358. The Murder of Jade Beasley on Songbird Road Part 2

Summary

The Prosecutors — Episode 358: "The Murder of Jade Beasley on Songbird Road, Part 2"

Podcast: The Prosecutors [PodcastOne]
Release Date: April 14, 2026
Hosts: Alice and Brett

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Episode Theme & Overview

This episode is Part 2 of a deep-dive into the 2020 murder of 11-year-old Jade Beasley in Marion, Illinois. Prosecutors and hosts Alice and Brett break down the evidence, timeline discrepancies, autopsy findings, and the post-conviction media narrative surrounding the case. They offer their expert perspectives as prosecutors, focusing on why the prosecution against live-in guardian Julia was so strong, and dispelling doubts fueled by innocence movements in the media.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Timeline: Julia’s Account vs. Independent Evidence

• The episode opens with a thorough re-examination of Julia’s stated timeline, compared against GPS/cell phone data and surveillance footage.
  • Julia’s Version:
    She claimed to leave home to go to Walmart around 11:07AM, returned approximately 12:20PM, and called 911 at 12:24PM.
  • Actual Timeline (Evidence-Based):
    • 11:36AM: Julia’s car caught on camera leaving home.
    • 11:42AM: Car stops at Huck’s gas station (never gets gas, dumps a “large package” in trash).
    • 11:53AM: Cell phone and car return home — a 31-minute gap before the 911 call.
  • Julia never mentioned this detour or stop to the police; she denied going to the gas station when directly asked.
• Discrepancies, such as the unexplained 31-minute gap, are highlighted as profoundly incriminating.
  • “What is going on in these 31 minutes...she now says, well, she sat in her car scrolling through Facebook. Did she scroll through Facebook for 30 minutes?” (Brett, 11:53)

2. Behavioral Observations & Changes in Julia’s Story

• Julia’s account started as a perfect alibi, but once confronted with evidence, her version changed.
• The hosts break down the evolution of her narrative, noting how her story shifts to match discovered evidence (e.g., why blood was found in her bathroom, or why her feet were clean).
• The defense—and some public narratives—have leaned on physical differences between Julia and Jade, arguing Julia is too small to have committed the murder, a point Brett and Alice call out as specious.

“An adult can control a child who's bigger than them. They certainly can control a child who's bigger than them if they have a knife and they're in a frenzy...” (Brett, 41:59)

3. The Autopsy & Crime Scene

• Jade suffered over 100 sharp injuries; 15 were major stab wounds, with clusters to her back and chest.
• Multiple wounds penetrated both lungs; extensive defensive wounds on Jade’s hands were found – clear evidence she fought for her life.
• Law enforcement and crime scene personnel described it as among the worst and bloodiest scenes of their careers.

“This was a type of scene that brought grown men who do this for a living, essentially metaphorically, to their knees. That's how bad this is.” (Alice, 37:41)

4. Physical Evidence and Julia’s Injuries

• Examination of Julia’s hand wounds via photographs, distinguishing between “defensive injuries” (as found on Jade) and the much more minor injuries on Julia, which are more consistent with “hand slip” from stabbing.
• Julia’s explanation for her minor wounds (claiming they occurred during a knife struggle with the intruder) doesn’t align with the location, depth, or appearance of her cuts.

“Her hands are sliced up and sliced open. It is clear that she fought and it is clear that she grabbed at that knife and she tried to save her life. ...Then you see Julia's hands, ...and they just are not consistent with someone who is fighting for their lives.” (Brett, 43:10)

5. Quality of the Investigation

• The hosts stress that this was not botched “small town” police work:
  • Major Case Squad with officers from six agencies activated within hours.
  • Exhaustive search for any possible suspect — including review of video surveillance, neighborhood canvass, and canine tracking.
• No credible evidence ever surfaced linking an outside perpetrator.

“That's why they were able to search so thoroughly. That's why they were able to get the dogs out so quickly. And that's why if there had been a man in black, they would have found that guy.” (Brett, 48:21)

6. Julia’s Interrogation: Stories of the Knife Encounter (Five Versions)

• Approx. Timestamps: 62:46 – 89:07
• Police repeatedly question Julia about the confrontation in the doorway with the “man in black”; she offers at least five similar, yet contradicting, versions.
  • Early version: A short “brush” encounter, minimal struggle.
  • Later versions: More elaborate tale of grabbing at the knife with first one hand, then two, while the man in black, knife raised, brushes past her in “complete silence”.
• When asked why there was no transfer of DNA or more severe wounds, Julia becomes less specific.
• The hosts point out people don’t react in textbook ways under trauma, but the ever-evolving nature (and defensive specificity) of Julia’s responses is suspect.

“Everything about her story is designed to explain something…her initial story doesn’t involve sitting in her car, flipping through Facebook. Her initial story doesn’t involve going to the gas station…” (Brett, 56:48)

7. Media Campaign and Innocence Movements

• The hosts comment on the role of media in post-conviction scenarios where the evidence is overwhelming.
• They see Julia’s best hope not in legal appeal, but in stirring sufficient public doubt to drive a campaign for wrongful conviction.

"When it's hard to win in court...it is much easier to win in the public sphere because you don't have to lay out the actual facts. You can tell a story in a jumbled, confused way with a lot of assumptions..." (Brett, 24:14)

8. Reflecting on the Case’s Straightforwardness

• The prosecution’s evidence tying Julia to the crime is described as overwhelmingly straightforward, a textbook case for a plea bargain, not a whodunit.
• The only “out” is extra-legal: garnering sympathy and alternative explanations among the public.

“This is not a head scratcher...This may seem like a straightforward case because it is.” (Alice, 21:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alice on defensive wounds:
  "There were not one or two or even ten or even twenty or even fifty stab wounds. There were over 100 sharp injuries to her body...someone was in a frenzy, stabbing repeatedly, deeply, pulling out the knife, stabbing again." (37:41)
• Brett on murder dynamics:
  “Once you're injured like that, oftentimes your ability to run away and fight is greatly reduced." (43:10)
• Alice on the ‘innocence movement’:
  “…The only move you have is extra-legal. It is to go a different route, and that is to have a media campaign that you're innocent.” (21:08)
• On Julia’s changing stories:
  "She’s balancing this story of, yeah, you know, the man comes out with the knife raised like he's Michael Myers in Halloween. ...but it was a brush." (Brett, 86:45)
• Brett on physical differences:
  "The discussion of size difference is absurd...a five foot tall adult with a knife can overpower an eleven-year-old." (41:59)
• On investigation quality:
  "Six different agencies...up to four dozen officers and detectives working it. ...if there had been a man in black, they would have found that guy." (Brett, 48:21)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------| | 06:03 | Walkthrough of independent, evidence-based timeline | | 11:53 | Discussion of unexplained 31-minute gap upon return home | | 16:22 | Legal timeline: arrest, conviction, appeal process | | 19:22 | Analysis: What would a typical person do in this scenario? | | 21:08 | Case straightforwardness; prosecution strength | | 37:41 | Autopsy and crime scene summary | | 41:59 | Discussion of physical differences and their irrelevance | | 43:10 | Analysis of wounds and what they reveal | | 48:21 | The major case squad and investigation quality | | 62:46–89:07 | Multiple versions of Julia’s story in interrogation, with analysis | | 91:20 | Wrap-up thoughts: straightforwardness of case, why Julia’s story doesn’t add up |

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Episode Tone & Atmosphere

Alice and Brett are measured but unflinching, occasionally “spicy” with their criticisms of the alternative narrative being put forth by innocence campaigns. The tone is somber and respectful regarding the violence suffered by Jade, and clinical in evaluation of evidence. The hosts maintain their emphasis on reasoning from known facts and legal expertise, while calling out attempts to inject unnecessary doubt into what they see as a clear-cut homicide case.

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Closing

The episode ends with plans to continue into Part 3, promising further breakdown of the evidence, Julia’s Walmart story, and listener engagement. The seriousness of Jade’s suffering and the tragic circumstances are emphasized, as is the importance of judging cases on factual evidence rather than narrative spin.

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For further details, images, or documents referenced, listeners are directed to prosecutorspodcast.com or the Viper Pit podcast.

Transcript

[Juliette Cowley]

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[Alice]

Make it quick, young man. Aw.

[Juliette Cowley]

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[Brett]

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[Juliette Cowley]

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[Brett]

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[Juliette Cowley]

Alexa, add to cart. Hi, I'm Juliette 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. Room with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

[Brett]

I'm brett.

[Alice]

And I'm alice.

[Brett]

And we are the prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we continue our look at the murder of Jade Beasley. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett, and I'm joined, as always, by my Song Ming co host, Alice.

[Alice]

Hello, Brett.

[Brett]

Did I get that one right?

[Alice]

Is that you trying to do an Asian language?

[Brett]

I'm trying to do Chinese.

[Alice]

Oh, well, that did not land, but say that again.

[Brett]

Song Ming.

[Alice]

What do you think it means?

[Brett]

Smart.

[Alice]

Oh, Tongming. Good job.

[Brett]

Sorry. Sorry. I didn't do the right. Like, the exact right.

[Alice]

All right, way to go.

[Brett]

Elevated accent.

[Alice]

I don't know if it's elevated or just accurate.

[Brett]

The only difference between what you said and what I said is you added a little bit of the T, which I thought was silent. That's why I didn't use. So I didn't say the T. You

[Alice]

say it once, and then I'll say it.

[Brett]

Song Ming.

[Alice]

Cong Ming. Very good, Brit. That's. I'm actually very impressed. That's actually very impressive. I'm not laughing at you, but because did you know, whatever those of you who may know Mandarin, there are like five tones for every word. So, like, can you tell the difference of what I just said? Okay.

[Brett]

Sound like you said the same word over and over and over and over again.

[Alice]

Okay. Ming, ming, ming, ming. So five to the power of five is the number of words that could be. Because each of those could be five. Anyways, you did a great job. I'm very proud of you. That was so good. I should not laugh because English is my second language and I mispronounce a lot of things. Anyway, he's like, I'm never going to

[Brett]

do that with all of you again. I'm never going to try again. This is what I got from this.

[Alice]

You should always try.

[Brett]

Don't try because. Cause people make fun of you.

