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 Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined again today by one of our very favorite
people, Joe Jack Alone, here to talk to us about all of the
goings ons in the world of true crime and true crime podcasting. Sarge,
thank you so much for joining us again anytime. Nice to be here.
Against So take a minute and refresh our listener's memory, if you would,
about who you are and how you got into the true crime space. Sure.
I am a retired sgeant from the New York City Police Department. I
spent over twenty years. I retired as an SDS, which is supervisor to
the Technive Squad. I was the commanding officer of the Bronx Cold Case Squad.
I've been an adjunct professor at John Jay College for almost twenty years now,
and I've written two books, The Criminal Investigative Function, A Guy for
New Investigators in the fourth edition, and my new book of the Cold Case
Handbook, which just came out last April. So I'm excited about that.
And I started a YouTube channel. I do my life shows on True Crime
with the Sergeant. I started that in August and I'm closing in on ten
thousand subscribers, so that's exciting too. Yeah, that's fantastic, Ravo.
That is not a small feat. Congratulations. Thanks, yep. I got
a long way to catch up to you, guys, but we're starting to
do something. You're insights are so interesting and thoughtful, and you're bringing this
twenty year career to bear on discussing new cases. It's really interesting to have
someone like you talk about what's going on in the true crime space. Well,
I appreciate that. How did you get into podcasting? It's honestly,
it's something that I always wanted to do, and like probably a lot of
other people, some of the friends and acquaintances discouraged me from doing it.
Who's going to listen? Why do you want to do this? I do
a lot of TV media, as you guys know. Yeah, and I
do a lot, and I used to do a lot more. I paired
back over the last few years just because it becomes a full time job that
you don't get paid for. And the issue that comes down to is you
listen to sometimes some bad advice, and then you realize that, hey,
you know what, what's the worst that's going to happen if I fail?
At least I say I tried. There you go. I love that.
That's a great way to look at it. And everybody faces the same thing
in the podcasting world. You guys know that. Do people have told you,
I'm sure it's you're wasting your time, nobody's going to listen and everything
else. And then here, you guys are right, I think when you
got a million downloads and everything else, that goes on. So for all
those people, all the haters out there, you know what, they got
to do something other than focus on what everybody else is doing. If they
just focus on their doing, they wouldn't have time to hate on anybody else.
But I'm baffled, Joe, with all of your experience and all of
your insight, why would your friends or colleagues say to you, all,
don't bother. It's a waste of time. No one's gonna listen. The
truth is, I think people are very interested in what you have to say.
And that's been the positive of that, right, And I was pushing
up against it because I'm saying, listen to I'm on CNN and MSNBC and
Fox News and you name it. And I'm like, everybody else wants to
listen to me. Why wouldn't people out there who don't watch those channels?
Right, Because not everybody watches the local news anymore. I grew up on
that. Maybe you guys grew up on that too. We watched the local
news every night, and we were tuned into the TV. And things have
changed dramatically, and social media has taken over, and podcasting and videocasting and
all the other things that have become a real point whereas people who wanted to
get their voice out and wanted to do things have that opportunity now, and
I encourage others to do it. There's plenty of room in the true crime
space, no matter what people will tell you, absolutely, and there's always
room for expert voices, and obviously you are very much one of those.
Does your work in the true crime space make you miss being a homicide detective?
Do you actually want to get back out there on the pavement and follow
leads, rundown suspects, that sort of thing. Every now and then I
get that thought in my head, and then I quickly dismiss it because I
did it one of those been there, done that kind of thing. I'm
getting old now it's a young person's job. Maybe I can pass along some
of the things that I've learned, some of the mistakes that I've made,
and some of the insights that I've had in regards to specifically cold case homicides
and try to help families. And that's one of the reason why I wrote
my book, is because it helps not only the police, but it also
helps the family and the true crime community. We can get a lot of
tips on that too, about how they can get exposure to some of these
cold cases because they are just piling up. Unfortunately. Are there times,
Joe, when you think back on cases that you handled in the BRONX years
ago that you'd like to revisit with the latest forensic technology. Does that cross
your mind? Boy, if we had the science that we have in twenty
twenty four back when I was working these cases. Absolutely, and it's not
just the forensic science actually of it. I wish we had the cell phone
records and the video surveillance and the Internet records that I refer to as the
three forensic horsemen, not even including the DNA, because the cases that we
were investigating in the early two thousands were from the eighties and nineties where none
of that existed, and we were dealing with VHS tapes that kind of you
got from the local bodega that had been written over one hundred times, and
you when you could barely see the person's face, was a blurry thing.
And I always make a joke, I said, we can send pictures from
Mars that are absolutely flawless, but meanwhile, the local grocery store can't give
you a straight picture from the robbery suspect. It's absolutely insane. Yeah,
from shot a dozen feet behind the register. You mentioned the three horsemen.
Go back over that a little bit for our benefit. What are the three
horsemen? The three Yeah, refer to U as the three threndsic corsemen.
And the first wrote about it in around twenty eleven, I think, in
the first edition of my investigation book, and it was the video surveillance,
Internet records, and cell phone records. Those are the three things that,
of course law enforcement should be keen in on every case, no matter what.
