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Speaker 4: Plus you are now listening to True Murder, The most
Speaker 4: Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that
Speaker 4: have written Aboutrum Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 5: Good evening. In the small city of ben Hampton in
Speaker 5: upstate New York, twenty three year old Veronica Taft, a
Speaker 5: single mother with four small children all under the age
Speaker 5: of five, was convicted of murder and manslaughter for the
Speaker 5: brutal murder of her two year old son Lee. She
Speaker 5: was sentenced to twenty five years to life and state prison,
Speaker 5: with her surviving children taken away and placed in foster care.
Speaker 5: After more than five years in prison, Taft was set
Speaker 5: free after a bombshell appellate court decision found the verdict
Speaker 5: was against the weight of the evidence. The court overturned
Speaker 5: the theory and evidence used by authorities, including time of death,
Speaker 5: Taft's ALAMAI, and controversial testimony of a desperate jail house
Speaker 5: snitch working on behalf of Taft. Defense investigator David M.
Speaker 5: Beers conducted an independent investigation. In his account, Immunity for Murder,
Speaker 5: he'll guide you through the ill fated police investigation and
Speaker 5: the shameful prosecution that, contrary to the evidence, quickly turned
Speaker 5: the tides towards Veronica and away from the real killer.
Speaker 5: This book will closely look at the suspect, bizarre events
Speaker 5: and disturbing facts never before revealed. Furthermore, it'll show how
Speaker 5: the evidence proves tasts innocence, which is why he considers
Speaker 5: her story a tragic miscarriage of justice. The book that
Speaker 5: we're featuring this evening is Immunity for Murder, The Veronica
Speaker 5: Taft Story, with my special guest, author and private investigator,
Speaker 5: David M. Beers. Welcome to the program, and thank you
Speaker 5: so much for this interview. David MBA, thanks.
Speaker 6: Thanks, thanks for having me. It was quite a story
Speaker 6: and I was anxious to write it and to talk
Speaker 6: about it.
Speaker 5: Yes, let's take us right back to December thirtieth, twenty
Speaker 5: ten and bin Hampton and population forty five thousand. You
Speaker 5: say it's the county seat for Broome County, New York,
Speaker 5: which is about two hundred thousand. Tell us about Veronica
Speaker 5: ron Lynn Taft, oldest of four girls. Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about her background, have parents and siblings, tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about her life.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, Ronica, when this happened, she was like twenty
Speaker 6: three years old, but she was. She was born and
Speaker 6: raised in a little town called the Whitney Point, New York.
Speaker 6: She was the oldest of four. She had a younger
Speaker 6: sister and two younger brothers, and she she was brought
Speaker 6: up in a kind of a middle class home, comfortable
Speaker 6: little home up in Whitney Point, New York. Went to
Speaker 6: Whitney Point schools, but when she was in school, she
Speaker 6: was often you know, she was a very small, small girl.
Speaker 6: She was often bullied and teased and ridiculed by by
Speaker 6: students and school officials. And by by the time she
Speaker 6: was in about the seventh grade, she was diagnosed with
Speaker 6: add and ADHD. It never became serious enough to require medication,
Speaker 6: but did affect her ability to learn in the mainstream,
Speaker 6: and so she got reassigned. She got classified as learning disabled,
Speaker 6: and uh they they put her in what they call
Speaker 6: an alternative learning center. But surprisingly, once she went there,
Speaker 6: her she really found her niche and her interest in
Speaker 6: learning excelled and she became an honorall student, and uh,
Speaker 6: and she she did exceptionally well later, uh when when
Speaker 6: she got out of school. I guess you'd back up
Speaker 6: a little bit. When when she was in school, even
Speaker 6: though she was in this alternative learning center, she she
Speaker 6: was still affiliated with the with the same school district,
Speaker 6: so she was able to participate in their extracurricular activities.
