Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the Mills family murders. Robin, do
Speaker 1: you want to catch everyone up and what we talked
Speaker 1: about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a very unique mystery because it actually
Speaker 2: has a tie into Jim Jones and the in his
Speaker 2: cult and the infamous Jonestown massacre. The victims in question
Speaker 2: are fifty one year old Al Mills, his forty year
Speaker 2: old wife, Jeanie, and his sixteen year old stepdaughter Dapien,
Speaker 2: who was Janie's child from a previous marriage. They had
Speaker 2: been prom members of the Jonestown cult for many years,
Speaker 2: but decided to break free and became outspoken advocates against them,
Speaker 2: and after the Jonestown massacre occurred. During Jim Jones's death tape,
Speaker 2: he pretty much threatened Genie, saying that she was partially
Speaker 2: responsible for what happened, and he said that surviving members
Speaker 2: of the People's Temple were going to get revenge on them.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty, Al, Genie, Daephene, and Janie's seventeen year
Speaker 2: old son Eddie from a previous marriage. We're all living
Speaker 2: together in Berkeley, California, but someone came into their home
Speaker 2: one evening and murdered al Jeanie and Daphene in the
Speaker 2: main bedroom, and turned out that Eddie was inside his
Speaker 2: own bedroom the entire time, but he always maintained that
Speaker 2: he did not see or hear anything unusual. Of course,
Speaker 2: this made investigator suspicious and they started looking at Eddie
Speaker 2: as the prime suspect. And he did have a small
Speaker 2: trace amount of gunshot residue on his hands, but it
Speaker 2: was really not big enough to conclusively say with any
Speaker 2: certainty that he fired a gun, and the actual murder
Speaker 2: weapon was never found. Eddie eventually moved to Japan, started
Speaker 2: his own family, and moved on with his life, but
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, he returned to the United
Speaker 2: States in order to visit his family, and the authorities
Speaker 2: decided to take him into custody, but they could only
Speaker 2: hold him for forty eight hours and ultimately decided that
Speaker 2: the evidence was not strong enough to file charges and
Speaker 2: proceed and take him to trial, so he was ultimately
Speaker 2: let go and the investigation has remained at a standstill
Speaker 2: ever since. So to this day, opinions are still sharply
Speaker 2: divided about whether or not Eddie was the perpetrator. Or
Speaker 2: if the Mills family was murdered by surviving members of
Speaker 2: the People's Temple, but it's also possible that they were
Speaker 2: murdered by someone else and we just don't know who
Speaker 2: it was, so the crime remained shrouded in mystery, so
Speaker 2: we won't delve too much into this, but it's quite
Speaker 2: fascinating to read accounts from former People's Temple members who
Speaker 2: managed to defect from the cult and were successfully deprogrammed
Speaker 2: once they met the Millses and stayed at their Human
Speaker 2: Freedom Center. There's one particularly interesting account from a survivor
Speaker 2: named Niva Sly Hargrave, who had become drawn to Jim
Speaker 2: Jones after witnessing heel a blind woman in a wheelchair
Speaker 2: so that she was supposedly able to walk and see again.
Speaker 2: While when Hargrave went to the Human Freedom Center, Genie
Speaker 2: put her in touch with the woman who had been
Speaker 2: in the wheelchair. She was another People's Temple defector and
Speaker 2: revealed that the whole healing scene had been faked, which
Speaker 2: helped convince Hargrave that everything about Jones and his cult
Speaker 2: were alive. But while Genie undoubtedly helped number people and
Speaker 2: did a lot of good with her work. It must
Speaker 2: be reported that her methods did make her some enemies
Speaker 2: as well. In an article published in the March ninth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one edition of the San Francisco Examiner, Lowell Striker,
Speaker 2: a psychologist who had worked with the Mills at the
Speaker 2: Human Freedom Center, stated quote, when our relationship was good,
Speaker 2: it was very, very good, and when it was bad,
Speaker 2: it was horrid end quote. Indeed, Striker could see similarities
Speaker 2: between how Genie operated the HEU Human Freedom Center and
Speaker 2: how Jim Jones operated the People's Temple, and said quote,
Speaker 2: When Genie saw I can no longer be used to
Speaker 2: help her achieve her ambitions, which were fame, riches and
Speaker 2: personal recognition, she turned against me, which, unfortunately was a
Speaker 2: pattern she had with many people. She could meet a person,
Speaker 2: trust him, invite him to trust her, work with him
Speaker 2: to achieve a goal, then feel he didn't understand the goal,
Speaker 2: then turn an almost crusade against him. It was a
Speaker 2: very socially productive pattern when the target was Jim Jones,
Speaker 2: but when it was a personal friend like myself or others,
Speaker 2: it was another matter. She brought terrible habits with her
Speaker 2: from the Temple, Vindictiveness, paranoia, and secretiveness, backstabbing, basically call
Speaker 2: games end quote. It's also worth noting that during his
Speaker 2: time at the Human Freedom Center, Striker said that he
Speaker 2: often saw Eddie hanging out there watching his portable television,
Speaker 2: and this is how he described him. Quote he was
Speaker 2: totally withdrawn, but not sullen or angry, just quiet and polite.
Speaker 2: The kid I saw was not capable of killing his parents.
Speaker 2: End quote. Now I'm not sure if Striker's comments have
Speaker 2: any relevance to the actual murders, but they bring up
Speaker 2: an intriguing possibility, which we'll talk about momentarily.
Speaker 3: This is so interesting, and it's almost there's some empathy
Speaker 3: and compassion for Genie. She was in an abusive organization
Speaker 3: for years where there was spiritual abuse, where abuse was
Speaker 3: a way of survival, both taking it and giving abuse
Speaker 3: to your fellow members, including your own family members. So
Speaker 3: even though she was able to defect, those psychological effects
Speaker 3: have a lifetime influence on you. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I think there's got to be an overall look and
Speaker 3: understanding of where she came from, what she was trying
Speaker 3: to do, and they could have been a mix. There
Speaker 3: could have been a desire for fame and selfishness and
Speaker 3: kind of these different desires, but there also had to
Speaker 3: have been people she really did help, because she knew
Speaker 3: what it was like to leave, to leave a religious
Speaker 3: organization that had hurt you, and to kind of nowgate
Speaker 3: trying to rebuild a life. So I guarantee you there
Speaker 3: was a good with the bad, given what she escaped.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, it's very interesting there, And I
Speaker 3: found it ironic when he says I looked at this kid,
Speaker 3: and it's not someone who could have killed his parents
Speaker 3: or capable of killing his parents. I don't think people
Speaker 3: like to think about it, but I think almost everybody
Speaker 3: is capable of doing absolutely horrific things based on triggers,
Speaker 3: whatever devices you have or devices you have in your life.
Speaker 3: I think we're all capable of both incredibly good things
Speaker 3: and incredibly bad things. And I always kind of have
Speaker 3: to chuckle when people are like, oh, never, this person
Speaker 3: could never do that. I went, yeah, I think we
Speaker 3: all could. What we do we have a motivation to,
Speaker 3: is there something like is it something that we could
Speaker 3: do and not literally not want to live anymore? Those
Speaker 3: kinds of things. Maybe not, but I think most humans
Speaker 3: are capable of extreme good and bad.
Speaker 1: I think you nailed it, But I also think that
Speaker 1: it makes people incredibly uncomfortable to think that their child could,
Speaker 1: given the right circumstances, murder them. So it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to be like, this kid could never do it,
Speaker 1: because then they don't have to confront the idea that
Speaker 1: it's possible that anybody is capable given the right circumstances.
