Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime.
Speaker 3: Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 5: It's a beautiful almost Thanksgiving day. Actually I can't say
it's day anymore right now, because it's six point thirty
and it's pitch black outside.
Speaker 3: Is it pitch black up there in Norfolk, Connecticut? Frosty
cold bear in Norfic, Connecticut?
Speaker 2: It is from about four thirty pm on I must object.
I don't know who decided this was a good idea.
Speaker 3: I strongly object to daylight saving time. We didn't have
it when I lived in Phoenix, and so I was
always very happy to never have to lose any of
my daylight. And I really hate this whole dark at
four thirty sort of thing.
Speaker 2: I don't care for it either. Now, remember on December
twenty first, the days start to get longer. So in
one more month we will start seeing up to two
minutes per day of additional daylight.
Speaker 3: Look at that. That's a nice little that's a nice
little ray of hope.
Speaker 2: In a pitch black world, in a pitch.
Speaker 3: Black world, in a pitch black cold world. Though it
was colder up there than it is here in coastal Virginia,
i'd imagine.
Speaker 2: Yes, I had to go rescue my partner, Pamela, who
was having some minor car trouble. She was at a
doctor's appointment, and so I had to get the Miata
out of storage and put the top up and hurtle
on up there to give her a hand. Everything worked
out fine, but it usually would be time to put
away the sports car right about now before the snow flies.
Speaker 3: But you said it flew once already, did it not?
Speaker 2: It did tune up about an inch. It went away.
We often see snow up here at the beginning of November.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad I don't live in the ice box
of Connecticut. I'm so glad. I can't stand the cold.
This is the time of year that I will not
be warm again until at least March, probably April, and
I despise it.
Speaker 2: And your version of Virginia cold is not as cold
as a frosty New England.
Speaker 3: Oh no, not at all, not at all. I still
don't like it, though, And the high school stays very drafty.
And so I was just telling another teacher across the
hall from me today it's time to bring in the
space heater. And I've got like a bunch of extra
sweaters and everything that I keep at school. And this
is also the time of year when the students start
bringing in They either start showing up in onesies or
they start bringing blankets and they wrap themselves in blankets
during class time.
Speaker 2: What's a onesie?
Speaker 3: What's a onesie? You know how when you have a
newborn baby you put them in a onesie. It's just
one one outfit with a zipper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's a yes. But that's an outfit for
a little kid.
Speaker 3: They make teenage and adult onesies. They're made out of fleece.
Kids have been wearing them a lot since COVID.
Speaker 2: Isn't that roughly the equivalent of wearing your pajamas to school?
Speaker 3: Yes, most kids do that now too. The fashion there
is no fashion into school anymore. It's kids strolling around
in their pajamas and their crocs. And we do tell
them they can't bring bedroom slippers to school, but kids
will roll in anyway, wearing just about anything. I did
ask one kid today, I said, you look like you
just rolled out of bed, did you? He goes, no,
I just came out at physics.
Speaker 2: I was like, buddy, yeah, pajamas.
Speaker 3: He was. Yeah. He was wearing pajama pants and a
sweatshirt and socks and birkenstocks. That's just a look.
Speaker 2: Now, it's a look that it is a look.
Speaker 3: It is a look.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be that guy who sounds like
the old guy saying get off my lawn and kids
these days, but pajamas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's okay, it's okay. I'm that person too.
I'm that person too.
Speaker 2: You're far too young to be that cranky old person. Wow,
although you can be the cranky teacher who says that's ridiculous.
Do we ever send them home for not wearing clothes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're dressed. They dress code more based on like
summer fashions too short shorts and crop tops and stuff.
We don't dress coad kids in the winter. They just
come wearing whatever they want. It's fine. It's a thing.
As long as they're here and as long as they're warm,
it's okay.
Speaker 2: Years ago, when I was at SAG after, I was
the executive director, which made me the boss, and we
did have to send some people home for inappropriate work
attire a couple of times, both women and men.
Speaker 3: I love that you just tossed out I was the
director and that made me the boss. The only people
who've been the boss can just cheerfully throw that out there.
