Speaker 1: Rogers is a small city in Arkansas that was founded
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty one as a railway town along the
Speaker 1: Saint Louis and San Francisco Railroad. It was developed as
Speaker 1: an agricultural shipping center, especially for poultry and forms. Then,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two, a man named Sam Walton opened
Speaker 1: a small five and dime store right in the heart
Speaker 1: of Rogers. It was humble and unassuming, but it was
Speaker 1: the beginning of something massive. That little store eventually grew
Speaker 1: into Walmart, the largest retail corporation in the world, and
Speaker 1: even as the company exploded in size and scope, Rogers
Speaker 1: clung to its roots. Today, the historic downtown is preserved
Speaker 1: with brick paved streets in turn of the century storefronts, cafes,
Speaker 1: and boutique shops. Away from the queen downtown along South
Speaker 1: Dixieland Road lies the Rogers Police Department. This is where
Speaker 1: the nine one one Dispatch Center is housed. Here, the
Speaker 1: center dispatches police, far and EMS units not only across Rogers,
Speaker 1: but also neighboring Benton County agencies. It homes with routine
Speaker 1: calls from vander Bender's domestic disputes and everything in between.
Speaker 1: That's how the morning of September twenty sixth, nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine began. But at around five am that morning, a
Speaker 1: phone call came in that would change everything. There was
Speaker 1: a man on the other end of the line. He
Speaker 1: sounded panicked as he said, I have a guy. He's dead.
Speaker 1: We're trying to resuscitate him. Hell he ain't, but fourteen,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the fuck went wrong. The operator
Speaker 1: tried to get more details, but the caller was frantic.
Speaker 1: He continued, we was playing some kind of goddamn game
Speaker 1: and tying each other up and all that shit. Officers
Speaker 1: were immediately dispatched. Officers Aan Smith and Jason Curry were
Speaker 1: the first to respond. Their cruiser pulled in to asleep.
Speaker 1: He called the sack lined with duplexes one two oh
Speaker 1: seven West Sunset Drive with the RAM style unit that
Speaker 1: didn't stand thout, low brick and wood paneling typical of
Speaker 1: the area. It was the kind of place you would
Speaker 1: drive past without a second thought. Just across the street,
Speaker 1: the baseball field at Northwest Park sat under the soft
Speaker 1: morning hayz, empty and still. Before the officers could even
Speaker 1: reach the front stone Epps, the door burst open a
Speaker 1: naked man rushed towards them. He's not breathing, he shouted.
Speaker 1: Greasy Valley Road winds its way through the hills outside
Speaker 1: Prairie Grove and Arkansas, just past the small town of Clyde.
Speaker 1: It's a quiet, rural stretch of road, framed by open
Speaker 1: fields and sprawling farmland. It was along this unassuming stretch
Speaker 1: of countryside the thirteen year old Jesse durk Heising lived
Speaker 1: with its family in a modest trailer, tuck between tall
Speaker 1: grass and farmland. Their home wasn't grand, but it was theirs.
Speaker 1: Jesse was the eldest of three children born to Tina
Speaker 1: and Timothy Durkaisin, but his parents' marriage didn't last just
Speaker 1: two years, and after the divorced, Timothy drifted out of
Speaker 1: his son's life, leaving a quiet vacancy where our father
Speaker 1: figures should have been. That space was eventually filled by
Speaker 1: Miles Yeats, Tina's new partner. Jesse called him Dad, and
Speaker 1: to his younger siblings Chatham Renee, Jesse was more than
Speaker 1: just a brother. He was a protector, a playmate, and
Speaker 1: somebody that they could look up to. Jesse was said
Speaker 1: to have an easy going charm that made him well liked,
Speaker 1: not just at home, but at school as well. He
Speaker 1: was in the seventh grade at Lincoln Middle School. While
Speaker 1: he was popular, school didn't come easy to Jesse. According
Speaker 1: to the principal, Beverly Davenport, he lacked something to be desired.
Speaker 1: He had to repeat the seventh grade. But Jesse made
Speaker 1: up what he lacked in academics with heart. Before the
Speaker 1: morning bell rang, he'd be out on the grass with
Speaker 1: a pack of fifteen other boys playing touch football. They
Speaker 1: did the same thing at lunch. He was a kid
Speaker 1: who loved the outdoors, from hiking, fishing, and hunting. He
Speaker 1: especially loved camping trips with the family. There was nothing
Speaker 1: extraordinary about Jesse Durkaising, nothing that would have caught the
Speaker 1: eye of the world. He was just a regular boy
Speaker 1: living a regular life in a quiet patch of America.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the most horrifying stories don't come from the
Speaker 1: place as we expect. When Officers Ain Smith and Jason
Speaker 1: Curry pulled up outside the low rise duplex on West
Speaker 1: Sunset Drive, they were met at the door by a
Speaker 1: naked man. He was visibly shaken, his eyes wide with panic.