Speaker 2: And like you said, Triggers and Lowell Striker's comments, I
Speaker 2: think he was trying to plant the seeds that because
Speaker 2: Genie did a lot of good but also did a
Speaker 2: lot of bad, that she could have potentially made other
Speaker 2: enemies who had a motive to kill her, even if
Speaker 2: they were not affiliated with the People's Temple. But even
Speaker 2: though he described her as someone who looked like that,
Speaker 2: she was pursuing fame and fortune, and over the year
Speaker 2: she went on tour and wrote a book and did
Speaker 2: a lot of interviews. But we mentioned in our last
Speaker 2: episode that in the months prior to the murders, she
Speaker 2: pretty much said that we're going to stop doing this
Speaker 2: because we want to live a normal life for the
Speaker 2: first time in quite a long time. We just want
Speaker 2: to be a family and stay out of the spotlight,
Speaker 2: So it does seem like Genie, even if she did
Speaker 2: kind of have these tendencies where you wanted fame and fortune,
Speaker 2: was about to put them behind her and just start
Speaker 2: living a life of normalcy. But who knows if before
Speaker 2: that she had made any enemies who may have had
Speaker 2: a motive to kill her and the rest of her family.
Speaker 1: The one thing which seems clear about this crime is
Speaker 1: that it was a personal one, as nothing was stolen
Speaker 1: from the house, so whoever did it, their only goal
Speaker 1: was to murder one or more members of the family.
Speaker 1: The most common theory which was floated around during that
Speaker 1: time period was that the Millses were the victims of
Speaker 1: a hit squad consisting of surviving members of the People's Temple.
Speaker 1: Investigators never found any evidence that these hit squads actually existed,
Speaker 1: and if they did, well, then this probably would have
Speaker 1: been their only crime. If you search online, you'll find
Speaker 1: a list of suspicious deaths where conspiracy theorists believe that
Speaker 1: they are possibly linked to the People's Temple, and the
Speaker 1: Mills family murders are often included on them. But the
Speaker 1: important thing to note is that all of the other
Speaker 1: deaths took place before the Jonestown massacre. There don't seem
Speaker 1: to be any other suspicious deaths which took place after
Speaker 1: Jonestown which have a tangible link to the People's Temple,
Speaker 1: so this doesn't sound like a particularly efficient hit squad.
Speaker 1: The way they were portrayed, these People's Temple assassins were
Speaker 1: supposedly on a suicide mission, as they would have no
Speaker 1: other purpose in life besides killing as many of their
Speaker 1: enemies as possible before they were stopped. Yet, the only
Speaker 1: people on the Temple so called hit list who wound
Speaker 1: up dead were the Millses, and they weren't killed until
Speaker 1: a full fifteen months after the Jonestown massacre. I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to say that the People's Temple hit squad
Speaker 1: was nothing more than a myth, though of course, that
Speaker 1: doesn't rule out the possibility of the crime being committed
Speaker 1: by someone who had a connection to the cult. That's
Speaker 1: why we brought up the interview with Lowell Striker because
Speaker 1: it opens up an interesting alternative theory. What if the
Speaker 1: perpetrator was someone who Genie had worked with in the
Speaker 1: past but at a major fall out with As a
Speaker 1: hypothetical example, let's say this person was a former People's
Speaker 1: Temple member who joined the Human Freedom Center, but then
Speaker 1: their relationship with Genie turned bad and they felt alienated
Speaker 1: by her. In response, they could have decided to invade
Speaker 1: the Mill's residence and commit these murders. Of course, that's
Speaker 1: all pure speculation, but as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: the investigations never turned up any promising suspects besides Bettie.
Speaker 1: But the point is that by nineteen eighty both Genie
Speaker 1: and her husband had become recognizable figures after sharing their
Speaker 1: experiences with the People's Temple. So there's no shortage of
Speaker 1: people who might have had the motive to kill them,
Speaker 1: and they didn't necessarily have to be an assassin from
Speaker 1: a hit squad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not at all.
Speaker 3: And when you actually started to describe that, it makes
Speaker 3: sense that someone who let's say, had escaped the People's
Speaker 3: Temple and this abused this trauma. Maybe many people of
Speaker 3: their family were murdered down in Guyana. So let's assume
Speaker 3: they've already suffered significant trauma and loss under the of
Speaker 3: Jim Jones and the fellow members. And then they get
Speaker 3: out and they go and turn to Genie for refuge,
Speaker 3: and in their mind, she's exploiting people, she's looking for fame,
Speaker 3: she's also abusive, and could they see her as an
Speaker 3: extension of Jim Jones and have a trauma response to
Speaker 3: that and say she's got to be stopped before she
Speaker 3: continues to traumatize more people. I don't think that's the case,
Speaker 3: but it's another thing to think about instead of just oh,
Speaker 3: we want to execute all of our enemies, what if
Speaker 3: they viewed her as someone continuing almost the abuses that
Speaker 3: they were taught with in the cold.
Speaker 2: And if this is what happened, it could provide a
Speaker 2: potential explanation for why Eddie was spared if he is
Speaker 2: completely innocent, where all they cared about was Genie. They
Speaker 2: didn't so much care about Al or the two children.
Speaker 2: So if they came into her bedroom and Al and
Speaker 2: Da Fiene just happened to be there, they could have
Speaker 2: been killed because they were witnesses. But because Genie was
Speaker 2: the primary target, this person didn't bother checking the other rooms,
Speaker 2: and that could explain why Eddie survived on scathe. So
Speaker 2: one alternate theory which has been presented is that the
Speaker 2: original target was actually Timothy Stowen, as Joan also mentioned
Speaker 2: his name on his infamous death tape when he implied
Speaker 2: that his surviving followers were going to seek revenge. Long
Speaker 2: story short. Even though Stone had been Jones's right hand man,
Speaker 2: the relationship fell apart when Stone's infant son, John was
Speaker 2: born and Stowin signed AFFI David, which stated that Jones
Speaker 2: was the child's biological father. This began a lengthy custody
Speaker 2: battle between Stowe and Jones, which lasted several years, and tragically,
Speaker 2: John wound up being poisoned during the Jonestown massacre. At
Speaker 2: the age of six. Stone became such an outspoken opponent
Speaker 2: against the People's Temple that he worked together with the
Speaker 2: Millses to form the organization Concerned Relatives of People's Temple members.
Speaker 2: Jones reportedly felt so betrayed by Stowe's defection that he
Speaker 2: ordered his followers to write out detailed fantasies about murdering
Speaker 2: him anyway. Stowe had lived with the Millses at their
Speaker 2: cottage in Burger for a time, which is why it's
Speaker 2: been theorized that perhaps Stowin was the intended target and
Speaker 2: the perpetrator mistakenly believed he was still living there. However,
Speaker 2: I think this theory is completely undermined by the fact
Speaker 2: that Eddie was left unharmed. If the killer entered the
Speaker 2: residence with the express purpose of murdering Stowin, you think
Speaker 2: they would have checked every room to look for him.