Speaker 2: Being the boss is okay most of the time, but
there are times when it's not fun. Relatively minor. You're
sending people home for wearing inappropriate outfits, or sometimes you
have to send people home and tell them they're fired.
Stuff happens.
Speaker 3: I would imagine, however, that you did not send home
anyone from SAG after because they've rolled up in their pajamas.
Speaker 2: No, because nobody would do that. It's a professional environment.
I know.
Speaker 3: It's a different world now, it's a whole different world,
and that's okay. We're rolling into it with grace and understanding.
Speaker 2: In our pajamas and our pajamas.
Speaker 3: For the record, I am not one of those teachers
that rolls up wearing Jim attire or anything like that.
I dress professionally every single day. We are allowed to
wear jeans, and so I teach in dark washed jeans,
a nice shirt or a nice shirt and a cardigan,
or a nice shirt and a blazer. But I do
not roll up looking like I have just rolled out
of bed. I have some colleagues who do, but I
will not.
Speaker 2: And you're wearing new glasses.
Speaker 3: I am wearing new Yes. The ravages of age have
caught up to me and I have finally needed a
pair of readers. And it took a lot to get
me to this point that I did have to break
down yesterday and get a pair of readers. Dear listeners,
I will post a picture of me in my readers
because Bill has said, and now my secret is out. Yes,
I have glasses.
Speaker 2: On social media this morning. So it wasn't like I
outed you as wearing blue very fashionable glasses.
Speaker 3: You pretty good f CVS. Right there you go it
a twenty four dollars pair of readers from CBS. They
look pretty good.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, they look they look pretty spectacular. I might say
they make you look even smarter than you did before.
Speaker 3: Really, one of the I think nicest things that somebody
said to me was that they make me look like
Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds. And I was like, you
know what, I'll take that. I will take it.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: I love that. That's great.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's funny. She showed up in my social media
feed the other day for reasons I can't recall, something
about right lawsuits.
Speaker 3: Are you friends with her on social media?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, if we are and you've kept this for me,
we will have a conversation.
Speaker 2: No, she just showed up in my feed. I don't
have a personal relationship, but it will be Garcia.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: I have enjoyed her on TV. That's as far as
our relationship goes.
Speaker 3: Oh, good to know.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's funny. You look very taken. It back there
for a second. Wait, because you know these people I
don't know these people.
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure if you tend to know a lot
of really interesting people from your SAG after days, I
think your one degree of separation from Alison Janny, for example,
and she is one of my all time heroes, so
I never know.
Speaker 2: I think she's great, and she and I do have
friends in common, but I have never met Miss Jenny.
I've heard great things about her on a personal level,
what a wonderful person she is. I have no direct
connection to Miss Jenny.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: As much as we would love to sit here and
rip back and forth all day, I think this is
a long enough intro and it's time for us to
launch into our true crime news roundup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we haven't done that in a long time. And
no or if we lost anybody, we're sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have not done a true crime news round up.
For a hot minute. It seemed like because some very
important trials had been adjudicated and there had been some
interesting developments in several well known cases, we figured it
was probably a good idea to gather our wits together
and do some research and bring all of these developments
to you all in case you have not been able
to follow all the goings on in the true crime space.
So we'll start our true crime news roundup by talking
about the successfully adjudicated case that is a very obvious
concern and interest to me as a woman who runs,
and that is the murder of Lake and Riley. I
know that many people out there were absolutely horrified as
I was to learn about Lake and Riley's brutal murder
on February twenty second of twenty twenty four. So this
was a very fast moving case through the criminal justice system.
It was. I did not expect it to be adjudicated
within the same year that it happened, but we actually
got the speedy trial that the criminal justice system promises us.
Speaker 2: And yet it fails to deliver most of the time exactly.
Speaker 3: But I was very pleased to see that this was
going to go to trial. As with the murders of
Mally Tibbets, Eliza Fletcher, Alyssa Lockett's, Wendy Martinez, and so
many more women here in the US and around the world,
the murder of a female runner always rocks me back
on my heels because our safety while running, and that
includes my own safety while I am running, is of
huge importance. To me, and this case just absolutely sent
me reeling in February, and it did make me question
my own safety strategies for when I go out.