Speaker 1: His name was Davis Stawn Carbenter, he was thirty eight
Speaker 1: years old, and he was frantic. He's not breathing, he
Speaker 1: kept repeating, over and over, like he was trying to
Speaker 1: convince himself more than anybody else. Carpenter quickly led the
Speaker 1: officers inside through a narrow hallway with Warren carpets and
Speaker 1: low ceilings. The apartment was small and save for the
Speaker 1: distant hum of a television left on in another room,
Speaker 1: the smell of faces hit the officers almost immediately. Standing
Speaker 1: in the hallway was another man, twenty two year old
Speaker 1: Joshua Brown. He was completely naked, clutching a flashlight in
Speaker 1: one hand and a telephone in the other. Braun didn't speak.
Speaker 1: Carpenter continued to lead the officers towards the back of
Speaker 1: the apartment and into a small bedroom. The door creaked open.
Speaker 1: There on the floor was a mattress, no frame, no sheathes,
Speaker 1: no blankets, just a bare, stained mattress in the middle
Speaker 1: of an otherwise empty room, and beside it with a
Speaker 1: teenage boy lying motionless. It was Jesse dark Eysing. He
Speaker 1: was naked, His small frame lay awkwardly beside the mattress,
Speaker 1: and his genitals and abdomen were smeared with feces. The
Speaker 1: smell that had clung to the hallway now swallowed the
Speaker 1: room hole. It was, as officers Curry later said, overwhelming.
Speaker 1: The officers rushed to Jesse's side. His lips were tinged
Speaker 1: blue and his skin was cool to the touch, but
Speaker 1: there was still a pulse that was faint and barely there,
Speaker 1: although he wasn't breathing. The officer scanned him quickly, instinctively,
Speaker 1: noting every detail. There was doc tape rapped tightly around
Speaker 1: his right hand. They turned to Braun and asked what
Speaker 1: it was doing there. Braun looked up and softly responded,
Speaker 1: we were playing a game. As they waited for paramedics
Speaker 1: to arrive, the officers swept their flashlights around the room.
Speaker 1: That's when they started to see more. On the mattress
Speaker 1: was an empty prescription pill bottle. On a nearby mirror
Speaker 1: was loose pills scattered around a razor blade. There was
Speaker 1: also drug paraphernalia. The quid of the neighborhood was shattered
Speaker 1: by the sudden arrival of paramedics. Red and blue lights
Speaker 1: flashed across the street. It was just past five am,
Speaker 1: and most of Rogers was still asleep, unaware of the
Speaker 1: horror unfolding inside this unremarkable apartment, The medics moved quickly.
Speaker 1: They lifted Jesse carefully on to a stretcher, shielding his
Speaker 1: body with a blanket. As the ambulance roared away from
Speaker 1: West Sunset Drive with their sirens wailing, The team worked
Speaker 1: furiously to keep Jesse alive. They were headed to Saint
Speaker 1: Mary's Hospital as Jesse Jurchising's life hung in the balance.
Speaker 1: Back at the apartment, the officers believed they were standing
Speaker 1: in the middle of a crime scene. Nothing about what
Speaker 1: they had just encountered appeared to be normal. A naked
Speaker 1: teenage boy, naked men, and a collection of disturbing items.
Speaker 1: While normally a search warrant would be executed, detectives didn't
Speaker 1: need one. They had asked if they could search the apartment,
Speaker 1: and Davis Carpenter had responded, well, you're going to look anyway.
Speaker 1: You're going to get a search warrant and look. He
Speaker 1: then signed a consent to search form as a warning.
Speaker 1: The next section of this episode deals with the abuse
Speaker 1: of children. Please listen with caution. In the living room
Speaker 1: and bedroom, detectives recovered numerous small green pills, various wattles
Speaker 1: of prescription medication, which included amatriptolene, which is a heavy
Speaker 1: sedative commonly used to treat depression. There was also a
Speaker 1: small quantity of meth amphetamine. But it wasn't just drugs
Speaker 1: that detectives found. There were countless tubs of petroleum jelly.
Speaker 1: In the bedroom. Two cucumbers were recovered. One was covered
Speaker 1: in petroleum jelly while the other was covered in faces.
Speaker 1: Nearby was a tube shaped sausage and crushed banana. In
Speaker 1: another corner of the bedroom, they came across bondige items
Speaker 1: including bells, stock tape, strapping tape, nylon rope, rubber jump rope,
Speaker 1: and electric cord. Discarded on the floor lay a plastic
Speaker 1: disposable douche bottle with the applicator secured in place with
Speaker 1: jock tape. The search then continued in the living room.
Speaker 1: The computer was still running and up on the screen
Speaker 1: was a program that was titled Medical Drug Reference four
Speaker 1: point zero. On a computer table lay a piece of
Speaker 1: paper with a handwritten note addressed to baby in the
Speaker 1: right corner of the note with the names of three
Speaker 1: types of prescription pills. The note referred to making somebody
Speaker 1: take those pills. It then referenced positioning pillows beneath this
Speaker 1: person in a certain way. A different section of the
Speaker 1: same note said to tell him not to fight. Over
Speaker 1: the next fourteen hours he would be sexually assaulted. Nearby,
Speaker 1: detectives found the second note the reference to piece of
Speaker 1: meat being inserted into somebody's anus. The note also referred
Speaker 1: to Davis engaging an intercourse with Yu blindfolded on pills.
