Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised. Was she crying out to you
when you were beating her to death?
Speaker 3: Was she screaming?
Speaker 4: Because all those things we're talking about right now, you're
gonna have to live with those fucking dreams?
Speaker 1: So I want to say something. And this isn't something
anyone's told me to do, by the way, and this
isn't one of those lame public apologies begging for forgiveness,
probbling to be accepted by the masses I've offended. It's
not that at all.
Speaker 2: But I do.
Speaker 1: Feel it's warranted that I say something because I realized
something this week. A light bulb went on, something that
took me a while to figure out. I'm fifty, I
know here it is. I am way too quick to generalize,
to group people together, especially regarding bad behavior, the bad
behavior we continue to see week after week after week
on this program, And despite numbers and statistics and data,
it really just doesn't help anyone to spread those generalizations around.
In fact, it's harmful, very harmful. I spent the last
week thinking about a lot of stuff, thinking about how
I perceive the world around me and why, And all
I gotta say is that there's going to be a
few changes around here now you may not even notice.
And I'm still going to be in the opinionated, loud
mouthed asshole. No it all. I mean, that's just my character.
But I'm gonna think long and hard next time before
I make another generalization in my anger and frustration, because
that sentiment only leads to a perpetual spiral of self
destruction for individuals and for society at large, also for myself.
We're gonna employ the phrase do better. We're gonna do
better around here moving forward. That's a promise and the
proof is in the pudding. So stay tuned, and thanks
to all of you that have stuck around so far.
People make mistakes, people react emotionally sometimes and don't think
things through, and I'm no exception, So thank you from
the bottom of my heart. For real, for real, All right,
let's get it on with episode three oh four. This
one's gonna be uh oh boy, oh boy. Well you'll see,
oh oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll see. This is Sword Scale,
a show that reveals every week that the worst monsters
are real It's an overcast morning in the half forgotten
beach town of Port Bolivar, Texas. It's March of twenty fourteen,
just seven months before the dawn of this program. The
air carries a mix of salt brine and diesel fumes.
Inside Fisherman's Cove Food Mart, Bonnie Sioux Devout is getting
into the rhythm of her day, same routine, same familiar faces,
stopping in for coffee, gas, or pack of smokes. Bonnie's
Little Store is the only stop along this part of
the peninsula, surrounded by a sea of marsh reeds that
stretch all the way to the shoreline. Soon, a Budweiser
truck pulls into the lot. The driver says Hi to
Sue and unloads his crates before he leaves for his
next stop. He does Bonnie Sue a favor and takes
out the trash. Behind Fisherman's co Food Mart is nothing
more than a lone dumpster and an abandoned hotel. The
delivery driver takes a few steps out the back of
the store and stops dead in his tracks. That's when
he sees them. Two bodies were sprawled by the dumpster
for a second. They didn't seem real, but then the
details hit A bullet hole above the woman's temple with
a gaping white and pink chunk of tissue peeking through.
The other body lies face down, baggy jeans, boxer shorts,
and combat boots poking out from beneath a dirty pink
sheet that is twisted around the victim's head. Your eyes
see the details, and your brain takes a little while
to sort them out put them in the right place.
It's like all those movies you saw with all the violence,
doesn't seem real, but this is real. The delivery driver
rushes back into the store and tells Bonnie Sue she's
got to come outside. Bonnie takes one look at those
bodies and calls nine one one.
Speaker 5: Okay, and how do you know that they're de ceased?
Speaker 6: I want to look at them. My bud wiser man
was here to drop up in order, uh huh. And
he walked to the dumpster to go disposure some trash,
and because they took the back of my bill, and
he came in and told me to call nine one one,
but he said.
Speaker 5: If you want to make sure they're not manniquin.
Speaker 6: And I walk back there and they're not mannequin.
Speaker 1: As Bonnie Sue waited for the police to make it
out to her desolate food mark, she grew concerned about
the customers pulling up.
Speaker 5: We're getting in, its in, we're out while I'm talking
to you.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, should I close my or just.
Speaker 5: Definitely don't let nobody around the area, keep everybody back.
I had to get people, ma'am, ma'am. Yes, trying not
to spread that around.
Speaker 1: Okay, clearly this was the most thrilling thing that had
happened to Bonnie Sue in quite a while. But murder
is entertaining, right, Can you blame her?
Speaker 5: Did you tell her they both male or pro female
or melon female? Could you tell I could?
Speaker 6: I did not get that close because I didn't want
to intercure in a clap wing. I know they appeared
to be black in color.
Speaker 1: The victim who had been shot in the temple was
clearly a female. She was on her back, but her
legs were twisted up in the other victims combat boots
bent in unnatural ways. Her white tank top was blotchy
with blood, and her blue bra was sticking out. Her
eyes were wide open under heavy fake eyelashes.
Speaker 5: I didn't have a see any blood or anything on
the ground around them.
Speaker 6: Right one of the porthos has a lot of blood
around it.
Speaker 1: It was so strange to find a double homicide on
the outskirts of Crystal Beach. This unincorporated town was an
hour south of Houston at the tip of Peninsula. The
nearest police department was Galveston, Texas, which is a ferry
ride away. Detective Danny Kitchens was just starting his morning
when he got the call about the bodies behind the dumpster.
Speaker 2: About seven forty five. I heard the call come out
on the radio, the police radio normally, and I was
to go on call that day that Friday, but it
did start till eight o'clock, so I hadn't made it
to the office yet. I picked up my phone, called
dispatch and told them, I said, just go ahead and
show me a route to this call. Well where our
office is located Old Galveston Island, And in order to
get to the location where the bodies were discovered, you
have to take a ferry across. It's about a twenty
thirty minute ride over there. Of course, by the time
we get to the ferry, several more the Texas also
showed up at the same time, and we get off
the ferry on the other side. You know, the first
location that you come to is this store is probably
a mile a mile and a half away from the
Port Bolivar ferry and on the Bottivar peninsula.
