Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2: Good evening from the author of the critically acclaimed true
Speaker 2: crime account A Killer by Design, the inspiration behind Hulu's
Speaker 2: original docuseries, Mastermind comes a groundbreaking look into the crucial
Speaker 2: role played by expert witnesses in the most high profile
Speaker 2: criminal cases. Based on doctor Anne Burgess's personal experiences within
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system. Written through Burgess's singular lens of
Speaker 2: compassion and lived experience, Expert Witness pulls back the curtain
Speaker 2: on some of the biggest cases in the last thirty years,
Speaker 2: from Bill Cosby to the Menendez Brothers to Larry Nasser,
Speaker 2: to reveal the deeply human stories behind the trials that
Speaker 2: have captivated a nation. The book explores the role of
Speaker 2: expert witnesses in high stakes court cases, offering first hand
Speaker 2: accounts and never before seen interviews with attorneys, victims, and offenders.
Speaker 2: Expert Witness places listeners inside the mind of the nation's
Speaker 2: most prominent courtroom expert, following Burgess as she takes on
Speaker 2: one seismic case after the next. The narrative each case
Speaker 2: deepens the listener's understanding of the art and science of
Speaker 2: expert testimony, taking listeners from the Women's movement of the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies to the Me Too movement of today, one
Speaker 2: of the largest social reckonings in recent history. At its core,
Speaker 2: Expert Witness is a story of empowerment. It's a story
Speaker 2: of compassion and the ever increasing need for individuals to
Speaker 2: stand up and speak truth to power or to popular opinion.
Speaker 2: And it's ultimately a story of how revolutionary one voice
Speaker 2: can be. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 2: Expert Witness, The Weight of our Testimony when Justice Hangs
Speaker 2: in the balance, with my special guest, psychiatric nurse, professor
Speaker 2: and author and Burgess. Thank you very much for this
Speaker 2: interview and welcome to the program. And Burgess, thank you
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 3: Dan happy to be here.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this new book,
Speaker 2: Expert Witness. Let's talk about that. You are a leading
Speaker 2: forensic and psychiatric nurse who worked with the FBI for
Speaker 2: over two decades. Currently, you're a professor at the Boston
Speaker 2: College Canal School of Nursing and you live in Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: And this book is co written by Stephen Matthew Constantine.
Speaker 2: Also you wrote a Killer by Design with Stephen as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, I did.
Speaker 2: In the chapter the Rise of the Expert Witness, you
Speaker 2: talk about that there's nothing more absolute than a courtroom.
Speaker 2: It's the biggest stage for the biggest cases, with the
Speaker 2: highest stakes. What do you write is the purpose of
Speaker 2: the trial? What is it all? Always come down to
Speaker 2: tell us about the singular goal that you have and
Speaker 2: tell us about the phrase that you've taken as a
Speaker 2: personal mantra.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, the purpose in the courtroom is obviously not
Speaker 3: necessarily obviously, but to seek truth. You have always had
Speaker 3: a conflict. There are two sides, and they often say
Speaker 3: very opposite things. So the expert witness and that they
Speaker 3: can have an expert witness on both sides. So it's
Speaker 3: a matter of pacing information before a jury that you
Speaker 3: hope will make a difference. That my goal in bringing
Speaker 3: it is to bring forward what I call the nursing science.
Speaker 3: Nursing because that's my background, my discipline. But where are
Speaker 3: we at and understanding the matter before the court? So
Speaker 3: that's my main goal there is you've got to you're
Speaker 3: sworn in. You have to tell the truth, and I
Speaker 3: tell the truth if you will, from the perspective of
Speaker 3: the case that I have been working on. So and
Speaker 3: it can be for either the defense side, or it
Speaker 3: can be for the prosecution side if it's in a
Speaker 3: criminal matter, or it can be for the plaintiff and
Speaker 3: for the defense if it's in the civil arena.
Speaker 2: Tell us how with your background as a psychiatric nurse,
Speaker 2: how you in the early seventies first came to want
Speaker 2: to be an expert witness.
Speaker 3: Okay, I never wanted to be an expert witness. I
Speaker 3: didn't really realize in the beginning, way back in the
Speaker 3: seventies just what that entailed. But I was asked to
Speaker 3: help in the very first case I had was a
Speaker 3: great case, and I happened to be speaking at a conference,
Speaker 3: and after the conference, the two attorneys came up and
Speaker 3: said they had this case and would I be interested
Speaker 3: in looking at it and letting them know what my
Speaker 3: opinion was. That's really how it started. Then, that was
Speaker 3: back in nineteen eighty. So I did not realize that
Speaker 3: this case would necessarily go to court. They don't all
Speaker 3: go to court. In fact, many of the civil cases
Speaker 3: end up being settled. It's called being settled, and so
Speaker 3: you don't have to go into court, but you always
Speaker 3: have to prepare in case it doesn't settle and the
Speaker 3: two sides need to meet up in this courtroom. So
Speaker 3: that was my initiation, if you will, back in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty and after that, because the issue of rape was
Speaker 3: becoming quite a front burner type of issue, certainly in
Speaker 3: the women's movement and for Congress. They had just established
Speaker 3: a National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape,
Speaker 3: So all of those things were converging at a time
Speaker 3: when I was doing had really just done the research
Speaker 3: on the rape victim and that was with Linda Holmstrom
Speaker 3: while I was at Boston College.
Speaker 2: I guess you're talking about the research project that was
Speaker 2: focused on understanding the emotional and traumatic effects of rape
Speaker 2: and sexual assault.
Speaker 3: That's correct. It was really we started to be the
Speaker 3: voice for the victims that they didn't have a voice.
Speaker 3: Nobody was speaking for them. When I say we, that's
Speaker 3: Linda Holmster on myself, and she knew that was going
Speaker 3: to be an issue. So that's what we focused on,
Speaker 3: seeing one hundred and forty six people over a one
Speaker 3: year period into a large city hospital to hear about
Speaker 3: why they were there with the what is called the
Speaker 3: chief complaint of rape.
Speaker 2: You're right that this case with Jane demonstrated many of
Speaker 2: the biases and the difficulty in people coming forward, wanting
Speaker 2: to come forward to and then the prosecution, the dismal
Speaker 2: prosecution rate of anybody being prosecuted for rape or sexual assault.