Speaker 1: Another note was discovered, once more addressed to baby. This
Speaker 1: note referred to docor tape and included a hand drawn
Speaker 1: diagram of somebody bond to a bed. There were notations
Speaker 1: that referred to pillows, tape all the way around faced on,
Speaker 1: and the barocks of a person being raised approximately two feet.
Speaker 1: There were other letters discovered in various parts of the apartment.
Speaker 1: One addressed a baby, was signed by Davy. In this letter,
Speaker 1: Davy describes saying baby's little ten year old blonde hour
Speaker 1: at her bus stop in the morning. He went on
Speaker 1: to graphically describe how he would envision baby engaging in
Speaker 1: sexual acts with this child. The search of the apartment
Speaker 1: continued and detectives found another pad of handwritten notes. In
Speaker 1: these notes, the writer described a man making a fine
Speaker 1: crushed white powder from the small, oddly purple colored pill.
Speaker 1: He described cutting the pill into four sections so there
Speaker 1: would be enough to do this again in four rs.
Speaker 1: The note continued, describing the man giving a nine year
Speaker 1: old girl a glass of milk with the powdered mixture it.
Speaker 1: The writer then wrote of the man laughing out loud,
Speaker 1: knowing that in twenty minutes the drink would make her
Speaker 1: helpless and drunk. He then described in detail the man
Speaker 1: having the girl masturbate and then perform oral sex on him.
Speaker 1: It was clear that what had happened inside that apartment
Speaker 1: was anything other than an accident. The two men standing
Speaker 1: before detectives were clearly child predators, and Jesse jurk Heising
Speaker 1: was their victim. By now, more officers had arrived at
Speaker 1: the apartment. One of them was Corporal Rick Simmons. He
Speaker 1: separated Carpenter and Brown and began questioning Joshua Brown. Without warning,
Speaker 1: Brown lunged at him. He swung a fist towards Simmons.
Speaker 1: He was restrained before he could make contact. Officers quickly
Speaker 1: placed him under arrest. Detective Martha Armstrong stepped in and
Speaker 1: read him as Miranda rights. That's when Braun began to talk.
Speaker 1: He told him that he and day of His Carpenter,
Speaker 1: were in a relationship. He said Carpenter called him Baby,
Speaker 1: a detailed that immediately called the detective's attention. It was
Speaker 1: the same name used in the disturbing letters found throughout
Speaker 1: the apartment. Braun said that he and Jesse frequently tied
Speaker 1: one another up, but he insisted it wasn't sexual. He
Speaker 1: described what happened that night. He said he snuck up
Speaker 1: on Jesse, tied his hands behind his back, and stuffed
Speaker 1: a pair of underwear into his mouth. He secured it
Speaker 1: with a bandana and DUC tape, and then blindfolded him
Speaker 1: again using DUC tape. Told everything in place. A T
Speaker 1: shirt was pulled over Jesse's head, but Braun claimed he
Speaker 1: made sure that Jesse's nostrils were left uncovered. He said
Speaker 1: he then by Jesse's legs with belts tight around the
Speaker 1: knees and ankles. Once immobilized, Broun said he untied Jesse's hands,
Speaker 1: only to secure them again, this time to opposite corners
Speaker 1: of the mattress. Jesse was then placed on his stomach.
Speaker 1: Braun told investigators that he penetrated Jesse with different objects,
Speaker 1: including a cucumber, a sausage, a banana, and a douche bottle,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't finished there. Broun said he then prepared
Speaker 1: an enema using his own urine mixed with the sedative
Speaker 1: ame triptolene, and administered it. Then he took the cucumber again,
Speaker 1: this time taping it in place. After that, Braun said
Speaker 1: he went into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich.
Speaker 1: When he left Jesse in the bedroom, he said that
Speaker 1: the boy was kicking around and acting goofy. He said,
Speaker 1: we was mess and irond and stuff. I left him
Speaker 1: for five minutes. I didn't think I tied his hands
Speaker 1: that tight. I left his nose uncovered so he could breathe.
Speaker 1: When Braun returned, he said that Jesse wasn't breathing. He
Speaker 1: claimed he removed the bindings, including the t shirt, the bandana,
Speaker 1: the tape, the underwear from his mouth, and then ran
Speaker 1: to wake up Carpenter. Carpenter, however, told a different story.
Speaker 1: He said that he had been asleep when Braun woke him,
Speaker 1: saying that Jesse wasn't breathing, but when Carpenter walked into
Speaker 1: the bedroom, he said that Jesse was still bound. He
Speaker 1: claimed he attempted tapor and then called nine one one,
Speaker 1: But nothing about this version matched the scene or the evidence.