Speaker 1: A fleet of cops and detectives to send it off
the ferry boat and into the sleepy beach town in
a parade of sirens.
Speaker 2: When we pull up the store, the store is still
an active store, but behind it is an abandoned hotel
and you can see that. You know, it's all trash,
it's all been painted on, almost all the doors gone
off of every room. But there's a dumpster sitting in
front of the hotel there and the two bodies are
found laying outside of it. One of them had a
sheet wrapped around its head, so you couldn't tell the
idea any of the other one just kind of laying there.
And lots of debris laying about two like window shutters
and trim off of a house, along with male and
some kids' toys.
Speaker 1: Detective Kitchens was staring down into a tangled mess. His
career as a lead detective had just been kickstarted. Behind
the CD Hotel.
Speaker 2: And this is while I'm here, my first murder case
that I'm lead on working as a detective for Galvesta County.
Since who done it is more or less I was
thrown in the deep end of the ocean and told
her to swim.
Speaker 1: Detective Kitchens started in law enforcement to become a detective.
This is what he wanted to do. He wanted to
solve crimes, and he had a huge mystery lying right
in front of him, so he jumped into the deep
end and started swimming. When Detective Kitchens removed the sheet
covering what they initially assumed was a male victim, they
realized it was actually a woman. They had two bodies,
both young, black and female, neither had any identity on them.
Speaker 2: Well kind of looked around, and you know, we noticed
that had her head wrapped up in the sheet. And
the first thing I'm thinking of is whoever done this
is embarrassed or doesn't want to look at the damage
that he's done. That's a whole purpose in her head
being wrapped up in that sheet.
Speaker 1: Trash was all around the bodies, but one thing stood
out like a sore thumb, A piece of mail addressed
to a woman named Brittany Cosby. The address on the
envelope said Houston, Houston, Texas. That is, Hey, that's where
I'm at. Great place if you like tacos and oil. Anyway,
amongst the soda bottles and random dirty socks, this envelope
could mean something that made as much sense being there
as the women's bodies did. So Detective Kitchens followed his
first clue.
Speaker 2: We followed the mail back to the residence. When we
first looked at the house, there was white and green
shutter on the front of the house, which matched a
white and green shutter that we found at the scene.
Of course, keeping it, we don't know where the homicide
actually took place at All we know is where they
were dumped, and we know that where it originated from
had to be that house with that shutter in the back.
That's when I approached. The resident at the house happened
to be a ninety two year old great grandmother of
Britney Cosby, who was able to positively identify both of
them for us.
Speaker 1: Annie Lee Cosby was Brittany's great grandmother. She was a
ninety two year old amputee bound to her wheelchair and
very hard of hearing, annie Lee identified Brittany as the
victim in the men's clothing, and he said the other
victim was Brittany's girlfriend, Crystal Jackson.
Speaker 2: Brittany and Crystal were girlfriends to each other. Both of
them carried on a lesbian relationship. They're about twenty four
years old. Brittany had just gotten a good job and
Crystal had two Both of them were working and recently
bought a new car. They lived together there at the house.
Crystal had a young daughter about five years of age age.
Crystal's father is a preacher who was very much against
the lifestyle that Crystal and Britney lived.
Speaker 1: Due to Crystal's family not approving of her lesbian relationship,
the two lived with Brittany's grandmother, annie Lee. Annie Lee
had a home care nurse but needed help constantly, so
the girls took care of her. After all, annie Lee
had raised Brittany from a child since her mother left
the picture and her father had been in and out
of prison. Life had settled down quite nicely for Brittany
and Crystal, who were working steady jobs and saving up
to get their own place.
Speaker 2: One day, but.
Speaker 1: Cristel's father was a Baptist preacher, and that comes with
a whole lot of religious baggage because he had no
tolerance for their lesbian lifestyle. The murder felt personal. Crystal
had been shot in the head and Brittany had been
beaten to death with a blunt force object and then
covered with a sheet. They had been dumped far far away,
like whoever did this wanted to make the whole thing
disappear like sand under the waves of the ocean. So
they started with Crystal's father, Ivan Jackson.
Speaker 2: Of course, that's where our first thoughts went to was
to Ivan, knowing that he was completely against their relationship.
So later on that day I was able to make
contact with him and speak with him, and I noticed
that when I told him that it appeared to be
a shock, you know, of what had happened, But he
was almost like he knew. He kept telling me that
I knew something bad had happened. I told her this
something like this was going to happen. So, I mean,
the first thing we do is start looking at him.
Speaker 1: Brittany and Crystal had been surrounded by a lot of love,
but Ivan's judgment was the shadow in their lives. I
don't know why people have to be such dicks, you know,
just live your life. Who gives a shit people like
this that ruined things for everyone? Really, but whatever, her father,
Ivan Jackson, was rigid and certain his way was the
only way. Could a man who preached family and forgiveness
actually spill his own blood? Or could this be a
case of the most obvious suspect being the wrong one entirely?
In the desolate beach town of Port Bolivar, two dead
women had been found outside of a dumpster behind a
convenience store. Victims, Brittany Cosby and Crystal Jackson, were both
twenty four years old and starting their lives as a couple.
A lesbian couple. Again, nothing wrong with that. If you
think there's some wrong with that, there's some wrong with you.
Get over it. Anyway. They lived with Brittany's great grandmother
in a small brick house in Houston. Lovely city except
for all the oil wells everywhere. Also, you ever heard
a zoning? Anyway, Crystal's father, Ivan Jackson, was really against
their relationship. He was not a happy camper. This was
his daughter who he loved, and she was with a woman,
a woman who dressed up like a man and wore
pants too low? What's up with that? In fact, he
didn't really converse with Brittany all that much, and he
didn't allow her into his family home.
Speaker 7: He would tell us although she I would come to
the door and she would always have a fans off
hanging off.
Speaker 8: So I'm going to go stay outside.