Speaker 2: And if Eddie is telling the truth about being inside
Speaker 2: his bedroom the entire time, then it makes zero sense
Speaker 2: that the intruder would murder his family across the hall
Speaker 2: but not bother to enter Eddie's bedroom to see if
Speaker 2: Stowe was there. No, it seems pretty cut and dried
Speaker 2: that Al Genie or perhaps even day Feen were the
Speaker 2: intended targets, because after they were killed in the main bedroom,
Speaker 2: the shooter didn't seem concerned about anything else. Another big
Speaker 2: unanswered question is whether day Fiene just happened to be
Speaker 2: in her parents' bedroom when she was shot, or did
Speaker 2: she hear the shots and come running in there, or
Speaker 2: did the perpetrator find Dayfeen in her own room and
Speaker 2: bring her into the main bedroom before shooting all three
Speaker 2: of the victims. Again. If that's what happened, it's very
Speaker 2: odd that they wouldn't have even bothered to check Eddie's room. However,
Speaker 2: Al Jeanie or both of them were the intended targets.
Speaker 2: An intruder may not have cared about killing their children,
Speaker 2: but since Dayfien just happened to be in the bedroom
Speaker 2: at that time, they had to shoot her too because
Speaker 2: she was a witness.
Speaker 3: Do you think there was a robbery component to this.
Speaker 3: It's pretty brazen. It's in the mid evening. This isn't
Speaker 3: a time you would think that everyone's going to be
Speaker 3: asleep that you could go in there and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe get out without anyone noticing. I'm pretty sure they
Speaker 3: knew people were there, and it sounds like I don't
Speaker 3: often have like my kids and stuff in my bedroom,
Speaker 3: so especially like teenage kids. So I'm wondering if they intruded.
Speaker 3: They came in, they're like, you know, give me the safe,
Speaker 3: give me this whatever they're looking for, and they push
Speaker 3: everyone into the master bedroom because typically jewelry, money, things
Speaker 3: like that would be stored in the parents' bedroom. And
Speaker 3: then when there's a confrontation or something, and that's when
Speaker 3: they execute the three of them, and then holy cow,
Speaker 3: this robbery went bad. We need to get out of here.
Speaker 3: And so Eddie's just happens to be sound asleep through
Speaker 3: the whole thing and doesn't get awoken, nor do they
Speaker 3: look through rooms, because maybe the intended idea was there's
Speaker 3: something in that home they wanted and it ended up
Speaker 3: in a triple murder instead, and they rushed out.
Speaker 2: That is true. It was reported that nothing appeared to
Speaker 2: be stolen and there was no ransacking, but I guess
Speaker 2: it could be a possibility that that was their intention
Speaker 2: when they went in there, and once they killed someone,
Speaker 2: they panicked and ran out of there without stealing anything.
Speaker 2: We mentioned in our last episode that the Millses were
Speaker 2: known for keeping the front door unlocked so that their
Speaker 2: children's friends could come and go as they pleased, so
Speaker 2: they easily could have entered the home without causing any damage.
Speaker 2: And then when maybe, like you said, they asked for
Speaker 2: a safe to be opened, or they were looking for
Speaker 2: some valuables that weren't located there. It could be a
Speaker 2: case where whatever they wanted was in a safe deposit
Speaker 2: box at the bank, and when the Mills didn't hand
Speaker 2: over what they wanted, and that's what things escalated into violence,
Speaker 2: And this is why the perpetrator fled the scene without
Speaker 2: stealing anything.
Speaker 1: One of the most ironic things about this case is
Speaker 1: that if you looked into the backgrounds of both Eddie
Speaker 1: and Dayphen, most people who knew the family would have
Speaker 1: said that Dayphene was a much more likely candidate to
Speaker 1: have committed the crime, as she apparently had a volatile
Speaker 1: relationship with her parents at times. Like Eddie, Dayphene often
Speaker 1: had problems in school and clearly had difficulties adjusting to
Speaker 1: a normal life after spending her childhood in the people's temple.
Speaker 1: Following the murders, one of Dayphine's friends claimed that she
Speaker 1: briefly had run away from home two months earlier and
Speaker 1: came over to her house crying, where she showed a
Speaker 1: red mark on her cheek and said that her stepfather
Speaker 1: slapped her. We mentioned in our last episode, the police
Speaker 1: recovered a recording of a phone conversation in which Daiphine
Speaker 1: told a friend that she would get the family's house
Speaker 1: after she killed her parents. Though I get the impression
Speaker 1: that it was nothing more than a silly, sarcastic comment
Speaker 1: from a Jada teenager. Even if it wasn't, the evidence
Speaker 1: clearly shows that this crime was not a murder suicide.
Speaker 1: I guess another possible theory is that Dayphene could have
Speaker 1: been the intended target. All along and her mother and
Speaker 1: stepfather were just collateral damage. I would really like to
Speaker 1: know more details about this ex boyfriend of Dayphien's who
Speaker 1: claimed that he saw three men running out of the
Speaker 1: mills residence on the night of the crime, before they
Speaker 1: fled the scene in a Pontiac Granam driven by a
Speaker 1: fourth man. This witness's name has never been released publicly,
Speaker 1: and he's not mentioned during most accounts of the case,
Speaker 1: as we only found out about him through some newspaper
Speaker 1: articles which were published in the months following the murders.
Speaker 1: I know police did not consider him to be a
Speaker 1: credible witness because he had a history of troubles with
Speaker 1: the law, and while he did pass a polygraph test,
Speaker 1: there's pretty much been no further mention of him after
Speaker 1: that unless investigators found compelling evidence to completely discount his story.
Speaker 1: It's odd that it isn't given more credence because this
Speaker 1: is the only eyewitness count which places outside intruders at
Speaker 1: the Mills's residence. Of course, if you want a really
Speaker 1: off the wall theory, perhaps this guy committed the murderers
Speaker 1: because he wanted revenge on date been for their breakup,
Speaker 1: and then fabricated the story about the men in the
Speaker 1: car in order to take the heat off himself. But
Speaker 1: that obviously is just wild speculation.
Speaker 3: I think that's a definite possibility, but I think it's
Speaker 3: a low one because, like you said, he you know, yes,
Speaker 3: he had a history with trouble with the law, but
Speaker 3: he sounds like another I mean, he's a young kid.
Speaker 3: I think he just seems like someone who's struggling through
Speaker 3: life and has this breakup. I don't see that as
Speaker 3: a motivation to go kill three people. And in fact,
Speaker 3: the fact that he passed a lie detector test, Yes
Speaker 3: they're not admissible in court, but they can reveal a
Speaker 3: lot of information to police. So while he is able
Speaker 3: to not only say I wasn't involved, but also this
Speaker 3: is what I saw, and that passes a lie detector test,
Speaker 3: it's definitely something that needed to be explored. They end
Speaker 3: up focusing and I believe only on the son Eddie,
Speaker 3: and you have somebody here. Yes, his background's questionable, but
Speaker 3: you went ahead and polygraphed him anyway, and the information
Speaker 3: he shared past that polygraph. So shouldn't that be an
Speaker 3: equally fair observation to say we're going to go down
Speaker 3: this road and look for who these three people could
Speaker 3: be in this type of car, and who the driver
Speaker 3: might have been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does seem like the whole situation reeks
Speaker 2: of tunnel vision, because regardless of whether or not Eddie
Speaker 2: was the killer, it seems like right from the outset,
Speaker 2: law enforcement settled on their theory that Eddie murdered his
Speaker 2: family and that was the only angle that they were
Speaker 2: going to look at. So when we have this eyewitness
Speaker 2: account which places other people in the Mills home, it
Speaker 2: seems like they're saying to themselves, well, this kid has
Speaker 2: troubles with the law. He's not a reliable witness, so
Speaker 2: we're just going to completely discount it, even though if
Speaker 2: he is telling the truth, then this leans towards someone
Speaker 2: else other than Eddie being the killers.