Speaker 2: On a run. Yeah, I remember talking to you about this,
and I am not alone in your sphere of friends
who worry about you and other women running by themselves.
Speaker 3: So we know a number of women in the true
crime space who do run competitively. I can think of
three or four, just like right off the top of
my head. And it should be noted as several news
outlets have noted that stranger abduction and stranger murders are
supposedly relatively rare. It's often stated in the news that
women are far more likely to be killed by someone
they know, but the prevalence of attacks over the last
couple of years on female runners has been very upsetting.
So it was very pleasing to me to see the
outcome of this trial. For anyone who has not been
following the Lake and Riley saga, will go ahead and
cover the basics and then we will talk about the
trial and how ultimately it ended. It was only a
day trial, so for anyone who doesn't remember Lake and Riley,
she was a twenty two year old nursing student at
the University of Georgia. She went out on a run
on the UGA campus in Athens, Georgia in February of
this past February, and while she was out on the trail,
she was attacked by twenty six year old Venezuelan Jose
Ebara in an attempt to rape her. He accosted her,
pulled her off the course into the woods, attempted to
assault her, and when she fought him, he ultimately killed
her by blunt forth's trauma and asphyxiation. So Ibarra came
to trial relatively quickly, as we sat a couple of
minutes ago, and he was convicted on a broad list
of charges. I got the sense that they were trying
to throw everything at him that they possibly could. What
I want to do is to run down the list
of charges and then I want to dissect all of
that by referring to some work from the CNN Crime
and Justice coverage team. So here are the charges that
Jose Abara was convicted on. Three counts of felony murder,
one count of malice murder, and we'll explain how the
two things are different. In a second one count of
kidnapping with bodily injury, one count of aggravated battery, one
count of aggravated assault with intent to rape, one count
of false imprisonment, one count of hindering an emergency telephone call,
one count on concealing the death of another, and one
count on being a peeping tom. So ten counts all told,
and I honestly was not aware that hindering an emergency
telephone call was something you could be charged with. Was
that something that you'd ever heard of before?
Speaker 2: Bill, No, this does read like an incredible laundry list,
but obviously they were absolutely focused on making certain that
Ibarra served the maximum amount of time in jail.
Speaker 3: So I was looking up information for this episode, and
I was so happy to see the truly excellent coverage
that was provided by CNN's Crime and Justice team. They
went to the trouble of breaking down each charge, then
explaining why Ibarra was guilty on all of these counts.
Writers Holly Yann and Rebecca Rice have done such an
amazing job on this that there is absolutely no way
I could say this any better. So I'm going to
quote from their coverage. We do want to warn you
that the details over the next two or three minutes
about Lake and Riley's death are graphic, a little more
graphic than we normally get. Please do proceed with caution
and care for the next two or three minutes, especially
if you are sensitive to details about crimes such as
this one. According to Holly Anne and Rebecca Rice quote,
here's how Prosecutor Sheila Ross described each charge and why
Ebarra was guilty on all counts malice murder. Ross outlined
Ebarra's clear intention to kill Riley, citing evidence and testimony
from the medical examiner. Quote, he put huge holes in
her head with a rock, and he did it more
than once, and there could be no other reason to
do that other than to silence her forever. Prosecutor said.
Ebarra also deprived Riley of oxygen long enough to cause
wounds and intended to kill her. Ross said the medical
examiner ruled Riley's death to be a homicide caused by
the combined effects of blunt force head trauma, and as
fixed sets the count for alice murder next three counts
of felony murder. A felony murder is a murder that
takes place during the commission of another felony. In Ebarra's case,
prosecutors successfully argued he committed several other felonies during his
encounter with Riley, which led to each of those three counts.