Speaker 2: In a case like this, it's not more or less
say it. He's the one that done it. But to
rule him out, you know, if this is not the
right person, I want to rule him out. But since
his feelings towards the relationship those had, we kind of
zeroed in on that point, thinking, is this a motive?
You know how much a little bit about your daughter?
Speaker 4: Just tell us about it.
Speaker 2: Well, Crystal was quiet.
Speaker 7: This was she was smart sheet she finished high school,
she finished college, so she had a good education. She
was just quiet.
Speaker 5: Did have another get.
Speaker 3: Him in the world.
Speaker 7: Everybody in the neighborhood loved him and where she went
church members was a daughter. They've been known since she
was born into the world, and she knew she had
some loving parents.
Speaker 8: So that's why she.
Speaker 7: Would leave the baby with us all the time, because
she know we was gonna let anything happen to the baby.
Speaker 1: Crystal had a daughter from a previous relationship named Zanaya.
The child's father was absent and ran from his child
support payments, so Crystal was raising Zanaiah alone with the
help of her parents. Then she met Brittany and fell
in love, but like all couples, sometimes they fought, and
Ivan told the police that about a year ago, one
incident steered the course of their relationship into a new direction.
Speaker 7: Well a matter of fact, on one instance of about
maybe a year ago, Brittany put Crystal and the baby
out in the cold. So when I got out of church,
Crystal was calling me, and that's him come over there
to pick her up.
Speaker 1: I havn't picked up Crystal and Zania. He was angry
that things had gotten so out of hand, especially in
front of the baby.
Speaker 7: And I told her say, I'm come to pick you up,
but they maybe ain't going back with yourself. You might
as well just stay here with your daughter, Okay. But
two weeks later Crystal was back over there. So I
made it my decision. I asked my I didn't even
talk to my wife about it. I say, I'm gonna
get my grandbaby and she coming home.
Speaker 1: Ivan put his foot down since that days, and Naia
had lived with Ivan and his wife Crystal, and Brittany
would take care of her regularly, but her home base
was Ivan's house. According to him, Zanaiah didn't even like
going to Brittany's house.
Speaker 7: I would have one of my church members to pick
her up and take her to Brittany in them house,
and they got so bad so that my grandbaby didn't
want to.
Speaker 2: Go over there no more so.
Speaker 8: And she told me that.
Speaker 7: I feel sorry because that baby cries when she gets
out of my car because she know I'm taking her
over there. So that's when I made my decision to
go over there and get that baby out of that
situation that.
Speaker 5: She was in.
Speaker 1: But despite the tension between Ivan, Brittany, and Crystal, it
became clear that Ivan truly loved his daughter her. He
wouldn't hurt her, and even though he didn't approve of Brittany,
he saw how happy she made Crystal.
Speaker 2: Who would you say would be Crystal's one of her
best friends Brittany? Besides Brittany, did she have an other prayer?
Who was she really close to Brittany?
Speaker 1: Did she have any close male friends?
Speaker 7: No, Crystal was crazy about Brittany, though, like I told you,
I didn't never condone them being together. I didn't like
her changing her sexual orientation, but it wasn't not to
do because she was grown.
Speaker 2: Throughout the whole process. With him, he's just been on
the straight and narrow the entire time. There was nothing
that really made me look at him any harder because
I felt like we were looking at the wrong person
when it came to him, simply by his personality, and
I could tell that when we did talk to him,
he appeared to be genuinely heart broke over the loss
of his daughter.
Speaker 8: Autum.
Speaker 7: It's hard, and I tried to bring up the right way,
but somewhere off line, she went to left field.
Speaker 2: After we ruled out the preacher, we didn't know which
direction to go at that time. We were started to
look at maybe ex boyfriends, a jealous lover somewhere what
we had nowhere to go. We didn't know where which
way to turn.
Speaker 1: Detective Kitchens and the Galveston team went back to the
drawing board and started canvassing anyone connected to Brittany and Crystal.
Speaker 2: We start talking to everybody, find out who the little
girl's daddy is. We find go to Crystal's job, you know,
things of that nature, and just speak with everybody she
worked with, speak with people around them, try to find
out if there's anybody angry at them, with something going
on we don't know about. And we kept hitting the
dead end. We never could get to anything to solidify,
but started leaning back towards Brittany because Brittany's head was
the one that was covered up with the sheet.
Speaker 1: They were at a loss. Brittany and Crystal's vehicle had
not been found yet either. How did these two women
who basically kept to themselves end up brutally killed and
left behind a dumpster in a far off peninsula on
the Gulf of Mexico or sorry, Gulf of America. This
attack was not random. Someone who knew them did this.
As Detective Kitchens wondered if the rest of the investigation
would be a series of hopeless dead ends, the forensic
team made a bone chilling discovery, if you recall, At
the dumpster where the bodies were found, Detective Kitchens had
not only discovered that piece of mail with Brittany's name
on it, but also a green shutter that had been
precariously placed on the abandoned hotel.
Speaker 2: This shutter was leaned up against the abandoned hotel wall,
but in between the wall and the shutter itself was
a piece of paper, almost like he used it like
a glove to pick the shutter up up to set
it down to keep his prints from being on the shutter.
Speaker 1: This piece of paper had been analyzed by forensics, along
with every other piece of random trash at the crime scene.
The detectives were leaving no stones unturned.
Speaker 2: Well, the print was actually on the paper, probably not
knowing we could lift that print off the paper, and
since he wasn't using the glove or anything else, you know,
his fingerprint was right there. So when I find out
about this print, one of my partners and I were
on our way to Houston talking to somebody else that
might know something about it. Turns out that was the
dead end too. But the forensic man called me. He said,
who is James Cosby? Because he don't know who the
players are at this time. All he knows is the evidence.
I said, well, James Cosby is the father of Britney Cosby.
I said, why he tells me because we lifted his
print off that piece of paper that was holding the shutter.