Speaker 1: And I think if you're going to apply the same
Speaker 1: logic that like a teenager is capable of murder and
Speaker 1: they could have those similar motivations, then they should have
Speaker 1: done their due diligence just to eliminate the boyfriend or
Speaker 1: dug in a little bit deeper. I agree with Ashley.
Speaker 1: I think the probabilities low that he's the one that
Speaker 1: committed the crimes, but I think that because we know
Speaker 1: nothing about his background, and because we know nothing about
Speaker 1: him except what he says that he saw and that
Speaker 1: he dated day Feene, I think there's a myriad of
Speaker 1: possibilities that we just aren't privy to the information.
Speaker 2: However, another piece of evidence which seems to support the
Speaker 2: intruder theory and has only gotten mentioned in a handful
Speaker 2: of newspaper articles, is the claim from Eddie's half sister Linda,
Speaker 2: that she received an anonymous phone call from someone informing
Speaker 2: her that al and Jeanie had been killed. At least
Speaker 2: one source stated that the call took place at around
Speaker 2: nine thirty pm, which is around the same time police
Speaker 2: were someone of the scene. So assuming that Linda is
Speaker 2: telling the truth, the caller had to have had some
Speaker 2: inside knowledge, and since Linda said the caller was a female,
Speaker 2: this rules out the possibility of it being Eddie. So
Speaker 2: who was this woman and how did she know about
Speaker 2: the murders. It's worth noting that when Eddie was arrested
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, Linda publicly expressed her belief
Speaker 2: that he was innocent, and if she really did receive
Speaker 2: that anonymous call, then you can understand why Linda would
Speaker 2: be inclined to feel this way, since it leans towards
Speaker 2: someone else being the killer.
Speaker 3: That's incredibly interesting. By nine thirty thirty minutes after the
Speaker 3: bodies are discovered, it's not going to be on the
Speaker 3: news and it's not going to be widespread information. Next
Speaker 3: to Ken probably hadn't been notified. And so the idea
Speaker 3: that she gets this phone call from a woman. I'm
Speaker 3: assuming they tried to trace the calls. This isn't like
Speaker 3: nineteen forty, you know, did they get any information there?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I don't have that. I mean, I've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of cases from the early nineteen eighties or seventies
Speaker 2: where there's a key piece of evidence is a phone call,
Speaker 2: but you never find out if they verify phone records
Speaker 2: to see where the call originated from. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if they didn't have the technology back then, or
Speaker 2: maybe because they were so focused on Eddie and thought
Speaker 2: he was the perpetrator, maybe they just completely ignored this
Speaker 2: lead altogether.
Speaker 1: I think we were about ten years ahead of easy
Speaker 1: phone tracing technology because I think it became I mean,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong with either of you guys, know,
Speaker 1: but I think in the nineties it became like a
Speaker 1: given that police had access to that technology, but in
Speaker 1: the eighties it feels like it would have been rather rudimentary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have heard of some cases from the eighties
Speaker 2: where they did use that technology, but I think it
Speaker 2: would depend on the location and the police department and
Speaker 2: if they had the technology to do that and the
Speaker 2: resources at that time. So I could go either way.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that Berkeley was a fairly large city,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't say with any certainty if they could
Speaker 2: trace phone calls back in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: So now we have to talk about Eddie himself, who
Speaker 1: quite frankly, seems to be a bit of an enigma.
Speaker 1: At the time of the murders, he dropped out of
Speaker 1: high school and was mostly spending his time helping his
Speaker 1: stepfather remodel old homes as student rentals. Of course, Eddie's
Speaker 1: childhood and the People's Temple would be difficult enough because
Speaker 1: of the abuse that he was forced to endure, but
Speaker 1: another thing which must have had a devastating psychological effect
Speaker 1: was the fact that he grew up alongside a number
Speaker 1: of other children in the temple who were friends of his,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them wound up losing their lives
Speaker 1: during the Jonestown massacre. That obviously played a role in
Speaker 1: making Eddie a quiet, with drawn teenager, But if he
Speaker 1: displayed any red flags which suggested that he was capable
Speaker 1: of murdering his family, it doesn't sound like anyone ever
Speaker 1: said anything. We also don't know much about Eddie's life
Speaker 1: after the crime took place, except that he got married,
Speaker 1: had two children, and eventually moved to Japan. So if
Speaker 1: Eddie is guilty, he seemed to have no issues moving
Speaker 1: on with his life after committing an act of familicide.
Speaker 1: The main evidence against Eddie is the traces of gunshot
Speaker 1: residue which were found on his right hand, but you
Speaker 1: have to remember that it was a pretty chroscopic amount.
Speaker 1: It certainly wasn't enough to charge him with the murders
Speaker 1: at the time, though if he wash or wiped his
Speaker 1: hands after firing a gun, that might explain why the
Speaker 1: amount wasn't bigger.
Speaker 2: There's been a.
Speaker 1: Lot of debate over the years about the reliability of
Speaker 1: gunshot residue was evidence, as the presence does not conclusively
Speaker 1: prove that someone fired a gun. In fact, there's even
Speaker 1: one documented wrongful conviction case in which an innocent man
Speaker 1: named Sebaine Burgess spent nearly twenty years in prison for
Speaker 1: the murder of his girlfriend based solely on the presence
Speaker 1: of gunshot residue on his hands. It turned out this
Speaker 1: GSR had actually transferred onto Burgess's hands while he was
Speaker 1: cradling his girlfriend's body, so his conviction was overturned after
Speaker 1: the evidence was proven to be scientifically unsound. While I've
Speaker 1: never seen any indication that Eddie touched his family's bodies
Speaker 1: after they were killed, that could provide one potentially innocent
Speaker 1: explanation for how GSR transferred to his hand. This type
Speaker 1: of transfer can also occur by touching surfaces which have
Speaker 1: been contaminated by GSR, or even something as simple as
Speaker 1: shaking hands with another person you fired a gun earlier
Speaker 1: that day. We're not saying that's necessarily what happened in
Speaker 1: this case, but if there's no corroborating evidence to implicate
Speaker 1: Eddie besides microscopic traces of GSR, then I can understand
Speaker 1: the reluctance to charge him with this crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean you have to think about it. I
Speaker 3: love the idea of a simple handshake with the police
Speaker 3: officer they're like, hey, son, wake up, you know, and
Speaker 3: he's crying. Let's say he's upset that he just found
Speaker 3: out his family dies, and an officer puts his arm
Speaker 3: around him and shakes his hand, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: hang in there, buddy, we're gonna be okay. That alone
Speaker 3: could account for that. Or if Eddie, let's say, walks
Speaker 3: by and you know, near where the event happened and
Speaker 3: brushes against the wall or the door or something like that,
Speaker 3: it could have easily transferred there. So oh man, it's
Speaker 3: just really it's this kind of dual thought.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: Eddie was the target of the police investigation, so obviously
Speaker 3: you're like, well, you know, there was a re they
Speaker 3: had suspicion. He's in the home he quote doesn't hear anything,
Speaker 3: but neither do the neighbors. He seems to sleep through
Speaker 3: their murders, and his poor grandmother finds the deceased family
Speaker 3: members and then him sleeping. So it seems odd. But
Speaker 3: then you step back and you also have a lot
Speaker 3: of grief for him, because if he is not the
Speaker 3: one who did this, and he is the one who
Speaker 3: four decades has been the one the police say, that's
Speaker 3: our only suspect that we have. In fact, they arrest
Speaker 3: him at some point when he lands back on American soil.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of empathy there of saying, my god,
Speaker 3: he really he's suffered enough, and there's got to be
Speaker 3: another another avenue you could at least pursue in tandem
Speaker 3: with Eddie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as we're going to talk about, this became the
Speaker 2: subject of a cold case investigation decades after the fact,
Speaker 2: which is what led to Eddie being arrested. And while
Speaker 2: it's unclear what new evidence they may have found against him,
Speaker 2: it really does seem like they have not wavered from
Speaker 2: their original belief that Eddie was the killer, even though
Speaker 2: there was pretty much much almost zero evidence against him
Speaker 2: other than the small traces of GSR. But theoretically, let's
Speaker 2: say that Eddie did this, he would then have to
Speaker 2: leave the house and dispose of the murder weapon before returning,
Speaker 2: and he obviously did a pretty thorough job. Since the
Speaker 2: police searched about a dozen different properties and never found anything,
Speaker 2: that's certainly not impossible. But again, we're talking about a
Speaker 2: seventeen year old kid, not a criminal mastermind. It's also
Speaker 2: unclear if they checked Eddie's clothes for gunshot residue. By
Speaker 2: his own admission, Eddie took a long shower that night,
Speaker 2: which would have given him an opportunity to clean up
Speaker 2: potential evidence. And if it turned out that he also
Speaker 2: threw his clothing into the washing machine shortly before the
Speaker 2: bodies were discovered, then yes, that would look very suspicious.