And we see that play out every night over and over again on TV
when you're talking about some of these cases. And I keep on trying to
tell people like listen, look, you got to look at the cell phone
records. You gotta do this, you got to do that. And it's
almost as if some well gloss over that and saying it's not that big of
a deal, or it might not exist, or what have you. That
phone in your pocket or that smart watch on your wrist, which I call
the snitch on your wrist track so much information and data, and and you
think about it, it could help detectives with the estimated time of death right
because this thing tracks your heart rate and everything else, and when that thing
goes to zero, which is me on Sundays, it keeps on asking me
are you alive? Kind of thing. But it's a great investigative tool,
and they're pretty pervasive or ubiquitous, whatever word you want to use. They're
everywhere. Everyone's got them, no matter what social structure. People have these
things. Yeah, let the record show I was just showing the snitch on
my wrist, which does tell me every single day, why aren't you walking
more and get more steps? This hour? Eating myself? Even my cell
phone reminds me I need to walk more and get more exercise, which is
good advice, but I don't necessarily need an iPhone telling me what to do.
It's a great investigative tool, but it just has to be done properly,
and we've seen time and time again law enforcement make that big mistake.
I mean, had Coppint versit the United States, which is a California case,
if McCall correctly, I think it was California. Basically kept on telling
the cops you have to get a warrant in order to get into the phone.
It's an important step that we see and I think there was just the
recent case where they messed that up, maybe even in this Karen Read case,
right, because the allegation is that the trooper will get into this maybe
later on, but the trooper searched the phone without a warrant allegedly. Here's
these things keep on popping up over and over again, and I just went
I want to bang my head against the wall because there's lots of information that
people can get for free. You don't have to buy a book or pay
for a course. There's plenty of information out there for free that investigators can
do excellent point. You obviously have a wealth of knowledge, and there is
no shortage of interesting cases to talk about. How do you choose the cases
you discuss, or rather, how do you triage all of the information that
you get coming at you. We have sort of an embarrassment of riches here
within the true crime space, So how do you choose your cases? Yeah,
unfortunately, this month is going to be a hell of a year for
true crime. You have Karen Reid case, You have this case that just
happened in South and North Carolina with this young woman who committed suicide and all
this other stuff, and then you have you know, the Brian Colberger case
in DELFI the next four weeks are going to be insane, and there are
cases I'd like to be more involved in the Delphi case, but I've hooked
my caboost to the Colburger case and the Red case. I have just backed
into this just because a buddy of mine that does I have this morning show
I call roll Call, which is a police term where everybody gets their assignments
today, and he comes on quite often to Mike Galcazar and he's, Joe,
are you watching what's going on with these with this investigation? He goes,
is this is right up your ally. This is like a total disaster
in the making. So he got me involved in that. Boy, was
he right? Unfortunately, this has turned out to be a real textbook case.
This is they're going to write about this case for years to come.
You're talking about Karen read there, Karen read, oh, yeah, this
is going to be textbook material, just like for my first book, the
OJ case was textbook material about things you don't do because detectives, like many
others, we learn from other people's mistakes. Because you don't want to be
the guy a girl that has a Supreme Court decision with your name attached to
it, or or you just don't. And just on a side note,
A couple years ago, I had spent some time with Carol Cooley, who
was the detective that arrested Ernesto Miranda, and I spent a number of hours
with him in his house and we talked about certain things, and I asked
him before I was leaving, I said, did you ever think fifty years
later people would be still mentioning your name? He goes, absolutely not,
because there were four other cases that went to the Supreme Court. It just
so happens that the Miranda case, the M was the first letter of the
alphabet that was available. Everybody else was after the M. So that's why
it's called Miranda versus Arizona. So he was like, yeah, just one
letter off I would have you wouldn't even have known who I was. So
he was choking about that. Oh, in that we've all heard Miranda's name
thousands of times. If you watch the news or follow true crime in any
way, shape or form, it's always there. It had sent out a
couple of years ago to do like this living history bit with Laura Enforceman and
I said, I had reached out to Carol in Arizona and I said,
listen, are you interested in doing a sit down interview? And he said
sure. So I went out to Arizona and I sat down at him.
My mistake was I went out in July and nearly melted. But I have
about four hours of material that I don't know how to edit because this is
just like everything else. And I had a recorded conversation with James Levell,
who was the famous detective that was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was
showing, Oh yeah, I have that interview. So I have a lot
of these historic interviews that need to get them out there, and now that
I have a platform for it, now I finally have a good reason to
get it out into the public. Let's talk about Karen Reid for a few
minutes. Kristin and I had done some coverage with a focus on Turtle Boy,
the blogger slash advocate slash problematic has kind of inserted himself in this case
without focusing on him as much. Where are we with Karen Reid and what
are some of your latest observations with that case as it moves through trial.
The first week, it was one zero defense for sure, and so far
this week is setting up to be to nothing by the time this week is
over. And the reason is because law enforcement has really done a bad job.
The prosecutor has done a terrible job. Everybody was talking conspiracy, and
I'm trying to explain to people competence does an equal conspiracy. Right, you
might be able to find something else down the road, but right now I'm
just seeing police work that is not even gradable, so to speak. If
you had to give him a grade, the best grade I would give them
would be a D minus right now. And that's something too. This was
one step below above F because how they handled the evidence is atrocious. The
train of custody, they can't answer any questions, everything is I don't recall.
It just really looks bad. And you have a district attorney who is
pretty much asleep and not really garnering much attention and getting people to be on
his side, and I yet to see him win even a small battle so
far. Jo. I love what you just said about incompetence doesn't equal conspiracy,
because I think there are actually any number of people that you could shut
down arguments with by just making that point. Just because someone isn't doing their
job right doesn't mean there's a whole world of conspiracy out there. I love
that, Thank you for putting that on my radar. It's the conspiracy thing.