So by that time I tell my partner on our
way to Houston, I said, say, as we get finished
with this interview, we need to go back to the residents.
Speaker 1: Britney's father, James Cosby, had recently moved back into Annie
Leeese house after being released from jail. He was tall, slender,
and very calm. When he returned to Annie's house after
the detectives told him his daughter had been killed, he
was shocked.
Speaker 3: Are you the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of.
Speaker 3: Kind of give him a little bit.
Speaker 2: Sit down here, please, now.
Speaker 4: Whateverened, that's what we're trying to find, to find out.
Speaker 3: We found on the bottle of peninsula.
Speaker 1: James sat down at the kitchen table next to Annie Lee,
put his head in his hands and cried, James.
Speaker 9: I know we're hitting you with the lost takes a minute,
but we're gonna really need the talk.
Speaker 1: You can help us so we can find out who did.
Speaker 5: What else?
Speaker 2: That's what When Andrew hailfully, that's what we need to
help you.
Speaker 1: Detective Kitchens and his partner hadn't thought much about James
after that day. He acted like a grieving father and
he was visibly shaken up, but now with the news
of this fingerprint, they had to take a closer look
at him. They would start at Annie's house, where the
shutter had come from.
Speaker 2: So we do go back over there. At that time
we get there, one of the cousins is they're taking
care of Grandma, so we speak with her outside the house.
If I'm going to draw you a picture of the house,
is a little small brick house. The garage has been
converted into a den, which is where James Cosby was staying.
He had it almost set up like a prison cell,
had a sheet that separated the room, just everything was
just set up like it would have been if he
was still in prison. On the side of the house
is a car port with a wheelchair ramp. Well, Grandma
sits in a wheelchair since she's had one leg amputated,
so that's where she would go in and out at.
So whenever we pull the lady outside to talk to
her about what she may know, what I did, she
may have she looks around the car port and tells
us something's wrong out here. And my partner says, what
is that? She said, what is clean? It's never clean
out here. They don't lift the finger to do anything.
But with that time, I go around and I look
by the wheelchair ramp and I noticed it the other day.
We didn't think much about it. There's four bricks sitting
at the end of the wheelchair ramp, kind of off
to the side, and I thought, well, this is a
little bit odd. Let me just take a look. So
I kicked the bricks out of the way and I
see about four drops of blood right there underneath it.
Speaker 1: Another bloody piece of the puzzle was staring Detective Kitchens
right in the face under those loose bricks.
Speaker 2: Called my partner over, I said, look at this, and
he starts looking up that ramp and closer to the door,
we see small blood smudges that we had not seen
before because we didn't know where the crime scene was.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Fortunately I'd done a search warrant on the house just
in case, and I called my friends partner. I said,
you guys need to get over here, and you need
to get over here now. He said why, I said,
cause we're standing in the crime scene.
Speaker 1: The forensic team rushed over and started executing a search warrant.
They started in James's makeshift bedroom in the den.
Speaker 2: When we went into the den, which is more or
less his bedroom. This is where we see a broken lamp.
We start looking closer at everything since we found the
blood drops, and we start seeing blood drops on the floor.
Not only that, we see where he has taken rugs
and put over the bloodstains on the carpet and it
has seeped through the blood had so there was blood
all over his bedroom.
Speaker 1: The room was ramshackle, but his things were neat like
Detective Kitchen said. He organized his belongings like he would
have in prison. He had just been released a few
weeks prior, he was serving time for a warrant he
ran from. He had a Bible on the table and
a copy of the Kuran next to his neat row
of sneakers, like a good little criminal.
Speaker 2: We spent several hours over there. We find out later
that night that he's at a vigil for the death
of his dogs, and I think he's even interviewed on television,
you know about his feelings on that case. Well, since
we have found this, I tell two of my partners,
I said, hey, go pick him up. We need to
convince him to come to Galveston and talk to us.
Let him know we found more information he didn't realize
it was gonna wind up being an interrogation at the time.
Speaker 1: James walked into the Galveston Police station, still dressed from
the vigil, his kangle hat, black jacket.
Speaker 2: The whole look was that of.
Speaker 1: A middle aged man trying a little too hard. It's
kind of the look I go for. But Detective Kitchens
and his partner weren't fooled. He had to be their guy.
The blood evidence from the room was like the secrets
of the shoreline at low tide. Dark red circles of
blood settled into the dirty carpet like forgotten tide pools.
Now they just needed to make James break.
Speaker 2: I had to before I interview anybody or go over
or anything with you.
Speaker 8: I'm watching those TV shows, you know that nigh say
Miranda right, that means you under rest? No, it sure don't.
Speaker 3: All of this that's all I see him.
Speaker 2: Perry Mason, Yeah, that's believe me. TV's a bunch of crap.
Speaker 1: James waved his right and agreed to talk.
Speaker 4: What was your relationship? Tell us about your adventure of
your relationship.
Speaker 2: That's your daughter.
Speaker 3: She was my daughter, I mean.
Speaker 8: You know, oh yeah, I didn't have we didn't have
a traditional father daughter relationship for a long period of
her life. I was not around. Uh she was five,
she was five when I left. She was fifteen when
I came home. So during those years, I kind of,
you know, I missed those years, you know what I'm saying.
Came home in O four, Uh, started working at the waterfront,
me hun grand and stayed at the house together. We
had a I actually talked to Brittany one time. I
told her, I said, you know, I failed you as
a fault. I should have been here. A lot of
things that you're going through not really all your fault.
I look at it like it's my fault.
Speaker 1: James wasn't a good father to Brittany. He was in
prison for most of her young life and they never
developed a bond. Then he got out and wanted to
play dad. All of a sudden, and there's a teenage girl,
all grown up with a butcher lesbian girlfriend. James had
a hard time accepting this. Clearly, he thought that fathering
just kind of happens on its own, and he wasn't
happy with the fathering that had been going on in
his absence.