Speaker 2: But again, I don't see any indication that his clothing
Speaker 2: was tested. I've seen a map of the layout of
Speaker 2: the Mills residence and it looks like they had two bathrooms.
Speaker 2: The one more Genie's body was found was adjacent to
Speaker 2: the main bedroom, but the second bathroom was in the
Speaker 2: hallway next to Eddie's room. E's have been specifically stated
Speaker 2: at what point during the evening Eddie claimed he took
Speaker 2: a shower. If the murders took place while he was
Speaker 2: inside the shower, then I actually believe he might not
Speaker 2: have heard the shots, and if he then went straight
Speaker 2: to his room without looking through the doorway of his
Speaker 2: parents' bedroom, he might not have noticed his family was
Speaker 2: lying dead inside. However, the intruder would have had to
Speaker 2: pass the bathroom in order to reach the bedroom, so
Speaker 2: what they have not heard the sound of the shower
Speaker 2: and checked inside there.
Speaker 3: Well, also you got to think if it was like
Speaker 3: we talked about earlier, where someone came in, let's say
Speaker 3: as an intruder, or they were looking for money and
Speaker 3: they didn't get what they wanted. Let's say Dad became confrontational.
Speaker 3: Let's say Mom tried to you know, push them or
Speaker 3: take the gun out of their hand or something like that,
Speaker 3: and they end up shooting them. And there's a panic.
Speaker 3: Even if they knew there's somebody in the shower, there's
Speaker 3: clear evidence that that person that has no way of
Speaker 3: knowing they were in there or identifying who they are.
Speaker 3: So they're just like, you know, forget it, and they
Speaker 3: run out the front door, out the door, and so
Speaker 3: I could see them being aware that he's in there,
Speaker 3: and because the water is still running, there's no risks
Speaker 3: to them. And they said, oh my god, we didn't
Speaker 3: come here to kill someone. We just killed three people.
Speaker 3: And off they go.
Speaker 1: And what if they're interrupted, if like they think that
Speaker 1: somebody could have heard them, seen them, and they planned
Speaker 1: on being there longer, and they might have planned on
Speaker 1: ending Eddie's life, but because he was in the shower,
Speaker 1: they had to hurry and end the lives of the
Speaker 1: people who were there and had seen their faces, and
Speaker 1: then they rushed out without him, And like, they would
Speaker 1: have had to have happened really fast if that was
Speaker 1: the case, because what is the typical time that a
Speaker 1: teenage boy takes in the shower, like what like eight minutes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it could be a thing where they hear
Speaker 2: the shower running. But they figure, well, if he's in there,
Speaker 2: then obviously he can't identify us. He's not a witness,
Speaker 2: and they figure it might be an even bigger risk
Speaker 2: if we go into the bathroom and kill him. So
Speaker 2: if they left the house in a panic, then they
Speaker 2: probably could have figured, well, we're not going to worry
Speaker 2: about the person in the bathroom because we're still going
Speaker 2: to get away with it.
Speaker 1: This same logic applies if Eddie was inside his bedroom
Speaker 1: watching television while the murders took place. Theoretically, the volume
Speaker 1: could have been loud enough to drown out the gunshots.
Speaker 1: But wouldn't the intruder have been able to hear the
Speaker 1: television from outside and entered the bedroom to check. We
Speaker 1: read an article about this case published in a nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two issue of Psychology Today magazine which stated that
Speaker 1: Eddie had also been listening to a stereo in his
Speaker 1: bedroom with headphones on. If true, this would explain how
Speaker 1: Eddie could have conceivably not heard the gunshots without making
Speaker 1: any noise to attract attention. But we've not seen that
Speaker 1: detail about the headphones mentioned in any other source, including
Speaker 1: the dozens of newspaper articles written about these murders, so
Speaker 1: I can confirm if that particular detail is true. In
Speaker 1: Eddie's defense, none of the other neighbors or residents in
Speaker 1: the area reported hearing gunshots that night either. The murder
Speaker 1: weapon was a twenty two caliber pistol, which does make
Speaker 1: some noise, but there are some YouTube videos out there
Speaker 1: about people putting a suppressor on a twenty two before
Speaker 1: firing it, and the sound really wasn't all that loud
Speaker 1: at all. So if an intruder used some sort of
Speaker 1: silencer when they fired these shots, then it isn't quite
Speaker 1: as hard to believe that Eddie might not have heard it. Well.
Speaker 1: There were no signs of forced entry. The Mills's neighbors
Speaker 1: confirmed that it wasn't uncommon for them to leave the
Speaker 1: front door unlocked, so it's not completely implausible that an
Speaker 1: intruder could have just walked into the house and committed
Speaker 1: these murders without Eddie noticing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's really possible. I mean, I'm in
Speaker 3: the if I'm in the zone and I'm singing in
Speaker 3: the shower and things like that, I don't hear the
Speaker 3: baby cry, I don't hear things. My bedroom door shut,
Speaker 3: there's the you know, I'm in the shower, the water's running.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you're making noise yourself or you know, so I
Speaker 3: could absolutely.
Speaker 2: See him not hearing.
Speaker 3: And then again, I I'm going back to could the
Speaker 3: daughter have been the target? If there's these three men,
Speaker 3: is it possible that she just shared information with the
Speaker 3: wrong people? You know that she know she was in
Speaker 3: a vulnerable position with a group of people that she
Speaker 3: thought might have cared about her. Was expressing things, could
Speaker 3: have disclosed my parents have this at the house, or
Speaker 3: you know, my parents are loaded. Could there have been
Speaker 3: something where she accidentally shared confidential information or something that
Speaker 3: made her family vulnerable and they came in and again
Speaker 3: attacked for some reason, maybe not even being the main
Speaker 3: goal to hurt somebody, but maybe she recognized them, and
Speaker 3: you know, then they freaked down and they thought that
Speaker 3: they had to kill them. I but I do believe
Speaker 3: Eddie could have not heard the sounds for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is possible that all these murders
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with the People's Temple, nothing to
Speaker 2: do with Jonestown or Al or Genie. And like you said,
Speaker 2: maybe Da Fien was the intended target, or she shared
Speaker 2: information about her parents storing valuables in the house. And
Speaker 2: because law enforcement was so focused on the People's Temple
Speaker 2: angle and was so focused on Eddie, this particular angle
Speaker 2: just slipped right through their fingers. And that's why no
Speaker 2: one has popped up on the radar as a suspect
Speaker 2: of personal interest as long as the perpetrators have managed
Speaker 2: to keep quiet about it for the past forty five years.