Speaker 6: So she became a varsity cheerleader, and you know, because
Speaker 6: of her athletic ability and her small stature, she became
Speaker 6: their the team's flyer. So she was pretty talented. But
Speaker 6: after high school she kind of spread her wings and
Speaker 6: then moved down into a little small village just west
Speaker 6: of Banton called Johnson City, and she met a man
Speaker 6: and she entered into a relationship with him, and they
Speaker 6: had two children together, two girls named Javen and Amirah.
Speaker 6: But unfortunately that relationship kind of was kind of short
Speaker 6: lived when she became the victim of some domestic violence
Speaker 6: by the father, and so she severed her relationship with him,
Speaker 6: and then she entered into a new relationship with another
Speaker 6: man and they had two more children, little boy named
Speaker 6: Lyric and a little girl named Zoe. So now she
Speaker 6: had four small children in as many years, all under
Speaker 6: the age of five. And unfortunately, the second relationship deteriorated
Speaker 6: as well with more incidents of domestic violence, and for
Speaker 6: a short period of time she lost her children and
Speaker 6: Child Protective Services took them away, but she severed her
Speaker 6: relationship with that man and actually moved out of state
Speaker 6: for a while, and eventually things eased up with Child
Speaker 6: Protective Services. They gave her kids back and she moved
Speaker 6: back to Binghamton and she found a small little apartment
Speaker 6: on Fayette Street in the city of Binghamton, and she
Speaker 6: had a job working nights at the local high school
Speaker 6: doing maintenance work, and she worked the late shift, you know,
Speaker 6: from eleven pm till seven am, and fast forwarding just
Speaker 6: a little bit to the This went on for about
Speaker 6: six or eight weeks, and shortly after she moved back
Speaker 6: to bingham and she met a man by the name
Speaker 6: of Charles Pratt, which is commonly known as Chucky, and
Speaker 6: they got together, and not long after that their relationship
Speaker 6: turned intimate and they weren't living together, but they were
Speaker 6: seeing each other regularly, and he seemed to be have
Speaker 6: a good relationship with their children, so she felt comfortable
Speaker 6: asking him to babysit while she was at work. So
Speaker 6: that went on for about six or eight weeks, but unfortunately,
Speaker 6: on December thirtieth, tragedy struck and her two year old son, Lyric,
Speaker 6: was discovered in the morning on December thirtieth, twenty ten,
Speaker 6: to be severely beaten and he was taken to the
Speaker 6: hospital and pronounced dead.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about let's talk about Chucky Charles Pratt as
Speaker 5: you do. He's twenty seven years old at that time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it was just a little bit about the information, especially
Speaker 5: his recent release from prison.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was. He'd been convicted of a drug charge
Speaker 6: down in New York City and in the Bronx area,
Speaker 6: possession of controlled substance, and he was sentenced to state prison.
Speaker 6: He went to state prison. He was sentenced for two
Speaker 6: to six years. He went to state prison and actually
Speaker 6: got released on parole early, but he violated his parole
Speaker 6: and they sent him back to prison to serve out
Speaker 6: his remaining sentence. He was eventually released, I think in
Speaker 6: early two thousand and ten, and he ended up moving
Speaker 6: up to Binghamton for whatever reason. And I found a
Speaker 6: little apartment not far from where Veronica Taft was living,
Speaker 6: and that and then she got introduced to him through
Speaker 6: a friend. You know, he'd assured her that his drug
Speaker 6: dealing days were over, but when in fact they were not.
Speaker 6: He was still actively involved in buying, selling, and using drugs.
Speaker 6: So that that's kind of Chucky's history in a nutshell.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about December thirtieth. You talked about the conditions
Speaker 5: that he was the overnight babysitter. She had somebody else,
Speaker 5: uh Raymond Ramos, I've Rodriguez, I believe, but anyway, somebody
Speaker 5: else that was taking care of the children if she
Speaker 5: needed be needed someone to during the day. But he
Speaker 5: was the overnight babysitter. They had been going out for
Speaker 5: a little while, their intimate and she went to work.
Speaker 5: As customary, she would call him in during the night.