Speaker 2: But you said the things changed culturally back in when
Speaker 2: Connie Francis, a famous singer, was raped in their own home,
Speaker 2: So you talk about Jane also being at that apex
Speaker 2: of the time in culture when people looked at victims
Speaker 2: of rape and sexual assault much differently.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely that was what That was one of the
Speaker 3: important things in the case with Jane, even her family.
Speaker 3: It wasn't just citizens, you know, every citizens, but it
Speaker 3: was the family and couldn't understand why she couldn't get
Speaker 3: over it. That was the other big part of working
Speaker 3: with victims, because we followed them and people would can't
Speaker 3: you just get over this? And we realized that we
Speaker 3: had something here that was far more than people understood.
Speaker 3: And that's what we tried to bring forward in my case.
Speaker 3: I brought it forward in the courtroom is whenever I
Speaker 3: had a case and I was called to do it.
Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit more about Jane's case
Speaker 2: and in your involvement in the case itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, James's case was very, very instructive for me. It
Speaker 3: was one of the first of course that and I
Speaker 3: got the case, not necessarily because of the project we
Speaker 3: were working on, but because of a detective, a detective
Speaker 3: Rufo who knew of the work that we were doing
Speaker 3: at Boston City Hospital. They had taken Jane to a
Speaker 3: different hospital and he said that you really need to
Speaker 3: talk with this person, me who has been working with
Speaker 3: rape victims, and so he put me in touch. He
Speaker 3: had returned from Boston back to New Jersey, so we
Speaker 3: first met over a phone call. But the other important
Speaker 3: part of Jane's story is because I've looked at and
Speaker 3: that's what expert witness reports on what has happened to
Speaker 3: the three men that raped her. Doing a follow up
Speaker 3: what thirty some years later to see how Boston treated
Speaker 3: and followed through on a case that was essentially a
Speaker 3: gang rape. Jane had been just moved into Boston. She
Speaker 3: was here for a new job. She was all excited,
Speaker 3: had a new apartment of Beacon Hill, a very very
Speaker 3: fine area in Boston, and she had friends that were
Speaker 3: expected to come overs right after Thanksgiving and she was
Speaker 3: expecting friends. And two o'clock in the afternoon there was
Speaker 3: a knock on her door and she really thought it
Speaker 3: was her friends. Opens the door and in March these
Speaker 3: three young men and for the next couple of hours
Speaker 3: put her through a grueling rape and throw her in
Speaker 3: the closet, threatened that they'll kill her, etc. Et cetera.
Speaker 3: Then when they leave, she does call the police. The
Speaker 3: police send their patrol officers over, they take a report,
Speaker 3: and they luckily report it right back to the precinct.
Speaker 3: Then they send over the detective and what the detective
Speaker 3: learns is what solves the case for them. It's something
Speaker 3: that I learned about. He said as Jane was telling
Speaker 3: her story that the men called for a cab and
Speaker 3: he said, do you know what kind of a cab
Speaker 3: And she said, they said, a brown cab. Well, we
Speaker 3: happened in the city of Boston. Have cab company that
Speaker 3: was called Brown and was Brown that did it? He
Speaker 3: said he had not had that information from the patrol officers.
Speaker 3: So immediately got on the phone and luckily got the
Speaker 3: cab driver who remembered the three men taking a cab
Speaker 3: and where he dropped them off, and that was the
Speaker 3: beginning of solving the case.
Speaker 2: You did something to literally support Jane and to show
Speaker 2: her that there were people that believed in her and
Speaker 2: were ready to stand up and support her. What did
Speaker 2: you do at this trial?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, at this trial, I was not there as
Speaker 3: an expert witness. I was there because I had been
Speaker 3: working with her and providing some kind of counseling for her,
Speaker 3: and I realized that this was going to be an
Speaker 3: important step for her, and I wanted support more than
Speaker 3: just my support. So I had all of my students
Speaker 3: at the time, I was teaching a course, and I all, uh,
Speaker 3: when Jane was there and I was there, and all
Speaker 3: my students were there sitting very very carefully right in
Speaker 3: the courtroom. So that was a good experience, not only
Speaker 3: for me obviously for Jane to have that support, but
Speaker 3: the students too.
Speaker 2: As a result of this trial, what did you decide
Speaker 2: to do? What did you feel you necessary for you
Speaker 2: to become.
Speaker 3: Well? Because of this Jane, I stayed in touch with
Speaker 3: her and she did move back. She hadn't totally moved out.
Speaker 3: She was staying with friends, and she would come to
Speaker 3: my class in dactymology and became So it was support
Speaker 3: not only in terms of counseling, which I would do individually,
Speaker 3: but she had an opportunity to hear about other types
Speaker 3: of victim situations, and she would speak up in class.
Speaker 3: She told the students about her experience, and I've had
Speaker 3: her several times come back and talk about her experience,
Speaker 3: and I think that's a very important learning experience for
Speaker 3: students to hear from victims directly, because it's rare, certainly
Speaker 3: back then and even today, that victims will admit that
Speaker 3: they had an experience of a sexual assault or a
Speaker 3: rape or whatever.
Speaker 2: Let's jes this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now, you write that you knew that you
Speaker 2: had to establish yourself as an official expert witness to
Speaker 2: really help people out like Jane in the future at court.
Speaker 2: And then you write some time after you had heard
Speaker 2: about the Menendez murders and you didn't know anything about
Speaker 2: it till you got a call from a friend, John Conti,
Speaker 2: April nineteen ninety. Tell us who he was and what
Speaker 2: was the nature of the call.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, John Conti at the time, I knew him
Speaker 3: as a colleague. He was at the University of Chicago originally,
Speaker 3: and he became the editor of a journal called Journal
Speaker 3: of Into Personal Violence. And so I had been working
Speaker 3: with him around that and we stayed in touch. We
Speaker 3: would go to conferences, etc. And so he called me
Speaker 3: one day and started talking about this Menendez case, which
Speaker 3: I did not know anything about. And he finally said,
Speaker 3: I think, in desperation, will go down to your local
Speaker 3: store and get a copy of People magazine and he
Speaker 3: can read all about it. And I did, and of
Speaker 3: course People Magazine had their own twists to the case.