Speaker 2: But if Eddie was the perpetrator, his plan was rather odd.
Speaker 2: After disposing of the murder weapon, he shuts himself inside
Speaker 2: his bedroom until his grandmother arrives and discovers the bodies.
Speaker 2: I know it's not uncommon for killers to deliberately arrange
Speaker 2: things so that independent eye witnesses discover their victims' bodies,
Speaker 2: But did Edy know beforehand that his grandmother was going
Speaker 2: to be visiting the cottage at that particular time of night.
Speaker 2: I mean, what if she had decided to show up
Speaker 2: while he was outside disposing of the murder weapon. Again,
Speaker 2: this is an inexperienced kid, not a criminal mastermind, but
Speaker 2: you'd think a guilty person would try to concoct a
Speaker 2: better cover story. Then I was directly across the hall
Speaker 2: of my bedroom while my family was shot, and I
Speaker 2: didn't hear anything. In terms of potential motive, Eddie did
Speaker 2: wind up inheriting over two hundred thousand dollars from his
Speaker 2: family's estate, though he did not actually receive any of
Speaker 2: that money until over three years later. Now, Alan Jeanie
Speaker 2: had arranged things so that their estate was divided equally,
Speaker 2: as all of their children were from previous marriages rather
Speaker 2: than with each other. This meant that when the assets
Speaker 2: were dispersed, Eddie wound up getting the largest portion since
Speaker 2: he was Genie's only surviving heir, whereas Al's three children
Speaker 2: had to divide up his portion of the estate, which
Speaker 2: is why they got smaller amounts. The point is that
Speaker 2: it's unclear if Eddie would have even been aware how
Speaker 2: much money he was entitled to receive following these murders.
Speaker 2: So I can't be certain if that would have been
Speaker 2: his primary motive. I guess an alternate possibility is that
Speaker 2: Eddie could have gotten someone else to kill his family
Speaker 2: and get rid of the murder weapon when they left. So,
Speaker 2: even if the eyewitness account of the three men leaving
Speaker 2: the house and Linda's story about the anonymous phone call
Speaker 2: are accurate, that just means that there were others involved
Speaker 2: in the crime and Eddie is still guilty. But then,
Speaker 2: why would anyone agree to murder Eddie's family on his
Speaker 2: behalf as a seventeen year old. It's not like he
Speaker 2: would have had mone much money to pay them. So
Speaker 2: as it stands, we do have a few reasons to
Speaker 2: be suspicious of Eddie, but not much actionable evidence which
Speaker 2: could be used to prosecute him in court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he'd have to be a pretty sophisticated individual and
Speaker 3: be someone who could hide a severe mental illness from
Speaker 3: his family. But remember, all of his family supports him
Speaker 3: after the deaths. In fact, he's living with relatives and
Speaker 3: an uncle I believe, right, or a brother.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's half brother, which was Al's son from a
Speaker 2: previous marriage.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, And all the family members are defending him
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. If there was even a
Speaker 3: hint that you had some kind of mental illness where
Speaker 3: you didn't care about other people, you had this ability
Speaker 3: to probably do something pretty dark and not care. I
Speaker 3: feel like the family would pick up on that when
Speaker 3: he resides with you, when he lives with you, when
Speaker 3: you watch his grief journey. He's a kid, So to
Speaker 3: be able to hide that and to have mastered how
Speaker 3: to be incredibly manipulative and dark seventeen to conceal murders
Speaker 3: and any kind of elaborate plans that would be wild
Speaker 3: to me. And how devious do you have to be
Speaker 3: to allow your poor grandmother to walk in the house
Speaker 3: and find her child deceased along with her grandbaby and
Speaker 3: in law, you know, daughter or son in law, daughter
Speaker 3: in law. That's that's sick that you would be like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm just gonna let her find their
Speaker 3: deceased bodies and not just deceased an executed, you know,
Speaker 3: three loved ones. So that adds depravity to the case.
Speaker 3: If you think that Eddie's the one who orchestrated it,
Speaker 3: he's going to harass another person in the family via
Speaker 3: a phone call he's going to get the grandmother to
Speaker 3: walk in and have this tragedy occur for her, and
Speaker 3: then he's going to be able to live out a
Speaker 3: life where he doesn't reflect any kind of behavior that
Speaker 3: indicates he's capable. It's quite advanced at starting at age seventeen.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that the family supports Eddie speaks
Speaker 1: really highly for him, especially when you factor in the
Speaker 1: situation where we know that when inheritances are involved, people
Speaker 1: can get really weird about money in the best of circumstances,
Speaker 1: But when there's a family that's deceased and you believe
Speaker 1: that your biological parent has been murdered by your half brother,
Speaker 1: then you're likely to tell law enforcement. And the reasons
Speaker 1: would be twofold, probably because you want justice, and the
Speaker 1: second might be because you're hoping to get a larger
Speaker 1: stake of that inheritance. But they not only stood by him,
Speaker 1: they had him living with them, So I think that
Speaker 1: says that they don't believe that he's capable of that.
Speaker 2: I definitely think it says a lot that they didn't
Speaker 2: turn on him after the inheritance was split up, because
Speaker 2: Al's children could have easily said, hey, it's not fair
Speaker 2: that he's getting a bigger piece of the pie. He's
Speaker 2: getting more money than us, and used as an excuse
Speaker 2: to point the figure at him and accuse him of murder.
Speaker 2: But by two thousand and five, when Eddie was being
Speaker 2: arrested and charged with the murders, they were still defending
Speaker 2: him after all these years, which I like you said,
Speaker 2: I think says a lot.
Speaker 1: Not sure the Berkeley Police Department would have reopened the
Speaker 1: case and decided to arrest Eddie twenty five years after
Speaker 1: the fact if the only evidence they had was a
Speaker 1: microscopic trace of gunshot residue on his hand. They must
Speaker 1: have dug up something else to implicate him. But whatever
Speaker 1: it was, it doesn't sound like it was strong enough
Speaker 1: for the District Attorney's office to charge him. After Eddie
Speaker 1: was released from custody, it was interesting to read an
Speaker 1: interview in the San Francisco Chronicle with Russ Lopes, the
Speaker 1: cold case investigator who built the case against Eddie. Lopes
Speaker 1: was brought out of retirement by the Berkeley PD to
Speaker 1: specifically investigate their older cold cases, and he also worked
Speaker 1: on the unsolved nineteen seventy murder of a Berkeley police
Speaker 1: officer named Ronald Sukamoto. Much like the Mills case, Lopes
Speaker 1: was certain he'd figured out who the guilty party was
Speaker 1: in the Sukamoto murder and submitted the case to the
Speaker 1: Alameda County District Attorney's office, but they did not feel
Speaker 1: the evidence was strong enough to file charges. So when
Speaker 1: the same thing happened with Eddie, Lopes got incredibly frustrated
Speaker 1: and stated, quote, even if you're not absolutely one hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure you'll win at the trial, you take it
Speaker 1: to trial and let the jury decide. Weaker cases have
Speaker 1: gone to trial end quote. Well, the problem is that
Speaker 1: trials cost time and money, and prosecutors don't like to
Speaker 1: bring cases to court if they don't believe they have
Speaker 1: a good chance of winning, especially since you can't try
Speaker 1: someone a second time if they're found not guilty. Eddie
Speaker 1: steps sister Linda believed that Lopes had major tunnel vision
Speaker 1: and refuse to consider looking at other suspects, stating quote,
Speaker 1: I think he's power trippling personally, I think he's taking
Speaker 1: advantage of his power end quote. Well, without knowing the
Speaker 1: full details of the case that Lope submitted to the DA,
Speaker 1: I have no idea if Linda's statements are accurate. But
Speaker 1: I'm willing to acknowledge that there may have been tunnel
Speaker 1: vision from the very beginning. And since Eddie was the
Speaker 1: only one who survived the massacre, police refuse to believe
Speaker 1: that anyone else was the killer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when you look at it, it's Eddie's
Speaker 3: the easy choice. Eddie's the one that you go, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, this is a kid. Remember it's the seventies
Speaker 3: and love and all this other peace and love and drugs.
