You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas. And Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, joyous
Festivus for the rest of us, or whatever it is that you happen to
celebrate. We've got to mix in Kwanza Wally and the Lights or is fest
of Us co opting of the Festival of Lights or is that something Larry David
made up. I think that's something Larry David made up pretty sure. But
whatever it is that you happen to have celebrated recently or during this month,
we hope you had a happy, peaceful, joyous, wonderful one whatever that
one thing happened to be. Now, most folks do celebrate New Year's which
is coming up later this week, and so we're heading into twenty twenty four,
ready or not, and we want to take a minute to thank everybody
so much for your continued support and listening and patronage, because it means a
lot to us to be able to do this podcast for you. I actually
think somehow in our sequence of numbers, we're heading into our fifth season,
but our fourth year. Don't ask me how we ended up here. You're
the one in charge of the numbering and the editing. Not made that that
was a little scary. Four years, five seasons, who knew. I
still don't know how we've managed that, But here we are. We just
stumbled our way into this thing, and we just keep on. At the
risk of reminding you that we've never taken a vacation, did you know that
we've never actually taken a vacation. I know, I'm very aware, I
really truly am, because I follow all of our other colleagues on Facebook,
and a lot of them are like, we're taking a week off here,
We're taking a week off there. And I know, I'm just saying,
I don't think I would mind if we did, but I don't think I
don't think it's necessary. Let's just keep right on going. There's so much
to talk about. I'm just gonna keep right on going. He's a workaholic,
folks, He's a workaholic, and you heard it here first. And
then, of course we have our bonus episodes on Thursday, which are classic
episodes, whether we think so or not up to the listeners. Theah that
we have classic episodes is actually a little a little terrifying too when you're four
years into it, heading into your fifth year or whatever. They Happy holidays,
everybody, Happy holidays. That's too far gone. Now, we're there's
no turning back. There's no turning back. We hadn't done true crime news
for a hot minute, so we wanted to take a little bit of time
here right at the end of the year and around up some recent true crime
stories that we thought were interesting and present them to all of you. Because
isn't this time of year the time you want to stop and pause and reflect?
And what would we rather do than stop, pause and reflect on horrific
true crime stories the past year? Because we know how to have a fun
holiday season. There are people who ask me legitimately, like, how do
you do this always? Is this always on your mind? Or you constantly
thinking thinking about this? And not always but a lot of times true.
But we talk about other things, and yes, there's life beyond true crime.
But at the same time, I think this is a serious endeavor and
we might as well stick with it. We may as well, So we'll
go ahead and start with the first story. And this I think is of
particular interest with regard to what kind of information we can get out of the
brains of mass shooters. So let me go ahead and get into this first
story. So, the brain of Robert card, the forty year old mass
shooter from Lewiston, Maine, who killed eighteen people during a shooting rampage at
a bowling alley in October, has been sent to CT experts at Boston University's
CTE Center. And for anybody who doesn't know what CT is, that stands
for chronic traumatic and cephalopathy, and we'll explain that more in one second.
To recap the events, Robert Card, who was an army reservist and a
firearms instructor, entered a bowling alley and then a bar a mile down the
road in late October. During his shooting rampage. He killed eighteen people between
the two locations. There was a massive manhunt across that region for two days
looking for Card before his body was finally found near his previous place of employment,
a recycling center. And he had killed himself. Am I correct he
had killed himself? Yes, Lindsay Shastin the main office of the Chief Medical
Examiner's spokesperson said in Sienna and a couple of days ago, the Chief Medical
Examiner requested CTE testing be conducted on Robert Card's brain due to the combined history
of military experience and actions. Now, what led up to that is the
fact that three months prior to this shooting, Robert Card was given a command
referral after he began behaving erratically. That command referral required him to seek treatment
in response to the fact that he said he was hearing voices and having thoughts
of hurting other soldiers. Upon receipt of that command referral. He was transported
to the Keller Army Community Hospital at the US Military Academy at West Point and
he was given these tests and the results of those tests have not been released,
but according to CNN, who covered the story in great detail, the
folks at the main Medical Examiner's office would like for there to be testing done
to determine whether or not Robert Carr had CTE. So CTE, or chronic
traumatic encephalopathy, is a debilitating neurological disorder caused by repeated blows to the head.