Speaker 3: And he said, if you're interested, I'll give your name
Speaker 3: to Leslie Abramson, who was the attorney that was monitoring
Speaker 3: or leading the Eric Menendez. John had already signed on
Speaker 3: to Lyle Menendez's case, and Leslie was still looking for
Speaker 3: an expert on that one. Now by then, of course,
Speaker 3: this was the nineties, and I had had a fair
Speaker 3: amount of experience, but certainly not in a high profile
Speaker 3: case like this turned out to be.
Speaker 2: You had to look at this case. Why were you
Speaker 2: interest did once you found out some details? Well?
Speaker 3: I was interested because in talking with John, I said, well,
Speaker 3: what was the motive? I said, this talks about their
Speaker 3: greed and their money, wanting money, et cetera. And I said,
Speaker 3: this sounds like kids that have any money that they want.
Speaker 3: They had open credit cards and access to money. And
Speaker 3: that's what John agreed. He said yes, because he couldn't.
Speaker 3: He was trying to figure out the motive too. So
Speaker 3: we took in our opinion money was not the primary thing.
Speaker 3: I said, something like this, where it's a double paraside case,
Speaker 3: highly unusual that two siblings would murder their parents, both parents.
Speaker 3: I think there's only a well, maybe one hundred cases
Speaker 3: total in the whole history of that. So I said,
Speaker 3: got to be something in the family, something's going on
Speaker 3: in this family that would cause such violent reaction in
Speaker 3: these two. And so that's where we began to put
Speaker 3: our interest is to find out more about the families.
Speaker 3: And John actually had he had by that time gone
Speaker 3: to New Jersey, interviewed many of the cousins and found
Speaker 3: out that there was a pretty odd kind of way
Speaker 3: that they treated the brothers, and that was essentially from
Speaker 3: the father, Jose Menendez. So by the time I started
Speaker 3: interviewing Eric, I had an idea of a motive certainly
Speaker 3: was not just over money. And he said in the
Speaker 3: first there was a week prior to the shootings that
Speaker 3: was pivotal, absolutely pivotal in this case. And he said
Speaker 3: it started on a Tuesday when he had planned to
Speaker 3: go to uc San Francisco, and the father said, no,
Speaker 3: you're going to go to UCLA. It's right here in
Speaker 3: town and you can. I'll get you a moped and
Speaker 3: you can ride back and forth and you will be
Speaker 3: here at night, not going to stay in the dorm.
Speaker 3: And that was a jolt for Eric. He thought he
Speaker 3: was going to be able to get away. Now. The
Speaker 3: brother lyle had had plans. He was leaving in that
Speaker 3: next week to go back to the East Coast. He
Speaker 3: was at Princeton. I think, yeah, at Princeton, and so
Speaker 3: both I thought it was interesting that both brothers had
Speaker 3: plans to lead. When they say, well, why didn't you
Speaker 3: just leave, you know, the prosecution said that the point
Speaker 3: was they had planned to leave, but not leave because
Speaker 3: of exposing any of the of the incense that was
Speaker 3: going on, but to get away from the family. So
Speaker 3: that's where we put together and began to find out
Speaker 3: what was actually going on.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting that you employed a certain psychological technique
Speaker 2: in order for you to get Eric to be able
Speaker 2: to reveal the details of not only before the murder,
Speaker 2: but during the actual murder itself.
Speaker 3: Yes, I did. I had used drawings or sketched whatever
Speaker 3: you want to call him, primarily with younger people as
Speaker 3: a way because they have more difficulty expressing themselves or
Speaker 3: talking at length, so to speak. So I would have
Speaker 3: them draw what happened. And it was a way not
Speaker 3: to lead them in any way. You don't want to
Speaker 3: lead them. You don't want to say, well, now, so
Speaker 3: and so did something to you. Can you draw that? No,
Speaker 3: just say what happened in such an incident. So I said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to try that with Eric, because I've got
Speaker 3: to spend all this time with him, and if he
Speaker 3: you know, he just I can't tape record and I
Speaker 3: didn't want to just sit there and take notes. So
Speaker 3: I brought in some magic markers and paper. I had
Speaker 3: them uncuff him. So that he had access to that,
Speaker 3: and I I said, let's just go through this week
Speaker 3: that you just told me about, and let's draw it.
Speaker 3: Have you draw it, and then we can go back
Speaker 3: and forth. I can say, well, now you said this
Speaker 3: happened on Tuesday. Now what happened on Thursday? Or what
Speaker 3: happened on Wednesday? And then you get to the Sunday,
Speaker 3: of course, which is when the shootings occurred. And I
Speaker 3: was able to use that, and I was amazed at
Speaker 3: how he drew, not being a part therapist, of course,
Speaker 3: but I could certainly see that there was a lot
Speaker 3: to these drawings. And he did sixteen of them, and
Speaker 3: they really tell the story of that week just before
Speaker 3: the shootings. And I felt that that I didn't know
Speaker 3: whether they would be used in quart or not, and
Speaker 3: they decided that they wouldn't. I remember Leslie saying, well,
Speaker 3: these look to juvenile. They'll make fun of them. And
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, Well, the point that they look
Speaker 3: juvenile is the point, right, that's the main point of
Speaker 3: how they felt, how regressed they felt in this. And
Speaker 3: the parents had this looming much exaggerated size compared to
Speaker 3: the to the brothers of how he drew them, and
Speaker 3: so there's a lot in there. I later have had
Speaker 3: a art therapist look at them because I thought I'm
Speaker 3: not one, but let's see what she could do, and
Speaker 3: she really pretty much confirmed. We have since actually run
Speaker 3: it through chat ID to see what the chat would do,
Speaker 3: what AI would make of these drawings verbal of course,
Speaker 3: the verbalization, because he would write on the drawing what
Speaker 3: was going on. So we had some very interesting dialogue
Speaker 3: between he and the brother, the mother, the father.
Speaker 2: You were hired to try to explain how these people
Speaker 2: could kill their parents, regardless of anything, but you also
Speaker 2: wanted to explain rape trauma syndrome, or Leslie wanted you
Speaker 2: to explain rape trauma syndrome. So how with the rape
Speaker 2: trauma syndrome, how do you explain how these people were
Speaker 2: able to kill their parents and why?