Speaker 8: He was either except that or don't have your daughter
at all, right, so you know I kind of kind
of grew on. Yeah, yeah, she's my daughter.
Speaker 10: So you know, what do you think happened to your daughter?
Speaker 8: The best scenario that I heard was the morning that
they left that maybe they went to the convenience or whatever.
Book you know, Like I say, that's not out of
the ordinary for her to do that. Run to the store,
grab a coke or grab a cigarrillo or whatever she
grabbed it, come right back now, that's normal.
Speaker 1: James had told police that on the morning Brittany and
Crystal disappeared, they were ready to drop Zenaia off at
school and then head back to work, but first Brittany
and Crystal needed to run to the store. They got
in the car and never came back. But Detective Kitchens
and his partner had evidence. They had all the blood
that was all over his bedroom and the car port.
They knew that Brittany and Crystal had been killed in
that house. More importantly, they had James's fingerprint on a
piece of paper ditched beside the shutter.
Speaker 4: Did some of that wood in that blind, fat little
blind that was open the front of that house, that's
been off of that house for a long time. Obviously,
wind up with those girls' bodies. I cannot grasp how
on Jesus Christ Earth can that happen? Kill me?
Speaker 10: Your what's your thoughts?
Speaker 8: I can't make sense of that.
Speaker 10: Oh, I can't either.
Speaker 4: I can't either. There's other stuff that was there with
those two girls, remains that came from that.
Speaker 10: House Wednesday night.
Speaker 4: That wood was not in that.
Speaker 8: Vehicle, okay, And how do we know that?
Speaker 2: Because in another witness.
Speaker 1: James sat in that cold, gray interrogation room for five
and a half hours. Detective Kitchens and his lieutenant pressed
him about the blood, the shutter, and the fingerprints. They
told him that they knew he had done this. They
shoved Gruce some photos of Brittany's body line on the concrete,
her head cracked open, her eyes black. They showed him
close up prints of Crystal's face and the gaping gunshot
hole in her head. James just took his time and
stayed calm, not revealing anything.
Speaker 10: They left alives.
Speaker 3: They died in that room.
Speaker 10: They left that day, okay, that morning we all agree
about eight thirty, right, okay, okay, And then sometime after
that they died and were killed in your room. Something
fucking happened in there, something happened with them, and you
got you got in the middle of it here, what happened?
Speaker 8: No, I don't get in the middle of the day. Tips.
Speaker 10: Well, then you got into something with them or with
something happened.
Speaker 3: Here to the point where I would no, I don't know.
Speaker 8: I'm telling you no, I'm telling you no.
Speaker 2: The biggest sign that I know of that he felt
like he was getting defeed is when he would start
to put elbows on his knees and drop his head.
That's usually a good sign that they're on the edge
or they're on the verge. But he would be there
for a minute and then he would lean back and
sit straight up across his arms again. And that's when
I knew we were fixing out a start all over.
I know you did this. You know you did this.
Lieutenant knows you did this. The whole world's fixing to
find out you did this.
Speaker 4: You gotta make all of them suffer and not explaining
why you did it. But it's up to you.
Speaker 2: House presented.
Speaker 4: Do you just think that we're all ignorant? Do you
really think that prosecutors, even jury's are just so ignorant
that they're going to fall for your bullshit and your
lack of remorse and putting your family through this. Do
you think they're not going to see that, James, Do
you think they're not going to see that? Yeah, they're
going to see it.
Speaker 2: Had we interviewed the little girl before we spoke with him,
I would have had a better timeline. We were close
to getting him to crack. My timeline was off and
he knew it.
Speaker 1: They had made one big mistake. The detectives thought that
the suspect had murdered Brittany and Crystal in the evening
the day before they were found. They were certain until
they talked to Cristel's daughter, Zanaiah.
Speaker 2: Mama had put her into the vehicle getting ready to
take her to school for that day and had gone
back inside the house. Now I can't quote everything she said,
but the main thing was that she told me that
she could hear the bad guy behind her, and she
could hear a taser or what she called was a laser.
Speaker 1: Amongst Brittany's belongings in the house, they found her Michael
Jordan backpack with her laptop and taser gun in it.
Zanaya said she heard the laser. She sat in the
car seat, buckled in and ready to go, but neither
Crystal nor Brittany came back to the car. Eventually, she
freed herself and walked inside.
Speaker 2: She actually got out of the car on her own
and went back inside into the living room and asked
where her mama was. Her mom and Crystal and James
told her that they walked to work, that they just
left and walked to work. So she stayed with that
grandmother all day until the other grandparents came and picked
her up.
Speaker 1: Had Detective Kitchens known this before interrogating James, he might
have been able to crack him. But James was a
seasoned criminal. He spent his entire adult life behind bars.
He was not a normal person. The people behind bars,
you don't want them walking around in your neighborhood. Trust
me on that.
Speaker 2: You know, even after he's arrested, we're still investigating and
we're still gathering details about him. I had found out.
You know, he's had a pretty extensive criminal history, pretty
much lived his entire life behind bars. From his ag assaults,
act sexual assaults, you know, the fights he had with
his ex wife, the whole nine yards one of the
things that one of the reports I read where he
was arrested in Houston progravated assault fors off to his
ex wife when she described what she had experienced with
him going through that assault was exactly the picture that
was painted in this homicide.
Speaker 1: The beating that James had given his ex wife was
the reason he had served Brittany's whole childhood in prison.
Speaker 2: She said that, you know, ordinarily he's just a calm
natured person and then would just flip out and go crazy.
As a matter of fact, I think I remember her
stating in the report she called him the devil or Satan.
It was like he was the devil or Satan, just
beaten on her.
Speaker 1: They talked to his girlfriend, who had been with him
the entire morning. On the day prior to the bodies
being discovered, while James and his girlfriend had been driving
around Houston, they got into an altercation with her ex
husband on the road. James called nine to one one.