This can happen sometimes with sports figures, for example, this is a
danger for football play anybody who may be in contact sports in which you're doing
a lot of contact with other people that may cause blows to the head.
CTE ultimately is a form of dementia that can include symptoms of depression, anger,
forgetfulness, violence as well. The thing that's interesting about ct is it
can only be diagnosed after the person has died through brain samples that are taken
after the autopsy. It's awesome reporting recently in The Washington Post about the wives
of football players who were saying that they were fairly certain that their veteran football
playing husbands. NFL players had similar symptoms where they were suffering from depression and
anger issues and anxiety. And as you said, it really can only be
fully diagnosed through examination of the brain after obviously someone has died. In doing
some more research on this, because i'd do you find it very interesting ct
and the potential links to violent behavior are being very closely explored now more so
than ever, and so they are looking at the potential link between traumatic brain
injuries or TBI and violence. When someone receives a traumatic brain injury, Could
this result in an uptick in depression or violent behavior. We don't know,
but more research is definitely something that seems to be required here. My understanding
based on this research is that repeated traumatic brain injuries TBI can lead to CTE,
but it's unclear thus far whether any violent behavior exhibited is a result of
the TBI or if it's a result of the CTEs. We don't know what
causes it. It does seem pretty evident that we need more study in this
area. And my question is, so what does that mean for our society
with regard to mass shooters like Robert card should researchers be looking for instances of
TBI in those perpetrators that might offer some causes for their violent actions. Or
is the root cause of a mass shooter's terrible actions? Is that somewhere else?
We don't know that. I think it's important that we learn that,
and so the answers to those questions are pretty unclear, but I do think
the questions need to be asked, the studies need to continue, and hopefully,
with Robert Card's brain being sent out for examination at Boston University, we
may eventually get some answers as to whether or not traumatic brain injury or CTE
had something to do with his terrible actions in October at the Bowling Alley and
the bar in Lewiston, Maine. It would be interesting to go back in
recent history and take a look at how many different mass shooters we've had who
have had military training. Certainly, I'm aware of the fact, even from
just the reporting we've seen over the last decade or so, that a number
of these perpetras, almost all the men have had military training, and you
wonder if they may have had exposure. They talked about Robert Carr's exposure as
a firearms instructor at West Point, that he was exposed to a tremendous amount
of cannon fire as well as small arms fire. He would have been around
guns and explosions and would have been exposed to this level of potential brain injury
over a number of years. This is a real interesting question that I think
we need to be taking a look at. Yeah. Absolutely, the fact
that they went ahead and sent his brain out for additional study, I think
is it's a good sign and it's going to be very interesting from a research
standpoint down the road and what might be a common factor for mass shooters.
Another case we were following over the last couple of years that we wanted to
circle back on is the Jeffrey Epstein Glenne Maxwell case. There's new information that
is expected to come out in early twenty twenty four January to be exact,
via the Wall Street Journal that may name as many as one hundred and fifty
additional associates of Jeffrey Epstein. Now, not all these people are necessarily directly
involved in Epstein and Maxwell's sex trafficking of these young women. It does appear
that these people had personal and professional relationships as a result of a freedom of
information filing by the Wall Street Journal. These names are going to be probably
revealed sometime in January. We can't forget Jeffrey Epstein had powerful friends on both
sides of the political spectrum, including former Presidents Donald Trump, Bill Clinton,
Hillary Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and many other people. Their names have
already been linked with Epstein and Andrew of course, Oh, Prince Andrew is
definitely on the list. It'll be very interesting to see where the Wall Street
Journal takes this. The Wall Street Journal has done two lengthy stories describing the
many different connections to Epstein, and then, of course, reporter Julie K.