[Alice]

No, you should try because to bring it back to this case. Boy, did Jade Beasley fight for her life. And I actually really respect that because, well, if you were not already devastated last time, you're gonna be even more devastated as we talk about her wounds. But I have so much respect for her because she was not gonna go down without a fight. And boy, did she go down with a fight. It's just too bad that she was taken down by someone who gave her no chance.

[Brett]

Yeah. And you know, the thing about, I feel about Jade Beasley, you know, one thing that kind of disturbs me about some of the conversation about this case is it's sometimes presented as if, because Julia was five feet tall and however much she weighed that, she could not possibly have brutally murdered this 11 year old girl. And I mean, we just put a picture up of her. If you're watching this live, if you're watching on YouTube later, she's an 11 year old girl, she's a child, she's a baby. And whoever did this to her, as you're going to see, brutally murdered her with a knife, stabbed her many, many, many times. And it is impossible to imagine the horror that she went through in those moments when whoever was coming at her, whether it was a five foot tall man as Julia Beverly would have us believe, or whether it was Julia, the woman who had essentially raised her for the last seven years, whoever it was who came at her with a knife and started stabbing her, it would have been an incredibly horrific experience. But she did fight. She did fight. And we're going to see that as we go through the autopsy.

[Alice]

So we ended last time with the timeline. As Julia told the police, remember, there was a 911 call. And then she went and talked to the police for a couple of hours and she gave a version of the story. Well, as all investigations go, you have to then verify and then do your own investigation. So there's another timeline, because as we had already pointed out last time, there were things in her timeline that were just merely impressed, possible based on the evidence that was present at the scene. So based on the investigation, we're now going to go through a new timeline. So let's start Saturday, December 5, 2020. Same place that Julia started. She started work at 7:30am Remember, she was working from home. This is kind of in the age of COVID She did customer service for a hotel. And this was what she did often. So she logs in at 7:30, she has a break at 9:30, and she takes her approved break from 9:30 to 10:15, 45 minutes. Now at 10:39am so about an hour and nine minutes after she starts that break, Julia texts Mike, her husband and Jade's dad, to ask if he's off work at the Cracker Barrel. Mike says he expects to get off around 1 o', clock, which is an hour earlier than expected. But note this is about two and a half hours left of his shift. She doesn't respond immediately. At 11:23, Julia responds. Oh, okay. Then at 11:36, that Nissan Pathfinder that Julia says she drives is caught on camera heading into Marion on Cory League Road. GPS data on Julia's phone shows that she's leaving the house around this time. So this tracks that her car and her phone are heading in the direction of Marion.

[Brett]

So a couple things about this that I think are interesting already. Number one, just to make a slight correction, Mike is not her husband. They've been together for seven years, but they're not married. But I mean, they live together, they have children together.

[Alice]

Common law married.

[Brett]

Yeah, exactly. Common law married. That might be a good way to put it. So a couple of things that I think are worth noting. First of all, as we said last time, went through Julia's timeline of events. It is perfect in a lot of ways. If you go through the timing of what she says happened, her trip to Walmart and Carbondale, coming back, calling the police, it fits the timeline perfectly. There's no extra time. It's exactly what you'd expect to see if she did not do this. If she can verify that alibi, she's 100% innocent. She had nothing to do with this. But you're already seeing problems. So recall from her description of what happened she gets that time off request at 1107. Basically at that point she gets dressed, she looks in on Jade, who's asleep. She will later change the story. By the way, if you've listened to Murder on Songbird Road, she changes the story to say she actually spoke to Jade and told her, well, you know, just mess around on your phone while I'm gone. Not an original story. Gets in the car and starts to drive to Walmart. That's at around 1107. It's going to take her 30 minutes to get to Walmart. Look at what we've already learned. So according to this, she didn't leave 11:10 or so. She left her house around 11:36, about 20 or so minutes, close to 30 minutes later than she said she did. And we know this based on the police did a really good job. There were a bunch of houses around on these roads connected to Songbird Road, Corey League Roads right off of it. They were pulling the cameras off of every trail cam, ring cam, business cam, anything they could find, looking for the man in black or maybe someone else. But they're pulling all this film and they catch Julia in her car and it's later than they would have expected based on her story. Also they pull her phone data which she has with her. And wouldn't you know it, the GPS shows that she isn't leaving that house until 10 minutes or so after she responds to Michael's text message telling her, oh, I'm going to probably be home around 11 is also important because that's when Jade's mom was supposed to come and pick her up. So one o' clock is becoming an important time. So we already see a discrepancy between her original timeline and the timeline that is based on independent facts, not just what she's saying about what happened.

[Alice]

By the way, pretty good independent facts. This is exactly what you look to, right? Like cell phone pings and also other footage that is not controlled by Julia.

[Brett]

And that's not the last time they'll catch her. So at 11:38am Police catch the vehicle again on feetsome road. And the cell phone puts her on featsome Road at 11:37 in 50 seconds. So we have these two independent things corroborating that is her vehicle, right? It's not just some other Nissan that's gray and looks like her car, that's her vehicle. She's on this road at 11:38. Four minutes later, the gray Nissan pulls into the Huck's gas station and the cell phone also arrives at the gas station. But the vehicle does not get gas. In fact, it doesn't even pull up to a pump. Instead, it pulls up to the trash can in between the gas pumps. A few seconds later, a woman dressed in dark clothes gets out, has a trash bag in her hand. It's a. I would call it a large package. And you don't have to take our word for it. This video is available now to view. If you go to our website, connect to the Viper Pit podcast. They have put this video up on their YouTube page so you can look at it for yourself. It is not, as some supporters have described it, a small bag or a bag that would fit in the palm of your hand, or a diaper, which is what Julia's later going to say it was. It looks more like a relatively large package. And she gets out of this car with this package in hand, throws it in the trash can and leaves. That's at 11:42. At 11:46, the vehicle is back on feetsome road. So basically, she leaves home, essentially goes straight to this gas station, turns around and comes straight back. By 11:48, she's back on Corey League Road. And at 11:53, the cell phone arrives home. So let's talk about this section of the timeline and compare it to her timeline. So she. She says, and we're going to talk about her interview with the police later. But in her interview with the police, she doesn't mention going to a gas station. She's explicitly asked, did you stop and get gas? She doesn't say she did that. Instead, she says she drives to Walmart in Carbondale, which is a town about 30 minutes away. It's not the first Walmart she would have come to. There was one in her town. Her explanation for that now is that they had some Black Friday sales going on at that Walmart, so she decided to go that one. But anyways, her story is, went there, parked, realize I didn't have my credit cards turned around, Came home, got home at about 12:20. She's calling 911 at 12:24. So boom, boom. Exactly what you would expect. But what we know now from the cell phone is she did not arrive home at 12:20. She arrived home at 11:53, which is 31 minutes before she calls 911 at 12:24. So what is going on in these 31 minutes between the time her cell phone arrives back home and when she calls the police at 12:24, she now says, well, she sat in her car scrolling through Facebook. Did she scroll through Facebook for 30 minutes. I guess that's what she would tell you. And then at some point she gets out of her car, goes inside, sees the man in black, fights over the knife with him, and then calls 91 1. At that point, everything starts coming back together. The police are dispatched. Officer Welsh and Officer Sloan. Welsh spots the person in black clothing we mentioned yesterday. But this turns out to be. Turns out to be a woman. So it's not a man, doesn't really fit the description. They let her go. They continue on. Welsh arrives at the home shortly Thereafter at around 12:37 is when police arrive on the scene. So about 13 minutes after this 911 call and you can listen to it. You listen the phone and you hear when the police arrive as she's on the phone with them. At around 1 o', clock, Jade's mom arrives to see police are at the scene. And that's when she learns about this terrible tragedy that has occurred. Julia is asked to come to the station where she's interviewed for a couple hours. While this is going on, the police are searching for the man in black. They're bringing out the dogs. They're doing all the things that we talked about yesterday, but they're not going to find any evidence of the man in black. And slowly they begin to learn through the video, through the cell phone that what Julia's telling them isn't matching the evidence they're seeing. And by December 9, she is arrested for the murder. Just to go ahead and jump ahead for you, on February 15, 2023, she'll be convicted for the murder of Jade BEASLEY. And on January 20th of this year, the Illinois Court of Appeals will affirm her conviction. So that's the timeline, the second timeline of this murder.

[Alice]

H and just by the way, with how quickly people are always surprised, I should say, about how slow the wheels of justice turn. So note that Julia is arrested within like four days of Jade's murder, but she's not convicted until two plus years later. And then the appeals process goes on for another three years. So there's really only finality now. And then there's. Obviously she can file habeas and whatnot, but it took basically five years from the time that Jade was murdered for there to be finality in a conviction in her case.

[Brett]

And you're right, and I'm sure she'll try and seek some sort of appeal from the Illinois Supreme Court. Given the decision that the Court of Appeals reach, I don't expect that's going to be very successful. So really, her hope at this point is some sort of innocence movement, some sort of movement that gets behind her that proves that she's innocent and leads to her being freed, which I think is essentially what the media campaign you've seen around her is designed to do, to point out the flaws in the investigation, the possibilities of alternative suspects, things like that. Now, I will say this. You know, we never hide the ball from you. And one of the ways you don't hide the ball is you do the timelines. And we've said this before, the timelines tell so much of a story. And this timeline is damning for Julia. Like, if you didn't know anything else about this case, you compare her perfect timeline to the timeline proven by the facts and evidence, which no one can question. Compare those two. It's astonishing, number one, and it's absolutely damning just the fact that all you have from her is you have this very unusual long break. You have the text to find out when Michael's coming home, which is unusual. Not unprecedented, but is unusual. She finds that out 10 minutes later. She's on the road, and she's going straight to the gas station where she's throwing something away, turning around and coming back. And just note, imagine a scenario in which she was going to go to Carbondale to the Walmart, and she realized she's out of gas. And then she realized she didn't have her credit cards. She ain't gone far. She's gone a couple minutes down the road. What would the average person do in that situation? They turn around, they'd go back, they'd run in the house, they'd grab their credit cards, turn around, get back in the car, and go back to the gas station. So what they probably wouldn't do is sit in their vehicle that's already on empty, that they need gas for, for 30 minutes. I know I wouldn't do that because I'd be afraid I'd run out of gas sitting there in the driveway. That would be the natural thing to do. That's what you would expect. And then you go back to the gas station by gas, and you go into Carbondale and you get your stuff, if that's what you intended to do. But we don't see that. Instead, you see this very strange, very short trip, throw something away, come, come back, and then sit for 30 minutes, apparently.