That's how it started off with, right Karen Reid was framed. Now
the defense has done such a good job picking these guys apart that now they've
put themselves in a position where they're not proven conspiracy, and now the jury
might be actually left on the thing going on. There is no conspiracy here,
so it could actually end up haunting them. Listen, most cases don't
go to trial, we know that, and out of the cases that do
go to trial, something like eighty five percent of them end up in a
guilty verdict. Right now, if this case ended today, I would say
either on jury or an acquittal. It's just as simple as that, because
it's just has not gone well. Do you think this is more of a
problem of bad police work improper handling of important evidence, or is it bad
presentation by the prosecution or is it all three? It's a confluence of things
for sure, But listen from the police perspective, when you're looking at how
the evidence was done who was interviewing questions and making I think there was a
couple of people specifically. I think it was the lieutenant or the sergeant.
You have detectives, they have an investigations unit that you know, where are
the detectives asking the questions? Who's getting the case? Why are these supervisors
in there? And you know what small departments do things differently. I get
it. I talk from the experience of the largest police department basically the world,
at least the country. You're dealing with a situation where you need to
have people who have done this before to be able to handle it. Right,
I think I saw too many people involved, right, they ald saying
too many cooks boil the super broth or whatever it is. That's what I
see here. That kind of led to this spumbling. And what didn't help
was the blizzard. Right, So the state police weren't coming. We know
that because people are like, why in the state police. They're supposed to
respond to homicides and death investigations. They're supposed to do this, Yeah,
but not coming there's a blizzard. So my question is where was the backup
plan? Who was trained, who was sent for this kind of situation that
knows how to take photographs, collect evidence, secure it. The lieutenant,
understand, couldn't even remember if you ever use evidence tape. These are the
kind of things where just shake your head at a certain point and say,
what is going on here? It's like a certain amount of malfeasans is definitely
the name of the game for this. I did a little bit of a
rant on Twitter just because I was just aggravated yesterday after watching it. I
just I left home and I went outside and I told everybody that the lieutenant
deserves to be put on traffic duty the rest of the day. And I
am going to get a coffee and don't because that's what I deserve. But
I noticed you mentioned the doughnut. When I was watching the clip, I
just laughed out loud. It was that frustrating, and I even said it,
Listen, we are still within the anti cop environment in this country.
Nobody's going to tell me otherwise. My opinion has been set. Anybody can
argue with me if they want it. I'm just not going to pay attention
because it is And unfortunately, this kind of situation brings out the sea.
Look see how bad they are. Look at this is going on right.
I just this is the word. I'm looking for it. There's gonna be
a magnifying glass on this case in regards to what the cops did or didn't
do. And I'm just telling you it's like almost like you're looking for that
other shoe to drop, right, something big is coming. The defense has
been setting everybody up. I don't know if you guys saw it. I
was on Court TV, the first witness that was being interviewed, and I
told that was what Julie Grant and I told her, I said, look,
this is what's coming, this is where he's going. And sure enough,
and she said, how did you know that? I said, because,
first of all, I've testified in court, that's the first thing.
Second of all, if you just look at what goes on, in order
to impeach anybody's credibility, you have to prove that they made so many mistakes
that it's basically an incompetence thing. It was about documentation. The saying goes
if it's not documented, it wasn't done. As simple as that. So
you can't go into court and say we did this, but I didn't write
it down. You might as well have just said I want a million dollars,
but it's not my bank account. It doesn't work in your heart of
heart, Joe, do you think Karen Reid killed her boyfriend with SUV that
the night they were out drinking. To be honest with one of the reasons
why I stayed away from this case is because I couldn't, for lack of
a better word, or I couldn't get a read on this case. I
usually have a very strong feeling one way or the other when I'm talking about
these cases. When I'm dealing with this from the very beginning, I stayed
away from it because I couldn't get a read on it. One of the
things that first popped into my mind was she was so terribly drunk she might
have hit him and then drove away. But then the murder charge kind of
threw me all off right, because I think that was a bit of an
overstep on the DA's part two. I don't like when they overcharge, and
it was like one of those if you shoot for the stars and you get
the moon, great kind of thing. I don't think that's the way things
should go. You charge what the crime is and that the chips fall where
they make. When the first cop on the scene. I think his name
was Officer Sarah. The first testimony and he said that he didn't even sit
down with the district attorney before the trial in preparation for his testimony. I
nearly fainted. I couldn't believe it. Now, Yes, and he wasn't
the only one I have never heard. You're talking about a homicide case and
you're talking about no trial prep. It's absolutely insane if that's the truth.
I think you had at least two or three of the cops now said that
we did not speak to the DA before going to this court. So I'm
like, what that's just there's nothing wrong with sitting down with the district attorney
before your testimony, because the idea is, Okay, the defense is going
to ask you this question. What's going to be your answer? Think about
it or listen. We know there's a problem, right, So they brought
out the sheet that has the dispatch log that showed the sergeant already at the
scene, which he wasn't, And there was supposed to be another unit at
the scene which showed him they were at the scene, and they were not.