Brown of the Miami Herald has done a tremendous amount of reporting on the
Jeffrey Epstein Glenn Maxwell scandal. This is just a partial list of some of
the people whose names may be revealed. There are some advance copies of some
of this research available. Some of the people that have been mentioned include designer
Vera Wang and model and designer Naomi Campbell. Apparently their names were used as
a way of soliciting participation from young women were then drawn into their sex trafficking
business. Oh jeez, yeah, it gets pretty bad. Other people that
are mentioned whose names are probably going to come out and be on the list
of one hundred and fifty. This is going to be very interesting. Norwegian
Prime Minister Thor Yaglund. Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Junior. Oh, now,
it doesn't necessarily mean that he was a customer regarding their sexual abuse of these
young women. Robert Kennedy Junior says that he traveled to pedophile Island as it
was called, with his wife and didn't have anything to do with any of
the illegal activity that was taking place there. Other people who are mentioned Google
founder Sergey Brinn. Very interesting information coming out about Microsoft co founder Bill Gates.
Apparently Bill Gates had a lengthy affair with a woman and Epstein knew about
this and may have facilitated some of their meetings. And Epstein supposedly paid for
this young woman to receive training for a business that she was attempting to launch.
This is during the deck he was having an affair with this woman.
This is Bill Gates now, and apparently there may have been an attempt on
Epstein's part to blackmail Bill Gates into paying for this training, which Epstein had
originally funded and then he was dropping these very strong hints in writing that he
wanted Bill Gates to reimburse him for the cost of this woman's training. Other
people mentioned Bard College president Leon Botstein, our current CIA director William Burns Wow
is on the list. This name had already come out in some previous reporting.
Former Treasury Secretary and the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers had a long
standing affiliation with Epstein. PayPal co founder and friend of Donald Trump, Peter
file and then the J. P. Morgan Chase Bank is implicated as well.
They've already paid a seventy five million dollars are fine to settle with the
US Virgin Islands for charges related to the Epstein scandal. And then, of
course Prince Andrew. Some of the reporting I was reviewing today also said that
Prince Andrew's unfortunate and illegal access to underage women. He's already been sued successfully
by one also a Prince Andrew facilitated Epstein's total access to the British royal family.
Epstein and Maxwell, and of course Maxwell was a British citizen, traveled
to and actually attended functions with the royal family. And this is all as
a result of their relationship with Prince Andrew. Yes, it's just horrible,
So look for this in early January. This probably should be coming out sometime
in the next few weeks. As you may recall, Jeffrey Epstein died under
suspicious circumstances on August tenth, twenty nineteen, at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in
New York City. Many people feel that although the death was put down as
a suicide, supposedly he had found enough fabric to wrap around his neck and
commit suicide, there were some very strange details there where there was no video
available outside of his cell because of course, the system went down and the
guards in question were suddenly not available, so that he was not checked as
frequently as he was supposed to be, and of course no one was punished
for any of this. In the meantime, Galei Maxwell was found guilty of
child sex trafficking in twenty twenty one and sentenced to twenty years in prison starting
in twenty twenty two. Well, it couldn't happen to a nicer person there,
jeez, No, agreed. I think the two of them are just
completely reprehensible people. There are many people feel that she may have taken the
fall because Maxwell was still alive, Epstein was dead, and so they couldn't
blame the principal sex trafficker, so they went with the number two person.
She certainly was grossly involved in all of their illegal activity. When you get
into the details of it, you just feel like washing your hands or taking
a shower afterward. The two of them the absolute worst. Yeah. Can
I take my brain out and wash it out and then put it back into
my head? Yeah, that's definitely what it feels like. So our next
story is one that when I read it, I sent it to you immediately
because I figured that if you hadn't heard of it, and because it took
place up in Boston, I figured probably you had if you hadn't heard of
it already. Then I knew it was going to be the sort of thing
that you would like. And this is definitely a story that falls under the
category of truth is stranger than fiction. Would you agree with that? I
would, And I did remember this story. As soon as you sent it
to me. I was like, oh, I remember when this happened.
This is a fascinating story. So we absolutely could not let another edition of
True Crime News go by without digging into this amazing story. The story starts
with a man by the name of Thomas Randall, car salesman and country club
golf pro, who made a confession to his daughter Ashley in March of twenty
twenty one. He told his daughter that his name was not actually Tom Randall.