Next count kidnapping with bodily injury when Ebarra confronted Riley
as she was jogging in UGA's a Coney Forest Park. Quote,
he took her sixty four feet and eleven inches off
the trail for the purpose of victimizing her. Ross said
that actual felony precedes the murder in time. Ross also
detailed Riley's spate of bodily injuries, including a fractured skull.
Next count aggravated assault with attempt to rape. When Riley's
body was found, her breath this were exposed, all three
layers of her top clothing were pulled up, her leggings
were pulled down, her underwear was torn and pulled upside
of her tights. The prosecution said, quote. The only thing
that makes sense about why these two individuals, who didn't
know each other, never met each other, had this encounter
on this trail at this moment while Laken is out
for her morning jog, is because he wanted to sexually
assault her, Russ said. Next count, aggravated battery. Prosecutors said
Riley had a depressed skull fracture on the left side
of her head and part of her skull is in
her brain. Riley also suffered eight lacerations to her head.
I really don't need to say anything else, Russ said.
He is guilty of aggravated battery. Next count, obstructing a
person making an emergency call. A police sergeant gave a
heartbreaking account of Riley's final cell phone communications from the
morning she died. Records showed Riley made a nine to
one one call, but the call got disconnected and nine
one went up. Tried to call Riley back twice, but
she didn't answer her phone. Russ said the evidence Prouves
Ebarro was the one who disconnected Riley's nine to one
one call. It is no coincidence that his thumb print
is on her phone where you would go to hang
up an iPhone, she said. In addition, her phone was
separated from her body.
Speaker 2: It's very hard not to picture her desperately trying to
reach emergency services while struggling with him at the same time.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's heartbreaking. Next count, tampering with evidence. Video footage
from a neighbor's doorbell camera showed Ebarra tossing key pieces
of evidence near his apartment the morning Riley was killed. Quote.
He's throwing away the bloody jacket. He's throwing away the
bloody gloves, she said. Bodycam footage from a police officer
who climbed into a dumpster captures his shock when he
found the discarded jacket. There's hair on the buttons, women's
life long hair wrapped up in the buttons. Athens, Clark
County police officer Zachary Davis said hair from the jacket
was found to be microscopically consistent with Lake and Riley's hair.
A crime lab analyst testified, and a blood like stain
on the navy blue jacket found in the dumpster contained
the DNA of Riley and Ibarra. A forensic DNA expert
testified final count peeping tom charge. Before attacking Riley, Ebarra
peered into the apartment of a UGA student and tried
to open her door repeatedly. Ross said the graduate student,
who testified off camera in court, was unnerved by the incident.
Ross said Ebarra had been outside her apartment for an hour,
she's in the shower, and that's when Ebarra decides to
try to open her door. The student called police and
said the man outside her door had ducked. Campus security
footage corroborated the student's account. That is all of the
evidence that is available on the else that Jose Abara
was brought up on and then ultimately convicted for his trial,
rather than being a jury trial, was what's called a
bench trial. That means the evidence was all presented to
the judge in this case, Judge h Patrick Haggard. He
ultimately determined that Ibarra was guilty on all counts, and
he gave the entirely justified sentence of life without the
possibility of parole.
Speaker 2: I was very surprised they decided to go with a
bench trial, because with a jury trial, all it takes
is one juror not buying the prosecution story, and you
can actually get off, even from something as serious as
this array of charges. I was very surprised they decided
to go with a bench trial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was reading something from an NBC legal analyst.
I read so many articles today I don't think I
could pull up the one at the moment to quote
from the person who stated it, But they said that
a lot of times a bench trial, even though it
would seem to make sense because as you pointed out,
you only need one person to deadlock a jury. This
person said that a lot of times a bench trial
will be decided if there is such a preponderance of
evidence that there's no logical way that you could argue
that this person is innocent.
Speaker 2: And that probably applies in this example.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it certainly seemed that that way to me. Very
happy to have learned that he was given life without
the possibility of parole. This case really became why don't
we call it a political lightning rod with regard to
immigration earlier in the year, because Ebara is an illegal
immigrant and was allowed to stay pending citizenship. It really,
I think is no surprise that almost immediately Lake in
Riley's murder was taken up as a sort of political flashpoint.