At least through a trial prep, you would have found that out ahead
of time, and you would have said, Okay, what's the reason for
this. It might be the fact that that dispatch Louge just meant that they
sent this cop and the sergeant and this other cop. It just it wasn't
about them arriving. I don't know. At least you could have had an
answer. If not, it looked as if the defense just proved that we're
already making up stuff by not having the sergeant at the scene, but saying
to telling everybody, according to this piece of paper he's at the scene,
when we have it on the dashcam that he's not right. These are problems
that you put out and you can't refute them because of the fact that you
have the dashcam video, which is a heck of a lot more accurate than
a log would be in terms of who was sent there, when they arrived.
Obviously, the camera is recording real life events in real time exactly.
And how do you not know that this is going to come up? How
do you not know you have this whole thing on video? How do you
not how are you not prepared to answer these? Sometimes just simple questions,
because some of them could be explained very easily. Just for instance, the
lieutenant. I bashed him pretty good yesterday, but he got caught up in
something. I think he just got vaklempt is. He didn't know how to
answer something. He probably knew the answer to it when he says, don't
you know that the state police say you don't put biological evidence in plastic containers.
That's not the case. That's you don't put anything with biological fluids in
plastic security envelopes and then seal them because it creates that condensation and it degrees
to DNA. If I was understanding, he would have said that to me,
and I've been like, you're mistaken, right, It has to do
with this. Here's the thing. They're putting evidence in red solo cups that
a cop brought home from his house. They're using a stop and shop paper
bag for this kind of stuff. You guys don't even have crime scene supplies
back at the station. Like, what are we doing over here? I
had said yesterday, I said, listen, this department needs an overhaul big
time. If you're the general. The chief of police is a female.
I think her name was Oh God, her first name is Elena. Whatever.
She's got some answers. He's got some questions coming at her if I
was the city council for sure, like how is your department not prepared for
a crime scene? How do you not have crime scene tape or not have
the containers for these things and the paper bags and the security tape and everything
else. I just I'm going to question like, and I guarantee you they
have it. These guys just didn't get it. That's that's my thinking.
It's bad. I don't think Canton, Massachusetts is exactly murder central. They
must have had some violent crime, so they should have all of these supplies
necessary for a crime scene. Am I correct? Yes? This stuff doesn't
expire, right, A plastic bag isn't going to expire, so you could
you don't have to buy a thousand of them or ten thousand of them,
buy a hundred of them and just have them on hand. Because in this
day and age, you don't know what's going to happen, when it's going
to happen, and the idea is you'd rather be prepared for it and have
it never happened than to happen and not be prepared for it. I understand
training costs a lot of money and this and that I spent a lot of
my own time and money even and got training on my own time, took
days off, and that kind of stuff, just because the department isn't going
to pay for you to spend a week in a a forensics class or a
document class or any of these other things. So you end up doing these
things on your own. But it's really about benefiting yourself in the long run
and making you more marketable within the department, and you're dealing with small departments,
and you're dealing with other issues when you're dealing with small departments in twenty
twenty four, to have the correct type of mechanism to secure evidence. Let's
put it this way. It's unfortunate about that word. It's unfortunate. Now
you're being charitable because when I watched you on your video clip, you ripped
into them pretty good. Yeah. I do everything, and I do this
on my own show too. I do everything short of cursing. I don't
really curse nothing like that. Let me tell you something, I almost dropped
a couple of bombs yesterday because it just infuriated me that, like I said,
in twenty twenty four, we're still talking about this stuff. It's come
on. Guys, we've been dealing with DNA now for over twenty five years.
We know exactly how this is supposed to be done. This isn't a
big secret. Most of your audience probably understands how some of these pieces of
evidence and trace evidence and biological fluids should be done. I give quizzes every
day on my YouTube page, and we've quizzed it on this already. Every
day there's a quiz question and it's about and one of the quiz questions about
I guess about a month ago was what kind of security envelope do you put
biological fluids? And then the answer was paper bag? Paper bag? Yeah,
not stopping shop paper bag, a paper bag. Right, you're bringing
stuff from home. You don't know what's inside those cans and those cups.
It's not sterile, it's not coming out of a package, per se.
Everyone's touching these things. Chain of custody. They haven't even spoken about cheane
of custody, but mark my words, guys, next week it's all gonna
be about chain of custody. It's funny. You're actually able to listen and
you can hear the markers being laid down, and this is where oh,
when you were doing the court TV appearance, you're actually saying, this is
where this is going, yes, and this is where it is going,
right, because now it's they started talking about the tailight and the pieces.
Next week you watch, it's going to be who found the pieces? Where
are the pieces? Where's the documentation to see what? Who had them at
the lamb, who tested them at the land, who sent them back?
And when they say we don't know, oh no, luck Yeah funny.
When you were talking about the use of colorful language, I was thinking to
myself, they don't use bad language in the Bronx, do they? Oh?
Yeah, sure. Listen. People will tell you sometimes when they listen
to my podcast, they go all great victims, the real Joe finally,
and then it's run up to the edge and I walk back because I don't
listen. My show is not a PG rated show person just because of the
topics that we show. Watch shows where people are cursing like every other word,
and it just like it was interesting so to speak in that kind of
so I avoid that, but a well placed one once in a while it
works. We gotta keep it classy, We gotta keep it classy up in
here. It's just make sure the beasts sometimes do my old job. That's
everybody's cursing. People are cursing you, and every all day long is cursing.