His real name was Theodore Conrad, and he had been on the run
from the cops for the last fifty years because he had robbed an Ohio bank
of two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. This is one of those situations where
truth really is better than fiction. It's a crazy story. Now. Tom
Randall asked his daughter not to look into the case any further, but I
don't think I'd be able to help myself. And clearly she didn't either,
and so she went online to look it up, and she discovered hundreds and
hundreds of online articles about what has been declared to be one of the largest
bank heists in Cleveland, Ohio's history. The heist that her father perpetrated is
of two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in money of that era. Today it
is one point seven million dollars in terms of today's coinage adjusted for inflation,
of which there's a lot. I was very interested to read about the fact
that this heist was. It was so large, his inexplicable disappearance was so
odd that it was featured on a number of programs that we're familiar with,
America's Most Wanted. It also appeared on Unsolved Mysteries, and people even compared
Theodore Conrad's disappearance with the money to that of skyjacker dB Cooper, who,
if you recall, stole two hundred thousand dollars and then parachuted out of an
airplane over the Pacific Northwest, never to be seen again. Interesting, people
talk about the Cooper much more often than and they talked about this particular disappearance
of Theodore Conrad, and yet they're actually quite equivalent. Even the dollar amount
is roughly equivalent two hundred thousand dollars versus two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.
A lot of discussion about D. B. Cooper, of course, people
loved the kind of the romantic aspect of him jumping out of the plane with
the parachute and the two hundred grand As I recall, I think they've found
some small amount of the money in the woods in the dB Cooper story,
and yet Conrad makes a complete, clean getaway. I like the fact that
actually in both cases there is an apparent movie connection. I was reading that
if you look at the Suspect sketch of dB Cooper wearing the gray suit and
the pair of sunglasses, he actually looks quite a bit like Carrie Grant's character
Roger Thornhill in north By Northwest, which was one of Hitchcock's most wonderful and
thrilling capers. People have said that they wondered if maybe Cooper had patterned himself,
at least his look after the carry Grant and the iconic gray suit that
he wore in north By Northwest. Interesting. It is interesting if you do
a side by side comparison of the Suspect cat sketch and Carry Grant in north
By Northwest, it's actually eerily similar. And there's a movie connection here as
well. There is. Tom Randall's favorite movie was The Thomas Crown Affair,
and that would be the Steve McQueen version, not the Pierce Brosman version,
And the Pierce Brosen version, of course, is the one that I'm more
familiar with. But I bet you know the Steve McQueen version. I like
them both, though they're both quite good. I think the McQueen version is
a little more successful. I think it's Steve McQueen and fade down away.
I like the Pierce Brosen version. I do too. I don't think Renee
Russo sold it nearly as well as she should have, but need to have
a real soft spot for Renee Russo. Though you're listening to Mind Over Murder,
we'll be right back after this word from our sponsors, We're back here
at Mindover Murder. Tom Randall's favorite movie, Thomas Crown Affair, is apparently
what may have inspired his plan to lift the money from the bank where he
was an employee. On Friday, July eleventh, nineteen sixty nine, he
arrived at his job as a teller at Cleveland's Society National Bank. He was
planning on celebrating his birthday that weekend, so he went on his break to
buy a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes, and at the end
of his workday, he went into the vault. He put two hundred and
fifteen thousand dollars into a paper bag, and he left he just walked out
of his own life because it was a weekend. Though robbery was not discovered
until Monday, which allowed Conrad a two day head start. He sent letters
to his girlfriend professing his deep love and affection for her. One letter was
postmarked from Washington, d C. The other from Los Angeles, California.
And that was the last communication that Theodore Conrad had with anyone. And so
the authorities in Cleveland had absolutely no idea what to do and the case went
cold. Interesting. This is characterized as a robbery, which it is,
but it's not an armed robbery, and it's not your usual bank robbery where
people go in with a gun and a note and demand money, take the
money and leave. This is really much quieter. It's an inside job.