In fact, Amir eleven days after her murder, on March seventh,
twenty two, twenty four, the House passed HR seventy five eleven,
the Lake and Riley Act. It is a bill which
requires the Department of Homeland Security quote to detain certain
non US nationals aliens under federal law who have been
arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. This bill also
authorizes states to sue the federal government for decisions or
alleged failures related to immigration enforcement. The bill was sponsored
by Representative Mike Collins of Georgia Republican on March first,
and it was passed on March seventh with a vote
of two fifty one yays to one seventy nays. And honestly,
I actually did not know about that Lake and Riley
Act until I was looking up information for this episode today.
Were you aware of it? Bill? I know that you
keep much closer track on politics than I do.
Speaker 2: I had followed the Lake and Riley case. I don't
think I paid much attention to this Lake and Riley
Act that passed into law.
Speaker 3: I think this will probably be not the first time
that a murder trial becomes a flashpoint for a convergence
of politics and crime over the next couple of years.
But certainly this is the one that I'm most pleased
to have seen be brought to swift adjudication. And of
course my heart and my prayers go out to the
family and friends of Lake and Riley, as well as
all of the other female runners out there who have
been murdered doing the thing that they love the most.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
mindover Murder. Another case we've been following pretty clear closely
over the last several years is the murder of thirteen
year old Abigail Williams, who went by Abby, and fourteen
year old Liberty German, who went by Libby. They were murdered,
you may recall in twenty seventeen while out for a
walk along a hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana. Many people
refer to this case as the Delphi Case. Richard Allen,
who was arrested and brought to trial, has now been
found guilty on all counts in that double murder. I'm
sure he'll appeal, and his wife said while leaving the
court that this is not the end of this. They
spent about nineteen hours in the jury room deliberating before
reaching a verdict. This has been a very controversial case.
Of course, the murder of two young teenage girls is
awful enough, and then this very protracted, drawn out investigation.
A number of people that live in that area of
Indiana were very frustrated when it turned out that Richard Allen,
this suspect, was literally under the noses of the investigators
for five years. There's some remarkable pictures from a couple
of years ago when Alan was first arrested of him
sitting in a bar looking like himself. Next to him
on the wall in the bar in Delphi is a
wanted poster with a pretty good likeness of the person
they referred to as Bridge Guy. He was captured on
video while walking up to the two young girls. They
actually had the focus and the street smarts to actually
record him, and I think there was a forty three
second video only, some of which was ever released to
the public. You've got a pretty good view of Bridge Guy,
and you could hear his voice, and it was so
striking to me that in these photographs that came out later,
there's Richard Allen and he looks exactly like the sketch.
And he was working at a clerk in the CVS
in downtown Delphi, quite close to the court and to
the police department where these investigators would have come and
gone and he would have wrung them up at the register.
It's baffling to me that no one was ever able
to put together just how much Richard Allen looked like
the suspect, the man they've been looking for five years.
Alan could be sentenced to up to one hundred and
thirty years in prison, and the scheduled date for his
sentencing is December twentieth. Now, we've met some of the
members of the families for Abby and Libby, who are
really wonderful people, and they've been through a tremendous amount
of just loss and grief, and this whole process has
been far more protracted than you'd like to see. Kristin,
you were saying a moment ago, how great it is
when we see a case adjudicated in a timely manner,
and this Delphi case is not an example of a
case being moved forward in a time manner.
Speaker 3: Right after the verdict came down, crime Con posted a
little something on their social media and they pointed out
they have been covering Delphi in one way or another
for the entirety of the time that crime Con has
been in operation. They said they featured Delphi at their
very very first crime Con in Indianapolis, and we've had
something about it every year since then, and that's quite
a few crime cons. So yeah, it really has had
just this enormous, long lasting impact. And I can't imagine
how hard that must have been for those families to
have to wait this long stretch of time with delays
and delays. I know that you have worked more closely
with the family members of the girls. Did you reach
out to them initially after all of this happened, or
did somebody turn to them and say, hey, you should
talk to this guy Bill Thomas.