[Alice]

And by the way, you happen to sit for the exact amount of time that probably this murder is happening inside. And just at the moment that you finish scrolling Facebook, you get up, and that's when the murderer decides to run out. When if the murderers in the house may have already seen you pull up and sit outside and perhaps wanted to run out the back door or any other place or been thwarted because maybe if this murderer's inside, hasn't committed the crime yet and it's like, uh, oh, about to get caught. Better get away.

[Brett]

And once again, this murderer is hanging out in the house during this period of time. So not trying to go out the back door. Now there are dogs in the back. Cuz she left him in the back. Even though that was.

[Alice]

But also these dogs are not going haywire.

[Brett]

Well, she, eventually she actually, it is so funny because the way her story continuously evolves to match what had to be happening. So eventually she'll say no. The dogs are barking like crazy the whole time. So while she's sitting there scrolling through Facebook are going crazy in the background for 30 minutes. Yeah. Murderers hanging out in the house. He's not sexually assaulting Jade, he's not stealing anything. He's hanging out while the blood dries for 30 minutes. Then as you said, just so happens when he's like, maybe I should get out of here, you know, that weird person in the car doesn't seem like they're gonna leave, so I guess I'll get out of here. He's leaving right as she's coming in the door. What a coincidence that that would happen. And then even though he's obviously concerned about being caught because Wilds would be hanging out in the house, and even though, as you're going to see in a second, he's brutally murdered this girl, and even though the person he runs into is this tiny little woman who couldn't harm a fly, who nevertheless tries to grab the knife, he doesn't stab her, he doesn't take any aggressive moves towards her whatsoever. He just runs off into the distance, leaving no trail behind.

[Alice]

So we went through the timeline. The timeline is the cops did their job here. I mean, it's corroborated by independent timestamps that all match up. There's GPS data. She didn't turn off her phone. We kind of have her phone. She never said that someone stole her phone, Someone took her phone. So there's no separation of her and her phone or her car because she says she's in her car. Those of you listening may be thinking, whoa, this seems like a pretty clear case. Let me just be very clear. I know that we've done like 500 episodes of different true crime cases and you probably listen to A lot of podcasts, where most of the podcasts are suspenseful, a whodunit sort of situation. Most murder cases, most criminal cases that end up getting prosecuted actually have very clear case files. This is one of them. This is not a head scratcher. This is not a situation where there were 10 people in the house. Victim advocates came in and brought bagels and wiped down all the countertops and all the blood was wiped away and we have no idea what happened. And then a parent found Jade and threw themselves on her and all the DNA is messed up and phones were turned off and people's cars were stolen in the midst of it and people's ring cameras were auto deleted before they could do it. This is not a situation where there are a bunch of intervening factors that make it a difficult case. This may seem like a straightforward case because it is. And also most cases, you probably just don't hear about them. Like the vast majority of cases are like this where the timeline is quite tight and it's corroborated by independent stamps in time that are really hard to overcome. And there is no conspiracy and there is kind of no other question. And so like you said, the only way out of this, so this case, if I got it on my desk, I'd be like, oh, this is going to be a plea. This person's going to plead because the case is very strong, they have a good attorney, they should try to get the best deal for them. Because if this is a death penalty state, which Illinois is not by the way, then I mean an 11 year old girl stabbed 104 times, this is a death penalty type of case. So if I'm the defendant's attorney, I'm going to be like, you know what, we need to get the best deal you possibly can. Because blood inside the car, outside the car, no one else is there. Your phone puts you here and hear it and there's, you know, inconsistency in your story. This is not looking good for you with it being so clear cut and this being a clear plea case doesn't surprise me because the only way out of this would be a massive serial type movement where you get media on your side to say I'm innocent. Not based on the facts, but based on a how could I possibly do it? I'm sorry. Having covered Alec Murdoch Murdick in no detail, anyone can do anything at any time. We'll go more into the facts here, but it surprises me 0% that the only way, when the facts are this clear, stacked against you, the only move you have is extra legal. It is not within the law. It is not within the facts, it is not within the evidence, it is not within the law. It is to go a different route, and that is to have a media campaign that you're innocent.

[Brett]

Yeah. And I think you've said before, as someone asked, if you were guilty, what lawyer would you hire? And you said you'd hire a good PR person. And I think it's so true. When it's hard to win in court, when the evidence and the facts are against you, it is much easier to win in the public sphere because you don't have to lay out the actual facts. You don't have to lay out the actual evidence. You can tell a story in a jumbled, confused way with a lot of assumptions and false statements, and then all of a sudden people are like, oh, my goodness, what a miscarriage of justice. And I think you see that a lot, unfortunately, in the true crime space. What I was going to say and what I think is interesting about this case, that bolsters what Alice was saying. Think about the Adnan Saad case, which he obviously had very strong views on. And we think the evidence is quite clear in that case. But at least in that case, you had so many different possibilities for what could have happened. You know, you had the alternative that only an idiot could believe that Don did it when he obviously didn't do it, and he had lots of exculpatory evidence that he didn't do it. Then you had the guy who found her body, who just so happens to turn out to be kind of, you know, a sex offender. Right. Not a great. Look, he's an obvious suspect for lots of reasons. Because of who he is, because of the fact he found the body, the fact it could have just been someone random that we don't even know. There were lots of different possibilities for what happened there. But here Julia has narrowed this down to one of two possibilities. It's either the man in black or it's her. There's no other choice because she is telling us that the man in black she ran into with the knife. You could imagine a scenario where she goes to Walmart, she comes back, she walks in, Jade's dead. She has no idea who did it. It could have been anybody, you know, could have been some crazy thing where it was one of her siblings or where her mom. Some weird thing with her mom or some weird thing with her dad who wasn't really at Cracker Barrel. I mean, just. Or stranger, someone who robbed the place Or a man or a woman. Could be any number of things.

[Alice]

Bully at school, some weird, you know, stalker kid in her class.

[Brett]

Absolutely any number of those things could be true. But because of Julia, we know that's not the case. So either there's this man in black who did it or she did it. Those are your two options. And already with this timeline, you're seeing that she either just lied straight out or she is incredibly confused about what happened that day. And recall the story of what happened that day. She's going to tell the police that day. She has an interview with the police that day about what happened. And as you're going to see, she tells a very detailed story about going to Walmart. She doesn't just say, yeah, I think I went to Walmart. You know, it's really fuzzy. This has been, I can barely think, I can barely see. You know, I've been in a car wreck before. If you're ever in a car wreck, the police come and they ask you questions and your mind is so fuzzy, you're like telling them what happened, but you're kind of like, you're a little out of it, right, because of the shock. That's not the kind of story she's going to tell. And if you're really into this case, I advise you go listen to the whole two hour interview. Listen to her, listen to how detailed she is in the descriptions of what she found and how Jade had been stabbed and the location of her body and how her body was facing and all the other things she talks about in that interview. And then how detailed she is about her own activities that day. Listen to those things and, and see whether or not that comports with someone who's so confused that they've forgotten, oh, I didn't make it to Walmart. And even when you specifically asked me, did you stop for gas, I was so confused that I forgot that that was the whole trip was going to the gas station. I forgot all those things and told you this story. You know, she's got that massive problem that her story doesn't line up. But then the timeline is just crazy for the man in black. Even if she had gotten there 30 minutes before, played on her phone, whatever, then gone inside and seen what had happened, even that's more believable than she's there for 30 minutes while he's inside and then just so happens to go in as he's coming out. This is a huge problem for her. Before we even get into the evidence of the case and we're not going to decide this just based on the timeline. Just know the deck is already stacked against her. And we haven't talked about a single piece of evidence in this case other than the cell phone and the videos.

[Alice]

So some of you may be saying, huh, there's been a little shift in tone, y'.

[Detective or Interviewer]

All.

[Alice]

The first episode, you know, we were talking about the story. All of a sudden you're getting a little bit spicy. Why? Because I'm about to tell you about the autopsy. And you'll see why this is such a horrendous case and a miscarriage of justice that there are airwaves spent on essentially going the only route that Julia has to overcome this. It's not even to overcome the conviction, essentially just have, like, media on her side, because that's the only thing on her side. Certainly not the evidence. And you'll see what happened to Jade.

[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

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[Alice]

So Jade suffered many injuries. You can read all of these reports. You can hear testimony about this law enforcement who showed up. This was not their first rodeo. This is not like a small town where they've never done this before. These were experienced law enforcement officers. They've seen horrendous things before in their career. This isn't their first day on the job. This isn't their first murder investigation. The people who came to look at the scene, the blood spatter experts, the crime scene investigators, basically all said unanimously, this was one of the worst, bloodiest scenes I've ever, ever seen in my entire career. This was a type of scene that brought grown men who do this for a living, essentially metaphorically, to their knees. That's how bad this is. So we know that Jade suffered many injuries both to the front and back of her body. Think about that for a second. What do you think of when you see stab wounds to the back? Someone who's trying to run away, get away. Someone who is completely in a defenseless posture. So whether it's because they're Asleep or running away. Usually when there's stab wounds on the back, it means that they're trying to get away. It's not a fair fight. Not even a little. Right. And this is again a child. There was not one or two or even 10 or even 20 or even 50 stab wounds. There were over 100 sharp injuries to her body. Fifteen of these were major stab wounds. Six were large stab wounds that were to her upper right back in a cluster. So in other words, someone was in a frenzy, stabbing repeatedly, deeply pulling out the knife, stabbing again. And several of the back wounds penetrated into her right and left lungs. There were other wounds on the lower back. And in addition, she had a cluster of wounds to her chest. So essentially someone got to her. And the right side suggests to me that it's a right handed person that's, you know, someone maybe grabbing her, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing so deep that her lungs are punctured and then either turns her around or has access to her front. It wasn't enough to be stabbed in the back, stabbing her in a cluster in her chest. In other words, these are stab wounds to kill. This isn't to wound or maim. This is in order to end her life. And also because of what you will see with the scene and the types of defensive wounds she has, this was not a quick death at all. She wasn't slashed quickly and lost consciousness because they struck some sort of, you know, aortic valve and she bled out immediately. That's not what happened here. In addition, one of the penetrated wounds went into the lungs from the front as well. And she had defensive wounds on the palm surfaces of her hands, consistent with trying to grab the knife to stop it. Now, remember Julia's timeline where she said she sees this? She's a tiny woman. We're gonna hear all about how tiny she is. She's about 5ft tall. This man in black runs out and what does she say she does? She grabs it. Hmm, interesting. Because if that is in fact something that she may have seen earlier, if Jade were grabbing, that may be front of mind for telling her version of the story. So Jade sees this knife and she is probably already profusely bleeding and incredibly injured by, but she still is grabbing at the knife with her hands, and you see it on her palms. Remember how Julia said she did the same action, but her wounds were not to the palm as you would expect, they were to the sides of the hands. While Jade's injuries are consistent with what would happen if you tried to grab a knife as it was coming towards you. Now, Jade had five wounds to her left and three to her right hands. And what we know from the autopsy is that Jade bled to death. So at trial, Julia's defense noted that jade was 5 foot 3 inches and 130 pounds. So adult size. Because of this, she is taller than Julia, who's only 5ft and around 115 pounds. One thing to note, she's a little bit bigger than Julia, but those numbers are not massively different. In fact, if you were walking by them, they're at the store, and you walk by the two of them, you. You probably would think they're about the same size. 15 pound difference. 3 inches is not huge.