Speaker 5: Just tell us what happened during the night she was
Speaker 5: at work. What was the phone call. There was a
Speaker 5: couple of phone calls. What happens with this nine one
Speaker 5: one call. Tell us the events that happened from earlier
Speaker 5: in the evening previous before she's getting ready to work,
Speaker 5: Give us some of the circumstances that led to this,
Speaker 5: and then tell us about the nine one one call.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, So back on the day before, on December
Speaker 6: twenty ninth, she had a daytime babysitter there from like
Speaker 6: noon until about five o'clock, you know, watching the four kids.
Speaker 6: And during that time he had fed the kids their lunch,
Speaker 6: and then later just before he left, around five o'clock,
Speaker 6: he'd set him again just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Speaker 6: And then so Veronica comes home and she's there with
Speaker 6: the kids, and she's there until she goes to work.
Speaker 6: And then she has to be to work at eleven.
Speaker 6: So her one of her co workers picks her up
Speaker 6: and drives her there. But just before she goes to work,
Speaker 6: Chucky comes over to babysit for the night. So he
Speaker 6: came over about ten fifteen or ten thirty, and his
Speaker 6: stepbrother Jammel was with him. And so when he gets there,
Speaker 6: you know, Vraka is getting ready for work. Her son, Lyric,
Speaker 6: you know, before Chucky got there, her son had been
Speaker 6: in the bedroom with his sisters watching a movie. They
Speaker 6: were all ready for bed. Uh but it was it
Speaker 6: was it was normal for them to stay up late,
Speaker 6: to kind of stay on their mom's schedule. And uh
Speaker 6: so before Chucky gets there, Lyric wandered into her his
Speaker 6: mom's room while she was getting ready for work, and
Speaker 6: he needed his diaper change, so she did that. Then
Speaker 6: he wandered back to the bedroom and then Chucky shows
Speaker 6: up and her ride gets there, uh about quarter two eleven,
Speaker 6: so uh, she's she pops her head into the kids room,
Speaker 6: says a quick goodbye, and and off she goes. Uh.
Speaker 6: But before leaving, she uh, she reminded Chucky to to
Speaker 6: feed the kids, you know, they she'd she'd duh, kind
Speaker 6: of preheated the oven for some French fries and some
Speaker 6: tater tots, maybe some some mac and cheese, I believe.
Speaker 6: And uh, in fact, she she had prehe heated the
Speaker 6: oven to do that. And then she but her ride
Speaker 6: got there, so she had to take off. Uh. So
Speaker 6: she goes to work, gets to work on time, and
Speaker 6: about eleven twenty or so, she calls Chucky on his
Speaker 6: cell phone from work from her work phone and to
Speaker 6: make sure that he'd fed the kids and they were
Speaker 6: all fine, and he said they were and they'd all eaten.
Speaker 6: So she continues working and he stays there babysitting and
Speaker 6: puts the kids to bed. Then around twelve thirty one o'clock.
Speaker 6: She calls back and he assures her that the kids
Speaker 6: are all fine. But the reason she was calling back
Speaker 6: she was considering coming back home to pick up a
Speaker 6: movie and if there was time to watch the movie
Speaker 6: at work with her co workers, she would do that,
Speaker 6: but as it turned out, they were too busy. They
Speaker 6: had a lot of work to do, so she never
Speaker 6: did that, so she continued. He was on working the
Speaker 6: rest of the night. Well, Chucky's there with the kids.
Speaker 6: She gets off work at seven o'clock and her coworker
Speaker 6: that usually drives her home had another commitment, so he
Speaker 6: couldn't take her home, so she had to walk, and
Speaker 6: it's about a fifteen minute walk, so she did that,
Speaker 6: gets home about seven point fifteen. Chucky meets her at
Speaker 6: the door, and ordinarily she would go and check on
Speaker 6: her kids, but he assured her that kids were fine
Speaker 6: and she should just you know, she was real tired.