Speaker 1: It was clear that Jesse had been the victim of calculated,
Speaker 1: sadistic abuse, and it was just as clear that both
Speaker 1: men had played a role. The handwritten notes tied Carpenter
Speaker 1: directly to the abuse. Many of them had been written
Speaker 1: by him addressed to Baby, his pet name for Braun.
Speaker 1: The two men were then taken into Costudy and transported
Speaker 1: to the Rogers Police Department for formal interrogation. Joshua Braun
Speaker 1: sat down in front of detech of Sergeant Hayes Minor.
Speaker 1: His story had since changed. He now claimed that he
Speaker 1: and Jesse had been sexually involved for approximately two months,
Speaker 1: since Jesse was just a child. However, Brin had actually
Speaker 1: been grooming and molesting him. They weren't sexually involved, as
Speaker 1: he had put it. He described the sexual assaults he
Speaker 1: had inflicted his games in playing. According to Braun, he
Speaker 1: and Jesse had spent the entire weekend sneaking up on
Speaker 1: one another and tying each other up. He described cutting
Speaker 1: Jesse's clothing off, telling the detectives I told him a
Speaker 1: how do you like that? Brum was then questioned about
Speaker 1: Carpenter's involvement in the rape of Jesse. He now admitted
Speaker 1: that Carpenter wasn't asleep. He said Carpenter had stood in
Speaker 1: the doorway of the bedroom he was naked and masturbated.
Speaker 1: Braun then admitted that the notes in the home were
Speaker 1: indeed from Carpenter. Various ones were telling him what to
Speaker 1: do to Jesse. Car had even purchased the items used
Speaker 1: in the sexual assault. While Braun had initially characterized the
Speaker 1: assault on Jesse's horseplay gone wrong, he later changed his tune.
Speaker 1: He blamed Jesse for initiating sexual compact. He claimed that
Speaker 1: nights earlier, Jesse, who was a thirteen year old boy,
Speaker 1: had come on to him and performed a sex act.
Speaker 1: Over at the hospital, doctors fought desperately to save Jesse's life,
Speaker 1: but it was tragically too late. He died shortly after
Speaker 1: he arrived. His body was transported to the medical Examiner's office,
Speaker 1: where the autopsy revealed the cause of death, positional asphyxia.
Speaker 1: Jesse couldn't breathe the way he had been restrained and
Speaker 1: positioned cut off his air. Toxic levels of a powerful
Speaker 1: sedative found in his system had also contributed to his death.
Speaker 1: Joshua Braun and Davis Carpenter were subsequently charged with first
Speaker 1: degree murder. At the court hearing, Judge David Klinger refused
Speaker 1: to set bail for EA. Their man prosecutor, Brad Butler,
Speaker 1: stood before the court and announced his intent to seek
Speaker 1: the death penalty. He spoke with Deake conviction as he said,
Speaker 1: what I saw inside that apartment was the most horrific
Speaker 1: thing I've witnessed in my eleven years as a prosecutor.
Speaker 1: It was a horrible, brutal crime. No one deserves to
Speaker 1: lose a child this way. Bron and Carpenter were then
Speaker 1: sent back to jail and each were placed into isolation
Speaker 1: for their own safety. But before they were separated, Carpenter
Speaker 1: had already spoken to some inmates at the jail. He
Speaker 1: admitted to them that he had taken part in Jesse's assault.
Speaker 1: He said he had forced pills do on his throat.
Speaker 1: He claimed he didn't know whether it was the drugs
Speaker 1: or the tape binding and gagging him that caused his death.
Speaker 1: But for detectives, questions still remained. How exactly had Carboner
Speaker 1: and Braun come to know Jesse, who had a child,
Speaker 1: ended up in their grasp. Davis Carpenter wasn't a stranger.
Speaker 1: He had been a friend of Tina and Miles Yets.
Speaker 1: He had first met Miles through methamphetamine. Miles had sold it,
Speaker 1: and Carpenter had been a client. But more recently, Carpenter
Speaker 1: was managing a local beauty salon. In the months before
Speaker 1: Jesse was killed, Carpenter had offered him a job sweeping
Speaker 1: hair on the weekends. He knew that Jesse was saving
Speaker 1: up money to fix an old pickup truck. Tina and
Speaker 1: Miles agreed they trusted Carpenter. They also trusted Braun. Jesse
Speaker 1: was over the moon. Fifty dollars a weekend was a
Speaker 1: lot of money to him, so each Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 1: Tina or Miles would drive him to the salon from
Speaker 1: their home in Prairie Grove and pick him up again
Speaker 1: that evening. But Carpenter soon offered to make things easier.
Speaker 1: Jesse could stay over on Saturday nights and come home Sunday.
Speaker 1: Saved to petrol. It saved time, but in the end,
Speaker 1: it cost everything. The Monday after Jesse was murdered, his
Speaker 1: space on the school bus sat empty. The ride was
Speaker 1: unusually quiet. Bus driver Gary Trambley noticed the silence. Then
Speaker 1: he noticed something else. Somebody had left floorers on Jesse's safe.