Speaker 8: Jag maner to was trying to run this out of
the road.
Speaker 7: In my car.
Speaker 3: So you need police.
Speaker 9: Let the police for what city, Houston to earnest what's
the location where the officers needed.
Speaker 1: James's girlfriend gave a full rundown of that day. She
said that on the morning of the murders, she saw
James driving in Brittany's car towards a desolate road in Houston.
She just happened to be passing by, so she pulled
a U turn and followed him. Detective Kitchens thinks this
was the original place he planned to dump the bodies,
but he was caught by his girlfriend. As they tried
to leave, her car got stuck in the mud, so
she joined him in Brittany's car. He drove her back
to the place she was staying, and that's when he
reevaluated his plan. He decided to catch a ferry that
evening to Port Bolivar. He went back to the house
and loaded up on all the pieces of evidence he
assumed would have blood or DNA on them. Then he
put Brittany in the trunk as well.
Speaker 2: When the bodies were out, Crystal was on top of
Brittany at the dump site, and all the blood that
was on Crystal actually belonged to Brittany.
Speaker 1: James waited for the dark, then he took off to
Port Bolivar. Surveillance footage confirmed this was all in line
with their theory.
Speaker 2: We could show and prove that he was the one
that moved the body, so we could still get a
first degree fell and he tampering with evidence which was altered.
A courtse two counts of it, with both of being
a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine or bond each.
Speaker 1: James stuck to his story and claimed he was innocent.
He would sit in jail as they continued their investigation.
Then they found Brittany in Crystal's car.
Speaker 2: It had been abandoned at a strip club in Houston,
and we found that on April the seventeenth, so we
were able to bring that back. We processed the vehicle
which had his DNA in it, and we knew he
was never allowed to drive that vehicle. And the bullet
was embedded in the back seat of that vehicle. It
had hit a piece of metal on the frame and
it stopped right there. Also, that bullet had a piece
of synthetic hair on it, which was the same stuff
that Crystal had been wearing in her hair.
Speaker 1: And once again they did the autopsy. They connected even
more physical evidence back to James's bedroom.
Speaker 2: What's really interesting about that room as well. Is once
we did pull back the sheet and start looking at
other items around that room, there was another sheet there
that actually matched what was wrapped around Britney's head, and
my forensic guy started running the numbers on it and
found out that that was a match to the sheet.
We actually found not only that, during the autopsy, we
found royal blue fibers in her hair and on her face. Well,
there's also a blanket there with this royal blue. It's
almost like a not a fleece type but a kind
of a loose tight blanket, and it had those same
royal fibers on it.
Speaker 1: With all this new evidence, they could officially charge James
with double capital murder, but the question of how and
why still remain. Brittany's murder was so savage. The first
blow to her head broke her neck.
Speaker 2: There was a very clear mark, an indention in her
head where he used a blunt force object and hitter,
and it actually separated the suture in her skull. When
that happened.
Speaker 1: James wasn't giving them anything, no confession, no motive, no
murder weapon, not a single witness, just silence. All they
had was forensic evidence and theories pieces of the story
he refused to tell, but was it enough to finally
put James Cosby back behind bars, this time for life.
Either way, the world would soon learn what happened that morning,
even if James never spoke a word. Brittany Cosby and
Crystal Jackson were found brutally murdered and dumped by an
abandoned hotel in Port Bolivar. Detective Kitchens and his team
at the Galveston Police Department had followed the haphazard clues
to nail down Brittany's criminal father, James Cosby, as the culprit,
but when they brought James in, he didn't crack after
five hours of intense interrogation.
Speaker 2: The guy was a she my partner that was helping
me with the interrogation. He'd been in law enforcement for
over forty plus years, and he told me he is
probably one of the most psychotic people he's ever met.
Speaker 10: What would they do to anybody to kill them? In
your room? Your grandma didn't do it, the five year
old didn't do.
Speaker 2: It, and you just admitted as you were home.
Speaker 10: So the only other person in that house, in your
room is you.
Speaker 2: You know what I would do if it was my daughter. Well,
what do you think of me? You'll probably be called
and called and call. Now I'd be burning the streets
of looking for my daughter.
Speaker 8: Okay, I understand that my relationship will bring It might
just be a little bit different from yours.
Speaker 2: I would say so, yes.
Speaker 1: But blood, fingerprints and other forensic evidence told them that
he was the one who did it. You see, as
the great doctor house once said liars lie duh. The
only people in the house on the day of the
murder were Crystal's five year old daughters and Aya, and
matriarch annie Lee Cosby. Annie Lee refused to believe that
her grandson James did this under her nose.
Speaker 2: And and even when we told her what we found
in there, she wanted to deny every bit of it.
She wanted to take up for him. She said, that
was Britney's menstrol cycle. That's impossible with James in jail.
The case was taken to the State Attorney's office, and
that's when Prosecutor Paul Love became involved. Paul has been
a lawyer for almost twenty years and has worked for
both the prosecution and defense.
Speaker 9: So at the time that this case came about, I
was the chief prosecutor in the two twelfth District Court.
In my bureau chief at the time was Bill Reed,
So Bill Reid was the lead prosecutor on the case,
and because I was the chief prosecutor in that particular court, E.
Speaker 3: Had asked that I sit with.
Speaker 9: Him and assist him on prosecuting the capital murder case.
So that's kind of how I got tagged in.
Speaker 1: James had a criminal record as long as the Texas shoreline,
and that's pretty long, but it would not be mentioned
at trial. Paul had to work with what Detective Kitchens
had given him, and though it was a lot, it
was only circumstantial.
Speaker 9: This is the ultimate piecing a puzzle together. What I
do is I read the entire case and I try
to tap into what is it that I feel when
I first read a case, When I first look at
a case, what human emotion comes out of me? Because
that's what I'm going to have to relate to people
in that jury box.
Speaker 3: So when I first read this.