Speaker 6: He says, Dad, just you need to rest, you know,
Speaker 6: go down, get some sleep. So she just kind of
Speaker 6: did that. She went into her room and got undressed,
Speaker 6: got in bed, and then he joined her and they
Speaker 6: fell asleep. And then around ten thirty, uh, they're they're
Speaker 6: waking up and she she hears the girls in the
Speaker 6: in the other room, and and she's asking him, you know,
Speaker 6: why haven't you gone in to get him up, you know,
Speaker 6: get breakfast around. So he, uh, he gets up, goes
Speaker 6: in and and he comes back and tells her that
Speaker 6: Lyric is blue and he's not breathing and he's cold,
Speaker 6: and she she just kind of starts flipping out, what
Speaker 6: do you mean, you know? And so he runs back
Speaker 6: and picks up Lyric, brings him to her, and he's
Speaker 6: purple colored and not breathing. She she's in a panic,
Speaker 6: you know, slapping him on the back, trying to wake
Speaker 6: him up. And uh. Uh and she said, she says
Speaker 6: to him, you know, call nine one one, and he
Speaker 6: picks up the phone to do that. She just snatches
Speaker 6: it away and then makes the call herself. It's hysterically.
Speaker 6: He can hardly understand what she's saying.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: And then she runs out into the street and down
Speaker 6: the stairs and out into the street. You know, Uh,
Speaker 6: call the police. Does anybody know CPR? You know, she
Speaker 6: just in a panic and hysteria. And a neighbor runs
Speaker 6: across the street and up runs up the stairs with
Speaker 6: her and uh and together they start doing CPR, uh,
Speaker 6: waiting for the h the ambulance to get there. And
Speaker 6: the ambulance finally gets there, the EMTs come up and
Speaker 6: they take over the life saving efforts, and it was
Speaker 6: it was a pretty dire situation. So the lead empt
Speaker 6: e MT just grabbed him into his arms, rushed them
Speaker 6: downstairs into the ambulance, and off they went. Uh, and
Speaker 6: Veronica jumped in the ambulance with them and they're off.
Speaker 5: What's happened, David? What happens before this? There's a situation
Speaker 5: where of course she runs out into the street asking
Speaker 5: for CPR. You mentioned that that neighbor comes and and
Speaker 5: uh he has asked who he is, and he just
Speaker 5: pushes uh Chucky aside and goes and performs the CPR.
Speaker 5: But there is a point when Chucky becomes enraged and
Speaker 5: what does he do and what does what does she witness?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh So when the when the neighbors
Speaker 6: shows up there, you know, when he gets to the
Speaker 6: top of the stairs, Chucky's right there, he's asking who
Speaker 6: he is. So the neighbor said, yeah, I just I
Speaker 6: just pushed him adel away and and went to uh,
Speaker 6: you know, to try to do what I could for Lyric.
Speaker 6: And uh and and Veronica was right there and and
Speaker 6: and somebody, I believe the neighbor's wife was right there too,
Speaker 6: and she's she overhears uh Veronica says something to Chucky like,
Speaker 6: you know, get out of my way, you know. And uh.
Speaker 6: But then uh, right around that same time, Uh, Veronica
Speaker 6: witness says, Chucky uh punched the wall of the living
Speaker 6: room right right next to the right next to her
Speaker 6: betterm wall with both vests and and it left a
Speaker 6: big gaping hole in the in the wall. Pieces of
Speaker 6: plaster fallen on the floor. And you know, later he
Speaker 6: claimed that he did that because he was frustrated over
Speaker 6: what was happening uh to Lyric. Uh. And then he
Speaker 6: in that process, uh, he had he had scraped off
Speaker 6: the skin off his knuckles and his knuckles were bleeding
Speaker 6: and uh and that was noticed by the police when
Speaker 6: they uh uh brought him into the interrogation room a
Speaker 6: little bit later.
Speaker 5: What do e mts notice right away at arrival with
Speaker 5: the two and a half year roll.
Speaker 6: Yeah, one of one of the first things they noticed.