Speaker 1: One of the children sat there. They had silently decided
Speaker 1: it would remain Jesse's. At school, councilors were brought in.
Speaker 1: Jesse's classmates were barely teenagers themselves, but they came together
Speaker 1: in grief and love. They wanted to do something anything.
Speaker 1: They started collecting money for Jesse's funeral flowers and for
Speaker 1: his family. Gary allowed them to keep a collection box
Speaker 1: on the school bus. By Tuesday morning, they had raised
Speaker 1: thirty dollars. Gary said one of Chad's little bodies must
Speaker 1: have cleaned out his piggy bank, and he was right.
Speaker 1: A nine year old friend of Jesse's little brother handed
Speaker 1: over everything he had. His mother, who asked not to
Speaker 1: be named, said that her son often worried that Jesse's
Speaker 1: family didn't have enough to eat. Back in Rogers, where
Speaker 1: Braun and Carpenter lived, the community was just as horrified.
Speaker 1: Their apartment sat in a six unit complex, close quarters
Speaker 1: where neighbors knew one another. Most of them thought that
Speaker 1: the two men were brothers. Carpenter was known as a
Speaker 1: nat freak brawn came off as friendly and approachable. Connie
Speaker 1: nw Coome, who lived next door, commented, you never heard
Speaker 1: any noise, no wild parties, no craziness going on just today.
Speaker 1: Before Jesse was killed, Carpenter had invited Diane Watkins to
Speaker 1: bring her ten year old daughter's soccer team to his
Speaker 1: heirslon Her husband, Tom commented, it scared my wife and
Speaker 1: daughter a hole lot. It just scared them to death.
Speaker 1: My daughter was scared to sleep in her bedroom for
Speaker 1: a few days. Even Connie's ten year old son had
Speaker 1: been inside the men's apartment. He'd gone in to play
Speaker 1: with their cats. The horror of what had happened shook
Speaker 1: the entire neighborhood. Half of the tenants moved out. They
Speaker 1: couldn't leave that close to the place where something so
Speaker 1: monstrous had happened. On the thirteenth of October, Joshua bron
Speaker 1: and Davis Carpenter appeared in court, where they pleaded not
Speaker 1: guilty to all of the charges. Their defense teams filed
Speaker 1: the motion for gag orders, hoping to keep the disturbing
Speaker 1: details of Jesse's murder sailed from the public, but the
Speaker 1: judge denied the request. Still, despite the brutality of the case,
Speaker 1: media coverage remained strangely sparse. A few local papers had
Speaker 1: covered Jesse's murder, but there was no national outcry, not
Speaker 1: until a week later, when The Washington Times ran aheadline
Speaker 1: the demanded attention media tune out torture death of Arkansas boy.
Speaker 1: The piece criticized the near silence surrounding the crime. Sim Graham,
Speaker 1: director of Media Analysis that the Media Research Center, commented,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to say anything negative against homosexuals. Nobody wants
Speaker 1: to be seen on the wrong side of that issue.
Speaker 1: David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, quickly
Speaker 1: responded and said this has nothing to do with gay people.
Speaker 1: The article drew a sharp comparison between the lack of
Speaker 1: attention to Jesse dark Heising's murder and the intense media
Speaker 1: response to the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay man
Speaker 1: who was beaten to death in Wyoming the previous year.
Speaker 1: Both were he and his crimes both involved vulnerable victims,
Speaker 1: but only one had made headlines across the nation. Even
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Christopher Plumley admitted he was surprised by the quiet reaction.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to speculate why, but noted that Jesse's
Speaker 1: rape and murder had occurred in a small town with
Speaker 1: a low violent crime rate. He saw outrage and rogers
Speaker 1: on Prairie Grove, but not the kind of national response
Speaker 1: that Matthew Shepherd's murder had sparked. After the Washington Times article,
Speaker 1: other outlets finally began covering the case. The New York
Speaker 1: Post published a column by Brett Bosel, editor of Media
Speaker 1: Reality Czech, who wrote, why would this story go on?
Speaker 1: Told had Jesse Durchising been shot inside his Arkansas school,
Speaker 1: he would have been an immediate national news story, but
Speaker 1: his national interest grew so the political agendas and de
Speaker 1: gay hate group seized on the case. They accused the
Speaker 1: media of downplaying the story out of political correctness. Conservative
Speaker 1: activist Peter le Barbera called on others to use Jesse's
Speaker 1: death as a rallying cry, just as Matthew Shepherd's death
Speaker 1: had become a symbol for LGBTQ plus rights. Back in
Speaker 1: the courtroom, the growing publicity prompted Carpenter's attorney Tim Buckley
Speaker 1: to file a motion for a change of venue. He argued,
Speaker 1: it's been on everyone's lips down here for a month
Speaker 1: and a half. Benton County is a very conservative county.