So it's hard to get that out of your system. But I've been
out now for twelve years and I conquered that. I want to shift our
attention to the Brian Coberger Idaho four case, because there is something very interesting
going on with that. But I do want to actually get your input on
this question about preservation of the crime scene. We had actually spoke about why
we thought that Terry the house down was a mistaken We got a pretty fair
amount of pushback on that side. I'm really curious go on the record with
us. What is your thought about tearing down the Idaho fourhouse before the trial
has even taken place. Yeah, this is the dumbest move since they Mets
traded the Tom Sevett to the Reds for a couple of bats and a couple
of used baseballs. This was a real head scratcher. We could come up
with reasons why this happened and speculate all day long, but just from the
point of view, So just I'll bring a break back to the Karen Rea
case. What did the jury do the other day they went to the crime
scene nay, and they looked for they were able to look and take this
all in on their own because the questions that they have about backing up and
where the body was located and all these things. The people want to see
this right. You have a huge problem now with the Colburger case. Besides
other issues. Now when you say, because people ask how come the young
girl that was in the first floor, how come she didn't hear the screams
and all those other things, you can't test it now. You can't have
somebody standing in the basement where this girl came out of wh this woman came
was living at the time, go up to the third floor and scream and
see if you can hear it. You don't have that ability anymore. And
it's an absolute travesty what they did, and it's going to come back and
haunt them. It's funny because Kristin and I talked about this several months ago,
and as Kristen said, we've got a lot of pushback. People said,
no. They go in and they measure every aspect of the structure using
lasers and they record endless amounts of footage showing you the first floor, second
floor, third floor, of the stairs, the whole thing. We both
said, there's nothing like being there, the same reason that people go to
Italy to see the coliseum, because it's still standing, you still get that
feeling. There's nothing that can replace. There's no photo, there's no video
that can replace the actual thing. We've all been to a historic location and
that says on this site, something happens, right, and then you look
at it and it's just a building or an empty parking lot. It doesn't
have the same feeling to you, right, I know something happened here.
He doesn't give us feeling. And just take for instance, I'm a big
baseball fan, and growing up in New York, you've always heard about the
Dodgers and the at Edbits Field, and I've been to those projects, working
there, the apartments, and I've worked in that location. And you sit
there where home plate is, there's a plaque and you sit there, says
on the spot Jackie Robinson became the first African American to break the color barrier.
And you're standing in the middle of nowhere and you just don't get the
same feeling right, and I've seen photos of it, I've seen videos of
its field, but I don't have the experience of what it was like to
watch a ball game there. That's about the best analogy I can give you.
And if if sorry, if you're not a baseball fan, you can
lose it. But I think you can understand what I'm trying to get across.
You're listening to mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word
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in our social media pages. As always, thanks for your support. Now
back to mind over Murder. The Karen Read example is a good one.
Now, obviously, if the jury was there recently, they're not in the
middle of a blizzard. But even something as simple as which way she backed
up in the driveway, I'm guessing that she might have been turning the car
around or whatever. But I had a lot of questions about her sightlines.
It was snowing, it was dark, she'd been drinking. But for instance,
if she was not impaired, would she have even been able to see
John O'Keefe, her boyfriend, who was fatally struck by it appears fatally struck
by her vehicle. You'd be able to answer a lot of questions with a
visit to the site in terms of give me the lay of the land.
Listen, As a cold case investigator, one of the first steps we did
was go to where the crime happened, if we can get access to it,
or to take a look at it, because you want to get the
feeling of where the positioning of the victim was, where certain items that were
found at the scene, and you try to get that visual so that you
can start to mentally put a picture together about what you think happened. And
this is actually investigative one oh one, where the detectives get together and they
come up with their theories or their hypothesis or educated guess, whatever you'd like
to call it. And one of the things that we always warn detectives about
was don't marry your hypothesis, don't find evidence, or only choose evidence that
proves your theory to be correct, because that's the major problem. And I
see that happen in a lot of the true crime community, where they look
for certain pieces that go, aha, see that fits my theory, See
this is what's going on. Yet it doesn't work that way. You have
to take a look at the whole picture. Like I tell people, I'm
not pro Karen read. I'm not pro guilty Karen read to me, I
look at it as from a strictly criminal justice and investigative standpoint. We want
the justice system to service correctly. We want the police to do what they're
supposed to do, because when either one of those fail, we all lose.
And that's the bottom line. And yes, sometimes you have to let
a guilty person go free. That's what the saying is right, because you
don't want a miscarriage of justice. And I am a firm believer in that.
And the other thing that I see in some investigations and I'm not saying
the Karen Reid one per se, but it might come back to me that
way. One of the goals of an investigation is to exclude all others.
When you don't do that, this is what happens. Right. So now
they're looking at other people who could have been involved in the death of John
O'Keefe, right, because the police didn't do what they were supposed to do
and eliminate them as potential suspects from the very beginning. And when you don't
do that, this is what you get. Folks. Joe, you had
mentioned overcharging a moment ago in relation to the John O'Keeffe death. Are you
thinking that manslaughter might have been a more appropriate charge if Karen Reid is found
to be responsible for John O'Keeffe's death. I don't know the exact statutes of
Massachusetts, but whatever would be the vehicular manslaughter for people who are under the
influence, right, whatever that charge might be, Because there's different kinds of
charges, not only for murder but also for manslaughter. Vehicular manslaughter is for
generally people who are under the influence of either alcohol or narcotics. To me,
that would have probably been a more appropriate charge. But I also think
I would have waited a little while if I was the district attorney. I'm
a lawyer, Let's put it that way. Let's get that right out there.