Speaker 6: Of course, he wasn't breathing, but they also noticed that
Speaker 6: his that his abdomen was was blown coded, really puffed out,
Speaker 6: and uh. Interestingly he uh the lyric was, rather than
Speaker 6: being in pajamas, he was in street clothes. He was
Speaker 6: wearing these little blue jeans and uh and a hooded
Speaker 6: sweatshirt on top of a red longsleeve T shirt. And uh.
Speaker 6: But the EMTs had noticed the uh, the bloating of
Speaker 6: the abnom and how tight it was, so they they
Speaker 6: removed his blue jeans to ease the pressure, just left
Speaker 6: them there on the floor, and then and then uh,
Speaker 6: you know, took over the uh, the life saving efforts
Speaker 6: on him, and uh, like I explained, they went down
Speaker 6: to the ambulance. But they'd also noticed that he had
Speaker 6: marks all over his face and his neck and his head,
Speaker 6: and uh, so that that was obviously a concern. And
Speaker 6: they also noticed that the woman there, Ronica, was on
Speaker 6: her knees weeping hysterically.
Speaker 5: Also, you talked about just the what they noticed in
Speaker 5: terms of rigor mortis, and you explain the extent of
Speaker 5: rigor mortis that would be expected around this time. So
Speaker 5: can you explain a little bit about rigor mortis and
Speaker 5: what those EMTs noticed and noted.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Actually, the EMTs really hadn't noticed the riga mortars.
Speaker 6: That was, the doctors at the hospital once they got there,
Speaker 6: started to notice the early onset of rigamortis. And like
Speaker 6: I explained in the book, and a rigamortis usually starts
Speaker 6: to appear within about two to four hours after death
Speaker 6: and then becomes maximoal within six to twelve hours. By
Speaker 6: the time by the time Lyric got to the hospital,
Speaker 6: it was around eleven fifteen am. And one of the
Speaker 6: first things they did, you know, they they removed his
Speaker 6: clothing and replaced them with warm compacts and blankets, and
Speaker 6: they pumped the warm saline solution into his stomach. But
Speaker 6: they also took his temperature a rectal temperature, and his
Speaker 6: temperature had plunged like twelve and a half degrees, so
Speaker 6: it was it was critically low, was about eighty six
Speaker 6: degrees fahrenheit. So he was cold. But the EMTs that
Speaker 6: had noticed UH when they were there, that that his
Speaker 6: UH extremities were cold, but his core seemed to be warm, right,
Speaker 6: So so all of those things were noted. But but
Speaker 6: during his treatment at the emergency room, you know, he
Speaker 6: was he was treated by er doctors for the better
Speaker 6: part of an hour before he was pronounced dead. But
Speaker 6: during that time, in that eleven thirty eleven fifty timeframe,
Speaker 6: they'd noticed the early onset of rigamortis and his extremities
Speaker 6: and in his jaw, and that was documented in the records.
Speaker 6: So it was kind of a clear indication that his
Speaker 6: death had occurred not long you know, not that long ago.
Speaker 6: So that was kind of an important part in determining,
Speaker 6: you know, the time of death.
Speaker 5: So to determine the time of death, of course, there
Speaker 5: needs to be an autopsy. But you write that what's
Speaker 5: interesting and maybe not so typical, is that this woman
Speaker 5: has just been informed about her son. She doesn't even
Speaker 5: know the status as of yet in terms of that
Speaker 5: one hour, but you say, within thirty minutes of being
Speaker 5: at that Hope hospital, she's taken to ben Hampton Police
Speaker 5: department for an interview, isn't she.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, she'd just been told that her son
Speaker 6: was dad. You know, she she was you know, you know,
Speaker 6: praying that he was he was still alive because they
Speaker 6: were taking so much time, you know, working on him.
Speaker 6: But then she was finally notified that he was dead,
Speaker 6: and you know, less than thirty minutes later, she's sitting
Speaker 6: in an interrogation room waiting to be interviewed.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about also Chucky and his interview with the police.