Speaker 1: It's the corporal headquarters of Walmart. It's always been a
Speaker 1: bassi of Republican conservatives. He believed that his client could
Speaker 1: get a fair trial. Braun's attorney, Charles Duel, filed his
Speaker 1: own motion requesting a separate trial. In February. Judge David
Speaker 1: Klinger granted the request and said that the men would
Speaker 1: be tried separately. He also ordered Braun to undergo a
Speaker 1: psychological examination at the State Hospital in Little Rock. Its attorney,
Speaker 1: Lewis Limb, made it clear they were exploring an insanity defense.
Speaker 1: They were trying to determine whether Braun had been seen
Speaker 1: at the time of the murder and whether he could
Speaker 1: assist in his own defense. The results came back in September.
Speaker 1: Joshua Brown was found to be competent, so was David's
Speaker 1: con There would be no mental health defense, no diminished capacity.
Speaker 1: Both men would stand trial. It was decided that Joshua
Speaker 1: Broun would be standing trial first, but first. The judge
Speaker 1: said he wanted to hear from potential jurors before deciding
Speaker 1: whether the trial needed to be moved. The jury selection
Speaker 1: began in March and in preparation security was tightened. Members
Speaker 1: of the westbor Baptist Church had announced they were going
Speaker 1: to be outside the courtroom to protest. They referred to
Speaker 1: the case as a conspiracy from hell and accused the
Speaker 1: National press of covering up Jesse's murder because the suspects
Speaker 1: were gay. By the fourteenth, the jury was selected and seated,
Speaker 1: meaning that the trial was indeed going ahead in Benthamville.
Speaker 1: The jury was warned that details of the case were
Speaker 1: going to be extremely horrific, and after that opening statements
Speaker 1: got underway. Prosecutor Bob Balf told the jury, this case
Speaker 1: is not about homosexuality. The charge in this case concerns
Speaker 1: the rape and murder of a child. This case is
Speaker 1: about child's sexual abuse. He said it didn't appear as
Speaker 1: though Braun intended on killing Jesse, before adding if you
Speaker 1: commit a violent act and it ends in death, it's
Speaker 1: still capital murder. Prosecutor Balf led out the facts of
Speaker 1: the case, describing how Jesse was propped up with pillows
Speaker 1: and sodomized by Braun during the prolonged or Dale Carpenter
Speaker 1: had left the apartment and gone to a nearby grocery
Speaker 1: store to purchase items that would later be used in
Speaker 1: the assault. He stated, this wasn't some spontaneous act that
Speaker 1: got out of hand. This wasn't a consensual act, he continued, stating,
Speaker 1: while Jesse was bound and helpless and naked in this position,
Speaker 1: he was repeatedly raped over a period of ours by
Speaker 1: that man Joshua Braun. Jesse slowly suffocated and died. Braun's
Speaker 1: defense attorney Lewis Limb described Braun during his opening statements
Speaker 1: as a lost young man who was under the corrupt
Speaker 1: influence of Carpenter. He drew parallels between the childlike Braun
Speaker 1: and Jesse, who he described as mature for his age.
Speaker 1: He mentioned how both had been abandoned by their fathers
Speaker 1: at a young age, and both were susceptible the Carpenter's
Speaker 1: parent like attention. Lim also set the stage for the
Speaker 1: defense to shift blame from Braun to Jesse's parents. He
Speaker 1: revealed to the jury for the first time that Myles
Speaker 1: had known Carpenter through their dealings with Metham Fermine. The
Speaker 1: night that Jesse died. He said that he had taken
Speaker 1: the drug with Carpenter and Braun it had been found
Speaker 1: in his system. The defense attorney then spoke on Braun's upbringing.
Speaker 1: He said he was placed into state custody at nine
Speaker 1: years old after his mother struggled with mental illness and
Speaker 1: couldn't care for him. He bonced from fall Mister Home
Speaker 1: to Foster Home until he was seventeen, when he moved
Speaker 1: to Mississippi, where his mother had moved to. He described
Speaker 1: Braun as a troubled, insecure teenager with drug addictions when
Speaker 1: Carpenter walked into his life in nineteen ninety seven. Garbinder
Speaker 1: was a successful hairdresser at the time. He befriended Braun
Speaker 1: and offered him a job. Lim said to the jury,
Speaker 1: Carpenter realized, this is a young man who I can
Speaker 1: bring into my fold. By the time they moved to
Speaker 1: Rogers in nineteen ninety nine, Braun depended on Carpenter financially.
Speaker 1: He said that Carpenter had done to Jessee what he
Speaker 1: had done to Braun, isolated him from his family before
Speaker 1: stepping down. The defense attorney conceded statutory rape, but said
Speaker 1: that Braun never intended for Jesse to die. Testimony got
Speaker 1: underway with the officers who responded to the crime scene
Speaker 1: that morning. Officers Jason Curry and Ian Smith both said
Speaker 1: that they didn't attempt to revive Jesse at the scene.
Speaker 1: They explained they weren't carrying masks necessary to protect the
Speaker 1: from disease, Department policy mandates their use during resuscitation efforts.