And remember when we were talking with Greg Overacher a couple of weeks ago about
his work as a bounty hunter. He said that one of the ways that
you find people who are on the run, like Thomas Randall would have been,
is through their relationships. They want to stay in touch with their girlfriend,
their wife, their kids, people that are important to them. He
manages to sever those ties, yeah, and walk away. He sends a
note to his girlfriend with these unusual postmarks in DC and Los Angeles, where
he may have been, or certainly the letters were mailed from those locations and
could have made other arrangements to have them mailed for him. By having the
discipline to not reach out to his girlfriend, whom it does sound like he
was very fond of her, he needs the clean break. Very interesting that
he was able to do that. So he moved north to a suburb outside
of Boston. People have speculated that he moved to Boston because that is where
the Thomas Crown Affair was set and was filmed. He changed his name to
Thomas again after the lead character, and he lived a quiet life for the
next fifty years as a family man. He donated to law enforcement charities,
He set her in and watched NCIS with his family, and he committed no
further crimes for the rest of his life. I guess he just figured maybe
he needed to set himself up to be financially successful, and there he went.
When I heard about this case was living up in Boston. The Boston
Globe, the newspaper of record up there, gave this story a lot of
play. When it finally broke that he was this mysterious bank rubber who had
disappeared. So Ashley Randall said after her dad's death that in retrospect, there
were some behaviors that he exhibited that could be viewed as suspicious. She said
that even though he was clean shaven when he was younger, he grew and
maintained a beard his whole entire life, which is pretty good disguised. She
said he rarely took off his baseball cap in public, another good way to
disguise it, and she said that he did not ever travel overseas with his
wife and his daughter. He always said it was because he preferred to travel
domestically. That Ashley realized after his death that it's because he did not have
and would have no way to get a passport. One of the things I
read at the time was that this highlighted a weakness in the social security system.
He had applied for and gotten a new Social Security card, so he
had a new Social Security number, and then that allowed him to get like
a driver's license and other things, but he didn't have the birth certificate that
would have been required for him to get a passport. And as you mentioned,
when his wife and daughter wanted to go to Europe on vacation. He
let them go without him. Very interesting. So Ashley and her mother Kathy,
knew that Thomas Randall had only a few months to live. He was
dying of lung cancer. They did not tell the authorities his secret, and
they decided that they would go to law enforcement in June of twenty twenty two,
which was a year after his death. But it was only a few
months later, in November of twenty twenty one, that US marshals showed up
at the door and said that they had been tipped off to Tom Randall's identity
by a crime reporter who had been sent Tom Randall's obituary. We'll see if
we can find Tom Randall's obituary because this is interesting. So even though their
plan was we're going to sit on dad's news until a year after he passes,
this crime reporter figured this out based on his oh bit. There had
to be have been something in that oh bit that there was enough of a
nuggative information that this reporter was able to figure out this is the guy that
got away with this bank robbery fifty years ago. This is going to become
a movie at some point. This is going to be this is gonna be
like touch me if you can, or something along those lines. But if
you want to hear more about the amazing story of Tom Randall aka Conrad Ashley,
Randall does have a podcast that has just come out. It is called
Smoke Screen My Fugitive Dad. That's a great name. My Fugitive Dad,
My Fugitive Dad. I thought it was a great, really interesting story,
and we just wanted to make sure that we shared that with all of our
listeners. So do check out Smoke Screen My Fugitive Dad for more information,
and we will try to put a link to Tom Randall's oh bit in the
show notes. One last thought about Tom Randall. If it sounds like we're
treating this with a little bit of a lighter touch than we usually do and
discussing true crime, I think it's because no one was harmed. Obviously,
the bank was out to other than fifteen thousand dollars, but that's why banks
are insured. And he committed no act of violence, and as far as
we know, he never did anything else of a criminal nature for the rest
of his life. Interesting. I'm sorry to hear that he died of lung
cancer. I don't think those cigarettes are doing him any favors. If anything,
I find this story fascinating and I'm not letting him off the hook for
bank robbery, right. It really is a fascinating story to have this whole
thing come together post mortem, and then there's something intriguing enough about his obituary
that a crime reporter was able to say, Hey, this is that guy.