Speaker 3: But law enforcement doesn't like these people that use drugs
Speaker 3: and things. Weed was a bigger deal back then than
Speaker 3: it is now. And so they come to this triple murder.
Speaker 3: They see a kid who says, hey, I was stoned.
Speaker 3: I was hanging out in my bedroom. Didn't hear anything.
Speaker 3: There's got to be a quick frustration and a quick
Speaker 3: sense of doubt to say, there's no way you slept
Speaker 3: through the execution of your family. And we know that
Speaker 3: there are many ways that could have happened. But for
Speaker 3: a law enforcement officer, I could see this quick jump
Speaker 3: to no reason you would have been spared, no reason
Speaker 3: you would have been able to sleep through this, And
Speaker 3: so that quick on the scene assumption then kind of
Speaker 3: derails any other focus on anyone else you have Linda,
Speaker 3: And Linda is the one who actually got the phone call.
Speaker 2: Am I correct? Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Linda gets this phone call from a woman
Speaker 3: thirty minutes after the family's been executed, before anyone would
Speaker 3: possibly know that this had occurred. So to her, there
Speaker 3: is such a deep, fiery conviction inside of her that
Speaker 3: Eddie didn't do this. Someone was able to take information
Speaker 3: from someone call me and know how to find me
Speaker 3: and tell me that my family had been killed. And
Speaker 3: then poor Eddie has to deal with the consequences in
Speaker 3: the guilt that he's the only survivor in that home.
Speaker 3: And so again I think I understand the jump to
Speaker 3: a conclusion a rush like how that naturally occurred. But
Speaker 3: when you step back that story that the ex boyfriend
Speaker 3: saw people leaving, that he named a type of car,
Speaker 3: that he passed a polygraph with the information he had provided,
Speaker 3: and that Eddie doesn't have anything else, but that's tiny
Speaker 3: traces of gunshot residue. You know, you can wash your
Speaker 3: hands and still have gunshot residue on there. And so
Speaker 3: the fact that it's possible he just simply shook hands
Speaker 3: with someone and had this minute trace. I just don't
Speaker 3: think it's Eddie. The more I listen to this, I
Speaker 3: don't think it's Eddie because again, the number of family
Speaker 3: members he had to so laxadaisically not mind that they
Speaker 3: were going to be traumatized for the rest of their life.
Speaker 3: His poor aunt gets his phone call to be told
Speaker 3: that her family was executed. The poor grandmother walks in
Speaker 3: and finds her three loved ones executed. He has to
Speaker 3: deal with the relationships with all the surviving people, and
Speaker 3: he stays deeply engaged in the family. If he killed them,
Speaker 3: take your money and leave and don't be integrated with them.
Speaker 3: But he stands beside his half siblings and he's working
Speaker 3: with them through his grief, living with them, growing with them.
Speaker 3: So I just don't see him staying that tightly entwined
Speaker 3: with them if he was the one who caused all
Speaker 3: of this in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, rest lopes is and really rubbed me the wrong way.
Speaker 2: This idea that, well, it's a weak case, but we
Speaker 2: still should have taken him to trial. But if you
Speaker 2: think about well that happened, like you would have people
Speaker 2: like Linda testifying about the phone call from the woman,
Speaker 2: and if they were able to track down Dayfied's ex boyfriend,
Speaker 2: they could have got him to testify about the men
Speaker 2: seen running away from the residents and climbing into a van.
Speaker 2: So that would have created a lot of reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2: And I have a feeling that Eddie would have been
Speaker 2: acquitted with the evidence that they had now. So the
Speaker 2: fact that Lope still thinks that they should have gone
Speaker 2: to trial and potentially jailed an innocent man is shows
Speaker 2: that he had serious tunnel vision. And it's a good
Speaker 2: thing that they elected not to file charges. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons it's so easy to place all the focus
Speaker 2: on Eddie is because the investigation has failed to uncover
Speaker 2: any compelling alternate suspects these past four decades. But what
Speaker 2: if Linda is right and the police have just refused
Speaker 2: to consider other suspects, causing them to let the real
Speaker 2: killer to slip through their fingers. You could be skeptical
Speaker 2: of Eddie's story all you want, but it's not impossible
Speaker 2: that an outside intruder could have entered the residence and
Speaker 2: murdered the rest of his family while he was in
Speaker 2: another room. I hate to say this, but I'm really
Speaker 2: not sure where I stand on this case. Every time
Speaker 2: I feel certain that Eddie must have been the perpetrator,
Speaker 2: I start wondering about how he managed to get rid
Speaker 2: of the murder weapon and pull this off without leaving
Speaker 2: any damning evidence behind. I do think that the rumors
Speaker 2: about People's Temple hit squads are bunk, but the crime
Speaker 2: does still have the ear marks of her professional hit.
Speaker 2: And since the Millses were high profile figures with no
Speaker 2: shortage of potential enemies, I can see someone else committing
Speaker 2: this crime. All I know is that the story of
Speaker 2: Jim Jones, the People's Temple, and the Jonestown massacre has
Speaker 2: become so iconic and larger than life that this tragic
Speaker 2: epilogue to the story is somewhat overlooked. Was Jonestown actually
Speaker 2: a factor in these murders or is it nothing more
Speaker 2: than a red herring. Whatever the case, if you happen
Speaker 2: to have any information on the unsolved murders of al
Speaker 2: Jeanie and Daphene Mills, please contact the Berkeley Police Department
Speaker 2: and at five one zero nine to eight one five
Speaker 2: nine zero zero. That's five one zero nine eight one
Speaker 2: five nine zero zero, Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 3: This one's an interesting one. When you add the intrigue
Speaker 3: of Jonestown and the People's Temple being part of the
Speaker 3: Mills' backstory, it's really this kind of a fanatical interesting
Speaker 3: case right where you say, Wow, this family was in
Speaker 3: one of the most tragic, horrific historical cults we've ever seen.