Speaker 2: I think we were introduced by mutual friends, and then
I made a point of sitting down with them at
crime con several years ago. And of course this case
had gotten so protracted. The original double homicide of Abby
and Libby is in twenty seventeen, and Alan's not arrested
until twenty twenty two. I could understand the family's frustration
when it came out that a tip had been received
in the early going of this investigation. And this is
to be fair to everybody, this is when the investigators
are just getting hit with a ton of information, but
somehow they had dropped a very important ball, which is
that Richard Allen, while being interviewed, had placed himself at
the scene on the day the girls were murdered at
this hiking walking trail. It isn't until five years later
that a clerk who is going through and digitizing all
of these tips discovers that they've overlooked the fact that
Alan placed himself the scene on the day of the murders.
So Carroll County Sheriff Tony Liggett said, Alan quote got
lost in the cracks unquote, and that's really problematic from
the perspective of the community and the family members to
find out they had this information. And so it's about
a month after the tip was rediscovered that Allan was
arrested after they matched an unspent cartridge that was found
on the ground in between the girls' bodies. It wasn't
a fired round. It looked like it had maybe fallen
out of a gun. Without being discharged, he was finally
arrested almost five years to the day after the original incident,
which was in November twenty seventeen, and he was arrested
at the end of October. It's one of these situations
where the community has just been through so much and
It's just appalling that something is important as this original
tip from two thousand and seven teen was allowed to
sit unseen in a stack of papers for five years.
Speaker 3: If it does turn out that in our case, Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior is responsible for more than the cases
he's already been connected to via DNA, I think we
would have to say the same thing. They had his
name almost immediately from the very beginning. What a shame
that it's taken till several decades later to figure out
his involvement slipping through the cracks.
Speaker 2: Indeed, Yeah, we'll see what happens with that and how
the rest of the Wilmer story comes together, hopefully in
the coming months. One of the things that's really striking
about Richard Allen is he's i think, struggling with some
pretty serious mental health issues. He actually confessed over sixty
times to being involved in the murder of Abby and Libby,
repeatedly spoke to his wife and other people, and of course,
when you're talking on a phone line from prison, every
call in or out of prison is monitored, and he
referenced his involvement more than sixty times. I'm baffled as
to what would cause him to admit over and over
again that he was directly involved in the murder. At
one point, the psychologists testified that Allan had told her
I killed Abby and Libby. I'm sorry, and that's about
as direct as it's ever going to get.
Speaker 3: There is so much I think that is still to
come with this case, but for right now, I think
everyone in the true crime community who's familiar with the
case is just happy that there is a guilty verdict.
Obviously it will be appealed, but at least, right at
the moment, there is some measure of justice for Abby
and Libby, and I'm so glad for their families. I
don't feel like I can say that's got to be
a relief, because I guess it can't really be. But
I'm glad that.
Speaker 2: At least they have that These are sad outcomes no
matter what. I'm sure we haven't seen the last ever Allen.
I'm sure they'll be an appeal. A lot of other
bizarre theories were put forward, and there were some really
unsavory characters from that area whose names came up. I
think they've got the right guy, and for the moment,
Richard Allen has been found guilty and we'll be sentenced
December of this year.
Speaker 3: We're going to turn back to a case from twenty
twenty one because a very interesting update occurred in that
case just a few short days ago. And I want
to give a lot of props to metroweekly dot com
for some of the really excellent reporting that I was
reading as I was trying to put together a cohesive
story here for this portion of true crime news roundup.
You all may remember that in twenty twenty one, actor
Jesse Smollette of Empire fame was convicted on charges of
disorderly con for lying to police about being the victim
of an anti gay hate crime. Because there's a lot
to this story and it did take place a while ago,
let me give you a quick rundown of how all
that played out so that you can understand all the
recent developments in the case. In twenty nineteen, Jesse Smollett
stated that he was the victim of a hate crime
while in Chicago. He went to police and stated that
he was injured by two men who were shouting racist
and homophobic slurs. He further stated that after he was
beaten by these men, he was covered in he called
it an unknown chemical substance, and a rope was then
slung around his neck before his attackers later fled the scene.
He reports this to Chicago p D. Several days later.
Chicago PD determined that Jesse Smollett had not been the
victim of a hate crime. Rather, he had hired two
brothers to orchestrate that attack. Bill, I know you were
doing a little bit of reading ahead of time. Did
we ever come up with a motive for why he
would report a fake hate crime?
Speaker 2: Not that this really makes sense. And of course, as
we've talked about it a lot of times, we're trying
to apply logic to inherently illogical acts. It appeared that
Jesse Smalllett was unhappy with the amount of money he
was receiving as an actor on the show Empire, and
this was an attempt to elevate his profile. And it
doesn't really make all that much sense. But the whole
thing is so crazy. It isn't like you can say, oh, okay,
that makes sense.
Speaker 3: He did get a national name for himself, just probably
not in the way that I think he wanted.
Speaker 2: And it is one of these cases where first your
shock and then when the real facts come out, You're like,
what was this guy thinking?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, the Cook County State's Attorney's office indicted Smallett
on sixteen charges related to making that false police report.
Then a month later, the office of the State's Attorney
dropped those charges against him in exchange for a deal.
They said, we will drop the charges if you forfeit
your ten thousand dollars bond and you perform fifteen hours
of community service. Do both those things, and you will
serve no jail time. And of course he took the deal.
The problem became that the deal didn't sit well with
a lot of people locally and then nationally, there was
a lot of outrage. Another case that became political and
became something that was mentioned by a lot of politicians
as well as the folks on TikTok and so as
a result of all of the outrage, would a retired
judge from Illinois subsequently petitioned the court to assign a
special prosecutor to get to the whole truth of what happened,
and Dan Webb, a former US attorney, sought to prosecute
Jesse Smullett a second time. Charges were filed. Charges are
dropped after a deal. The deal didn't go down well,
so a second indictment was secured. The case went to trial.
The jury found Jesse Smullett guilty on five counts of
disorderly conduct. His sentence was five months in jail, but
he only served six days before he was released on appeal.
Smollett was reprimanded by the judge during his sentencing, who
told him his actions harmed real victims of hate crimes,
which yes absolutely. He was also ordered to pay back
the one hundred and twenty thousand dollars the Chicago p
D spent on their investigation into the incident.
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons why there was so
much outrage and why there ended up being this second
indictment in trial is because Chicago's taken a lot of
bad raps in the last couple of years. They've really
strugg with street level violence and an escalation of murder.
While they're trying to deal with all of that, Smollett
comes along and makes this baseless charge about being attacked
in a hate crime, and I feel like this was
yet another smack in the face for Chicago, and a
lot of people in Chicago and across the country were
really outraged by the original sweetheart deal that he had gotten,
and so I do understand why they took another go
round with charging him with making these false claims.
Speaker 3: This brings us to several days ago, when the Illinois
Supreme Court overturned Jesse Smollett's conviction, agreeing with his legal
team that he had been unjustly prosecuted after having already
reached a plea deal. Quote. They argued that prosecuting him
again for the same crime after he had agreed to
a non prosecut cuti agreement with the Cook County State
Attorney's office constituted double jeopardy, violating his right to do process.
Speaker 2: I get it, I do understand it. You can understand
how and why people were so upset when Cook County
originally gave him such a sweetheart deal the first time around.
Speaker 3: So Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Rochford wrote in her opinion, quote,
today we resolve a question about the state's responsibility to
honor the agreements it makes with defendants. We are aware
that this case has generated significant public interest and that
many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original
case and believed it to be unjust. Nevertheless, what would
be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal
case would be a holding from this court that the
state was not bound to honor agreements upon which people
have detrimentally relied.
Speaker 2: The judge makes a lot of sense. I do get it,
But I also do understand why people were so outraged.