I'm no lawyer, but I've built cases for prosecution, and that's where
I'm coming from, right. I don't think the police built the case strong
enough to withstand this barrage from the defense. And it's showing before we leave
Brian Coberger and the Idaho for our case behind. What else do you really
have your eye on in terms of proceedings in the Coburger trial? What else
are you really looking forward to to discussing on your pod I've already started,
and I've also done it in the media. If I was a defense,
the first thing I would have been going I would be yes, of course
the DNA and the cell phone records. Of course you're going to go after
that. But for me, what's ripe for a defense to just steam roll
the prosecution is how the crime scene was handled. It was just so many
people involved, and I hope they kept the crime scene log about who entered
that place and when they entered it, and then you had issues where they
were giving back furniture and personal items during the middle of a crime scene.
And I was on News Nation with Chris Cuomo at that time, and I
said, as far as I'm concerned, and you could find that episode is
still up there, and I said, I told Chris, I said,
as far as I'm concerned this day, this time, the crime scene is
over. Anything you find now is going to be bought left and right because
they're just going to the defense is going to go how do I know that
you didn't have evidence in those other items that you sent away? Right?
You gave away and then they had the crime scene crew, cleanup crew come
in, remember that whole mess. And then the chief is driving a U
haul with stuff in it, and then the mattresses are in the back of
a pickup truck. The list just goes on and on. I'm like,
if I was the chief and that pickup truck, I would just drive myself
right off the cliff because you sit there going, my god, if he
goes no, it's a small town nonsense. You had the state police there,
the feeds a day. You're telling me nobody has the right equipment to
do this. Give me a break with this already. Come on, they
had strong support. It didn't just fall to the Moscow, idaholp Police Department
like you said that Idaho State Police and they're a very well regarded lab and
the FBI, and they had a lot of resources. And this isn't like
this was when we talk about the Colonial Parkway murders, and we're talking about
a case that's thirty seven years old, and the standards by which crime scenes
are handled in twenty twenty four are radically different than they were in nineteen eighty
six. I'd a four case. We're not talking about ancient history, and
we're not talking about a police department that is completely without resources, particularly since
they called in the state and federal agencies almost from the very beginning. And
a lot of people don't understand why didn't the FBI do something about this,
because the FBI has no jurisdiction on it. It's just there as support.
People have been tainted by television so much. Where the FBI shows up says
we're in charge, now, local hicks go home, it just doesn't happen.
The FBI must be invited into the case unless there is a federal nexus,
and that federal nexus is actually rare and it usually has to do with
terrorism. Number one has to do with a child under twelve, or it
has to do with I think it's the Hobzact where you're doing this interstate crime
so to speak. Like so somebody was kidnapped in Washington and then killed in
Idaho. Now we can come up with a federal mexices and then the FBI
could take over, or or I could happen on a reservation in the Indian
territory, then that's an automatic FBI case, right, But that's not the
case in this respect. You bring them in to enhance your case. They
could give you the advice. That doesn't mean you have to listen to them.
And that's what I think he saw probably on some of these things.
It's painful to see them just through mishandling of evidence hand the defense all kinds
of opportunities to chip away at the credibility of the prosecution and the investigative agencies.
Of course, and that's what I always said, if I had hair,
this is where I'd be pulling it out, because you're giving the opportunity
for people that shouldn't have an opportunity. Because some of the other evidence,
as far as I'm concerned. It's pretty strong, and I know that everyone
is talking about, oh, the cell phone. Oh. The expert that
they have is gonna tell him that he's on the other side of a mountain
with DC in that DC and Washington right in this park. And I try
to explain to them, like, once again, your cherry picking information.
If this expert comes into court and says your cell data is wrong, my
guy was a far away from the crime scene, then I would have to
say, okay, then explain to us why he was in I think was
Allentown where we have him at the Albertsons where his cell phone was pinging,
and then he gets out of the car with the video surveillance and he's shopping
for fifteen minutes. So you're telling me they were wrong on that too,
or they just happen to be right at one time. Right. The defense
has to be real careful about what they say about this cell data because they
cannot totally do a scorched earth policy. They're gonna have to pick and choose,
and I think that hurts them. I think it really does hurt them
because there are certain things that they can't deny based on their cell phone data.
I know there are people that will argue with me on this all day
long, but I say they happen to be right once. Come on,
guys, we're talking about our very rural area. This technology is somewhat new,
and yes there could be some mistakes. And everyone is talking about,
well, ping is not necessary this and that. Okay, I get it,
but the ping with video surveillance is pretty damning as far as I'm concerned.
And then they say, what about the white car and this and that
is the one plate It's all going to come out. And I also try
to explain to people, because of the gag order, we only know probably
twenty five percent of what the prosecution actually has. The defense is only going
to bring out the things that benefit them, And people don't understand. It's
either that the prosecutor can't say anything, but the defense could come out there
at whole court all he or she wants, and the defenses are going to
bring up all of it because they have most of the discovery. Right they
are arguing over certain parts of the discovery, they have the majority of it
that if you notice, they're only keying in on one thing, they're only
key and in so far on the cell phone data. They haven't mentioned anything
about the DNA though the IgG the investigative genetic genealogy. I think that hearing
comes up next week, but it's not going to be in an open court.