[Brett]

I cannot express to you how absurd the discussion of the size difference is between these two. And I feel like the people who focus on it either have no life experience or are just being intentionally obtuse or just misleading about how they view reality. Because the fact of the matter is, an adult can control a child who's bigger than them. They certainly can control a child who's bigger than them if they have a knife and they're in a frenzy. And I think what you see from this, and frankly, according to Julia, the man in black's the same size as her anyway. So somebody who was five feet tall killed Jade. And if you look at the house, it's impossible to tell where this happened or how it happened, because there's blood everywhere. Tons of blood on the wall, all

[Alice]

over the place, on the ground, on the wall, on the doors, dragged across. Like they didn't just come from her. It wasn't like the way these blood patterns are. It's not like she was stabbed and then just dragged. Like she died immediately and then she was dragged and blood got everywhere. The way it's patterned, she's running for her life and she's going from room to room. And there are signs of the struggle basically all over the house.

[Brett]

And I think what probably happened is this person came at her with a knife in a rage. She initially tried to get away, and this person stabbed her in the back multiple times. And the fact of the matter is, once you're injured like that, oftentimes your ability to run away into fight is greatly reduced. At that point, it probably became more of a struggle. And that's when she turned over and that's when she got these wings to her hand. And ultimately the wounds to her chest, they killed her. We're not going to share any of the photos of Jade and death. We wouldn't do that. But if you look up defensive wounds from a knife, just look it up online and find some wounds. I will tell you, her wounds are absolutely typical of that. They're massive. They are brutal wounds. Her hands are sliced up and sliced open. It is clear that she fought and it is clear that she grabbed at that knife and she tried to save her life. We will show you and we will put these online on our website so you can see it. Some of the just vicious wounds that Julia suffered when she grabbed at the knife to defend herself. Probably the worst one I have on the screen now is a relatively minor cut to her pinky finger on the side of her hand. That's probably the worst injury she suffered. And then she has the smallest little nick on the palm of her hand. And if you can look at the palm of Julia's hand and tell me you honestly believe she grabbed a knife with that hand, well, then I guess we'll just have to go our separate ways and we can agree to disagree on where these wounds came from.

[Alice]

But let me know. So if you're looking at these pictures of, it's essentially one slice and let me just note, it is bad enough of a slice, it's not a paper cut, that if a stranger rushing out of my house did this to me, it would be a very big deal and it would probably be part of my 911 call and be causing me to heave. Because it is not a paper cut. It's a little bit more. And you know what it looks like. If you were to imagine holding the handle of a knife and to stab it repeatedly into a very hard surface, say the desk or the table in front of you, your hand would slide forward and hit the butt of the blade repeatedly, say a hundred times or so, and probably leave a mark that is consistent with the kind of injuries you'd see from the intense stabbing repeatedly with your hand going to the butt of a knife.

[Brett]

And just to go ahead and give you this is her other hand. If you're watching this, this is her other hand. So these are both hands that I've showed you with her defensive wounds from when she grabbed the knife from this person in their five second encounter. She grabbed it with both hands. These are the cuts. And Alice puts her finger on something. It is not unusual at all. In fact, it is very common for people who are engaged in a stabbing to cut themselves on the knife because the knife that they're using is not typically a combat knife. It doesn't have a guard, it doesn't have anything that prevents your hand from slipping it. You're not used to doing something like this, and oftentimes you will cut your hands when you're using the knife on someone else. And there's the comparison between these types of wounds that you're seeing here and the types of wounds that you see on Jade's hands, which are very clearly defensive. They could not be more different. You know, you look at her hands, it looks like she had her hands in front of her. The. The backs of her hands are sliced open. The palms of her hands where she would have grabbed at the knife, are sliced open. And then you see Julia's hands, and you see the kind of wounds she has, and they just are not consistent with someone who is fighting for their lives.

[Alice]

And I'll say one other thing. If you're looking at the pictures of her hands, there's the clear cut that she is showing and getting photographed. But when you look at the palm, this is not a. I'm not reading from a police report. I'm literally looking at the photo of her open palm. Notice how where it's on the second knuckle, where that slice is on her pointer finger, on this particular hand, I think this is her left hand. If you look across at that same latitude, her other fingers at the second knuckle look a little bit bruised or like it's been gripping something. There's, like, indentation, and you can kind of see it in the blood marks of the cut on her pointer finger, that there's a slice, but then there's kind of like almost bruising around the side, as if you were gripping something very hard. And what's noticeable. She says herself that she washed her hands, and it's clear her hands have been washed. You know that these, like, kind of indentations or bruises remain there, which you wouldn't expect if all you were doing was grabbing a knife and then the guy got away and you're left with, like, a slice. But if you're holding a knife for 104 stabs, for example, you may expect to see some sort of bruising because of the force it takes to hang onto the handle.

[Brett]

Yeah, it's funny because I didn't think about this until right now, but I'm looking at my hand and you can't see it in the world. But back when I was a kid, I cut my finger at that exact same spot on my hand with a knife. The knife slipped, I cut my finger. I have the scar to this day, and it's on that exact same place. On my hand, which I didn't think about. But yeah, it's striking. Like I said, we will put these on the website. Go check them out for yourself. You may seem to think something completely different. We are going to share with you as much as we can in this case because we want you to look at it for yourself. For reasons that are unclear to me, much of this information, despite being the subject of a podcast, was never shared. It wasn't until the Viper Pit people started putting stuff up that any of this was public. We've put the transcript for the trial that was public. Either you can read the whole transcript, you can look at these photos, you can watch these videos. Decide for yourself. Don't decide based on what we are telling you. Okay, so I thought this was only going to be a few episodes, but if we take this long on each paragraph, it may, may take a little bit longer. Okay, but that was very important. The wounds, the damage this young girl suffered, just how brutally she was stabbed to death. And look, I think the fact that she suffered so many wounds, it does speak to the fact that she fought. And honestly, the fact that it took that many wounds to bring her down might even speak to the fact that it was a smaller person who went after it wasn't someone who could control her and dominate her with their body. It was someone who needed a knife to make it happen. And that's what they did. With 100 different sharp injuries and 15 major stab wounds, that's just absolute brutal attack. Okay, let's talk about the investigation. Because oftentimes you have a case like this, it's always presented as though, you know, well, just a bunch of bumbling police locals. They didn't have any idea what they were doing. They were probably biased. They probably didn't like her anyway. And they decided, you know, as police officers are want to do, whenever they find an 11 year old girl murdered, they think, well, we don't want to find the person who actually did this. Let's frame somebody. And so they framed her. Well, Detective Cindy Geitman testified as to the investigation. She was the lead detective on the case. But because of the nature of the case, and this is smart. West Memphis three Wish you'd listen to this before. It was not handled solely by the Marion Police Department. Instead, the Major Case Squad was activated and six different agencies came together to investigate this case with up to four dozen officers and detectives working it. That's why they were able to search so thoroughly. That's why they were able to get the dogs out so quickly. That's why if there had been a man in black, they would have found that guy, because they were searching like crazy. And not only that, but they had the manpower to do the things that you often wish the police could do in cases like this. Pulling that video from just about every camera in the area, including along the 19 mile stretch to Walmart. And the one thing that stuck out to these officers who watched hours and hours and hours of video is they couldn't find any video of Julia driving to Walmart. And despite the fact that Walmart had these great cameras that covered the entire parking lot, and despite the fact that Julia, as you're going to hear, had a very specific description of where she parked, they could not find video of her arriving at Walmart. And then, wouldn't you know it, they pulled that cell phone information and suddenly it becomes clear to them that's because she never went to Walmart. And now even Julia has to acknowledge, you're right, I never made it to Walmart. Which brings us to the interview itself. And we're going to spend some time on this. This may actually cover the end of this episode and the next episode because there's a lot that happens in it. She was interviewed for about two hours total by Marion Police Detective Geitman, who we talked about earlier, and Detective Eggmeier, who was a detective with the Illinois Trial Death Task Force. Because remember, they're bringing in a lot of different people on this who know what they're doing. And I will tell you this, the interview is exactly what this was. It is very casual, very informal. It's not intense.

[Alice]

It's not.