Speaker 3: Sure, Well, by the time of the trial, which would
Speaker 3: now be ninety I think nineteen ninety two, the shootings
Speaker 3: occurred in eighteen nineteen eighty nine, so it was about
Speaker 3: three years later. But what was going on then and
Speaker 3: that I was involved in with my team, is of
Speaker 3: the decade of the Brain is what they called it.
Speaker 3: A lot of research money was going into understanding the
Speaker 3: brain and how it worked, especially in high stress situations.
Speaker 3: So what I was able to do is to take
Speaker 3: we actually had a paper out just about that time
Speaker 3: to explain where in the brain it's called the Olympic
Speaker 3: system houses the important areas that control your thinking, that
Speaker 3: control your emotion, that can control a lot of what
Speaker 3: is important in terms of actions. And so I use
Speaker 3: that to explain the new research. And I also they
Speaker 3: were doing the study on the apple c snail. Now
Speaker 3: I took a lot of backlash on that, but it
Speaker 3: proved itself because it has a very similar nervous system
Speaker 3: as we have, and they were doing very interesting exhibit
Speaker 3: or research on that. So I use that to explain
Speaker 3: why and how they were finding these areas in the
Speaker 3: brain and the Olympic system that could account for people's actions.
Speaker 3: And that's what I explained, the Olympic system. I also
Speaker 3: use the analogy to a computer of how information goes
Speaker 3: in and what happens when it doesn't get processed, when
Speaker 3: it doesn't get quote, if you will, using a word
Speaker 3: of process, and so I use those two. I have
Speaker 3: used those in other times that I've testified, and if
Speaker 3: you read my trial testimony, of course it's in there.
Speaker 2: You say that there was a parallel trial going on
Speaker 2: of sorts, with the court, TV playboy reporter Robert rand
Speaker 2: taking the side of the prosecution and Dennis Dunne taking
Speaker 2: the sign of the defense, and so opposing views on
Speaker 2: this trial. While the trial was going on.
Speaker 3: Yes, there was a lot of media obviously a lot
Speaker 3: of media coverage and the LA whichever times. I don't
Speaker 3: know which paper it was, but they had these two
Speaker 3: opposite sides, and I'll never forget the dominic. Dunn took
Speaker 3: me aside after I was testifying and said he wanted
Speaker 3: to talk with me because he was beginning to maybe
Speaker 3: doubt some of his position that this was all for
Speaker 3: money and greed and that kind of thing, and he
Speaker 3: was listening rather intently to the testimony about what would
Speaker 3: cause someone to be in such fear. What I was
Speaker 3: trying to explain, and the rape trauma syndrome does, is
Speaker 3: that the reaction that victims have to a threatening situation
Speaker 3: of fear is what can produce them to act in
Speaker 3: ways that seemed counterintuitive. So it was unfortunately what happened
Speaker 3: is another high profile case the came up and so
Speaker 3: he didn't get it we never got a chance to
Speaker 3: exchange how that meeting that he wanted to have, but
Speaker 3: I always thought it was interesting that he did approach
Speaker 3: me and want.
Speaker 2: To talk about it. You write about the verdict in
Speaker 2: this case after Eric testifies. The jury is split in
Speaker 2: believing Eric's testimony. Tell us about that, Yes.
Speaker 3: And I got that information from Hazel Thornton. Hazel Thornton
Speaker 3: was number eight as a juror in the first men
Speaker 3: in this trial Eric's team. And so she said that
Speaker 3: what they did and when they went into the jury
Speaker 3: room for the very first time, she said, it was
Speaker 3: really wrong what they did. They asked everybody to raise
Speaker 3: their hand and whether they were for murder one or
Speaker 3: whether they were for the I think the other was
Speaker 3: a lesser charge, obviously, And she said all of the
Speaker 3: men put their hand up for murder one, all of
Speaker 3: the women for the lesser charge. And she said it
Speaker 3: never varied from them all of their deliberations. And she
Speaker 3: said it would have been much better if they had
Speaker 3: had a paper ballot or something so that people wouldn't
Speaker 3: necessarily see what gender was doing what vote. But right
Speaker 3: from the start, the men did not believe. They believed
Speaker 3: the secution obviously, whereas the women felt that there was
Speaker 3: the possibility they could understand sexual assault, they could understand fear,
Speaker 3: and they could understand that the behavior, even though it
Speaker 3: was what called imperfect, it was an imperfect defense that
Speaker 3: it might not make sense to people listening the case,
Speaker 3: but to the two brothers it did, and that was important.
Speaker 3: I think the gender bias was very clear right from
Speaker 3: the start. So of course in the second trial they
Speaker 3: took out any testimony to a motive.
Speaker 2: And you talk about judge Wiseberg sort of his bias
Speaker 2: was very evident in the trials.
Speaker 3: I felt it was in reviewing the case, and I
Speaker 3: thought a lot of other people did too. I've seen
Speaker 3: some writings to that effect, is that it seemed unusual
Speaker 3: to remove expert witnesses because he didn't believe them. Well,
Speaker 3: that was really the jury, in my opinion, that was
Speaker 3: the jury's call. This was not a bench trial where
Speaker 3: the judge could make his own decision.
Speaker 2: It also demonstrated that, strangely or not strangely, that in
Speaker 2: the nineties there was this sort of general it seemed
Speaker 2: to come from the judge and just in general, that
Speaker 2: the idea, the notion that men could be abused. Not
Speaker 2: so believable that men could be abused by their father.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that was the important point, is that
Speaker 3: it wasn't just the general theme of men getting sexually abused,
Speaker 3: but it was the particular issue of a father having
Speaker 3: sex with his son. But I thought felt that the
Speaker 3: certainly Eric and Lyle did explain it. That was the
Speaker 3: other thing is they had those two brothers on the
Speaker 3: stand for extensive amount of time and they were very clear.