Speaker 9: Case, it is why why would a father be his
daughter and kill his daughter in such a brutal like
There's just no explanation. So I just knew when I
read that it's just like it makes no sense that
you know, people are gonna question, like, how could a
father do that?
Speaker 3: You know, And we don't have to.
Speaker 9: Prove motive, you know, as part of our case in
Texas's a criminal case. But still there's a lingering question.
So I knew that that was going to be the
number one question, so because that's what I thought.
Speaker 1: But like Paul said, the prosecution did not have to
prove motive. They just had to cover all their bases.
Speaker 9: I am trying to make sure all our circumstantial evidence
lines up to show that there is no other person
who could have committed this crime other than James Cosby.
Speaker 1: The defense argued that without motive, a confession, or a witness,
there was reasonable doubt as to James's guilt. James maintained
his innocence, and his lawyers argued that not only was
James the wrong guy, but no one could prove that
Crystal and Brittany died at the same time. And it's
true they couldn't. Even though the state's evidence was a
messy puzzle. They had put the pieces in place.
Speaker 3: When this case originally occurred.
Speaker 9: So you had the FBI working on the case because
they thought it was a hate crime, and so they
used federal resources to kind of assist in the investigation.
Speaker 1: The FBI specialists worked with detective Kitchens to ensure that
James's phone followed a strict and narrow path that matched
the surveillance footage.
Speaker 9: So what he was able to do is use that
the cell phone number and he traced the route from
Houston to Bolivar, and he was also.
Speaker 3: Logging the cell.
Speaker 9: Phone towers that were pinging off that number as he's
that route.
Speaker 2: One of the things we also did is after we
got that cell phone report, my partner and I went
at the same time of night and ran that exact
fruit keying into our dispatch entire time. Once we got
to certain points and we were able to get down there,
you know, imitate dumping bodies and get back all of
the same timeline as what he had.
Speaker 9: Is as easy for a defense to say, oh, anybody
could have had his cell phone and driven that route. Well,
remember now we're looking at seven am to nine pm
time period. So when James Cosby is coming back towards Houston,
he meets up with his girlfriend. She happens to have
a crazy ex husband, and he's following them and he
tries to ram the vehicle.
Speaker 3: James Cosby calls nine.
Speaker 9: One to one, so now we have another time locked
in of him making a non one one call with
his cell phone, so it rules out the possibility that
anybody else could have handled his phone during that time period.
Speaker 1: Paul Love says that call was the nail and his
coffin as far as the cell phone forensics go.
Speaker 3: You're listening to this and you're thinking, what are you doing?
Speaker 9: You know, you, of all people, just got back from
dumping two bodies and you're gonna call the police.
Speaker 3: From the prosecutor.
Speaker 9: Standpoint, I think I'm thinking, thank you. But if you
just kind of step back, you're like, what the hell
were you thinking? Like that just makes no sense. You know,
You've just now created more evidence against yourself.
Speaker 1: As slick as James was, there were many things he
did during his cover up that the state just couldn't
wrap their heads around. Like the shutter that lone piece
of shutter, a clear missing piece off Annie Lee his house.
Why did James leave it against the hotel wall fully intact?
Why didn't he just throw it off the ferry into
the sea, never to be seen again. Was he trying
to leave a message or something or better yet, why
not dump it wherever he dumped the gun that he
used to kill Crystal or the weapon he used to
break his daughter's neck. He obviously hid those weapons well
because we don't know where they are. But the shutter,
this shutter was the key, and James had just left
it right there, right for the world to see and
the police defined.
Speaker 2: But as far as him leaving it, they're the way
he did that being the only piece it was left
up against the walls. Kind of crazy. I can't wrap
my head around why he would do that unless he
eventually wanted to get caught.
Speaker 1: The trial opened in the summer of twenty sixteen. Paul
Love had poured over every case detail, dedicating his life
to getting justice for Brittany and Crystal. The case had
exploded in Hughes, drawing intense media coverage, but Paul kept
his focus. This was for the girls, to make sure
their lives hadn't ended in silence. He had to speak
for them.
Speaker 3: So you just never know.
Speaker 9: You just never know how a jury's going to receive
the evidence and how they're going to receive your presentation
of the case. So there's a lot of pressure as
proud prosecutors that we put on ourselves, but there's a
lot of pressure because you're accountable to family. This case
has garnered a lot of media attention, so the courtroom
is packed nearly every day, so everybody's watching.
Speaker 3: There is never a moment.
Speaker 9: When in particularly in a circumstantial evidence case, there is
never a moment when you feel as though we got it.
Speaker 1: The prosecution laid out the evidence piece by peace, driving
home the sheer brutality of Brittany's death. Detective Kitchens was unraveling.
This was first lead homicide case, and he'd grown close
to Krystal's family. He wanted nothing more than to give
them closure. He found himself replaying every moment from the
interrogation room with James, wondering if he'd miss something crucial.
Even today, he still views that interview with more clarity.
Speaker 2: The unique thing about it he is now knowing what
I know now in the experience I have now when
I go back and I watch that video over again.
He was telling me he'd done it, and I just
didn't catch on to it, you know, especially when we
started entering in how a father could do that to
their daughter, and he says, well, you have a different
relationship with your daughter and I have with mine. And
right there he told me he'd done it, and I
never picked up on it.
Speaker 1: After a week of testimony and two hundred and ninety
pieces of evidence, the state rested, the jury returned to deliberation,
and stayed there for three hours.
Speaker 9: In that three hours, you're questioning every decision that you've
made throughout the case because you're thinking, maybe if I
would ask this question, or maybe if I didn't ask
that question, or maybe if we would have put that
witness song. So going into three hours of deliberation, and
we understand it's a lot of evidence to kind of
soar through, but as prosecutors waiting for the verdict, that's
probably the most difficult time of a trial because you
have no control, all in the hands of twelve people
and now you sit there, sit back and question all
your decisions.
Speaker 1: Then the jury came back guilty.
Speaker 3: Did they say guilty? They say guilty?
Speaker 2: They did say guilty.
Speaker 9: Okay, now you can finally breathe and like, wow, you
know we did it.
Speaker 2: But I think the biggest emotional time for me at
that point was when the verdict was read. Because I
won't lie. I broke down in tears when the verdict
was read. It's very emotional for me, and I knew
we had to get it right. If there's going to
be any justice for these girls, we had to get
to ride.
Speaker 1: James Cosby would be sentenced for the double capital murders
of Brittany in Crystal. He would receive life without parole,
but that question of how and why was still hanging
in the air. Paul Love and Detective Kitchens have their theories.
Speaker 9: Britney, I'm gonna say, is the head of the household,
and now he's coming back and he wants to be
the head of a household, like he wants to make
the decisions. He doesn't want to share that co leadership
in that house. So I believe that there was some
conflict and egos.
Speaker 2: Brittany was pretty well run in the show there at
the house and then here he comes. He's stepping in,
probably wanting to take over, and it just didn't sit
well with either one of them. We know that an
argument broke out between them. You know, she had a
great job. They were going out to eat every night
or in Crystal, they had two bedrooms in the house
that were theirs, one more or less a closet for him,
the other one they slept it. And he's reduced out
eating maloney sandwiches, no job, and having to live in
the den. And I think there was a lot of
jealousy involved, like you said, with the way her life
was going.
Speaker 1: That morning, an unexpected fight started in James's bedroom between
him and Brittany.
Speaker 2: She probably did stand up to it, and I think
he just blew a gasket.
Speaker 1: Emasculated by his young daughter. James snapped in an instant,
that same demonic rage his ex wife had feared came
roaring back, only this time it turned on his own
flesh and blood. The monster was unleashed.
Speaker 9: To me, this was a rage killing because you also
look at how he beat her.
Speaker 3: He didn't just kill her. I mean, he beat her and.
Speaker 2: When Crystal come back in, she saw what was happening,
ran out the side door. He followed with a handgun.
The liftgate was open on the vehicle and he shot
her in the head right behind the vehicle and tossed
her in the back. Crystal just collateral damage is nothing
that he had planned. I don't think he planned on
killing Brittany. When Crystal came in and saw it, she
just collateral damage. Had to get rid of her.
Speaker 1: These were all just theories based on the evidence. Detective
Kitchens did some interviews on the case and laid out
his theories, again plain and simple. Then one day years later,
he got a call from a deputy in jail who
was on the same block as James during TV time.
Speaker 2: I mentioned this on a TV show that I didn't
exact my theory while he was in the jail watching
that show, and a deputy overheard him say, yeah, that's
pretty much what happened, So we nailed it.
Speaker 1: This was a horrific, unnecessary murder. In all the mess,
one family, the Cosby's lost two people, and the Jacksons
were left without a daughter. Zanaiah was left without a mother,
but she gained something unexpected in the grief process.
Speaker 2: Now there's a good things that has come out of
this case, and I hate that it took this to
get it there. But Zanaya is now my goddaughter and
we spend holidays with the grandparents and her every year.
Speaker 1: Beyond gaining a god daughter and a lifelong bond with
the Jackson family, Detective Kitchens walked away from that interrogation
with lessons that cut deep. There are lessons he still
carries with him that'sed into who he is as a detective.
Speaker 2: The biggest part about it I learned from is keep
your mouth shut, let him do the talking, and watch,
you know, watch him, listen to the words that he
says closely, and don't talk so much. During that interview.
Speaker 1: James Cosby was a man shaped by steel bars and
concrete walls. Years of institutionalization and hallowed him out, leaving
behind a husk clung to the familiarity and comfort of captivity. Brooks,
you all saw Shawshankrey even in the free world. At
Annie Lee's house, he replicated his prison cell in his bedroom.
This was the only life that he knew. This was
the only thing that had been taught to him via
our glorious educational system. When James returned to his grandmother's house,
it was not to open arms, but to disgrace, a
disgrace that he had earned, I might add, a failed
father with no money, no future, no claim to respect,
and here he is finding his daughter, Brittany thriving. Unlike him,
she had built a life rich with purpose, and love.
He was unnecessary as both a father and the man
of the house. She had taken his place. Well, James
didn't like that. Brittany everything he never could, Ambition, resilience,
and a partner who was truly in love with her.
Whatever the fight was and whatever led to her tragic end,
I'm sure it was something really stupid. We can only
imagine what it was, though, because the city it won't
talk this bigot, this hypocritical piece of shit. Maybe it
was Brittany's words, sharp and unrelenting, holding up a mirror
to James's failures in life, and he just couldn't take it.
Instead of facing his reflection with remorse, regret, and maybe
some learnings, he let his fury and jealousy consume him
like dumb people do. Dumb people never better themselves. They
never look in the mirror. They just keep believing their
own bullshit. You know, now, Apple's gonna censor me for
this one, because even though the message is good, the
words are wrong. That's what I fuck and hate about
censorship anyway, James, real piece of shit? Do we agree?
Who you are is to find by your actions? And
in that fateful moment, James unleashed a rage born of
self loathing, a desperate need to silence the voice that
exposed his own inadequacies. It was not Brittany's defiance that
truly killed her, but James's inability to bear the weight
of his own shame. We need more shame. We need
to stop telling people they're perfect and start shaming bad
behavior again. Perhaps if we had shamed this guy a
little more earlier on, he wouldn't have become this thing now.
He was just a piece of shit, just an ex
criminal who had been emasculated by his own daughter. The
devil he carried inside found its way out like it
always does, and he extinguished the very light that could
have redeemed them once again. Thank you so much for
being here. If you like this sort of content and
you want to have your heart broken into a million
little pieces, go watch our latest Sword and Scale television episode.
Kyle Yorlitz. Holy crap, is that a sad one? Stay safe,