[Brett]

It's not forceful. For instance, they spend a chunk of the interview talking about her dogs and making sure they'll be fed and watered with no one home. And it's a very effective approach. Detective Eggmeier in particular is just incredibly solicitous of Julia. When Julia talks about how she harms herself, he says, you know, I had a brother who used to do that. I understand. And she says, I never told Michael. He's like, well, that's between you guys. You know, not going to get in between that. Just very friendly. Because his approach and Alice and I have seen this. Modern detectives and modern police. A lot of y' all are still under the impression that the way interrogations happen is they start out in a darkened room with a bright light on you. We beat you for an hour, then we start questioning you while yelling in your face and cursing at you until you confess. That's not true. Oftentimes interviews can escalate to some yelling that can happen towards the end. But usually the way that officers attempt to interview someone is to build rapport, to talk to those people, to get them to feel comfortable with them. And that's how they talk to them. And officers, in their minds, they don't eliminate anyone until they're eliminated. If you watched the Delphi documentary, there's a part where the family's talking about their initial discussions with the police and how they got separated and at some point it dawns on them, oh, we're suspects. Because they were. Because anyone in the family is going to be a suspect until they're eliminated. Obviously, Julia being the last person to see Jade, and given that she's set up this dichotomy, it's either the man in black or it's me. She's going to be a suspect. They approach her that way, they read her her Miranda rights, she waives those and she agrees to speak with investigators.

[Alice]

So Julia tells police that she went to the Walmart in Carbondale, Illinois. We know this. And Jade's father, Michael, would testify that Julia told him she had gone to Carbondale. And when she came back, that was when this mysterious person attacked her. Actually, by her telling, she really wasn't the subject. Honestly, if she could have just jumped back, she probably would have had no wounds on her telling. But that's when she encounters this man running out of her house. Now, she says that she left the family's two large dogs in the yard while she went out, which this is actually highly unusual. It's not like these dogs are usually outside dogs. And when she leaves the house, she always puts them out because they have accidents in the house. No, Michael says no, the dogs are always in the house. That's not something we do. Keep the dogs outside when we leave the house. So this itself is already showing that, huh, Something is out of the ordinary here. And also there's someone else in the house. And if the dogs needed to go out, I mean, Jade was home. So there was no reason necessarily that she's been able to point to why she's taken this action that is, as Michael says, unusual. So this would have been a 30 minute drive to Carbondale's Walmart. Julia says that when she arrived, she parked at Walmart, but then she realized she didn't bring her credit cards with her, and so she turned around and went home. In other words, she gets there, doesn't spend any time in Walmart, she just goes home. She got out of her car at home an hour or so after she had left her home on her telling and walked to the door, noticing that only the screen door was closed. As she went to go in, a man dressed from head to toe in black came out of the front door, and he had a knife. She said that she tried to grab the knife from him, and she got cuts on her hands. And then he ran off. She ran to her bathroom to wipe her hand, which was bleeding, and then she ran to get Jade, and that's when she found Jade in the bathroom. She said Jade was in the tub on her knees with her face resting on the edge of the tub. She checked Jade's pulse, but she couldn't tell if Jade was alive. So that's when she called 911. Julia told police that she'd been wearing flip flops, but she lost them at some point while she was running through the house. Strangely, though, given the massive amount of blood in the house, the bottoms of her feet were completely clean.

[Brett]

And you know, everything about her story, maybe it's true. Maybe it's all true. Put that aside. Everything about her story is designed to explain something. So obviously, we talked about how the time is perfect on her story. Time is perfect. It's a great one. Now, the problem is, when she tells this story, she doesn't realize the police are gonna know she was there 30 minutes before she went inside. So her initial story doesn't involve sitting in her car, flipping through Facebook. Her initial story doesn't involve going to the gas station. Her initial story, she gets back, she goes inside, and then this happens. She's got injuries on her hands. You know, she doesn't have the option of doing what I said earlier. She can't just say, I found Jade, because she's got to explain, how did I get these injuries on my hands? Well, I grabbed the knife, and as you'll see, when she's telling the story, initially, she just grabs the knife. By the end of it, she's grabbed it with both hands. So this guy, he's got the knife. She grabs it with one hand. That one didn't work. Ouch. That cut my hand. Let me grab with the other hand. Ah. Cut my hand. Now I've cut both my hands. Luckily, he's letting me grab both of them and then just running off. He's not actually attacking me, but she's explained that. Then there's the issue. You know, her feet are clean, either because she washed them off or because she threw the shoes away, or on her telling well, just at some point she. The flip flops came off and I guess they must have came off after I'd already ran through the blood. And that's why my feet have no blood on them. Why did she go to the bathroom to wash her hand instead of going straight to look for Jade? You walk into a bloodbath, a slaughterhouse. Why is the first thing you do, go wash your hands? Well, because they're going to find traces of cleaned up blood in her master bathroom. It's not like all the blood in the rest of the house. Nobody was stabbed there, but there's blood there, so. And she knows they're going to find that. Well, so there has to be an explanation. How did that blood get in there? Well, you know, before I found Jade, I actually went in my bathroom and washed my hands. I got a towel. If you find a bloody towel, that's probably why because, you know, that was the towel I used to wipe my hand. And then I found Jade and then I called 91 1. All of these parts of her story cover some aspect of what happened, either because it's true or because she needed to cover this stuff up and explain it. And you'll see there's evidence we're gonna find that she doesn't explain. But she's trying. She's doing the best she can. Julia describes the man as having black clothes. He's an average build, he's a little muscular. He's wearing a ski mask, he's white. He's a little taller than her though, not much, and he's about 5ft tall. This is also really interesting. So she describes a man as about as tall as her. Let's say that she's guilty. Why does she do that? I have a couple different reasons she might have done it. Number one, and I've said this before, I truly believe in every lie there's truth. And I am convinced Jade was stabbed by somebody who was about 5ft tall. He was wearing black clothes, happened to be the same color clothes she was wearing that day and she happens to be about 5ft tall. The other thing, if she's a little sophisticated, she would realize, well, if I say 6ft tall, I mean if they do any testing at all on the stab winds, they're going to say, well a six foot tall person didn't do that. They're going to know that. So he needs to be about the same size as me so that everything lines up. I don't know if she's that smart. It may just be subconscious. She Wasn't thinking they were going to ask her that question. So the first thing that comes out happens to match her. But I think there's lots of reasons why you would describe someone as being about the same height as you if you were the person who did it.

[Alice]

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to know that someone a foot taller, the angles are going to be different, the blood spatter is going to be a little bit different. But actually also, just think about it. If a 6 foot, 250 pound person was running out, she would get a lot more hurt than just the little scrapes. But if she's encountering someone who's close to her size, that might explain why. Wow. Gosh. You know, I've seen people grab knives before and you're really lucky. That's not really bad. Oh, well, we were about the same size rather than this like overpowering figure, which is really interesting because what is basically the innocence movement for her going to say that Jade was so much bigger and there's no way that she could overcome. But actually the similar size would account for the relatively innocuous scrapes she has from her hand. Considering this is some murderous, murderous murderer with a knife coming at her.

[Brett]

She says there were no words spoken. The entire altercation takes place right in the doorway. It lasts about five seconds. She describes the knife as a wide kitchen knife, bigger than a steak knife. She says he had nothing else in his hands. It did not appear that he had stolen anything. Later in the interview, she will say that he just ran past her, which is really not that consistent with a struggle. She says her first reaction was to try and stop this attacker. But as I said, the entire interaction takes about five seconds. Okay, so what we're gonna do for the rest of this episode, because I think it's just worth hearing. These officers, as I said, are really good at interrogations and they ask her multiple times about this interaction and she tells five times the story of this interaction. So we're going to do for you now we've taken these stories out of this interview. You also get to hear a little bit how the interview was, the nature of the interview. And so we'll play one and then we'll talk about it briefly and then we'll play the rest and we'll get through these and then we will sign off for today. So this is not gospel. There might have been more stories, but I have pulled the first five. The five that I heard of her telling the story of grabbing the Knife. So this is the first story.

[Detective or Interviewer]

The knife, when, when you went in the door. Can you tell me, can you start with a description of how you guys encountered. Oh, he was running out as I was going in. That's when I went to grab the knife. It was definitely big. I mean, it's not like a toxic pocket knife. It was a big knife. So I'm not really sure that's her

[Brett]

first description of the knife. And as you can hear, there's. It's not interrogation, it's a very calm conversation. She's describing what happened. She's obviously a little nervous. You can tell there's a little shakiness in her voice. But she's telling the story without really any trouble remembering. It's not like she's like, it's all a blur, you know, it was just, he came through. I don't even sure what happened. I must have grabbed the knife. My hands are all cut up or whatever. You know, it's a very sort of simple story of what happened that night.

[Alice]

I think you're exactly right. You can see the demeanor of this conversation. And let's play it a different way. She's reporting a crime like she's also the victim of a crime. They want to know this. And if in fact they're trying to figure out who is this person. Is there some crazed knife wielding murderer out on the street right now? We need to hear about it because you're the only victim so far that we have found who's alive. The other one is brutally murdered and dead right now. So we want to know this information that's kind of the tenor of this conversation.

[Brett]

And she's even given a little detail. And it was a big knife. It definitely wasn't a pocket knife. Like she's explaining what happened, which once again, I also want to set the stage for her state of mind. Is this the same person who later on is going to misremember going to Walmart or not? Okay, so that's the first story. Grabbing the knife. Let's do the second story.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Can you describe like when you made contact with the guy that was running from the house? Just like, well, did he just push it? Was there a fight?

[Detective or Interviewer]

As soon as I opened the screen door, it was almost like he was leaving. But he ran into me at that time. So I kind of tried to stop him, tried to grab the knife, do anything. But yeah, I was basically, as I was opening the door, he was coming out.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay,

[Detective or Interviewer]

so the altercation between you and him was in the doorway area. Right inside the doorway. Okay. And there were no words spoken at that time, Nothing.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay.

[Brett]

Okay. So they've asked again because this is what you do. You're asking multiple times because you want to hear, are there any changes? And once again, she very coherently tells the story. She arrives at the door, she opens it. Wouldn't you know it, even though she's been sitting in her car for 30 minutes, it just so happens to be the time as he's leaving and she's coming in, they have this altercation. I try and not judge people based on behavior because I'm not them. I've never been in their shoes. It will always strike me as strange that in this circumstance, in that moment, the first thing she thinks is this knife wielding guy, I need to stop him, I need to try and grab the knife. But that's what she says. She decided she needs to stop it.

[Alice]

And that's really interesting. The I was trying to do anything to stop it. At this point, she doesn't know anything other than there's someone in her home. She doesn't know that Jade's been hurt. She doesn't know if he's stolen anything. That's a really interesting kind of foreshadowing of what's happening inside. Now if you knew something else had happened, I wanted to stop anything because more harm was going to be done, that might make sense. But if in fact you have disturbed a burglar and they're trying to get away, why would your reaction be to do anything to stop them? What are you gonna do if you pin this guy down? Sit on him until the police come? You're only five feet tall. So it's a curious kind of slip of inconsistency in her story.