Speaker 3: I felt that if you, I think it was almost
Speaker 3: ten days that Eric had to testify, that's a long
Speaker 3: time or a prosecutor to try to make a point
Speaker 3: and didn't obviously didn't make the point because half of
Speaker 3: the jurors did not buy in to their motive.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting when you fast forward to just recently
Speaker 2: in the new developments in the Menendez trial and the
Speaker 2: effort to have them released. Very interesting in the cultural
Speaker 2: attitudeal shift since then.
Speaker 3: Yes, thirty five years has made a difference, and I
Speaker 3: think it The case only came into view about five
Speaker 3: years ago and I got a call from another college
Speaker 3: in the area saying, were you be one of the
Speaker 3: experts in the Menendez case? And we have a group
Speaker 3: they had a whole group that were banding together to
Speaker 3: try to see if they could bring some vision to
Speaker 3: this case and a new vision. And I didn't realize
Speaker 3: that there was this kind of movement among young people,
Speaker 3: college students that they wanted to revisit the case, and
Speaker 3: that of course led to I think one of the
Speaker 3: docum or two of the documentaries on the case, and
Speaker 3: eventually did bring it obviously to the district attorney out
Speaker 3: in LA So thirty five years can make a difference, Now,
Speaker 3: did it make a difference. I was very interested to
Speaker 3: see whether in the parole hearings they would be they
Speaker 3: would vote for a nineteen ninety two version or a
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety version, or whether they would this parole hearing
Speaker 3: group would pick a twenty twenty five position. And you
Speaker 3: know what the verdict was in both cases, says they
Speaker 3: use interestingly enough their past behavior in jail in prison
Speaker 3: as their criteria their main criteria.
Speaker 2: Yes, very very interesting. Let's use this as an opportunity
Speaker 2: to stop to hear these messages. Now, another very important,
Speaker 2: high profile and historic trial and case. This is in
Speaker 2: the chapter you write dismantling of America's Dad and Andrea constant,
Speaker 2: thirty one year old, January two thousand and four. Bill
Speaker 2: Cosby gives her a couple of pills and says these
Speaker 2: will help you relax. Tell us about Rosalind Watts and
Speaker 2: your conversation with her and hearing about the news of
Speaker 2: America's dad and his downfall.
Speaker 3: Yes, Rosin Watts was a colleague of mine when I
Speaker 3: was at the University of Pennsylvany, and we would often
Speaker 3: talk about cases. We had a little group we often
Speaker 3: talk about cases, and the Cosby case had come up,
Speaker 3: and it was known that she had dated Bill Cosby,
Speaker 3: so we were very interested, I especially in how she
Speaker 3: was looking at this case. And she was very firm
Speaker 3: and not believing that this could have happened. She knew
Speaker 3: him from high school, I think had gone to a
Speaker 3: dance with him, and she just was adamant that this
Speaker 3: could not have happened. There must be something that woman,
Speaker 3: that victim must not be telling the truth. Well, as
Speaker 3: time went on and more and more information came out,
Speaker 3: she finally came around to us saying, and she worded it,
Speaker 3: that was not the Bill Cosby that I knew in
Speaker 3: high school, and I believe it. You know, people can change,
Speaker 3: and so he finally did say that, but she never
Speaker 3: said he was a thing but a gentleman back then.
Speaker 3: He wasn't into drugs. He wasn't into any of the
Speaker 3: behavior that we saw or we heard about, certainly from
Speaker 3: Andrea I heard when I had an opportunity to interview her,
Speaker 3: or from any of the other multiple I think about
Speaker 3: thirty five women that came forward. It was very clear
Speaker 3: that he had a really a ritual, if you want
Speaker 3: to call it, that to what he would do with
Speaker 3: the women did not vary from that, and had many,
Speaker 3: many victims, and they were all afraid to come forward
Speaker 3: except Andrea.
Speaker 2: You were in June twenty sixteen, you got a call
Speaker 2: from Andrea, a Constance attorney. They needed a consulting expert,
Speaker 2: someone who could talk to Constant and give a professional
Speaker 2: assessment of her overall mental health.
Speaker 3: Right I did. And Andrea flew down from Canada she
Speaker 3: lived in Canada at the time, and I interviewed her
Speaker 3: and wrote a report what had happened and how she
Speaker 3: had what certainly from a standpoint, what her symptoms were.
Speaker 3: But this had followed Don't forget back in two thousand
Speaker 3: and three or four, the original complaint chief complaint.
Speaker 2: You say, in that time period, that expanse of time,
Speaker 2: dozens of women had come forward to accuse them of
Speaker 2: sexual assault. You say, culminating in something like a widespread
Speaker 2: cultural shift where victims were being supported rather than belittle.
Speaker 3: Right in that time period, Sure, that was a good
Speaker 3: a decade. And so with Andrea coming forward, and that
Speaker 3: happens a lot, or not a lot, but certainly happens
Speaker 3: in cases where it's a high profile case. I'm thinking
Speaker 3: of cases of professional people where they will publish because
Speaker 3: they can published that so and so has accused so
Speaker 3: and so of a sexual assault, and others who have
Speaker 3: experienced that will come forward. And that's exactly what happened. Now,
Speaker 3: this was an unusual type of a sexual assault because
Speaker 3: the victim was usually unconscious of some type, whether given
Speaker 3: alcohol or in Andrea's case, it was three blue pills
Speaker 3: that I think later were identified and said these pills
Speaker 3: are going to relax you, and they did, but they
Speaker 3: relaxed her to the point where she lost consciousness. So
Speaker 3: she then wakes up and of course doesn't have much memory.
Speaker 3: So it was hard for those women to come forward
Speaker 3: because they didn't have as much memory as someone who
Speaker 3: obviously didn't lose consciousness.
Speaker 2: You write about trauma being an expert, you say, trauma
Speaker 2: fractures a person's sense of self. It creates a split.
Speaker 2: There's the person who existed before for their trauma and
Speaker 2: the person who now exists because of their trauma.
Speaker 3: Yes, so that's the way I would understand it and
Speaker 3: what they would tell me. So I was just trying
Speaker 3: to explain it to people because they would often say
Speaker 3: why can't they just go on? Why can't they say, oh,
Speaker 3: that was a bad situation, Especially when it's a known offender.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about stranger type situations. And stranger type situations,
Speaker 3: people generally can believe it because they can't find any
Speaker 3: way to blame the victim. Well, they can. They can say, well,
Speaker 3: she shouldn't have been out walking, or she shouldn't have
Speaker 3: been doing wearing clothes like this, or something of that nature.
