It's the time that the lawyer called her that oriental girl. So after that phone call, the lawyer shows up with his client. He was a target of ours. And we're trying to get this guy to flip. Basically we want him to flip on everybody else and tell us what really happened. And we knew what happened. What had happened. What happened was he had taken a bribe of like 10,000 bucks. He'd taken a bribe to do some shady things. And that money had flowed through, as it often does, flowed through a legitimate charity, which actually turned out to be a boy scout troop, into his personal account. And we knew that. We already knew it. So we're doing this interview. He arrives with his lawyer and he brings in. The guy walks in and he's got this clear plastic tub filled with boy scout stuff. It's got like badges. Yeah, all the things, sashes, all of it. Right. And we know what he's going to do. He's going to say, oh, that money, this is what I spent on boy scout stuff. Right. That's what he's going to try and tell us. Problem was, we had the napkin that he'd written down the. I think I still have that.

[B]

Where to send the money.

[C]

Yeah. Where to send the money. And we had the transactions, how it went into the account. And he did leave like a couple hundred bucks in there for things like merit badges, but the rest of it went right into his account. But we know this is the story he's going to tell. And sure enough, he starts telling that story and we're just like, stop. We got the napkin and we smack it down in front of him. And he picks up the napkin, he looks at it and then he admits, he's like, so you want me to tell you how he bribed me? And we're like, yes, we do. And then he tells the story. So the number of times they attempt to get something over on you, massive. But we almost always have more information than they know we have. So we're usually in a much better position.

[B]

But the reason we do that is we try to do all of our investigative work before we go into the room with a witness. Because it's like preparing for a test, right? Like there are some tactics where obviously if you have a missing child, it's an active kidnapping case or something, you just talk to whoever you can grab off the streets. But when you're doing like a long term investigation, you should be in a position where you have more information because then you're able to ask better questions, confront them with lies as opposed to having to pull them back in every time they tell a lie. And you have to go research or investigate and then pull them back in because then they have the upper hand. So this is good investigative work.

[C]

Yeah. And look, and this is important because at the end of the day, you really have to rely on the evidence. You got to go with the evidence. You can't just trust your gut when someone talks to you. I just read a book, we're going to interview the author soon and he had a great line, former prosecutor, great line where he said some honest people are terrible truth tellers and some liars are great at what they do. And it's true. Like, just because someone sounds like they're lying doesn't mean they are. A lot of times people who are perfectly honest people, they just, they're nervous, they're scared, and things just come out that aren't true and they don't even mean to lie. And then a lot of times guys who've had a lot of interactions with the system, who've been charged, a lot of times who spent time in prison are so good at lying to you and you'll hear them and you'll want to believe them. There is this natural human thing where you want to believe what they're telling you. And if you just go based on body language or how they sound or which way they look or how they hold their mouth or whatever the sort of things are people look at, you will be misled. You have to just stick with the evidence. And that's important in true crime because most of the time when you hear sort of an innocence claim, it is based largely on what the person who was convicted says, but not just what they say, but how they say it. I mean, think back to serial, right, Where Sarah Conning Caning have your pronouncer name is Tomba Adnan Cow brown eyes or whatever. Right. However she described it, and it's like you shouldn't believe him just because his eyes are dreamy. Right? That is a really bad reason to think he's telling you the truth. Compare what he's saying to the facts at hand and then make your decision. And I feel like that happens so often that people, they listen to these podcasts, they hear the accused or the convicted, they're very convincing, they sound sympathetic, they tug at the heartstrings, and they think that person's telling the truth. I can trust them. They must be innocent. And on the flip side, a lot of times, you know, the people who you think, man, if anybody's guilty, that guy's guilty, a lot of times they're not. And I just think focusing on the evidence is so important and it will help you avoid a situation like the questioner asked us.

[B]

And also say this, having now talked to like thousands of different witnesses, that and falling into those categories, like Brett said, some people, they are just really bad truth tellers. Even if they have nothing to lie, they get nervous, they forget details, they're in high stress situations and they can't communicate well, or they're just smooth as can be liars. Here is what I've gathered in all of my years of interviewing different types of people, some who have nothing to lie about but have trouble sounding believable to people who have made a living of being fraudsters and lying to people, is that when you get people, I say one on one, but there's always like a lawyer in the room and usually an investigator. So really like four people in a room. People are not good liars. Like, I think it's very hard to be a very good liar when you're in an extended conversation. It's easy to say a lie in like a one line or two line. But when we sit down with people we typically schedule interviews for at least an hour. You know, just even if we don't have much, it usually takes that long to get their information down, to get to know each other, build a little rapport. Obviously those interviews get longer. I actually don't like to go way longer because I think people get tired. And the interview, you don't get as much good information out of it. Between 30 minutes and an hour, I think is my sweet spot where you get to build rapport, get information and then you fall into a rhythm with them. Because after you talk to someone for 45 minutes or so, a lot of your antics that may be able to fool someone for like a minute at a grocery store or in a quick drive through kind of situation doesn't really stand up to the test of conversation because follow up questions, it's really hard to keep a lie going on the 45th follow up question. Easy for one or two follow up questions. Think about again. When you interrogate your kids about the broken lamp, the more questions you ask, the more like it becomes clear who the guilty party is. Because these lies, we are only able to play chess with our lies so far out, no matter how smart you think you are. And it's not how smart the interrogator is or the questioner is. These are natural follow up questions that you would think to ask. But many people, it's difficult to map out your answers. 45 questions down the line. And so those dominoes start falling all over the place and they're not logical and their lies fall apart. So, and I say this to myself, it's not like, now that I've seen so many liars, I'm really good at lying. I'm just as bad at lying as everybody else. But what I've realized is that basically everyone is a pretty bad liar. And if you have the patience and the temperament to be able to communicate with someone long enough, you'll be able to tease out those lies over time. Now, not everyone has that skill set. That's why really good, like FBI agents are really good at what they do because they know how to keep their cool. And one of the biggest things is honestly keeping your cool so that they continue to talk to you.

[C]

I decide I'm a sucker. I want to believe people.

[B]

Brett is a sucker. I've been in so many witness rooms with him where we'll take a break. I'll be like 15 minutes and take a break. And Brett looks at me. He's like, man, I believe everything he's saying. I'm like, are you kidding me? Look at his journal. And he's like, oh, yeah, he's lying. He's lying, huh?

[C]

That's the thing. That's why I really want to see the evidence. I want. I want the evidence to compare, because I just don't trust my ability to decide if someone's lying to me. Mostly because I just really want to believe them. Like, I don't want to believe that someone would sit across from me and just lie despite the fact it has happened over and over and over again. It just kills me.

[B]

It's really. It really does actually kill Brett. It's like, the saddest thing. It's like watching a puppy get kicked, like, every single time we get lied to, which is all the time. Brett looks personally offended. He's like, it does. I thought we had something going.

[C]

I'm like, that's my feelings.

[B]

You're supposed to ask questions, and he's supposed to lie. Come on.

[C]

You people need to stop lying to me anyways. All right, guys, well, next week, we're gonna talk about whether or not Julia Beverly was lying in her interview to the police or not. We will be back then with more on this case. But until then, I'm Brett.

[B]

And I'm Alice.

[C]

And we are the prosecutors.

[B]

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[C]

Vegas themed.

[B]

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[C]

Yes, I would love to hear your personal episode of Bluey.

[B]

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