It's going to be closed. We won't hear about that. That's another
little tidbit, right some of these situations that you see this this Coburger case,
especially if the IgG ghosts through. Idaho is a weird state because it's
not a Fry state, it's not a Doalbert state. It goes by the
Federal rules of admissibility of evidence, and if people want to look up those
Fry is what an E Fry and Dalbert those are the admissibility of evidence.
The Fry is a very strict standard. The only about twelve states use it.
Dalbert is used by the majority of states, and there are some states
that use the hybrid version or the federal rules. And that becomes an important
aspect of this case because the IgG, as we know, is pretty much
brand new, so to speak, and they're using it now to identify a
suspect who wasn't charged with anything. It was like almost like a guess kind
of thing. The garbage cover perfectly fine. US Supreme Court decision California versus
Greenwood. The cops can come and get your garbage right certain states. I
think New Jersey requires a warrant to get it. Everywhere else you could just
pick up anybody's garbage you want. So that's not going to be an issue
as far as I'm concerned. So I when I look at these cases,
guys, I look at him from the lens of if I'm the defense,
where am I going to go at from the investigations? Because the old rule
is if you can't fight the evidence, you fight the investigators. That's what
we're seeing in the Read case, and I think that's what you're going to
see in the Colburger case too, Because some of the evidence is very strong,
you're not going to be able to get around it, so you go
after the investigators themselves. It's a textbook example of what's happened in Massachusetts right
now. Speaking of cases with some problems, let's talk a little bit about
the Long Island serial killer Goyogo Beach four case. I know we spoke with
you last time you were Onmind over Murder. What's your take on the latest
developments in that case? I was surprised, like a lot of people in
regards to this, because one of the pressers that I had watched the Districtory,
Ray Tierney speak about when they asked him, are you going to be
looking to tie other cases? And he didn't say it, but he said
it like, we got the we got all kind of thing. We're going
to concentrate on these four and then basically after these cases are done, then
we can maybe look at other things. And I was a little disappointed in
that because I thought that once you have somebody and now you've tied them pretty
much with forensic evidence, I think the evidence is kind of overwhelming in this
case. This case is the other compared to the other two, I think
the evidence is insurmountable at this point. When I saw the searches that were
happening in Manorville in the pine barrens, and it showed that they were looking
at specific locations because each time they went, each day they went to a
different location. They weren't just looking and then just going west and this going
through all the woods they made they were getting in their cause they would drive
to another location. So to me, the information was really specific. And
then of course when you're looking at where this started, Manorville, Long Island
and Supper County. You had the two partial remains of Jessica Taylor and Valerie
Mack found not too far from where this was. So people say automatically,
oh, this has to do with list. But it also then John Bittroff,
who was another convicted killer who had killed two women, Rita ten Gritty
and Colleen mcnamine. Their bodies were found in Surely, but he lived near
Maniville right. So then because his name was in the news again recently too,
about him trying to get his case thrown out, there was a lot
of confusion, a lot of things happening on Long Island. With that,
you had the other body parts case in Babylon. My god, Long Island
is getting such quite the rep Yeah, it's interesting, but I was glad
that they were doing this because they were showing that we were interested in finding
additional victims. Because this wasn't about oh, let me see if I could
find some a weapon or a piece of evidence or something. They were looking
for bodies. They had Cadavia dogs from Suffolk Nasaur the NYPD. So when
you're bringing Cadavid dogs you're looking for bodies. They had some solid information that
there was potential victims found there wherever. That came through maybe a prisoner debriefing,
maybe a confidential informant withinside a prison, or maybe from one of the
prisoners themselves, who knows. It was just quite interesting and quite a good
thing to see. And the only you haven't asked me this, but I'm
gonna bring it up anyway. Good yeah, dude. In January, John
Ray, the attorney for the Gilbert family, held a symposium and he I
know, Johnny's he's a really nice guy and he really he's the one that
really kept this case alike. A lot of people don't like him or whatever.
That's fine, but you can't take any credit from him in regards to
keeping the Long Island serial killer case on the radar. Anyway. He held
the symposium in January and Queens and he had a woman sign an APPI David
that and the abidavit said that she saw James Burke, who is then the
police commissioner of the Suffer County Police Department, and Rick Sherman at a party
together. So that was so when I heard the search from Manorville after the
district attorney kind of pooh pooed searching for more people. I think he might
have gotten spooked and saying if this Burke thing comes in, and because James
Burke is the gift that keeps on giving for crying out loud. He's already
a convicted felon. He got arrested again out in Suffolk County. We all
know about his history and everybody there are a lot of people that thought he
was the Long Island serial killer, which once again, that was another thing
that I fought tooth and nail all along because listen, I tell James Burke
with a lot of things, killer was not one of them. I mean,
there are so many people that hated this guy. Believe me, they'd
been lining up to do him and drop a dime on him, and that
never happened. So that kind of tells you exactly what people really thought about
it, because if they had the goods on him, believe me, they
would have thrown him under the bus. They would have to need shoulder surgery.
How many times they would have thrown him under the bus. Because cops
are a funny group, right, I know, people talked blue Wall of
silence this and that, you know what, they don't tolerate this kind of
stuff, and you're talking about somebody who was a serial killer. Believe me,
if they had information, they would have did this guy for sure.