Speaker 1: They explained, Officer Curry had left to go and get
Speaker 1: the masks, but paramedics arrived and begun resuscitation efforts before
Speaker 1: he got back. The defense team suggested that Jesse might
Speaker 1: have survived if resuscitation efforts were performed immediately. Lim asked
Speaker 1: paramedic Jackie Weissman. Could one breath have made a difference.
Speaker 1: She responded, yes, Sir. That same day, Jesse's mother, Tina
Speaker 1: Yates testified. She told the jury that she had known
Speaker 1: that Braun and Carpenter were lovers, but it didn't matter
Speaker 1: to her. They were like family. She said she trusted them.
Speaker 1: She had even been inside their apartment. Nothing raised red flags.
Speaker 1: Through sobs, she stated, Jesse was my best friend. Jesse
Speaker 1: and I did a lot of growing up together. Jesse
Speaker 1: and I had no secrets from each other. Tina told
Speaker 1: the jury that Jess as he hadn't wanted to work
Speaker 1: the weekend that he was killed. He wanted to stay
Speaker 1: home and ride his motorcycle, but he went anyway, and
Speaker 1: the plan was for Carpenter to bring him home on Sunday.
Speaker 1: She recalled their final goodbye steering Jesse gave me a
Speaker 1: hug and a kiss, and I gave him one. She
Speaker 1: admitted to using drugs when she was younger, but said
Speaker 1: it was never in front of her children. She also
Speaker 1: claimed she had no idea that Miles had sold methamphetamine.
Speaker 1: Tina explained that she and Miles had told Jesse if
Speaker 1: he ever wanted to experiment with alcohol or drugs to
Speaker 1: come to them first. We wanted to know what he
Speaker 1: was taking, she said. The jury then got to hear
Speaker 1: bronze taped confession. In it, he claimed that he and
Speaker 1: Jesse had agreed to tie each other up, and that
Speaker 1: Jesse had agreed to at least one act of sodomy.
Speaker 1: He stated the night before he had hogtied me, so
Speaker 1: I thought I'd get him back. I left him for
Speaker 1: five minutes. I kept checking him and stuff, but I
Speaker 1: killed them anyway. During the trial, the grim notes found
Speaker 1: inside the apartment were presented. It was suggested that the
Speaker 1: blonde girl that Carpenter referenced was Diane Watkins's young daughter.
Speaker 1: Diane testified that five days before the murder, ron had
Speaker 1: handed her a note inviting her daughter and her friends
Speaker 1: for hair cuts. By Carpenter, she said he knew Healy
Speaker 1: played soccer, he knew how to spell her name. I
Speaker 1: was concerned how he knew her her daughter. Haley's skillbuss
Speaker 1: stopped in front of the apartment, and she often visited
Speaker 1: an elderly woman who lived next door. The judge had
Speaker 1: allowed the notes to be entered into evidence, although the
Speaker 1: defense had tried to have them blocked. The judge referred
Speaker 1: to them as blue prints for child rape. Thankfully, Diane's
Speaker 1: daughter was never harmed by the men, but the descriptions
Speaker 1: of acts they wanted to perform on her were very
Speaker 1: similar to how Jesse was drugged, bond and sodomized. When
Speaker 1: Braun was first interviewed, he downplayed Carpenter's involvement. He first
Speaker 1: of all said that he was asleep throughout the entire deal. However,
Speaker 1: he finally admitted that all of the notes were written
Speaker 1: by him. They were instructions on how they abuse children.
Speaker 1: He further admitted that he had gone to the store
Speaker 1: midway through the assault to purchase the cucumber and sausage.
Speaker 1: When Jeffers and Inmated also testified about Carpenter's involvement, he
Speaker 1: had been in a cell above braun cell and they
Speaker 1: had communicated through the events. Braun had told him he
Speaker 1: didn't really know Jesse, that Carpenter was the one who
Speaker 1: really knew him. He said that Carpenter had lured Jessee
Speaker 1: into the situation by offering him money. He then drugged Jesse.
Speaker 1: Jeffers told the jury he was reluctant at first, and
Speaker 1: Carpenter made it sound like a game. Braun told him
Speaker 1: that Jesse had wanted to go home, but that Carpenter
Speaker 1: started to hit him and then sexually assaulted him. He
Speaker 1: stated he was crying. He was really crying. He wanted
Speaker 1: to go home. Brown also told him that he had
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted Jesse too, and he had wanted to release him,
Speaker 1: but Carpenter told him now that he wanted to keep
Speaker 1: him bond as his sex thing. Braun told Jeffers that
Speaker 1: he and Carpenter had checked on Jesse twice. The first
Speaker 1: time he was struggling and the next time he wasn't breathing.
Speaker 1: The defense then began their case. They tried to portray Jesse,
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old boy, as a drug user. They
Speaker 1: called on fourteen year old Carissa Melbourne, who claimed she
Speaker 1: saw Jesse in the apartment of a forty three year
Speaker 1: old woman near the apartment of Carpenter. According to her,
Speaker 1: the woman was injecting Jesse with metham pheramine. The defense
Speaker 1: were clearly trying to claim that the metham pheramine and
Speaker 1: Jesse's system and the overdose of antidepressant hadn't come from Braun.