Like I said, someone's going to make a movie or a TV series
out of this because it is really interesting. And let's be honest, if
you had the opportunity to set yourself up financial life for the rest of your
life when you're young, he was twenty, he was barely out of his
teens. If you're the opportunity to set yourself up financially for the rest of
your life without hurting anybody, if you had the opportunity to do it,
would you? Clearly he did. It worked for him. I don't think
it would work for everybody, But it's an intriguing question to ask yourself.
We'll put it up on our social media, let's see what people think.
Yeah, it'd be a nice, fun little question. And if you had
that opportunity, listeners, would you. We'll definitely put that up on Facebook
see what we have to say. These last two stories are a bit more
serious. These are updates on cases that we've discussed here at mindover Murder.
The first is the Idaho four murders of the four college students at the University
of Idaho in November twenty twenty two. A couple of developments just recently,
a judge has tossed out two attempts by suspect Brian Coberger's attorneys to have his
charges tossed out. First, they've recently claimed that prosecutors withheld evidence, and
the judge found noah evidence of with holding. And then second they claimed that
the wrong standard was used by the grand jury in this case, and again
the judge said, no, I don't think so. And remember, ultimately,
it's not what happens at the grand jury level, it's what happens in
the trial, which is scheduled for early twenty twenty four that really matters the
most. The other recent development in the Idaho four case is that the University
of Idaho, which now owns the house which was the crime scene, has
announced plans to destroy the house. It was a rental property owned by a
landlord three levels I think most of us have seen coverage on the various television
networks and just extensive amount of media coverage this case is received. The University
of Idaho has announced plans to tear the house down. A number of people
are disturbed by this because there hasn't been a trial yet. Of legal experts
have weighed in and said this is very premature. One of the victim's mothers,
this is Xana Cernadal's mother, has announced plans to fight this action,
that is, to prevent the tearing down of the house before the trial takes
place. Several thousand people have signed a petition to stop the teardown of the
house. And I actually do agree that I think this is quite premature.
Even though extensive DNA and forensic searches have taken place and a lot of analysis,
and they have video. It can still be very meaningful for a jury
should the prosecution or the defense choose to ask for this, to be able
to go to the premises and walk through them. The house has an unusual
layout. It's been described how suspect buying coburger may have started on the third
floor and worked his way down to the second floor. Murders taking place on
the third floor bedrooms and in the second floor bedrooms making his way towards the
exit where he was seen by one of the other roommates that evening. I
think all of this could be very beneficial. I understand that the University of
Idaho wants to move on, that's the expression they're hurting, and they've discussed
perhaps putting a memorial garden in this small neighborhood close to the campus to remember
these students. I love the idea. I just don't think we need to
rush into this, particularly since I think anything we can do to facilitate a
fair trial for Brian Coburger and a way to make certain that justice is achieved
is incredibly important. And I don't see what the rush is to tear this
property down. No, I agree with that entirely. I think your point,
especially about being able to go visit the premises if needed, is a
very good one, because as we can tell already from fran Coberger and his
team, they are willing to file motion after motion to argue malfeasance and various
other things that if they went ahead and toore that down and then try to
present evidence with regard to land out of the house or whatever that would have
been better served by being able to go to the house itself. He would
find some way to leverage that in his own favor. I think it is
only right and only fair in the interest of justice, that it stays up
until after the trial has come to its successful conclusion, it's been fully adjudicated,
and then I think by all means at that point tear it down if
you want to turn it into a memorial garden, if you want to,
let's leave it up until then, just in the interest of fairness. It's
what is it that I tell my students. It's better to have it and
not need it than need it and not have it. Agreed. And some
of the criticisms of the University of Idaho have included the observation that the university
is very interested in moving on. As I mentioned, they don't want to
be remembered as the place where this horrific crime took place. While I understand
it and a university's idea at rebuilding their reputation, the truth is four young
college students were brutally murdered there. That's already happened. Let's at least do
everything we can to make sure that these people get justice and the justice they
deserve, so that we can all move on. And I think if this
house stands empty for another year, there's no harm done. It could be
particularly helpful to either the prosecution or the defense. And then our last story
is about the Delphi murder case, which has more twists in turns than I
don't even know what. The latest is that the trial of suspect Richard Allen
in the two thousand and seventeen murder of Libby Jerman and Abby Williams has been
now pushed back for another year. Likely it was scheduled for January twenty twenty
four and is now being pushed back to next fall. This is a year
from now now, October twenty twenty four after graphic crime scene photos were leaked
online. This should have never happened, No, not ever. And these
poor families, and of course we've met the families. It's very difficult to
see them go through one delay after another. This latest involves a forty one
year old man named Mitchell Westerman. He was charged in November twenty twenty three,
just a few weeks ago. We're making copies of graphic crime scene photos.