Speaker 3: But on some of these cases where the offender breaks
Speaker 3: in victim is sleeping, that's very hard for people to
Speaker 3: dismiss as that it was somehow the victims fall. Unless
Speaker 3: they can say, well, the window was open or your
Speaker 3: door was unlocked, they still will try to find some
Speaker 3: way to diminish the importance, and so I felt it
Speaker 3: was so because the victim, literally with Dross, has major
Speaker 3: changes in their thinking and especially about the self, the
Speaker 3: fracturing of the self. They get into some of the
Speaker 3: same problems of did I do something wrong? The self
Speaker 3: guilt can be a huge issue, and the shame and
Speaker 3: the embarrassment is another emotion that can prevent victims from
Speaker 3: coming forward. So I felt in talking about what it
Speaker 3: does to the individual would be a way to try
Speaker 3: to reach people, to tell them how serious a sexual
Speaker 3: assault can be to the person's image of themselves and
Speaker 3: to their reason for or not coming forward.
Speaker 2: You talk about people being reluctant to come forward and
Speaker 2: tell police about what has happened, and then you write
Speaker 2: about that constant despite having the DA Bruce Caster say
Speaker 2: that there was insufficient credible and admissible evidence, she was
Speaker 2: disappointed but undeterred, and she wanted to file a civil lawsuit,
Speaker 2: and she did in July twenty fifteen. Can you tell
Speaker 2: us about sort of her ability to be able to
Speaker 2: get past that dejection and then file this lawsuit trying
Speaker 2: to get justice for the crimes from Bill Cosby?
Speaker 3: Yes, Well, Andrew, there was a unique person. Don't forget.
Speaker 3: She was a sports She was a tall basketball player
Speaker 3: who had been in sports and had scholarships for sports.
Speaker 3: So she was very strong and she was very brave,
Speaker 3: and so she was not going to take this. She
Speaker 3: wanted to do it not for herself, but for all
Speaker 3: of the victims that she knew. And this was in yeah,
Speaker 3: this was twenty sixteen. There was some movement on going
Speaker 3: about understanding rape and understanding sexual assault. So I think
Speaker 3: that her ability to move the field forward was so
Speaker 3: important and it did. It really was the start of
Speaker 3: the quote me too movement when others could come forward too.
Speaker 3: I think there was a New York The New Yorker
Speaker 3: had a cover of all of the little faces of
Speaker 3: the women that had come forward. So they were not
Speaker 3: afraid anymore, and they were willing to put their experience
Speaker 3: on the line, if you will. So I handed to
Speaker 3: Andrea to be able to do that. She was very
Speaker 3: very important in winning the case. She didn't went it
Speaker 3: right away. There were actually two trials in one and
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the second trial when they judge allowed
Speaker 3: other prior complaints to be able to come forward, and
Speaker 3: that was helpful for the jury. But still had trouble
Speaker 3: just believing one person they could understand when it was
Speaker 3: multiple victims.
Speaker 2: Very interesting in this book was the idea that Cosby
Speaker 2: was subjected to a four day deposition, but in that
Speaker 2: deposition because he thought it would be sealed and the
Speaker 2: public would never hear about it. He told of extra
Speaker 2: meritive affairs. He testified to drugging women with queludes and
Speaker 2: using his celebrity status to stop allegations from surfacing, and
Speaker 2: sending hush money to pay off multiple victims.
Speaker 3: That's all true. He said that he was under oath.
Speaker 3: He never thought it was going to come out. I
Speaker 3: think that was the sticky point, if you will, And
Speaker 3: it wasn't until they were that changed and the ruling
Speaker 3: came that they could use it when it all came out.
Speaker 3: I think that was important of how they try to
Speaker 3: cover up a good example of how offenders, especially high
Speaker 3: profile offenders. We've seen other cases, of course across the
Speaker 3: country since then, what they will do to cover up,
Speaker 3: and a lot of money can be paid to silence victims.
Speaker 2: That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: When you talk about high profile there is the case
Speaker 2: that you were involved with with someone named Larry Nassar
Speaker 2: tell us what was what's the takeaway from this case
Speaker 2: involving Larry Nasser.
Speaker 3: Well, the Larry Nasser case was very important because he
Speaker 3: was a professional. He had his a doctor degree and
Speaker 3: he would in these athletics and these he targeted young
Speaker 3: adolescent girls and they would say stretch them and doing
Speaker 3: some of their activities, and he would say, well, I
Speaker 3: have a special way that I can fix that, and
Speaker 3: so he would do essentially what we would understand is
Speaker 3: a pelvic exam on the young girl. And they would
Speaker 3: be horrified at it, but they because he said he
Speaker 3: was a doctor and he could fix it that they
Speaker 3: went along with it. Now some didn't and they didn't
Speaker 3: go back to him, but many of them did. I
Speaker 3: think he had hundreds of victims over time, and so
Speaker 3: that was a good example of a professional that can missuse,
Speaker 3: criminally misuse if you will, a procedure to satisfy his
Speaker 3: own sexual proclivities. So that was a hard case because
Speaker 3: you had young young women at the time, and I
Speaker 3: saw some the one I think I put in the
Speaker 3: book she went back to him I think two or
Speaker 3: three times, and of course felt terrible and anguished over it,
Speaker 3: and until it finally came out, was thinking that something
Speaker 3: was wrong with her. There's your self image that gets
Speaker 3: kind of split and fractured in any of these cases.
Speaker 3: You know why am I feeling this way? He is
Speaker 3: a doctor, he knows what he's doing, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc.
Speaker 3: So it really confuses the young victim. And as I said,
Speaker 3: they were all pretty much young adolescent victims. One of
Speaker 3: them I talked to it was years later. Don't forget
Speaker 3: that she was well in her thirties and this has
Speaker 3: happened when she was like twelve or thirteen. That's a
Speaker 3: long time to harbor as much emotion as the person has.
Speaker 3: And that's what you find in some of these what
Speaker 3: we call prolonged cases.
Speaker 2: In the Duke University lacrosse case very interesting if we
Speaker 2: were compare it to so or the case spoke about
Speaker 2: with Jeanne and her rape case. Tell us about the
Speaker 2: Duke University lacrosse case, and again what it was demonstrated.
Speaker 2: What was demonstrated with that case.
Speaker 3: Well, in that case, it really tore apart the whole university.
Speaker 3: This was two exotic dancers that were invited to perform
Speaker 3: and be paid at a bachelor party type and for
Speaker 3: the lacrosse team, and these two. One of the two
Speaker 3: came forward to say that she had been raped. What
Speaker 3: that set in motion was the lacrosse coach I think
Speaker 3: got fired. I know eighty or so faculty came forward
Speaker 3: with a petition letter to say that this was outrageous
Speaker 3: that was going on and for the president to do something.
Speaker 3: They had a lot of dissent over this case. And
Speaker 3: what actually turned out is that when I looked at
Speaker 3: the case, I know that I was going to be
Speaker 3: on one of the reed Seligmann's team. They divide up
Speaker 3: the three defendants. Each one has their own team, and
Speaker 3: he was clearly able to show with evidence on his
Speaker 3: cell phone that he had left that this was not
Speaker 3: anything that he had done. Others were able to do it.
Speaker 3: But went on for a whole year. The families were
Speaker 3: just I remember speaking with the families. They were beside
Speaker 3: themselves with this. It ruined the young men, they had
Speaker 3: to drop out of school. And then finally it turned
Speaker 3: out I had to figure out how I was going
Speaker 3: to testify because the rape trauma syndrome. Was it going
Speaker 3: to be used as the reason that this victim We'll
Speaker 3: call her a victim was able to say that she
Speaker 3: was raped, and we couldn't. I couldn't go on the
Speaker 3: stand and say she was lying because I didn't know
Speaker 3: necessarily that I had to be able to explain it
Speaker 3: and was prepared to. There was interesting information about her
Speaker 3: psychiatric history where she had had a young fourteen year
Speaker 3: old had had a gang rape by three men against
Speaker 3: same kind of thing, and could this be a flashback
Speaker 3: kind of phenomenon that could be explained? And I felt
Speaker 3: it could be. However, it all the case and then
Speaker 3: all fell apart with the prosecutor finally he hadn't even
Speaker 3: talked to the victim, he had misled the victim, he
Speaker 3: had misled the media, and so the case slowly disintegrated,
Speaker 3: and it's only been recently, maybe in the last couple
Speaker 3: of years, where she finally has been able to say
Speaker 3: how she lied about the whole thing, and that was
Speaker 3: publicized obviously for that, But that was a case of
Speaker 3: false accusation, clear and simple.
Speaker 2: You write about an offender named Charlie Scott, a very
Speaker 2: prolific perpetrator, convicted violent serial rapist. How were you brought
Speaker 2: on to understand the likelihood that he would reoffend. Well,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: Brought on in the Charlie Scott case with actually with
Speaker 3: another profiler from the BSU who was going to be
Speaker 3: talking about Charlie Scott from a different angle. He's worked
Speaker 3: before he joined the FBI profiling group, had been to
Speaker 3: evaluate for court offender, so he had that part to do,
Speaker 3: and I was going to be talking about from the
Speaker 3: victim's standpoint. And this was the case at that time
Speaker 3: for that trial where Charlie Scott was amazing in terms
Speaker 3: of an he can call him an escape artist. He
Speaker 3: had managed to escape from all these federal jails in
Speaker 3: very interesting ways. I think it's in the book. But
Speaker 3: at any rate, the one case that I had interviewed
Speaker 3: the victim didn't come up because they couldn't get her
Speaker 3: to testify. It later comes up years later where an
Speaker 3: outstanding warrant was issued for him, And that's the case
Speaker 3: that after he has been parolled because of these first
Speaker 3: infractions where they did have some statement, he is pulled
Speaker 3: back in and she does testify and now he's in
Speaker 3: prison again for that particular case. And I marvel at that,
Speaker 3: and I think that's so important to understand that the
Speaker 3: system does work in if you have I guess enough patients.
Speaker 3: But it can work, and people are able. Officers are
Speaker 3: able to find some of these cases that are years
Speaker 3: in it over and then still bring them to victim
Speaker 3: to justice. And that was a great case for Charlie Scott.
Speaker 3: He had originally gotten into the army. There's a military
Speaker 3: case into the army by using his sisters a social
Speaker 3: security number. I mean, he was just a classic, I
Speaker 3: guess we would call a classic psychopath that was able
Speaker 3: to manipulate. He even became a bounty hunter and I
Speaker 3: have a video of him arresting someone that he was after.
Speaker 3: So he was like a chameleon. He kept changing things
Speaker 3: and he had a very creative background, if you will.
Speaker 3: But he also had a lot of victims and so
Speaker 3: we were able to bring justice for the victims. So
Speaker 3: that was very very good.
Speaker 2: You called him a confidence style offender and you were
Speaker 2: there to assess his risk for reoffense. What were some
Speaker 2: of the reasons you gave for his likelihood of reoffending.
Speaker 3: Well, certainly all of his escapes. You know, he climbed
Speaker 3: up into the ceiling and came across in the ventilation
Speaker 3: ceiling in one of the prisons that's how or jails
Speaker 3: that's how he got out, and also how he some
Speaker 3: of the things I just said is creative background, but
Speaker 3: the FBI profile was able to of course give much
Speaker 3: more substance because he had access to some of the
Speaker 3: records that I wouldn't necessarily have access to.
Speaker 2: You're also right that part of this was the delayed
Speaker 2: reporting phenomena itself with a confidence style.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, they usually get away with it because they
Speaker 3: threatened the victim. I think the victim in this case
Speaker 3: was threatened with Victims are usually threatened with a couple
Speaker 3: of things. One either they're going to be heard or
Speaker 3: injured or killed or something. Or they will threaten the family.
Speaker 3: And I always found that the threats to the family
Speaker 3: are very frightening two victims and is a something that
Speaker 3: the offender capitalizes on. So the delayed reporting, whatever the
Speaker 3: reason for the delay, it is used against of course
Speaker 3: against the victim when it comes to court. You know,
Speaker 3: why didn't it take so long? Why didn't you immediately
Speaker 3: come forward? And then the victim is put on the
Speaker 3: spot with having to explain why, which you're embarrassed. Was
Speaker 3: she afraid they wouldn't believe her, et cetera. So it
Speaker 3: places more pressure on the victim, and it is one
Speaker 3: more thing the victim has to go through. I always
Speaker 3: marvel that victims have the strength to go through, because
Speaker 3: the court system for a victim is not easy at all.
Speaker 2: You talk about the in the end of this book,
Speaker 2: the deterioration of trust between the juries and expert witnesses
Speaker 2: as part of a trend towards broader societal skepticism directed
Speaker 2: towards expertise in general.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that we have to do a better job,
Speaker 3: because how can you have an expert on both sides,
Speaker 3: you know, one taking one position, one taking the other.
Speaker 3: And that's where the issue of science comes in. You
Speaker 3: can't just say, well, I think that's the reason. You
Speaker 3: have to say in cite some kind of research to
Speaker 3: support your opinion. So you give a base, you give
Speaker 3: your opinion, and you have to give the basis, and
Speaker 3: that's what the jury needs to understand and to go
Speaker 3: with because a lot of them I remember in the
Speaker 3: Hazel Thornton saying in the Menendez case, I don't believe
Speaker 3: any one of the men saying, I don't believe any
Speaker 3: of these experts. After all, they're getting paid, And I
Speaker 3: thought that was always interesting because they're getting paid too
Speaker 3: to be a juror, so that they don't understand that, yes,
Speaker 3: they are getting Experts do get paid for their time,
Speaker 3: not for their opinion. That's what you want to do.
Speaker 3: That if you put time in on a case, that
Speaker 3: that's what you get paid for, not the outcome of
Speaker 3: what your opinion is.
Speaker 2: What would you attribute this skepticism to something to the
Speaker 2: expert witness testimony that has been established, with the guidelines
Speaker 2: that have been established, with all the presidents that have
Speaker 2: been set, with people like you testifying successfully at trials.
Speaker 3: Why the skepticism, Well, I think a skepticism is because
Speaker 3: there is a belief out there and you can talk
Speaker 3: to jurors about this that experts will say whatever they
Speaker 3: to support the side that they're on. In other words,
Speaker 3: if someone has uh is a victim, well I believe
Speaker 3: the victim because i'm you know, I'm testifying on the
Speaker 3: prosecution side, whereas the other side will say I don't
Speaker 3: believe the victim, and et cetera. So the being paid
Speaker 3: for the side they're on is something that I think
Speaker 3: durors have picked up because they have they have to
Speaker 3: in their own mind separate out the experts. And that's
Speaker 3: why you have to give your background. You have to
Speaker 3: give you why you are an expert, and the judge
Speaker 3: has to prove it. Don't forget, the judge roofs the expert,
Speaker 3: not the other way around. So there can be situations
Speaker 3: where you're not accepted as a expert. I'm sure you
Speaker 3: could be a fact witness, but not necessarily an expert witness.
Speaker 2: You also write about how AI might be used for prevention, investigation,
Speaker 2: legal proceedings, and possibly rehabilitation to create a more efficient, responsive,
Speaker 2: and predictive criminal justice system. How can AI be utilized?
Speaker 3: Well, AI, I think is very going to be very
Speaker 3: important in this and we've already taken a step forward
Speaker 3: on the use of the drawings that Eric Menendez gave
Speaker 3: and we've put the information into the algorithm and ask
Speaker 3: the chat to say, if I want you to look
Speaker 3: at this as an expert in say mental health, or
Speaker 3: I've asked you to look at the as an expert
Speaker 3: in art therapy, and you run them. We've run them
Speaker 3: and you get two different answers and different reasons. And
Speaker 3: that's what we're going to publish because I think that's
Speaker 3: very interesting of one way to look at the use
Speaker 3: of AI. Now it's only looking at the information you give,
Speaker 3: and it's only as good as the information you have.
Speaker 3: I just think that this is going to be very important.
Speaker 3: We could have asked what would you recommend for rehabilitation?
Speaker 3: I never thought of that, but maybe after this I will.
Speaker 3: And I think that it's going to be very helpful
Speaker 3: because you can ask chat what your question is and
Speaker 3: see what they do. They analyze it in a different way,
Speaker 3: or do they analyze it in a similar way. We
Speaker 3: found that they were too different that Obviously, in the
Speaker 3: clinical they were much more clinical and understanding of the trauma,
Speaker 3: whereas in the art therapy it was a little bit
Speaker 3: different in terms of what their background is on eyes
Speaker 3: and color and et cetera.
Speaker 2: How much headway have you seen with your acceptance of
Speaker 2: your rape trauma syndrome idea.
Speaker 3: Rape trauma syndrome is what we call a nursing diagnosis,
Speaker 3: and it was a subtype. Sometimes it's used as a
Speaker 3: subtype of the larger umbrella called post traumatic stress disorder
Speaker 3: PTSD because in PTSD you can have a variety of
Speaker 3: stressful events. It isn't just rape but it could be combat,
Speaker 3: it could be experiencing a natural disaster, it could be
Speaker 3: other kinds of traumatic events. And so rape trauma we
Speaker 3: define from the original source. It's been accepted in the
Speaker 3: nursing diagnosis and it's now being looked at for international relevance.
Speaker 3: And I know that a Brazilian researcher is preparing an
Speaker 3: article on that and updating. If you will, do you
Speaker 3: rape trauma syndrome.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: and talking about Expert Witness The Weight of Our Testimony
Speaker 2: When Justice Hangs in the Balance. I know this book
Speaker 2: will be released September seconds all over the world on
Speaker 2: Amazon and everywhere else that people will get their books.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: and talking about your book Expert Witness today.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan. I'd a pleasure to work with you
Speaker 3: this South again.
Speaker 2: That book is going to be released September second Expert
Speaker 2: Witness The Weight of Our Testimony When Justice Hangs in
Speaker 2: the Balance by Ann Burgess. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: this interview and Burgess and you have a great evening
Speaker 2: and good night.
Speaker 3: Thank you Dan, you too, thank you. Yeah,