[Brett]

It reminds me of the Idaho case and there were people who tried to act like one of the surviving roommates. They see Brian Coburger in the house and they didn't like him or something. And people are like, why wouldn't you do anything? It's like, are you crazy? Why would you do anything? What are you going to do? All you know is there's some guy in your house. You don't realize he's just a bunch

[Alice]

of people live there. Right? And like, who knows?

[Brett]

Yeah.

[Alice]

If this is a 5 foot tall person dressed in all black, what if it were one of Jade's friends?

[Brett]

Yeah.

[Alice]

I mean, truly, you don't know, by the way, let's just talk about how five foot is way below the norm of the average male. Right. I think the average man Is five eight, five six to five, eight, five six, something like that. Five, six, let's say five, six. I'm pretty sure it's five, six. So this is six inches shorter than the average man. It's actually going to be kind of hard to find a man if they're just canvassing the neighborhood to find a man who is about 5ft tall and the first thing you think of, I mean, is this man running out with a knife like this. It is broad daylight, right? You would think he's trying to sneak out. Why would your first thought not be, huh? Did the neighbor come over and hang out? Did Jade have a friend over?

[Brett]

It is weird that in that moment of shock, your first thing you would do is like confront this person, particularly as a five foot tall woman. I mean, frankly, if that happened to me, I was talking yesterday about getting to my car and open it up, not even realizing somebody had been raveling through it because that wasn't the first thing that came to mind. I think I would be so stunned to see someone running out of my house. I would not be able to in those very few seconds, five seconds, like put it together enough to say, I need to stop this person. I need to grab this knife. I don't know that my opinion of this case is not determined based on this, but that does not sound like a very reasonable thing to think happened.

[Alice]

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[Brett]

Let's do the third story of grabbing the knife.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Did the male still have the knife when he ran away?

[Detective or Interviewer]

I don't know because he just kind of ran past me and at that point I just went in. I really didn't even turn around to look where he was or anything. I just went into the house.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Didn't know if he maybe dropped it in the doorway or through it or something that you may have seen?

[Detective or Interviewer]

No, it wasn't in the house. I didn't see it like in the doorway. So I don't know.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay,

[Detective or Interviewer]

do you remember which hand he had the knife in? The right hand? It was his right hand? Yes.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay.

[Detective or Interviewer]

And you grabbed that knife? Yes, I went to grab it with this hand first and then struggled with this one.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay.

[Detective or Interviewer]

Are you right handed? Yes.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay.

[Detective or Interviewer]

All right. And. You didn't he didn't say anything to you while you were. No. Nothing? An altercation with them? No.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Did you say anything to him?

[Detective or Interviewer]

No, I just. My first reaction was to try to stop him.

[Brett]

Okay, this one's interesting because.

[Alice]

Very interesting.

[Brett]

This is actually the third and fourth story of grabbing the knife, if you think about it. Because the first story that she tells when the first officer asks her about the knife is the one that makes the most sense. That basically he just runs past her. I mean, that's what he said. That makes sense. You open the screen door and this man in black bursts out of your house and just runs past you and he's got the knife. You notice he has a knife in his right hand. And as Alice noted earlier, most likely this was committed by someone who's right handed. And it turns out both the man in black and Julia are right handed. So she says that, okay, that makes sense. But then you have. The lady detective comes in and asks the question again. And this time she's struggling with him and she says, you know, I grabbed the knife with one hand and then I grabbed the knife with the other hand. And it turns into this. There's this weird struggle going on between her and this guy. This silent struggle.

[Alice]

And that's the thing, the silent struggle. If I'm grabbing a knife, at the very least, like I was yelling or like expletives were coming out of my mouth. When someone surprises me, I can't help but yell out, right? My kids love this. They love hiding behind every corner. This is like my least favorite game that they have right now where they like to jump out in the dark at me. And I always yell something. Oftentimes it's an expletive because I'm not prepared for it. But they're asking this because it is a little strange that all of this is happening. None of it's like, pigs must die, you know, you'll never get me. Or like, screw you, nothing, right? No. We're in complete silence and know how she is very sure she doesn't hesitate in the least when asked about the hand. There will be other specifics that she's asked about where she's like, I don't really know. But this is not a situation where it all happened so fast. I don't know. I was struggling. I was really freaked out. This has never happened to me before. I don't know. No, she answered directly. There was no pause, there was no beat. She said, right hand. The interesting thing that stuck out to me in this third and Fourth version of the story is she says she struggles, she grabs the knife, struggles with the other one. So this is not a brushing past now it's I grabbed it with one hand, I'm struggling, he's running away. You don't know who's in there. You don't know if he's by himself. So you're gonna run in the house. Now, of course, everyone reacts differently, but the first thing is not to run in the direction of your neighbor again. We're talking about noon, broad daylight, even in December, broad daylight in Illinois.

[Brett]

She didn't even lock the door behind her.

[Alice]

She didn't even lock the door behind her. But she's gonna run into the face of danger. Not only does she run into the face of the knife with her hands, she also runs into the face of danger. Who knows who's in there? Maybe there are a bunch of people in there.

[Brett]

And I once again, and I feel like, because there's always people who you mention a fact and they're like, well, they think she did it because of this thing. That's the only reason she didn't. It's like, no, that's not right at all. But once again, I'm always hesitant to talk about weird things people do in stressful situations. But it is weird to me that you're right. She doesn't run to the neighbor's house, she doesn't lock the door behind her. And that the very first thing she does with her very minor cuts in her hand and she's like, man, I need to go wash my hands, my hand's bleeding, I need to go wash my hands first. Saw a guy with a knife or go look for your stepdaughter, or scream out for her, scream out for her, yell for her.

[Alice]

Because here's the other thing. Jade is so much bigger than you. She's a whole 3 inches taller than you. Yell for help because maybe at least if you have a witness or someone else comes rambling down the staircase, you have help. Because you are in the face of danger, someone has a knife and you're this tiny five foot woman, call your massive, huge 115 pound 11 year old stepdaughter to come down and help you. That doesn't happen.

[Brett]

I realize Jade is her stepdaughter and some people put some stock in that and maybe they didn't have a very good relationship. But it's hard for me to imagine anyone raising a girl for seven years from the age she was since she was four to 11, raising her for seven years and not loving her and not caring about her to the extent that that's the first thing you think about as a parent. I know the first thing I would think about would not be the minor cut on my pinky finger. It would be my kids. It would be like figuring out whether. Okay, and I've got to think, if you left this girl that you've raised and that you've loved, that would be the first thing. But it's not. The first thing she thinks about is washing her hand in the bathroom. That's the first thing she thinks about and that's the first thing she does. And once again, not deciding this case on that basis. But I do think when you're trying to judge people's credibility, it's worth thinking is what you're hearing, does it make sense to you? Does it fit with your common experience or not? Particularly when you then start to pair it with things like the fact that she lied about going to Walmart or seriously misremembered going to Walmart, the fact that she initially said she got there, she got out of her car and went inside. And then the story becomes, oh no, I actually sat in my car, my gasless car, for 30 minutes looking at Facebook. The fact her story keeps changing. And then you add into that the behavior that does not fit with common experience. And I think that does begin to have more weight than it just would in isolation because this is circumstantial evidence. Nobody witnessed this happen. It's going to be circumstantial evidence. Put it all together for yourself. Add this stuff together and tell me where it ends up for you. But we're not done now. Let's do the. I have it called the fourth story, but I guess this is actually the fifth because she gave two stories in that last one. Here we go.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay, run this back through from when you leave Walmart so we can get a pretty good understanding.

[Detective or Interviewer]

Came home, I saw the main front door was open, spring door was closed. I went to go inside, grab the door. As I was opening it, he was coming out. That's when I tried to grab the knife, cut my hand. He ran past me. I ran in, I went to my bathroom, washed my hand real quick, just real quick rinse, rubbed the towel on it, and then I ran to go find Jade. And when I saw her in the bathroom, I tried to check for pulse. And then that's why I called 91 1.

[Brett]

All right, so this is the latest story. This one, she's kind of in a rhythm now. We have the. She tried to grab the knife. This one is less intense than the last one. Remember the last one? There was a struggle and she grabbed there. She's struggling with the knife. And then she's struggling with the other knife. This time it's she gets out, comes back from Walmart, gets out, sees the doors open, opposite. He's rushing past. She grabs the knife, manages to cut her hands. She makes very clear that's this. I got these cuts on my hand when I was doing that. Rush inside, go to the bathroom, just a quick rinse, you know, Just, you know. Because everybody knows when you cut your hand, you got to do a quick rinse. If you don't, who knows what might happen to you otherwise. So she does that. Then she goes to find Jade.

[Alice]

It would be more believable to me if she went to go find jade before dialing 911, like I probably would. Honestly, I don't know which one I would do first, call 911 or run after my kids. Right. Because they're both so important. But it's interesting the way she tells the story. She didn't think to call 911 until she saw Jade. Now why is that important, though? It's important for her story because she wants to already be sobbing on the call. She wants to have Jade discovered as opposed to have the discovery of Jade be captured because that may not be as genuine, what have you. Right. So the order of events is important here as to why she has to discover Jade before she calls. But it's interesting. She's not saying, I was looking for my phone. I dropped my phone. But all I could think about was Jade. Nothing. There's actually nothing like that even in her own telling of the story.

[Brett]

Okay, so we got one more. There may be more, but we've got one more story of her grabbing the knife and then we'll go ahead and cut it off for today. So this is the last story that I pulled from this two hour interview of her grabbing the knife.

[Detective or Interviewer]

So it was as you were. When you pulled into the driveway, did you notice the front door was open or. I didn't at that time, no. I just kind of pulled up. Okay, and then you, you go in through the front door. And can you take us back to that? I went in through the front door. Main door was open, screen door was closed. As I opened the screen door, he was coming out and that's when I went to grab the knife, got cut. He kind of ran past me after the struggle, and then I went in Went to the bathroom. But you guys did, like, brush up against one another and a quick brushy. Yeah, it was a brush, though.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Can you run us through that again?

[Detective or Interviewer]

So just my left hand went for my first. I got cut. I went with my right hand again. Just kind of strolled five seconds maybe. And then he just kind of ran past me as I ran in.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay, so you get to the door when you come up this way. Because the stairs get to the door. He opened the door and he's coming at you and just. Yeah, after the knife. Okay, okay. And run me through that part again, please.

[Detective or Interviewer]

So I went to grab it, got the first cut, and then I went to use my other hand and then just kind of just tried to grab it some sort of way. And while we were kind of like this, he ran past me. And as I was going this way to get in.

[Interviewer or Detective]

How high do you think your hands were as you're fighting on the knife?

[Detective or Interviewer]

Like, here, Right above my head.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay, did he have the knife, like, raised at you? Did he have it like this?

[Detective or Interviewer]

It was raised like he was coming

[Interviewer or Detective]

out like that, like he was wanting to do this.

[Detective or Interviewer]

Yes.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay. Okay. So he comes to the door. He's. Did he have a knife? Left hand, right hand?

[Detective or Interviewer]

Because to open the door, I used my right hand, so that's why I went with the left hand. And he had it. Yeah, he was like this. So I just went straight for it.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay, so you go straight for it, get cut a couple times. And does he, like, just bump you out of the way? Did he kind of go against the house?

[Detective or Interviewer]

I don't think he did go against the house. Not really sure, though, because he just. Just right by me.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay. Okay. But he brushed up against your shoulder.

[Detective or Interviewer]

I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's just so much happened, but I. I'm pretty sure he did when he ran past.

[Interviewer or Detective]

Okay. Okay. So the jacket can possibly have. Yeah.

[Brett]

Okay. Now, one thing that's really interesting about this interview, this one detective, is he's always getting her to do things because he'll say, oh, man. Maybe when you interacted with him, maybe you, like, got your hands underneath his gloves because he's wearing gloves. Maybe there'll be. Maybe there'll be DNA, you know, on your hand. We should swab your hand for DNA. We should check this for DNA and that for DNA, because, you know, when you were doing this one, there's transfer. He's doing this the entire time. So notice this is the last time she talks about this whole knife thing. And what does she say, you know, you would think she would want to say, oh, man, it was a fight. We were struggling with that knife. And she does. But then on the other hand, she's like, but it was a brush. It was just a. You know, we barely touched each other as we passed. Because she knows they're not going to find his DNA anywhere on her. Right. So if she tells this story of this really intense struggle they had, then it's going to be like, if you guys had this massive, intense struggle, why is it we DNA tested you from head to toe and we don't find any foreign DNA on you? So she's balancing this story of, yeah, you know, the man comes out with the knife raised like he's Michael Myers in Halloween.

[Alice]

Which is so interesting that he would be deterred if he was so insistent, like he was lying in wait for her. And he runs out with this knife above.

[Brett]

And this is the first time he's coming out with the knife up, like he's attacking her.

[Alice]

Yeah. And that's all she gets.

[Brett]

She puts her hands up to defend against this man who's trying to murder her. He's trying to stab her. And let me just say, we all know this. Even if they're the same size, he's still a man. Muscle mass is larger. He's attacking. She's surprised. This is an incredibly dangerous situation for her. He's got the knife. You would expect to see some pretty serious wounds on her. Go to the website and look at her hands. Tell me if the wounds on her hands are consistent with someone who was struggling against a man with a knife raised, ready to stab her as he's coming out of there. And the only thing that protected her was the fact that she'd grabbed that knife. She saved her life right there, grabbing that knife. That's the new story, the last story. Tell me if the wins you see are consistent with that story or not.

[Alice]

And all silently.

[Brett]

Oh, yes, all very silent. It was a silent assault that was happening to her. Okay, so there you go. We've got the story of the attack, how this all went down, how she kind of struggled, but really just brushed against. And he rushed out, but they also fought over the knife. How she got these wins in her hand. She's always very, very clear to say, that's when I cut my hand. So you notice his hands. That's how I cut my hand. She's always very clear to say that. We've covered that now, but that is not the end of the interview. Next week we're going to start back with this interview and we're going to talk about the rest of her day. In particular, she gets off work and she goes to Carbondale. And we're going to play for you more examples of her telling this Carbondale story. We'll play several clips where she describes her trip to Walmart and what she did at Walmart. And I'll go ahead and spoil it for you. It's not going to be vague assertions of going to Walmart. You're going to hear a detailed story of going to Walmart and realizing your credit cards were missing. So you're going to hear that next week, obviously, we'll talk more about her trip to Hux. We'll talk more about the search for the man in black. We'll talk about the scene and we'll talk about some of the physical evidence in this case. Honestly, we might get through the whole thing next week, but probably not. I'm thinking maybe this is a four parter, but I'm thinking four episodes is probably what we need to cover everything in this case. All right, so I'm sure you already have thoughts. Shoot us an email prosecutors pod gmail.com@ ProsecutorsPod for all your social media. Let us know what you think on the gallery, which is already discussing this case. Go to our website, prosecutors podcast.com if you want to read the trial transcript, if you want to see some of these images, if you want to watch some of the videos, if you want a really deep dive into the case file. As I said, the Viper Pit podcast has had, has done like 10 or 12 episodes on this at this point. So worth listening to as well. Alice, do you have anything else you want to add?

[Alice]

I think having gone through the really intense wounds, this is a very straightforward case in a lot of ways. The wounds are horrific. We went through them. They could have been in more detail, but suffice it to say this was, it was a horrific end for Jade and she fought for her life. And it's also really interesting because we have the very words of the person who is ultimately convicted for Jade's murder. You are the jury here. You are getting to hear her affect, the way she responds to questions, the way she's being asked questions. This is not a 12 hour long, you know, interrogation. She comes in willingly. She has to explain things. And if you're saying, why is she so stupid? Why is she saying things that are inconsistent? She's not stupid at all, actually. She's thought through this with a chillingly cool head about what she needs to explain because Jade will be found within a couple hours because we know dad is coming home, mom is coming to pick her up for a birthday party. I think it might even be for her like half siblings birthday. It's for a child's birthday party that she's going to. This is going to be discovered quickly. And she has things she needs to explain like her whereabouts, why she wasn't there, and her cuts, most importantly, because those are very visible. And so she has in fact through all these things. And the reason you may be thinking, oh, this story's not really making sense is because you know what? It's really hard to make lies line up.

[Brett]

Totally true. Totally true. Well, Alice, do you want to answer a question or do you want to sail off in the sunset?

[Alice]

Let's. Let's answer a question because I'm. What was that heated up for, Jade?

[Brett]

Okay, so this is a great question. It's from someone named Joe M. Which I might know who that is, but I'll ask the question anyways. It's five star review, so it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you were on death row, Brett, obviously for aiding and abetting a mass prison escape that led to a mass murderer being released and Alice wrongfully convicted, of course.

[Alice]

Oh, thanks, Joe.

[Brett]

What would your last meal be? That's a great question. That's hard. This is where you want to be someone like gloss up who almost guesses.

[Alice]

It is hard because it's your last. Last meal.

[Brett]

Yeah, I think according to Texas Fried Shrimp is the most popular request for last meals. Everybody loves fried shrimp. Can you choose a final alcohol as well? Like back in the old days you got to smoke cigarette before they shot you. I don't know. It used to be you got a shot of whiskey and a cigarette and then they shot you. But I guess it depends, like, can you choose anything you want? Let's assume you can. A lot of states have actually put restrictions on the last meal because people would get things that were so extravagant. They put restrictions on it, but we're not having any restrictions on this. So you can have any combination of food, any foods you want.

[Alice]

There's so many ways to go about this because being a good Texas girl, I do love steak a lot. And my favorite seasoning. I was introduced to this like later in life. It's not like I grew up with this seasoning. Have you ever used Tex Joy steak seasoning? Go to Amazon. Because they don't sell it here where I live. So I buy it on Amazon or wherever you can get it mailed to you. But it's, like, available everywhere in Texas. It's my favorite seasoning, so it has to be steak made with that seasoning. It's not, like, expensive seasoning. It's actually probably very inexpensive. But I don't know if it's just because steak smells so good. But I also, you know this because I regularly have this meal with you and Mrs. Brett. I love pho. I love Thai food. I love Indian food. So, like, I could have an amazing Indian meal or just a massive bowl of noodle soup, but do I want that to be my last? Last?

[Brett]

That's a thing.

[Alice]

You know, like, could I start with a bowl of noodle, like, beef noodle soup at lunch and then have like a whole steak for dinner? And then obviously I need to have dessert.

[Brett]

But I do.

[Alice]

I do love pho so much. Like, so much.

[Brett]

Yeah. There's so many great foods that I would want. I just. I just.

[Detective or Interviewer]

Would it be.

[Alice]

Well, for you?

[Brett]

I've had.

[Alice]

Would it be for.

[Brett]

Well, so I would definitely want. Okay. Let me say if I'm limited to sort of a standard meal, you know, of what's available within 15 miles of the prison, give me some really good fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, some biscuits, maybe some fried okra. Like, give me a traditional southern meal. I'd be happy with that. Right. If that's what I'm limited to. But if I can have anything, then I want a foie gras tureen from Josephine in Paris. You're gonna have to ship that to me. I want one of those ribeye steaks from that place in Germany that I went to. I want one of those. I want some dreamland ribs when they make them. Good, good. From the original Dreamland?

[Alice]

Yes.

[Brett]

Or from Archibalds. Either one. I'll take either one with that really good vinegar based sauce. I want some of those. I do want with my mashed potatoes, my fried okra, maybe some fried green tomatoes, maybe some creamed corn thrown in there as well. Maybe some of my mom's chicken and dressing. Fantastic. Want some of that? And some bluefin tuna sushi. It's a wide combination. And then let's see, a baked potato with my mashed potatoes with all the fixed. I love a baked potato with all.

[Alice]

What do you like on your mashed potatoes?

[Brett]

Mashed potatoes. I just want sort of standard mashed

[Alice]

potatoes on your baked potato.

[Brett]

Okay. So I like a lot of sour cream, a lot of butter cheese, bacon, and I like the Outside to have a lot of salt on it. Yes. Salted jacket. For the baked potato, I want that. A bowl of udon. Some udon to go with it. And then for dessert, I want a slice of my mom's apple pie. She makes fantastic apple pie. It's got, like, pecans on the top of it. Oh, it's so good. Mom's apple pie. The peach cobbler from Georgia Browns in D.C. i want some of that because that's.

[Alice]

That is a really so good. I. I can taste it when you say that. I know. It's so good. I think we may have eaten there together.

[Brett]

Oh, it's so good. Yeah. And a bowl of Blue Bell homemade ice cream. That'll be my meal, my final meal.

[Alice]

But, you know, I'll be so disappointed if any of that were not prepared to your liking. Like, I love mashed potatoes, but not well cooked mashed potatoes.

[Brett]

Well, I'm assuming I'm getting from this meal.

[Alice]

I get it. No, no, I got it.

[Brett]

Is the perfect meal.

[Alice]

That is. That is pretty good. And one. One thing. I mean, I can't. I can't beat that. You've just.

[Brett]

George Browns went out of business.

[Alice]

What?

[Brett]

Are you serious? Jason Blair.

[Alice]

But, oh, my goodness. Wait. Georgia Browns there was like, it owned a bunch of them, you know, like there were. Maybe they just changed the name because did you know restaurants did this, like, every seven years? There was that one place on U Street. They changed their names every two years because that's how, like, you stay in business. So maybe Georgia Brown still exists, right? Not just Georgia Brown.

[Brett]

How did that happen?

[Alice]

I forgot to add that I love scallops. I love scallops cooked in butter so much. Oh, I'm sorry about your Georgia Brown.

[Brett]

I'm reading the article now. This hits me right in the heart. It closed end of last year. Oh, my goodness. How did that happen? This is DC's falling apart.

[Alice]

It really is. The Georgia Browns is closing.

[Brett]

Georgia Browns, Man, I ate so many

[Alice]

law firm meals there.

[Brett]

First time I went to Georgia Browns is when I spent a summer at Georgetown. Didn't have any money, but we got some together. And my now wife and I went to dinner there. I got the rabbit. The rabbit leg she got. I forgot what she got. Or maybe she got the rabbit. One of us got rabbit. Got that peach cobbler, which is incredible. And a watermelon martini. I remember we had a watermelon martini. It was so good.

[Alice]

What was that place that was near. It was near doj. It was a Indian restaurant and they had A crispy fried spinach rasika. Rasika's crispy fried spinach palat was. We would go there. I think you and I went there for. Because we were poor too, and, like, we would go for happy hour because the appetizers would be like 5 bucks as opposed to 45 bucks. And I remember just sitting there eating the cha palat and palat chaak. So good.

[Brett]

Rasika.

[Alice]

Rasika is probably the best dish. I could eat just that.

[Brett]

Add that to my last meal. I'll take some of that too.

[Alice]

I can still taste the crisp in my mouth. Oh, that someone would bring me that. You can't bring it anywhere. That's the thing. You have to eat it there because it has to be steaming fried from the kitchen. I think we each ordered one one time. Like, we.

[Brett]

Jason Blair is probably gonna tell me that rasika's closed.

[Alice]

Don't tell me rasika's closed.

[Brett]

One other place. Okay. I'm gonna add in one other dish. One other thing to my last meal. So there's a place called the Afghan Bistro, which I've talked about before, in Springfield, Virginia. It's in, like, middle of nowhere strip mall. If you're in Springfield, go there. It's amazing. And they give you. Afghan food is amazing. But they have this bread, and it's hard to describe it. It's not non. That's the thing about Afghan food.

[Interviewer or Detective]

It's like.

[Alice]

It's, like spongy, right?

[Brett]

It's a little spongy butter bread. It's not as spongy as, like, Ethiopian.

[Alice]

I'm thinking Ethiopian, which I love.

[Brett]

That's what's amazing about it. It's like this crossroads of all these different cuisines, and they all came together in Afghanistan. And so the food is. It's like, similar to things you've had before, but not quite the same. But they give you the bread, and they give you this mango chutney, and I could drink that stuff. It is so good. There's a mango chutney and an avocado chutney, and I mix the two together, and I take that bread and I dip it in it, and I can eat my body weight in bread from that place. So if you're in D.C. afghan Bistro, they have a place called, like, they have a place in the Heights in D.C. forget what it's called. It's another place. Look at Afghan Bistro. If you're in D.C. they have a.

[Alice]

My favorite Ethiopian restaurant in D.C. i lived down the street, was near the Studio Theater. It was across the street from Studio Theater.

[Brett]

Ecosia is the name of the afghan bistro in D.C. i used to volunteer

[Alice]

at the Studio Theater. Not volunteer. What do you call it when you show people to their seats?

[Brett]

Not a docent. You're a.

[Alice]

No, not that fancy. I was an usher so that you could get free tickets. Cause I had no money, but I really wanted to see shows. I think they still do that. They have a very active. Most of the theaters in D.C. have that, but I used. Oh, Le Duplamat is close to Studio Theater, but that's what I'm thinking of. I am thinking of. I hope it's still there.

[Brett]

Le Dup.

[Alice]

Oh, no. I think it turned into a Chinese restaurant.

[Brett]

I'm sure it's wonderful.

[Alice]

I'm sure it's wonderful. I've never been there, but there was an Ethiopian restaurant that was across the street from Studio Theater that I would eat at every time I went to go usher, because you'd usher at like 2pm on a Saturday so you could watch a show. And it was incredible because I spent time in Eritrea, which fought a war with Ethiopia. Foods are very similar, and we didn't have electricity that summer that I worked there. But we had a lot of fantastic food.

[Brett]

If I'm still hungry after eating all that, I wouldn't mind having a clay hot pot. Korean, with some. What do we. What is the beef called? What do we call it?

[Alice]

Bulgogi.

[Brett]

Bulgogi with some bulgogi in it.

[Alice]

You know, you get cosplay, potato, bulgogi meat.

[Brett]

I know.

[Alice]

It was so good.

[Brett]

You get those clay pots and the rice is. Is like caramelized on the bottom.

[Alice]

You feel like. Scrape it off.

[Brett]

It's another. Another meal to die for.

[Alice]

So anyways, I'm hungry now.

[Brett]

I'm hungry now, too. Okay. Great question, Joe. Thanks for asking that.

[Alice]

Now I really am hungry, though.

[Brett]

I know there's something called Indo Bistro and Grill here in Montgomery. Maybe I'll try that out.

[Alice]

Indo Bistro. I think I've been there.

[Brett]

Indo Bistro and Grill. It looks good.

[Alice]

That.

[Brett]

A journey through Indonesian taste.

[Alice]

You know, I don't. I really don't miss living in a big city. Oh, we forgot about ramen. I would get some ramen as well.

[Brett]

See, ramen's fine, but I wouldn't eat it.

[Alice]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Homemade ramen, like, homemade pho is a whole different dish.

[Brett]

I would probably know if you'd ever made it for me. I would be like, oh, you don't

[Alice]

Come to my parties.

[Brett]

So good.

[Alice]

You know, the other day when you did come to my house, I had made scallion pancakes, and I was totally going to make you scallion pancakes. And my kids ate them all. So I didn't tell you about them because I didn't want you to be like, darn. I wanted scallion pancakes because Fresh window place. You should try that. I think I went there for lunch one time.

[Brett]

Where is it?

[Alice]

It's where the H Mart will never open.

[Brett]

Is it over there?

[Alice]

I think it is. If I'm thinking of the same place.

[Brett]

It's one of my favorite Korean places over there.

[Alice]

Yes, I think we've been there as well.

[Brett]

It's funny because there's nothing that gives. Like it's a dress.

[Alice]

No, I found it. I found the Ethiopian restaurant. Kershire Ethiopian restaurant in Mart. They moved, though, because that's further than it used to be. But that's the Ethiopian restaurant I'm thinking about. Is it? Yes. 4.5 stars. Low key eatery serving regional Ethiopian dishes, plus wine and beer.

[Brett]

Bistro. It's over on Eastern Boulevard. Oh, next to the Bolero. I never check it out.

[Alice]

Bolero?

[Brett]

Yeah. Indo Bistro and Grill.

[Alice]

Now, I want this Ethiopian food.

[Brett]

I'll go there tomorrow.

[Alice]

I bet Vegas will have some Ethiopian food. We could probably go search it out.

[Brett]

Probably. All right, listen, if you want to see us record these episodes, you can join us on Patreon for $3. You also get the episodes early and ad free. If you don't like Patreon, you don't do Patreon. You can also do Apple for $3. You also get the episodes early and ad free. All right, guys, we will be back next week with more on this case. But until then, I'm Brett.

[Alice]

And I'm Alice.

[Brett]

And we are the prosecutors.

[Alice]

So I'll share with everyone the 35 people here. So we just put down Alison to bed. The last of the four said that

[Brett]

it sounds like you, like, took him out back and shot him.

[Alice]

Took him out back and put him down. Put her down.

[Brett]

Broke a leg.

[Alice]

Put her down. And like, you know how you feel after you put down a kid? Like it's like wrestling an alligator. Just you kind of want to face plant into the. Into the couch. And so we like, got out from putting him down in his bed. And then Mr. Alice looked at me and was like, all right, you now you get back to work. Which is.

[Brett]

And here you are.

[Alice]

Which is this? Okay, Sorry. I said, yeah, we could answer questions

[Brett]

Oh, I thought you said no.

[Alice]

Oh, I said yeah, I'm heated up. We can. You don't have to. But what?

[Brett]

Do you want to answer a question?

[Alice]

Sure. Let's answer a question. We promise them a question.

[Brett]

Work this in. All right, let's ask a question, then. All right. Is Alice frozen, or is she just so deep in thought I can't tell?

[Alice]

Sam, Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows.

[Brett]

We're coming at you with everything we got.

[Alice]

This is the mindset.

[Brett]

Free.

[Alice]

This is the mantra. Free. This is the. With movies like Pineapple Express, the entire Star Trek film franchise, and Gladiator, and TV shows like Survivor, SpongeBob SquarePants, the Fairly Odd Parents, and Ghosts, Pluto TV is always free. Pluto TV stream now pay.

[Detective or Interviewer]

Never.