This whole thing was a gross, made up story that
kind of diminished real people who've really been attacked in
hate crimes. And for this fool to claim that he
was attacked in a racist, homophobic attack, and then it
turns out the whole thing fell apart, and quite quickly,
by the way, the police got to the bottom of
this within days. It's a shame that they couldn't come
up with a more appropriate plea deal, and not something
that was such a sweetheart deal that allowed this guy
to walk away essentially unscathed. I do understand the judge's
point about double jeopardy. All of this just makes me
think very little of this particular individual and his attempt
to acquire more fame, more leverage, more riches. I don't know.
I was searching for Jesse Smolette motive, and that's all
we can come up with is he wasn't happy with
his status on the TV series Empire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is very confounding case, and again I understand
why the Illinois Supreme Court overturned it. But it's also
one of those things where, yes, you have to abide
by the letter of the law, is that necessarily the
right thing to be doing? And that, I think is
where you have those sorts of discussions. Was what actually
happened fair? No, he got a deal that most people
would not get. Did he get that deal because of
the fact that he was a Hollywood actor? Maybe? Probably?
And so then I guess what does that say about
the justice that we give to people with more money
versus the justice that we give to people who do
not have enough? And I think that's a whole other
can of worms we open up when we talk about
things related to this case.
Speaker 2: And then finally, one quick update on a case we've
been following now for several years, and that's the Idaho
for murders. It was recently announced that Brian Coberger, who
is the suspect in this case, he's accused of murdering
for University of Idaho students. That's not two years ago.
The courts have decided that he may indeed face the
death penalty. There's a lot of question now about where
this trial may go. First of all, it's been moved
to Boise, Idaho, being that he might not be able
to get a fair trial if the jury was selected
from individuals from close to the University of Idaho. With
this case having gotten so much publicity, Idaho has an
open issue, which is, if someone like Coburger were found
guilty and sentenced to death, there's a question as to
how that death sentence would actually be carried out. They
have attempted to put some prisoners to death by injection,
but they've had real difficulty actually successfully killing people by
lethal injection, and they've actually brought back the firing squad
as an option, which sounds like pretty archaic. Although from
us what I've read about what goes on in death
penalty cases, they can be pretty horrific. Too. Many medical
professionals refuse to participate in these executions, so they have
untrained people attempting to kill prisoners who've been found guilty
using pretty sloppy techniques. Some of this borders on just
horrific experiences in the death chamber when they are not
able to put these people to death. And these people
are in agony, which was never the point of the
death penalty. You're supposed to be executed swiftly and humanely,
so it'll be very interesting to see where this goes.
Apparently Coburger's defense team has not come up with an
acceptable alternative, that is, an actual method of carrying out
the death penalty, and we're obviously quite a ways away
from a final resolution here. His trial's supposed to begin
in August twenty twenty five, and they're hoping to have
the trial wrapped up by the end of the year,
so that would be about a year from now.
Speaker 3: Again, not swift or speedy in terms of terms of
seeing justice done here either, No, without question, that is
going to do it. For this episode of True Crime
News Roundup, we are recording this on November twenty fifth,
So we would like to wish each and every one
of you a very happy Thanksgiving. For our US listeners
and for everyone else overseas, we hope you have a
wonderful Thursday, with or without a very large meal and
shopping afterward. Thank you to everyone for listening. Please make
sure that you like and subscribe, interact with us on Facebook, Instagram.
We're probably going to have to join this whole Blue
Sky thing, which I think is taking the place of X.
Speaker 2: I'm there now, Oh, there you have.
Speaker 3: Bill Thomas is on Blue Sky. I haven't joined it yet.
I don't need more social media in my life. We'll
try to figure it out somehow. We do encourage you
as we head into the holiday shopping season. If you
are looking for mind Over Murder merchandise, please do check
out our stuff on Tea Public. We will start posting
links to that and we will post the True Crime
Holiday Gift Guide coming soon on the mind Over Murder
Facebook and social media pages.
Speaker 2: I'll have a wonderful and happy holiday season. I guess
it's upon us.
Speaker 3: It is upon us rapidly. That is going to do it.
For this episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so
much for listening. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
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Speaker 3: Cont