Speaker 1: The defense also called on Braun's mother, Judith Wesson, who
Speaker 1: spoke about his time in foster care. When he was
Speaker 1: a teenager, he had been physically abused by an uncle.
Speaker 1: Judith told the jury, I didn't know Joshua had homosexual
Speaker 1: tendencies until after he was arrested. While Braun had admitted
Speaker 1: to saying Jesse take two am a triptolene pills on
Speaker 1: the day of his death and giving him an enema
Speaker 1: of the drug that same day, the defense called on
Speaker 1: doctor Jimmy Valentine. He suggested that Jesse had taken the
Speaker 1: drug up to two weeks before his death. The defense
Speaker 1: then called on Marianna Arragon. Carpenter had been her family's hairdresser.
Speaker 1: She portrayed him as controlling, telling the jury mister Brown
Speaker 1: was totally dominated by mister Carbenter. He was a very
Speaker 1: mixed up kid who got lost in the shuffle. And
Speaker 1: after that, the trial came to a close. During the
Speaker 1: closing arguments, prosecutor balf said that logic showed a thirteen
Speaker 1: year old boy was not a willing participant in a
Speaker 1: sexual bondage game that led to his death. He spoke
Speaker 1: about Carpenter going to the store midway through the assault,
Speaker 1: asking the jury why did they need more duct tape?
Speaker 1: Was it because he was struggling. Carpenter had purchased the
Speaker 1: duct tape, sausage and cucumber at the store, but he
Speaker 1: also picked up two sandwiches. The prosecutor touched on this
Speaker 1: and said Jesse wasn't going to get anything to eat.
Speaker 1: It wasn't stopping any time soon. Defense attorney Limb said
Speaker 1: during his closing arguments that his client was guilty of
Speaker 1: nothing more than statutory rape and manslaughter. He stated, I
Speaker 1: think we can all agree that Josh didn't knowingly cause
Speaker 1: his death. This is pointing to negligence. On rebuttal, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor declared, this isn't a car accident, folks, this is
Speaker 1: the binding, gagging, and raping of a thirteen year old boy.
Speaker 1: The jury were then sent off to deliberate. Ultimately, they
Speaker 1: found Joshua Brown guilty of first degree murder and rape.
Speaker 1: They rejected the more serious kind of capital murder, which
Speaker 1: would have come with the death sentence. Brown was then
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty five years in prison for the rape,
Speaker 1: in life without parole for the murder. In handing down
Speaker 1: the sentence, Judge David Klinger told him, usually a murder
Speaker 1: is over in a minute. In this case, this victim
Speaker 1: was left helpless and bond Trying to imagine his thought
Speaker 1: process has sent shivers down my spine. The judge said
Speaker 1: that Braun and Carpenter had also devised a plan to
Speaker 1: rape Jesse. He rejected the defense's claims that Braun had
Speaker 1: been manipulated by Carpenter, stating, I don't find that Jesse
Speaker 1: ever agreed to that that he agreed to become a
Speaker 1: sex toy of two grown men. Brawn was given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak during the court hearing, he began to
Speaker 1: cry before he wakely said I say I'm sorry. The
Speaker 1: guilty verdict was in good news for Davis Carpenter. He
Speaker 1: and his defense attorneys knew that if he went to trial,
Speaker 1: the outcome would almost certainly mirror Bronze or even be worse.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately they began working on a Playdale to spare
Speaker 1: him the death penalty. On the eighteenth of April, Carpenter
Speaker 1: stood before the court and pleaded guilty to the rape
Speaker 1: and murder of Jesse Dark heisinc He was sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison without the possibility of parole. Then, in
Speaker 1: a voice void of the cruelty he'd once inflicted, Carpenter
Speaker 1: turned to Jesse's parents and said, I'd like to say
Speaker 1: to Milesintena that I'm sorry Jesse's gone. I tried to
Speaker 1: save him but couldn't. Every day I pray for them,
Speaker 1: and I will continue to pray for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life that the Lord will heal the hole in
Speaker 1: their heart. Well, best Sie's That is it for this
Speaker 1: episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to say a massive thank you to
Speaker 1: my newest supporter up on Patreon Amy. The link to
Speaker 1: patron is in the show notes if you'd like to join,
Speaker 1: and there are absolutely no obligations. You can cancel your
Speaker 1: subscription at any time. As an independent podcast, the support
Speaker 1: upon Patreon seriously goes such a long way, and I
Speaker 1: genuinely am eternally grateful. As I've mentioned in a few
Speaker 1: episodes more Bidology, it's now up on YouTube, where the
Speaker 1: episodes are presented in a documentary style, along with videos
Speaker 1: and photos from each case. So if you'd like to
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Speaker 1: I really would appreciate it. Remember the check is id
Speaker 1: at morbidology dot com for more information about this episode
Speaker 1: and to read some true crime articles. Until next time,
Speaker 1: take care of yourselves, stay safe, and have an amazing week.