I think that kind of spooked the district attorney, and all of a sudden
boom, they were out searching for additional victims. And I think that was
that the John Ray thing with this Eppen David became the fly in the ointment
because about two weeks or so, or three weeks somebody I know will fact
check me and tell you was three weeks and one day, Joe, you
were wrong, Hayter, who's gonna hay Yeah. Michael Brown, the attorney
for the reck Sherman, came out instead and oppressor. We want the records
for James Burke, the internal affairs, we want all his personal files,
we want the FBI files on the investigation, and we want the district attorney,
Tom Spoder's information. So I go there it is, folks, there's
the reason why, because three weeks later now we're searching for additional victims.
I think that really is the thing. Now. Could I be wrong?
Of course I've been wrong before, But the issue that comes down to is
they spent a lot of money in this search. They brought in outside agencies.
You had New York City bringing in dogs for five days. You think
New York City's paying that bill. Yeah, no, they're not paying that
bill. Suffer County's paying that bill. It's just a little interesting side note
because a lot of people say, how did this all happen? And I
think I just laid it out for you guys. This is how it happened.
So you're saying that the renewed effort at search, which did end up
finding additional bodies, that's directly as a result of them trying to expand this
case and add additional potential charges. I think what they're trying to find as
cases that they don't think they could tie them to Burke per Se or have
Burke muddy the waters kind of thing for me if I was investigating this thing,
and of course I'm not. I think the case with the biggest potential
is peaches. Peaches was found in North Hempstead Lake State Park. He was
found in a rubber Maid container. Any think it was green in color as
a plastic containing you know one of those stories contains you buy at Walmart for
five bucks to the put your clothes in that you're never going to wear again,
and you put them in the attic because your wife told you to do,
and you and there was a blanket and there was tape. Right that
to me as the best chance of recovering DNA, and specifically they made a
mistake. The FBI had gone out and said, listen, we're looking for
we have a name. We think we know who this person is. And
they went to the Mobile Alabama Police Department. In the Mobile Alabama Police Department
put it on Facebook saying we're looking for these individuals tied to a case of
and they put the tattoo of Peaches on there and so then Mobile Alabama became
ground zero for peaches. Right, But they still have not named her.
But I believe they know who she is. I believe from what I've read
and heard that they also know who she is. Yeah, yeah, I
think, like I said, that was like two years ago in October,
I think would be three years. Yeah, if you're tell me they couldn't
find who she was now even though they know what the town was, it's
I think we'd be kidding ourselves if they don't know it. But It's an
important part of the investigation in regards to know who your victims are because then
you can find out who or what put them in a position that they are
in now, so to speak. Right, So, what was going on
in their lives? Was it drugs, was it prostitution or a combination of
both, or was their abuse at home? Right? All these things that
you have to run into what made this person a victim? You're doing both
kinds of victimology on this right. Who she was and what she was doing
that put her in the position to become a victim, and that one kind
of stuff. Yeah, Joe, are we going to see you at crime
con here in just a couple of weeks. No, Unfortunately I didn't get
invited this time around. But I actually worked in my favorite because it's my
dad's ninetieth birthday. We're having a big bash and the whole family's gonna have
a reunion and we're gonna be together for a number of days. So I
wouldn't have been able to go anyway. Everything else, I'll be there in
spirit and crime cons is fun time. I think if people get a chance
to go, they should go if they're into this stuff, because it's like
the thing to do for true crime. Well, they've announced a whole bunch
of new guests even just in the last couple of hours that I'm very excited
for. So I think it's gonna be a great year this year. We
will miss seeing you there for sure. Yeah, it's always a fun time.
And even if I was there this time, I would definitely if I
had to choose only one thing to sit on, if I was only allowed
to see one thing, because you guys know, when you're either a podcast
host or you're doing stuff on the stage, you don't get a lot of
time to see other people. For me, it would have been John Douglas.
Yes, he was the one that I think we're the most excited about.
He also, unfortunately, is the person we're up against. He's speaking
at the same time we are. Rather we're speaking at the same time he
is. The crowds are not going to go to us, They're going to
go to John Douglas. It's a separate event, right, so you have
to pay more for that. It's limited seating, so not everybody's going to
get a ticket to get in, So that's the other thing that and there's
five thousand people show up at this thing and they only have a few hundred
tickets or whatever. They'll have plenty of time to come see you guys.
We hope that is true. And Cheryl McCollum mack is asking our questions and
she's amazing and oh I love show. We always have a great time with
her, and she's so widely respected in the true crime space that she's one
of the darlings I think of cheryld's great people. I just spent the whole
weekend with her and Joe Scott Morgan. We were at the Hamptons, Who've
done it. We were there for a whole four days doing the Long Island
version of the crime con kind of thing, their second annual one. We
had a great time. We had a lot of fun out in the Hamptons,
the three of us. Yeah, yeah, I saw those photos and
god, our friend Casey Sherman was out there as well. Yeah, yeah,
Casey and I yeah, because Casey is the true crime chairperson and I'm
the true crime consultant for the next year. So we talked. The guy's
written I think eighteen books now, yeah, and maybe nineteen, I don't
know as we speak, but yeah, he's amazing when it comes to that
stuff. But he's a really nice guy too. We had breakfast the one
one morning together. He's a real he's a real, genuine guy. You
could sit and talk them. If you didn't know who he was, you
would would never know. He's not pretentious in any way, and he just
there talk to you and it's a good time. We will make sure that
we tell Casey you said hello because we will be seeing him at Crime Con.
Joe. It's a pleasure as always to talk to you and to hear
your insight. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it.
You're welcome. Guys, have a good one. Thanks. That's going
to do it for this episode of mind Ever 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 McLoud. Mind Over Murder
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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.