He saw while he was visiting the offices of his friend Andrew Baldwin's law
office. Baldwin and his partner were past tense now the defense attorneys for Richard
Allen. Apparently, Mitchell Westerman had worked for Andrew Baldwin and they had remained
friends. He had stopped by to chat with his friend. Baldwin was in
a meeting or on the phone, and Westerman was waiting, and he wandered
into a conference room where there were crime scene photks from the libby Jermyan Abby
Williams crime scene. Perhaps they shouldn't have been out in the open, but
that's a conversation for another day. Mitchell Westerman took out his cell phone and
took photographs of the crime scene images, which apparently were incredibly graphic, Oh
my god. And then he passed them on to other people, ultimately ending
up with one friend in Indiana and another associate in Texas. One of those
people then leaked them out further, so they ended up on the Internet,
as they always do. The photographs were fairly widely distributed. Jeez. Once
the leak was discovered and law enforcement got involved, they began questioning people who
had the photographs and had put them up online. One of the people that
Westerman leaked the photos to committed suicide after he was questioned by police. And
this is a guy who's married with a child. He killed himself immediately after
being questioned by the police. This had further ripple effects. You remember the
lawyer Andrew Baldwin and his law partner Brad Rosie were then removed from the case
by the judge. They're the ones that had allowed the leak to take place.
They had not known about the leak. The judge presiding over the case
felt that they were so badly compromised that they had to be removed from the
case. So she has now named new defense attorneys been appointed to represent Richard
Allen. The new attorneys have to come up to speed on what we all
agree is a very complicated case. The clial has been pushed back by approximately
another ten months to allow them to come up to speed. What we're seeing
is yet another delay in seeking justice for Libyan Abbey. I get she had
to give them ten months to come up to speed on it. I totally
understand her reasoning. I'm appalled that happened with those crime scene photos. That
is just unconscionable. What must have been thinking He's going to be thinking about
it in jail, is I guess because he's going to be brought up in
charges. I feel like this case, which has taken far too long to
resolve the murder stretches all the way back to twenty seventeen. Richard Allen,
the primary suspect, was under the noses of law enforcement for that entire five
year period. It took them five years to figure out that he was the
offender they were looking for. All the while, this guy is working at
CBS gosh yeah, where law enforcement people are traping in and out of there
every day. And amazing, at least to me, he even looks a
fair amount like the sketch. He does look like Bridge Guy of Bridge Guy
the photographs and the sketch, and somehow this is overlooked, and then it
takes five years for them to finally make an arrest. Now it's going to
be years before we actually see this case come to trial. That is all
the true crime news that we feel we can highlight within this episode. There
is obviously always a lot going on in the field of true crime, and
so Hopefully we picked some stories that you think are worthy, but we're always
looking for others to report on. So if you've got some great true crime
news that maybe we missed, please make sure you send it to us on
our Facebook page or dm us and we will happily take a look at what
you've given us. I'm looking forward to twenty twenty four. We have so
many more cases we want to get into and update you on the Colonial Parky
murders, other cases in Virginia we want to be talking about, and lots
of great guests planned for this year, so I think it's going to be
a fantastic here. We can't thank everybody enough for your support over this calendar
year. We're glad you have been with you here on mind Ever Murder.
We thank you so very much for listening. That's going to do it for
this episode of mind Never Murder. We'll see you next time. Mind Over
Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers
are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership
with Coral Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or
Instagram. You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway murders on Facebook,
and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas.
Five six. Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder