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- [00:00]
Claude
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- [01:40]
Nick
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick and with me, as always, is a man who is thankful for an NFL game on Black Friday so that we have something to do to avoid the shopping. Here is the captain.
- [01:57]
The Captain
What are you talking about? I'm going to gear up, put my helmet on and punch some people in the face for that flat screen tv. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [02:12]
Nick
Ah, today we are still sipping on some delicious tropic canon from the great brewers over at Heavy Seas Beer. Hop on board and experience the bold citrus flavor of this awesome beer. Garage grade 4 out of 5 bottle caps. And here's some cheers to our friends who are awesome as well. First up, a cheers to Jason from McColm, Illinois.
- [02:36]
The Captain
And a big we like your jib goes out to Josh from Charleston, South Carolina.
- [02:41]
Nick
Great city. And here's a cheers to Wendy O in the HP Los Angeles, California. And last but certainly not least, we have a long distance cheers to Ivana from Triste, Italy. Everyone we just mentioned, they helped us fill up the garage fridge for this week's set of shows and for that we are forever thankful.
- [03:01]
The Captain
Yeah, BWAN Beer run. If you got some extra time, go over to Apple podcast and leave us a five star review.
- [03:10]
Verizon
We love you forever.
- [03:12]
The Captain
And that's enough of the business.
- [03:13]
Nick
All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer, let's Talk some true crime. As you heard in episode one, there is a lot of question marks in this case and we're going to go through as many of those as we possibly can and try to hit every single one. How will we come out at the end? I don't know. But as said earlier, there is a lot of information that I think is key here. Now, we talked a little bit about the relationships in this case. I think it is absolutely a big part of this case in attempting to understand the house, the layout of the home and the household in general. Because depending on where one suspicions may lie, a description of the relationship of the three men inside the home could be important. Now, the captain addressed this in episode one, and we talked about this a little bit as well. What we do know is that Robert Juan first met Joseph Price when Robert was an applicant to the College of William and Mary. Robert graduated from William and Mary in 1996. He received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania law School in 1999. The two friends stayed in contact during that time and during the stretch from 99 until someone murdered Robert in 2006. Also during that stretch, Robert met and married Kathy Wan. Joseph Price became involved in a committed romantic relationship with Victor Zabarski in 2001. And Dylan Ward also became a romantic partner of Joseph's in 2003. He also became a housemate of Mr. Price and Victor as well. Again, the relationship of the three men living together has been described many different ways. Regardless, we do know that on more than one occasion, when questioned by police, they referred them, referred to themselves as family.
- [05:30]
The Captain
So like you were saying, the EMTs take Robert to the hospital, they pronounce him dead. There is some confusion there because basically the EMTs are saying, well, we believe Robert was dead when we got there. Maybe some evidence that he was dead longer than the three gentlemen were stating, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital. And then we also have to make this point too. The EMT makes statements saying that when I showed up to this 1509 Swan Street. All three of these gentlemen, Joe, Victor and Dylan, looked like they have taken showers and they were in bathrobes.
- [06:16]
Nick
Yes.
- [06:17]
The Captain
And so then on top of that, he said that when he got to the top of the, to the second floor, the floor that Robert was on, that he commented towards Dylan and Dylan didn't reply to him and just turned around and went into Dylan's room and shut the door. Very odd behavior. And then you have the EMTs there, you have police there. Then all three of the roommates are sitting on the couch and they're whispering to each other. Joe is the only one that's really talking to law enforcement. And anytime the other, anytime either of the other two guys would speak, he was giving them looks like, shut up, let me do the talking. Now. Again, Joe's a lawyer, so that would make some sense. Hey, I'm a lawyer. I deal with law enforcement often, so let me do the talking. And then the cops say, hey, how about you come down to the station? So then they come down to the station and we're going to learn a lot more about their stories and inconsistencies during that, whether you want to call it an interrogation or during that interview process.