Speaker 3: They escaped it, and then as they're declaring that they're
Speaker 3: kind of done with this pursuit of being known as
Speaker 3: you know, defactors and survivors of the People's Temple, they say,
Speaker 3: we're done, we want to move on, we want a
Speaker 3: new life. They lose their life in a tragic execution
Speaker 3: of three of the four family members in that house. Again,
Speaker 3: my heart is it's torn because I understand why police
Speaker 3: would suspect Eddie, but I also don't see the sophistication
Speaker 3: and the ability to live a life that doesn't draw
Speaker 3: suspicion to him by people who know him best. So
Speaker 3: because of his family's support, and because of not just
Speaker 3: the support, but evidence that the aunt was called by
Speaker 3: a woman, that the ex boyfriend was came forward, and
Speaker 3: that I saw people actually leaving the house, here's where
Speaker 3: they were, here's what they were driving. Those kinds of
Speaker 3: things make it where there's no way you could do
Speaker 3: what the district attorney said and say, listen, we should
Speaker 3: have taken it to trial anyway. How that's how wrongful
Speaker 3: convictions occur, because beyond a reasonable doubt that can exist
Speaker 3: here you have light residual gun shot residue on his hands,
Speaker 3: and that the kids slept through this execution. He also
Speaker 3: could have been in the shower at the time. I'm
Speaker 3: leaning towards, for whatever reason, maybe known to the family
Speaker 3: or not, that these individuals came into the home, wanted something,
Speaker 3: and pushed the family into the master bedroom. Again, I
Speaker 3: don't typically see teenagers sitting with mom and dad on
Speaker 3: their bed in their bedroom. You know, maybe mom and
Speaker 3: daughter in the bedroom and dad on the couch. Maybe
Speaker 3: you know, dad and son in the bedroom looking at
Speaker 3: something and mom on the couch, But very rarely do Dad,
Speaker 3: me and the kids hang out in our bedroom. So
Speaker 3: I think they were forced into the bedroom looking for
Speaker 3: something of value. They didn't get what they want, or
Speaker 3: they were spooped or overwhelmed, and they shot the family
Speaker 3: and then they ran. They didn't have time to worry
Speaker 3: about Eddie. They didn't look for Eddie, they didn't hear Eddie,
Speaker 3: or they knew that he was preoccupied. So that's where
Speaker 3: I'm leaning, and at the end of the day, if
Speaker 3: that is true, the trauma and continual trauma that Eddie
Speaker 3: has gone through is horrific. He's already suffered abuse, he
Speaker 3: was part of the whole People's Temple as well with
Speaker 3: his family, and so he gets out of that, he
Speaker 3: loses his family, and then while he's growing his own family,
Speaker 3: it's arrested and is facing charges of executing his family.
Speaker 3: So it's a case that is very overwhelming emotionally when
Speaker 3: you think about what these individuals had already gone through.
Speaker 3: They'd lost their lives and then the trauma doesn't stop.
Speaker 3: So it would be fascinating to learn if there's information
Speaker 3: out there. It was quite a while ago, but you
Speaker 3: never know. It takes one phone call, it takes one
Speaker 3: piece of evidence coming out, and so I would be
Speaker 3: thrilled to see. Is there a connection of People's Temple.
Speaker 3: I leaned towards no, and honestly, it points away from
Speaker 3: Eddie because in this case, what kind of vindication would
Speaker 3: that be for him to say. For so many decades
Speaker 3: people have assumed it was me and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I'm eighty percent leaning towards the theory that you just
Speaker 1: put forward, that it isn't leaned to the people's temple.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Eddie. It was random intruders or people who
Speaker 1: may have known them, but they were looking for something
Speaker 1: of value. There's a reason that they were all in
Speaker 1: one bedroom. I think that it's a fluke that Eddie
Speaker 1: was able to survive through it, and then it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: with the GSR that it somehow got on his hand.
Speaker 1: I just don't see this profile. Yeah, he had difficulties,
Speaker 1: but would he be this killer of his family Because
Speaker 1: we saw him move on, have a move to Japan,
Speaker 1: get married, have a child. It doesn't seem like he
Speaker 1: would have been all that disturbed and his family stood
Speaker 1: by his side. And I really do think that that
Speaker 1: speaks highly of him, and I think it speaks highly
Speaker 1: of his family as well, that they were so loyal
Speaker 1: to him in the face of so much judgment. But
Speaker 1: also it could have been more of a financial windfall
Speaker 1: for them if they turned on him, if they truly
Speaker 1: believed that he was capable of that, and they just didn't.
Speaker 1: They thought the investigator had tunnel vision. And I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but it seems like that is a possibility.
Speaker 1: I mean, with the other case that he had and
Speaker 1: it didn't have the resolution that he hoped that it did.
Speaker 1: It seemed like he was throwing as much at the
Speaker 1: wall as he could and he was hoping something would stick.
Speaker 1: And I am compassionate for somebody putting in a lot
Speaker 1: of effort after they've retired and not getting the results
Speaker 1: that they want. But you can't try to throw everything
Speaker 1: at somebody who might be innocent without focusing on who
Speaker 1: else could have done it. I think it's just lazy
Speaker 1: and really easy to say Eddie's the guy because he's
Speaker 1: the one surviving family member, But the evidence is so
Speaker 1: weak that I just lean away from Eddie being responsible.
Speaker 2: I remember first learning about this case several years ago
Speaker 2: because I included it in an article I wrote for
Speaker 2: Lispers dot com, and after reading just the basic summary,
Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, Eddie had to have done this. It
Speaker 2: just seems so illogical that he would be left alone
Speaker 2: in his bedroom while his entire family was killed and
Speaker 2: claimed that he didn't see or hear anything. But once
Speaker 2: I started researching this, when I covered it on the
Speaker 2: trail went cold about five years ago, it seemed less
Speaker 2: likely that Eddie was the perpetrator because it means he
Speaker 2: would have to do this dastardly crime at age seventeen,
Speaker 2: get rid of the murder weapon, leave no evidence behind
Speaker 2: besides small traces of gunshot residue in his hand, and
Speaker 2: then go on to cool his surviving half siblings and
Speaker 2: live a normal life for the next several decades and
Speaker 2: move to Japan, start a family, have children of his own,
Speaker 2: and then just commit no other crimes or cause no
Speaker 2: other trouble. So as implausible as a story may sound,
Speaker 2: it does seem more likely that the Mills family were
Speaker 2: killed by intruders who overlooked Eddie. But I really don't
Speaker 2: know what the actual motive could have been. I really
Speaker 2: don't believe it was anything to do with the people's temple.
Speaker 2: I think the whole hit squad was a myth, and
Speaker 2: the fact that this took place fifteen months after the
Speaker 2: Jonestown massacre makes me think that there's no real connection.
Speaker 2: So I think they were killed for other reasons, but
Speaker 2: I just don't know what it was if it had
Speaker 2: something to do with Dave Fiene, or if maybe it
Speaker 2: was a robbery gone wrong, maybe the intruders were looking
Speaker 2: for something inside the house. But I do think that
Speaker 2: there is credible evidence plenty to outside intruders, like the
Speaker 2: phone call that Linda received, and also the eyewitness sighting
Speaker 2: of the three men exiting the house and climbing into
Speaker 2: a van. So whoever it was, if there were multiple
Speaker 2: people involved, it sounds like they did an effective job
Speaker 2: at keeping their mouths shut and got very lucky that
Speaker 2: the police focused entirely on Eddie so that they could
Speaker 2: just slip under the radar. I mean, so much time
Speaker 2: has passed at Eddie is now in his early sixties.
Speaker 2: I hope he has lived a happy life. I don't
Speaker 2: know if he's still in Japan, but obviously, even before
Speaker 2: his family was killed, he had to undergo a lot
Speaker 2: of trauma growing up in the People's Temple and having
Speaker 2: to experience a lot of abuse living in a cult.
Speaker 2: So I hope he has lived in peace, and the
Speaker 2: fact that he has never lost the support of the
Speaker 2: rest of his family I think speaks volumes. But yeah,
Speaker 2: just a very weird case and an odd epilogue to
Speaker 2: one of the biggest tragedies of all time. But in
Speaker 2: the end, I do think that Jim Jones and the
Speaker 2: whole Jonestown massacre and the People's Temple were nothing more
Speaker 2: than a red herring