- [07:36]
Nick
Yeah. And so let's, let's focus on this. Everything that you went through here, as you said. So we have the EMT arrive. There's two EMTs that are arriving together. And as you said, their observation, or at least one of their observations, is that Robert Juan has been dead for some time. They don't, they don't clarify what sometime means, but they do state in some of the information out there that he was cold to the touch, an indicator that he. He wasn't just stabbed just minutes ago. And they called 911 immediately that some time took place between the stabbing. Whether that's by whom, we don't know, and when they decided to call 91 1, because we do know this, the 911 call is placed and paramedics are on the scene within about five or so minutes of that call. So they arrive rather quickly. He probably shouldn't be cold by that point. The other thing too that's interesting is the neighbor's statement that all I heard a scream and she put the scream at before 11:30. The 911 call comes in at 11:49. There's no question about what time the 911 call comes in. The question is what time did the scream take place? Police believe that that scream took place before 11:30 based off of the neighbor's statement. If in fact that is true, then that means that the men inside the home waited 19 minutes to make that phone call. The tricky thing here is too, if they are responding to screen to a scream and door chime and all that in their statements, that doesn't include a whole lot of Dylan. Right. It's Joseph Price and Victor go downstairs, they find Robert, and then Joe sends Victor back upstairs to make the 911 call. Dylan would later tell police that he didn't hear what was going on. Right. We have the Two individuals on the third floor who are further away from the would be murder scene, or what we're told is the murder scene, that seem to hear the door chime, they're much further from that back door than Dylan is. In fact, Dylan would have been right above that back door. Now, we talked about these alarm systems. They're not particularly loud. Usually those chimes are set to a minimum volume because it's not that chime that's supposed to alert you if somebody broke into your home. It's the siren that goes off after the chime just simply alerts you that the door has been opened. And you wouldn't want that to be particularly loud because you don't want it to be disruptive. Dylan's statements is he didn't hear the scream, he didn't hear the noises coming from what would have been Robert's room, like the others had stated. And he didn't hear the door chime. His statements to police is that he was sleeping. Remember, he said he took the sleeping pill, so maybe that knocked him out. He also says that the air conditioning vent was above his bed. And the air condition would have been on that night because it was a hot night, it's August, and that the air condition, when it runs, it's rather loud. And it really kind of deafens any noise that he would hear from outside or even within the home outside of his bedroom. The detectives would say the opposite. No, we were in there, we shut the door, we cranked up the ac, we heard it. It didn't. It wasn't loud at all. It didn't muffle the sounds of anything. But we gotta keep in mind here who's right, who's wrong. It's difficult for us to say in the garage because if either the men inside the home are telling the truth or a complete lie, and regardless, the police at some point are gonna collect evidence, or even a lack thereof evidence, or build their cases around the statements of these three men. While I believe that they. They're probably mostly honest, I will say in the documentary I saw times where you're getting a slightly exaggerated version of statements that were given by other people, right? Where, for example, the EMT saying, well, he's been dead for quite some time, okay? That's what the EMT says. When that same statement is relayed to us from the prosecutor or a detective, that person then says, well, he was dead for some time. In fact, the. He was cold. I don't have any reason to discredit the detective or the prosecutor, but I didn't hear the EMT say that he was cold to the touch. I'm hearing you tell me that the EMT told you that he was cold to the touch.
- [12:06]
The Captain
Well, there's a few things weird to me about this interview process. Of course law enforcement's going to try to divide and conquer. They get each one of these guys in a separate room, they start asking them questions. But one of the things that is not clear in the documentary that I learned later was the three men kept asking for breaks and they would say, hey, we need to take a break. You know, this is overwhelming. And because they weren't being charged with anything and because the law enforcement, you know, basically the guys were coming down to the station on their own free will and trying to cooperate. So I think on some level you can go, well, that makes them look innocent of any crime, but. So they keep taking these breaks, but they're all taking the breaks together. They're going out into the parking lot and sitting in the car that they came in. So when people say, well, you know, this crime went down and there was 19 minutes and that's not enough time to get your story straight, it's like, well, but you had more than that because you have these breaks in between the interview sessions, and then you also have just going down. If they all rode together in the same car to go down to the station, how long of a period until they're in those interrogation rooms?
- [13:36]
Nick
I mean, the car situation is difficult for me to understand because we have the prosecutor who will later refer to as one of of these meetings that you're talking about as the Mercedes meeting because they were sitting together in a Mercedes. I'm having a hard time figuring out where the hell the Mercedes came from because there are clear statements from the detectives that they transported all three of these individuals to the police station individually.
- [14:02]
The Captain
Well, that's because they had a friend come down to the station.
- [14:04]
Nick
Right.
- [14:05]
The Captain
So maybe I'm guessing it's his car.
- [14:07]
Nick
Yes, it's the friends Mercedes. So. So. But we know that they were transported according to the detectives, individually. Damn. If this were my case and you tell me you want to take a break. I get it. I can't hold you because you're not under arrest. But guess what? You want to go outside, get a little fresh air? It's a nice warm night out there. Excellent. All of a sudden I'm a smoker, boys. I got to go out and take a smoke break with you. Or, you know, I'm not saying they were smoking, but let's all go outside, get a little fresh air. You know what? We've been in here for 45 minutes. I could use a cigarette. All of a sudden I'm a smoker now. I. I'm keeping a pack of cigarettes in my desk just in case I have to act this shit out. Would you mind? I know we've gone a long way down this road here, Captain, but I do want to back up a little bit because I think there are a couple things that we might have leapfrogged over here.
- [14:50]
The Captain
Okay.
- [14:50]
Nick
Again, I think that a better, grander understanding of all of the relationships is important. I'm talking about Robert and Kathy, the wands relationships with these three men. Okay, so what we do know is that the, the nucleus of this relationship is Robert and Joseph have been friends since college. Joseph's a little bit. A few years older than Robert.
- [15:15]
The Captain
Yeah, Joseph was a senior when Robert was a freshman.
- [15:18]
Nick
We know that Joseph and Victor, who are partners, attended Robert and Kathy's wedding in 2003. We also know based off of Kathy Wan's statements to police that both her and Robert stayed in socially engaged with primarily Joseph, but all three of the men. She says that they would socialize with them roughly about two to maybe four times a year regularly from the time that they were married. So we have a couple years of this pretty regular interaction amongst all five of these people. And she does say that, look, we, both of us have been to their townhouse before on Swan Street. In fact, Robert Juan's 30th surprise birthday party was hosted by these three guys at the townhouse on Swan Street. And so we have the wife that is saying, look, you know, we knew these guys fairly well or at least enough that we socialized with them face to face, hanging out several times a year. We had been to the home a couple of times because that was tricky for me. I was listening to Dylan statements to police and he tells the police, yeah, this was the first time that Robert ever stayed over. I wanted to know beyond the 30th birthday party, how many times had they been there? And according to the wife, they had been to the home. Let's see, here's the exact statement. The one socialized with the housemates approximately two to four times per year and visited them at their home on three occasions after they had moved into the residence on Swan Street. Okay, so that seems pretty definitive, pretty clear. Three occasions before this horrible night where he's killed.
- [17:03]
The Captain
Well, what's confusing though to me is we know people knew that Joe and Victor were married. I don't think everybody in their social circle knew that Dylan had a relationship with Joe. I don't think that was something that they were sharing with everybody.
- [17:21]
Nick
And they might not have been going out of their way to hide it. But it also doesn't appear to me to be obvious to anyone. Obviously Joseph and Victor, you can tell that they're together. Now. One thing that I think, and I might be wrong here, I did watch the documentary twice, but it looked to me like one thing that was missing from the documentary is that the Swan street house was a three story row house. Right. So we have a basement, we have the ground level, we have the second floor where Dylan had his room. Robert is found in the study. And then you have the third floor, the top level where Victor and Joseph slept.
- [18:00]
The Captain
Right.
- [18:00]
Nick
But at the time there was a basement unit that was being rented to a friend of the three men who lived there. Her name is Sarah Morgan. She's renting a basement unit. Now, on the night that Robert is killed, she was out for the night. And it's my understanding, the way that I've, everything that I've read is it sounds to me, Captain, that not only was she going to be out for the night, but it was kind of understood that she wouldn't be returning at all that night.
- [18:32]
The Captain
Yeah. So that's implying that these three men knew Robert's coming over in advance. They also know that their renter, because that's again, we talked about this earlier, she's a renter, she's not a roommate. But it's, it's very possible that there is some way to access the basement apartment through the main level.
- [18:58]
Nick
Oh, absolutely. There absolutely is. Yeah, I've seen the layout.
- [19:01]
The Captain
You wish that she was there because obviously we would have a clearer picture of what happened.
- [19:08]
Nick
Yeah. So the. Let's talk about the layout of the home. We already talked about where everybody was staying. But according to what the housemates may state that they believe. They believe that the intruder that killed Robert, the stabbed Robert came in through the back door. And when they're asked that by police, this, this says to me that they, they're either convinced that that's the truth or they're trying to sell this as the truth because they. Well, how do you know it was the back door? They say, well, we heard the backdoor chimes and like I talked about with my security system at home and I know yours at your home and the one that we use at the garage, a lot of these security systems, you can set them Up So it, it will tell you which door was opened.
- [19:55]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [19:56]
Nick
Or you can have door A make a different noise than door B or C. So they're telling police that's how we, that's why we believe it was the back door that we. Well, we heard the chimes. They, they never at any time do they say, we think the intruder would have come in through the front door. Now interesting here. The front door is locked. The back door may have been left unlocked. So it seems reasonable to believe that maybe somebody could have entered the home from the back. The problem is that the back door, they have a small space behind the home. Some of the homes there in these row houses, they actually park their cars with inside a fenced in gated area that is behind the home. So you essentially have no backyard at all here. I think that they may have been parking one car at the time. I don't know the way that it's described in the documentary, there was no vehicle back there. But what's not in question is every source we could find says the same thing. That backyard area, as small as it is, is surrounded by an eight foot fence. Can somebody jump an eight foot fence? Maybe on my best day when I was 20, I could. I don't know. I don't think I've ever physically jumped an eight foot fence. But the reason why somebody would have to jump it is the way that it's described is that while the back door to the home was unlocked or potentially unlocked, no signs of forced entry to the home. The gate which was equally as high as the fence that surrounded it was not what was in fact locked.
- [21:31]
The Captain
Yeah. So law enforcement is also going to argue that when they heard this story and they then investigate the crime scene, they see cobwebs. Reminds me of the JonBenet Ramsey Intruder theory that you see cobwebs, maybe it was the same guy and you go, this is not. These items aren't disturbed. So it doesn't seem like likely that somebody would have jumped the fence. But we also have a neighbor that says, hey, you know, whatever happened in that house, you know, I have this little kid play sandbox that the lid was smashed and there's two footprints. So maybe if there was an intruder that when they jumped the fence to get back over that they landed on this sandbox.
- [22:20]
Nick
I thought they quit making those types of sandboxes when we were little kids because it looked like one that we had when we were kids. Remember the one that's like shaped like a turtle?
- [22:28]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [22:28]
Nick
And the lid is Like a turtle shell. And you take the turtle shell off, and inside's the beautiful sand. And you play in there with your GI Joes and your little muscle men. Yeah, that's what we did.
- [22:36]
The Captain
Well, that's maybe what you did, but I normally would take my pants off, maybe take a leak, maybe take a dump and blame it on the house cat.
- [22:44]
Nick
This guy is saying, look, guys, somebody could have came back over this fence and landed on top of my kid's sandbox. And here's an imprint on the turtle shell lid on top that smushed it in. He's not saying this is, in fact, exactly what happened, but he's suspicious and saying, look, here's some evidence that it. It might have gone down this way.
- [23:06]
The Captain
Yeah. This individual then claimed that law enforcement said to him, we already got the people responsible for this. So they didn't take this claim serious. And that is the big criticism in this case to law enforcement is that they go, well, there's four individuals in the house. One is dead. And we don't buy the story that these three guys are trying to sell us. So therefore, they're responsible and they didn't look anywhere else. And I think that's a fair argument.
- [23:41]
Nick
Thank you. Thank you. I believe so as well. So think about this. Let me. I agree with you 1000%, but I will say this in defense of the police, when they show up to a scene, one guy's dead. Nobody else is harmed in any way at all. Nobody can describe the intruder because everybody says, we didn't see the intruder. We're just guessing it was an intruder, the murder weapon came, or at least we're either. Either this, we didn't even get into the murder weapon that. Yet the murder weapon is displayed to lead persons to believe that a knife that belonged to the homeowners was the murder weapon.
- [24:21]
The Captain
Right.
- [24:21]
Nick
There's no signs of forced entry, and, oh, nobody stole anything from the home either. So for any detective out there, and I want to be clear about this, because I believe that maybe had they locked onto these guys too early, that I think that's a fair statement. They probably did, because I don't see a whole lot of activity outside of the home looking for the killer or looking for the intruder or looking for evidence of the intruder, it looks to me more like they're looking for evidence of no intruder. But the defense that I will state is I believe, and I could be perfectly wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. It hurts every time. I believe that there's a chance that Maybe they locked onto these guys whether it's too early or not, before they even had an understanding of them being homosexual. Meaning, I think that if detectives showed up to any scene and you have everybody there is straight or whatever, if they see no forced entry, the murder weapon came from inside the home. Nothing was stolen, and three out of four people were unharmed, didn't see the intruder. I think immediately, right there, it's difficult to not lock in or start going, well, maybe one or all of these guys did it. And then you start to learn about the home and the relationship of some of the people within that home. Again, a variable here that's not mentioned very often is the other roommate who was not home that night, Sarah Morgan. The one thing that we've not mentioned is the home is rather large, right? We talked about it being essentially a four story home once you talk about the basement. But it's a large, beautiful home. Now, one thing that's good for detectives is this is a very neat and tidy home, right? Like this. It's got expensive furniture, expensive collectibles. It doesn't seem to be cluttered at all. It also doesn't seem to be like it's open spaces in a lot of these rooms. From what I've been able to see, this is a home that partly in location, but also partly because of its size. It's over a $1 million home back in 2006.
- [26:36]
The Captain
But I think the responsible thing, even if you're interviewing these individuals and the stories not matching up, I think you have to then go and figure out can you prove or disprove an intruder theory. And so I think that would have been easier to do at the start than later. But so during this interview process, they're trying to figure out which individual that they could break down. And the prosecutor said, hey, look, this Victor guy seemed to be an honest person and a good person. And so they tried to break him down, but then they have Dylan, he's on the second floor with our victim. So they end up pulling him out of the interview process to give him a polygraph. And he fails the polygraph, which does not help law enforcement wanting to believe these individual stories. It's just not adding up. It's just not making much sense.
- [27:56]
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- [29:09]
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- [29:34]
The Captain
The ones you don't.
- [29:36]
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- [30:43]
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- [31:50]
Nick
Absolutely.
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- [32:46]
Nick
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- [34:27]
The Captain
All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Tall canes in the air. Party to the people in the back.
- [34:35]
Nick
Cheers to all of you. Cheers to all of you on Thanksgiving day, especially if you're traveling a great distance. I hope you're filling your ear balls with true crime garage goodness.
- [34:47]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [34:47]
Nick
And gobble gobble before you enjoy a little friendship, a little family, a little food, a little football, a little fun on Thanksgiving Day. Captain, you had mentioned something that I do want to bring up here in my notes. I have a note that there was in fact a door, small set of stairs that led to the lower level, the basement level from that patio area behind the, behind the row house.
- [35:12]
The Captain
Right.
- [35:12]
Nick
So you have an alleyway, you have a eight foot gate, an eight foot fence that surrounds this patio area. Inside the patio area, you have a table and chairs. There's a small set of steps that lead down to the basement with a locked basement door. The back door to the home is supposed to be deadbolted. And again, the alarm system is constantly brought up by detectives. Captain, you brought up that you believe that it was, it was still installed and still active, however, not monitored.
- [35:45]
The Captain
Yes. This is what the prosecutor said.
- [35:47]
Nick
Yes. So we know that to be fact. If the prosecutor said it, it's got to be fact. Let's go a step further, though. The police also have a very difficult and problematic part of the story for them is, look, most burglars, if they're going to enter a home from that alleyway, it makes a lot of sense to come out of that alleyway and not go into the front of the home. On the front of the home, this is a street in a, in a very populated area. You would practically be on display going in out of that front door. So a burglar naturally is going to come in through the alleyway and choose to go in that back door, if it were me, and I could get in that basement door, that's the way I'm going in. But one thing that detectives point out, beyond that security system, monitored or otherwise, typically what comes with these security systems is plenty of signs and stickers for your windows that are notifications that, hey, this house is armed. I tell everybody that ask me about simplisafe or about getting another security system for their home. Yes, get it. And make sure that you put out the signs and make sure you put out these stickers because a lot of times that alone isn't enough to deter some random burglar Right. Somebody that doesn't know your home, they see those signs, they see those stickers, guess what they do quite easy. They go to the neighbor's house that don't have those stickers and signs and they break into their home. So the police point out that, you know, a burglar probably would avoid this house because of the security system. There's also motion detected lights back in that patio. And according to the detectives perspectives, or at least what they're telling us, it was well lit back there. And we do know that criminals don't like light. They like to do things in the dark under the COVID of darkness. So those lights may have been a deterrent as well. Also very strange that they enter the home and don't steal anything. And you and I had a conversation on the phone leading up to hitting record today that I thought was intriguing because we, we were kind of kicking around the idea of, well, maybe this wasn't, this intruder wasn't a burglar at all. Maybe this intruder went into that home with the intent of harming or hurting or killing somebody.
- [38:05]
The Captain
Right.
- [38:05]
Nick
Because if they don't steal anything, we know that they don't seem to have been spooked. Right. Like this is a home filled with a whole bunch of expensive stuff. You don't have to go beyond the ground level to start bagging things up to take with you when you leave. But we're told, we're led to believe, by the people that live there. Intruder comes in, he jumps the fence, gets in through the back door. No sign of forced entry. Pulls a knife out of the block in the kitchen, goes up the steps. Oh, by the way, it's 16 stairs that are described as rather steep and old. Where you would hear, it's wooden steps, so you might hear the footsteps themselves. You might hear the steps cracking and creaking as the person went up. The key thing here that I think the detectives really hit home for me in their description was even if this burglar was of the feline type. Right. I'm talking about a cat burglar here. Super stealth mode. Is able to slide, slippery snake slide up those steps without making a single noise. They bypass Dylan's room. Again, we don't know if doors were closed. I get the vibe that Dylan's door was closed. I have no clue if Robert's door was closed.
- [39:19]
The Captain
Well, and the other question that I have is not just is the door closed, but is the door locked? I lock my bedroom door. So is it possible? And especially when you have Situations where you have multiple roommates, you might find yourself locking, you know, the bathroom door, the bedroom door when you go to sleep. So is it possible that the intruder comes in, tries to open up the first door they see and it's locked so they go to the next one and we, you know, we have to talk about sexual orientation because if that.
- [39:59]
Nick
Was, if it plays a factor in the murder.
- [40:02]
The Captain
Yeah, because I think if you have this intruder that's coming into the house just to kill a random person, what do we know about the individuals that live there and what do people in that area know about their relationship? Like I said, I don't think it was open knowledge to everybody that they knew that, hey, this is, again, it's tough to say it's like a love.
- [40:29]
Nick
Triangle because it may not connect on all sides.
- [40:33]
The Captain
Exactly. But there are horrible individuals out there.
- [40:39]
Nick
Yes, there are.
- [40:39]
The Captain
We talk about them every week.
- [40:41]
Nick
People who commit hate crimes.
- [40:43]
The Captain
Is there somebody that saw Joe in the, in the newspaper? This Joe has been in the media, in the news.
- [40:53]
Nick
He's very successful. He's a lawyer who, I can't remember the company that he represents, but it was a gay rights. Yeah. Attorney.
- [41:02]
The Captain
And is it, is it possible that somebody in that area sees him?
- [41:07]
Nick
That's interesting.
- [41:08]
The Captain
He becomes the target. But they, they go into the house. And the problem with the intruder theory though is if you open up that door to get in the house, the.
- [41:20]
Nick
The alarm goes off, most people would flee. Then if they had, if the lights weren't already a deterrent or the eight foot fence, they would open up the door, hear the chimes, little P comes out and then you freak out and turn around and run.
- [41:34]
The Captain
Right. So, but again, I think if you lean towards the idea that the intruder theory makes sense to you, I think you have to start looking at it as is this, was this a targeted hate crime?
- [41:48]
Nick
And here's the thing where that gets a little dicey too, right. Maybe somebody comes. Let's just continue on this little think tank adventure here. Maybe somebody comes into the home and yes, they are targeting one of the individuals that live there. Or they're targeting Joseph specifically because he's a gay rights attorney.
- [42:08]
The Captain
Right.
- [42:08]
Nick
Robert Juan.
- [42:10]
The Captain
Or look, like you said, Victor was the point person of milk. And yes, the milk ads got milk. Right. Maybe somebody out there is like, you know what? I don't got milk. I got lactose intolerant or I hate.
- [42:24]
Nick
The gut milk people.
- [42:25]
The Captain
Yeah. And you're trying to. You keep making me thirsty for milk, but every time I drink it, I Shit myself. So I'm going to stab you to.
- [42:33]
Nick
Death some IBS person.
- [42:36]
The Captain
It's a possibility.
- [42:37]
Nick
Well, but here.
- [42:38]
The Captain
But also, but hold on. Yeah, so we have Joe fighting for gay rights. We have Victor fighting for Milk's rights. And we have this Dylan character and he, he's kind of strange and, and he makes these weird trips to Thailand and. And he has multiple jobs and it doesn't seem like he has. And look, not everybody finds their path in life.
- [43:05]
Nick
We haven't even got to the S and M stuff yet.
- [43:08]
The Captain
Right. Yeah. And then on top of that, we do find. And I. This might be jumping the gun a little bit, but we do find an online sexual profile for, I believe, Joe. And so then you start questioning have. And then. Okay, so let's just dive into some of the real, real quick though, because.
- [43:29]
Nick
They didn't get to finish my thought. And what the detectives were saying about the stairs, they, they called into question how loud those stairs were creaking and the hardwood floors and all that, and the hardwood floor steps themselves. But what they're saying is simply this and what I'm echoing here and actually adding some additional words. Even if the burglar was of the cat type in super stealth mode and made it up those steps without making a single noise, the problem then becomes you stab someone, there's a scream at some point, and now you have to flee. You don't walk and slip and slide, slither your way out of that, out of that townhouse. You're running, you're forced gumping it out of that house.
- [44:12]
The Captain
Yeah. Unless you're. And you're going to slippery snake, you're.
- [44:15]
Nick
Going to, you're going to clip and clop on those stairs as you go down 16 right steps, 16 steep stairs down to flee again back out that back door.
- [44:28]
The Captain
Well, the prosecutors point something out and I just want to be clear about this, as clear as we can make it. The prosecutors believe that there is evidence that if there was an intruder, they didn't just open up the door and see Robert laying there and then stab him there, that the intruder would have had to walk around to the other side of the bed. Because if you just think about how a knife is, you have the sharp end and you have the dull end. So the stab marks, the sharp end are pointing away from the door. So unless the individual held the knife the wrong way that you. Or the way, the wrong way that you think somebody would hold the knife to stab into individual, the stab marks don't make sense. And they would almost have to reach.
- [45:21]
Nick
Across his body, which depends on. Right way, wrong way. Some people would pick up the knife sharp side. Right. You're going to stab in a downward motion. That's why you're going to get that earthquake effect, that wake effect on the bed. If he stabbed on the bed.
- [45:35]
The Captain
Right.
- [45:35]
Nick
Which I don't think he even was stabbed on the bed. And I think wake effect, not mentioned. I don't think anywhere else is indicative that he wasn't stabbed on the bed. But you have identical stab marks. And if you were to hold it so that the blade would be toward you when you come down with it, that might be one way. You watch movies and I'm guessing that this is how they might do it in military or mercenaries or whomever out there. People that are better skilled with a knife than yours truly. But movies like Under Siege and all those other movies you regularly see, the guys hold it where the blade is toward the person you're trying to attack, even though you're holding it, the blade pointed side down. Right. You got the handle. Blade is not up, blade is down. That's how you stab someone.
- [46:20]
The Captain
Right.
- [46:20]
Nick
The other weird thing, while we're on the stab for a minute here, well, there's a lot of people that call into question that that knife wasn't the knife that was used to stab him.
- [46:31]
The Captain
Right.
- [46:31]
Nick
Because the length of that knife, for it to be that knife, it didn't go all the way in on all three stabs. So it would have stopped short a little bit on each stab. And they're almost identical to the point where somebody says, experts say, look, it would be nearly impossible for somebody to replicate the same stab using this knife because it's too long, that one of those wounds would have been deeper. And so therefore they're saying a shorter knife must have made these wounds. And if in fact this is not the murder weapon, then the story that these guys that live there are trying to sell you is not true. We are missing the murder weapon. And then somebody took the time to stage the scene to make it look like this knife from our block was used to kill him.
- [47:19]
The Captain
Yeah. And so let's stay on this knife for a little bit. This, this is a knife that we know comes from the kitchen. It's from a, you know, one of those blocks that have a bunch of different instruments, if you will, has multiple different knives. They don't pick the biggest knife.
- [47:38]
Nick
They pick one that's roughly what, about a five inch blade, I believe.
- [47:40]
The Captain
Yeah. And so that's strange. But here's Where. Look, some people say, I've. I've reviewed this case, and in my eyes, that knife is the knife that was used. Again, the stab marks not being long enough, I think is a red flag. But I think the other red flag is we have an individual saying, well, the knife was on Robert's chest or the knife was inside Robert.
- [48:08]
Nick
Yeah.
- [48:08]
The Captain
And I pulled that out and then I placed it on the nightstand. We have. Now, out of the three individuals, there's only one saying they touched the knife, and that's Joe. So we should find Joe's DNA on the knife. We don't. We should find some kind of fingerprint on the knife. Joe's fingerprint. Right. We don't. We think then at that point, well, maybe we would find some DNA from the killer. If Joe's not the killer. We don't. I mean, obviously you can say that the intruder would be wearing a glove, but that doesn't stop the DNA in the fingerprints of Joe ending up on that knife handle. So it just doesn't make a lot of sense. And then somebody can go, well, maybe they clean the knife off. Well, that shouldn't get rid of all DNA and that shouldn't get rid of all. All fingerprints, unless you are purposely trying to get rid of them.
- [49:07]
Nick
And there's hardly any blood in the room. Right. Like the paramedic is saying, I'm getting there to the scene, and I'm not seeing. I'm seeing stab wounds. I'm not seeing blood.
- [49:16]
The Captain
There's two little puddles of blood on the bed.
- [49:20]
Nick
And so think about this. If somebody comes in and stabs someone that when you, you. Into the body, out of the body, into the body, out of the body and so on. The. Out of the body is going to bring blood up and out, right. And it's going to. It's going to splatter it. And you'll have blood spatter on probably walls or sheets or elsewhere within that room. Now, unless the intruder stabbed him in a way and just got lucky enough that all of that blood spatter ended up on themselves and they carried it out of the home with them.
- [49:52]
The Captain
Right.
- [49:53]
Nick
Then there should be blood spatter somewhere. And then the other part of it is there's. There's not a whole lot of blood. And you have the paramedic. This is. Okay, this is the difference between the prosecution, the detectives, and the paramedic statements. Again, I found another discrepancy between what they're. They're somewhat saying the same thing, but one seems a little exaggerated. Right. The Prosecutor and detectives say, well, it looks like he had been stabbed, showered, and then placed in the bed.
- [50:24]
The Captain
Right.
- [50:25]
Nick
However, the paramedic doesn't say that. The paramedic says. And they're trying to relay the paramedics words to us. I think they just exaggerate it. The paramedic actually says it looked like the victim had been wiped clean. He doesn't say showered, he says wiped clean.
- [50:42]
The Captain
Like there should be some blood on his chest, Resting on his chest. And it looked like somebody wiped down Robert's chest.
- [50:52]
Nick
They do find blood on the knife that is sitting on the nightstand or end table that is next to the bed.
- [50:58]
The Captain
Yes.
- [50:59]
Nick
As the captain pointed out, they don't find fingerprints, palm prints or DNA. So whoever used that knife, if in fact that was the knife that stabbed Robert, they didn't, they didn't get cut in the process and leave their own blood on that knife. What. Why would that not be the knife that, that was used on Robert, Captain? Because I don't think we've got to this point yet.
- [51:21]
The Captain
Well, there's a knife missing from Dylan's room.
- [51:25]
Nick
Yes. When they conduct a search of the home, they find a lot of things that are, let's say, interesting to their investigation.
- [51:33]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [51:34]
Nick
And one of the things that they find is a knife set. Now, from our understanding, the knife set was gifted to Dylan from his mother. Is that correct?
- [51:42]
The Captain
Yeah. And that's what she claims.
- [51:44]
Nick
Yes. It's a three piece set. Right. Two knives and like a fork. And it's, it's nice, expensive looking, decorative. It comes in a beautiful case according to the detectives. We find one knife in the large fork in there in this case, but clearly a smaller knife that is missing. Why is it missing? We think it's missing because they used it on Robert and then concealed it or managed to get rid of it before we were able to search the home. The interesting thing and cool thing here, I want to, I would like to know when they conducted the search. Number one, I would guess that you could get the search warrant rather quickly. You find somebody that's been murdered in a home, there's your probable cause to search the home.
- [52:21]
The Captain
Or you wonder if the three individuals gave them permission to search. Because again, it's this weird thing because by them going down to the station right after the EMTs take their friend away, you can look at something like that and go, well, that's them, you know, trying to cooperate with law enforcement. But then you could also go, well, but if they're trying to cover their tracks, then they're going to want to look like they're willing to be open and honest with law enforcement as well. And so same way with if they gave them permission to search. Well, we got nothing to hide. We told you it was an intruder. So this case is just so bizarre.
- [53:12]
Nick
The knife that we're talking about from the set that was found in Dylan's room, in his possessions that was missing. Dylan and his mother both tell police. Yes, when that set was gifted to Dylan, the knife was. She had kept the knife or the knife was already missing. I though a lot of the statements are that she kept the knife. Well, that would be easily. You could easily sort that out if she could produce that knife for you.
- [53:42]
The Captain
Right. But even if she could, she had enough time to go get another knife set to try to save her son from getting charged with murder.
- [53:51]
Nick
Depending on the age of the knife set. Right? Correct. You might like. I have some knife sets at my home that are. Were my grandmothers. I would doubt that I might be able to with the Internet nowadays, but I wonder how much effort I would have to go to. To replace one of them.
- [54:08]
The Captain
But I think what's more fascinating, you know, they don't find this knife in the knife set. But I think it's more fascinating what law enforcement does find in Dylan's room. And it's not just, look, a lot of people have joy toys and sex toys.
- [54:28]
Nick
We've done a couple of ads for some wonderful joy toys.
- [54:31]
The Captain
And I'm so glad that you have read those and not me because I'd probably just sound completely inappropriate the whole time.
- [54:40]
Nick
But should we stay in Robert's room before we go into Dylan's room? See, this is where it gets difficult for us here in the garage. And I'm sure other people have struggled with this as well. Probably even the documentary, the good folks that put together the documentary for Peacock. There's so much stuff that you could get into with this case. And it's very quickly to go round and round.
- [55:02]
The Captain
Right.
- [55:02]
Nick
And spin your tires a little bit trying to sort this stuff out, make sense of some of it and figure out who's to blame that you can get lost in the sauce, as we say here in the garage. And so in Robert's room. We'll get to Dylan's room in just a quick second.
- [55:16]
The Captain
Okay, so. Okay, let's just be clear. We're going to get to the joy toys.
- [55:20]
Nick
Yes. So stick around in Robert's room. Some other things that are. That are interesting, you find there is a bloody talon there. There now we know that the 911 operator is telling Victor, hey, you gotta. We gotta stop the blood. You gotta get some towels and put them on top of our victim here and press down, and press down and stop that blood till the paramedics get there and can try to save this guy's life. So you would expect to find a bloody towel there. However, there's not a whole lot of blood on this towel. There's not a whole lot of blood on the bed. It has been suggested that the blood. There's two blood spots found on the blood bed that either the blood from the wounds came up, you know, bubbled up to the point that it rested on the body and at some point had to run down the top or the side of the torso.
- [56:09]
The Captain
Right.
- [56:09]
Nick
Which would have caused a little bit of puddling. Again, everyone saying, we didn't find as much blood as we thought. There's no blood spatter or splatter to. To be recognized or that is observed at the house or in that room. Let's say. Even more important, the blood on the towel. Not as much as they thought they would find. They do find. Again, this is in support that there is no intruder. They find Robert Juan's belongings right near him. You know, you go into a room, your room, or you stay elsewhere, you put. You take off your. Your belongings and you set them down. He had. He had organized and set down two wallets because he carried a dummy wallet in case somebody tried to mug him. Two wallets that were not touched.
- [56:51]
The Captain
I hope I never live in a city that I have to carry around a fake wallet.
- [56:55]
Nick
If you do, if you live in a tough city, you put your wallet in your front pocket so somebody can't pull it out the back. They also found his watch. He had an expensive watch. Not touched. A BlackBerry, which would have been considered expensive as well. Not touched. And a. Some reports say he had a BlackBerry and a cell phone, which does make sense to me because I remember 20 years ago when the blackberries were popular, though, that's. It's essentially a different item than a cell phone. It behaves a lot like a smartphone. There were. The phones back then weren't so smart. It did a lot of things. And a lot of times blackberries were issued to professionals, hardworking, very busy professionals, because it was a way that you could send emails and you could. They had, I think, something called Lotus Notes, like a group that works together could go in and create notes and then manipulate them so you could work as a team through your BlackBerry, whether you were at work or not. So cell phone, BlackBerry, watch, two wallets, none of that taken. But he stabbed. So that goes to the thought that maybe there was no intruder that would point. No intruder. What does point to intruder is the way that Robert Juan is dressed. He's wearing his college shirt and shorts. They check with his wife. Kathy says, yes, that's what he would have worn to bed. So that is indicative that he did get ready for bed and then laid down on the bed. They also found his mouth guard inside his mouth. His wife says that was the last thing that he would do before going to bed every night is put the mouth guard in. So you have things in this room that are suggestive of the intruder theory and against the intruder theory. Now, back to the knife real quick. The prosecution has a big problem because they don't find any fibers of his shirt on the knife. They're saying if he was stabbed and he had to have been stabbed through that shirt, it's the only thing that makes sense. Sense, because the cuts on the shirt line up damn near perfectly with the wounds of the body. So they're saying that you should find fabric, little bits and pieces of fabric from that shirt on the knife when it went through the shirt and then into the skin.
- [59:09]
The Captain
So if that knife is the instrument that killed him or is responsible for the stab marks, then we should find, like you said, those fabrics, but we don't. And so again, you go back through Joe's story. I found the knife on him or I found the knife in him.
- [59:29]
Nick
We find. We do find pieces of terry cloth on there, little fabric, pieces of terry cloth, which the prosecution will say is suggestive that somebody used the towel, got the towel nice and bloody, and then transferred blood, either wiped blood from the knife or was using the blood on the towel to place it on the knife to make it look like that knife was used. I don't know, man. I. If I'm trying to sell the intruder theory to law enforcement, yeah. I don't think I'm going and picking a knife from my block and using it and going to all these ways to manipulate a knife and then try to tell you that's the knife that had to be used. It's got the victim's blood on it. I would much rather have. If you're going to get rid of a knife, because we know that the. The home was searched and they didn't find a knife, and they're saying that the knife that wasn't found was the potential murder weapon, why wouldn't you Just not use a knife inside the home, figure out how to get rid of the knife that was used unless it was one that's obviously missing from the butcher block and just say, well yeah, of course we're not finding a knife because the frickin intruder took it with them when they left.
- [60:38]
The Captain
Right.
- [60:38]
Nick
So the knife thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What? One thing that's not brought up in the documentary when they talk about the specifics of the knife, one thing they did find on the knife is pieces of his chest hair. So now could that been transferred in another way? Yes. Right. It doesn't mean that that knife was used to stab him, but I tend to lean to the idea that that was in fact the knife that was used unfortunately on Robert Juan.
- [61:07]
The Captain
Right. But then the question becomes why do we not find fingerprints, palm prints or DNA?
- [61:15]
Nick
Yeah.
- [61:16]
The Captain
Why would, if you're completely innocent, why would one of those individuals, Joe Victor or Dylan, why would they clean the knife so much that they then had to put blood back on the knife? It's just.
- [61:32]
Nick
Yeah, I actually don't think that they put blood back on the knife. I think it was used and they just set it there. How, how do you get the, the cuts to come from a five inch knife and fall half an inch short or whatever. It was identical on three different wounds. I go back to the idea that you didn't find any fingerprints or DNA of another person on that knife on the hilt or the handle, but you did find terry cloth. I happen to believe that the shirt was on and that one of the persons that lived in that home use that knife and wrapped the terry cloth towel around the handle and the hilt.
- [62:09]
The Captain
Right.
- [62:10]
Nick
And stabbed them. And the reason why it's identical in the depth of the stab wound is because that towel was not moved or manipulated after the first stab. It was used. Boom, boom, boom. And I actually believe the reason why, I think the towel they found in that room was the one used wrapped around that knife. I think that the reason why you're not finding a whole lot of blood on that knife is I think he was dead before those stab wounds were even administered.
- [62:51]
The Captain
I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every week. And I want to wish you a very, very merry Turkey day, the most.
- [63:02]
Nick
Glorious day and weekend of them. I cannot tell you how much I love this extended weekend. For me it starts Wednesday afternoon and carries itself all the way to Monday morning. So enjoy every single minute of it.
- [63:19]
The Captain
Drink them if you got them tall cans in the air. Do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners this week?
- [63:26]
Nick
Captain we're going to be recommending the Burden Empire on Blood. This this is a fantastic true crime deep Dive podcast about a double homicide in the Bronx. The Burden Empire on Blood is brought to us by award winning journalist Steve Fishman, who we had on our amazing show off the Record very recently. Steve worked this case for years getting to the bottom of what really happened. Steve has interviewed such true crime figures as Bernie Madoff and David Berkowitz, AKA the Son of Sam. You can find the Burden Empire on Blood podcast listening using the same method or apparatus. However, you are hearing my voice right now. Shout out to Steve and shout out to everybody for this wonderful Thanksgiving.
- [64:15]
The Captain
Yeah, if you haven't listened to the interview we did with Steve on Off the Record, it was freaking awesome. And until next week, be good, be.
- [64:24]
Nick
Kind, and don't live.
- [65:01]
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