Speaker 5: But tell us, unlike Veronica, she he does not does
Speaker 5: he not go to the hospital? Tell us about this
Speaker 5: the circumstances in which he is still at the apartment
Speaker 5: when she isn't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so when at first happened after shortly after the
Speaker 6: e mts arrived, the Binghamton police officers started arriving as well,
Speaker 6: and uh so, Veronica was in the ambulance with her
Speaker 6: son and her Right after she left, her mother shows
Speaker 6: up because she had called her mother telling her that
Speaker 6: something was wrong with Lyric and to get right over there.
Speaker 6: So her mother, who worked at another hospital nearby, and
Speaker 6: you know, rushed over there. But by the time she
Speaker 6: got there, Veronica was gone. But Chucky was standing there
Speaker 6: on the street when she got there, so they spoke briefly.
Speaker 6: But then shortly after that, the police took Chucky, uh too,
Speaker 6: directly to the police station. So he was he was
Speaker 6: at the police station about an hour before Veronica arrived,
Speaker 6: you know, after learning about the to her son. So
Speaker 6: so he was already placed in an interview room and
Speaker 6: and police were scrambling trying to make sense of everything,
Speaker 6: and uh so he was waiting to be interviewed, and
Speaker 6: for whatever reason, they let him have his cell phone
Speaker 6: in the interrogation room, which is kind of a not
Speaker 6: kind of it's it's a violation of their rules. But
Speaker 6: so while he's in there waiting to be interviewed, he's
Speaker 6: on the phone with his stepbrother and his friend Max,
Speaker 6: and he's telling them all kinds of stuff and and he's, uh,
Speaker 6: he's just kind of going nuts. You know, he lawyers
Speaker 6: up right away. He's practically bouncing off the walls. And
Speaker 6: in my opinion, he was he was on drugs and uh,
Speaker 6: very impatient. Uh you know that he the police couldn't
Speaker 6: work fast enough for him, and like I said, he
Speaker 6: lawyered up real quick. In fact, he was seeking an
Speaker 6: attorney while he was still at the scene over at
Speaker 6: Fayette Street. He called his stepbrother and asked him to
Speaker 6: find a number of an attorney he could call. And
Speaker 6: then by the time he gets to the police station,
Speaker 6: you know, his brother finally calls him back. So he
Speaker 6: answers and gets the information. He tries to call an
Speaker 6: attorney and there's no answer and he's trying to find
Speaker 6: another one. So he quickly let the police know that
Speaker 6: he wanted an attorney, so they were kind of limited
Speaker 6: as to what they could do as far as an
Speaker 6: interview with him.
Speaker 5: Now, meanwhile, the same circumstances, not the same circumstances, but
Speaker 5: there's you have Veronica being able to be cooperative with
Speaker 5: police and willing to answer questions and didn't ask for
Speaker 5: an attorney. So in that regard, how does her interview go?
Speaker 5: What is the tone of that interview? And interestingly you
Speaker 5: write about that when the investigators leave the room, she
Speaker 5: does speak out loud. What is sort of the general
Speaker 5: tone and some of the content of what she speaks
Speaker 5: out loud when they're gone.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was that was pretty revealing of of how
Speaker 6: traumatized she was upon learning of the death of her son.
Speaker 6: You know, the police officers were actually treating her pretty well,
Speaker 6: but there certainly wasn't much compassion to what she was
Speaker 6: going through. But anyway, you know, they brought her into
Speaker 6: the room and told her they'd be with her in
Speaker 6: a little bit, and so, you know, the camera's rolling
Speaker 6: and you can hear her, you know, talking to herself
Speaker 6: out loud. You know, Uh, you know what happened to
Speaker 6: my baby? I love my baby, you know, just just
Speaker 6: on and on you God, take care of my baby.
Speaker 6: It just went on and on and on, you know,
Speaker 6: and she was kind of rock back and forth unconsciously. Uh,
Speaker 6: she probably doesn't even remember doing that.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: It was just it was just kind of horrible to
Speaker 6: watch and listen to what she was saying. And I
Speaker 6: tried to portray that as best I could in the
Speaker 6: in the story, but it's not quite the same as
Speaker 6: as watching it. But yeah, she just went on and
Speaker 6: on and on before they finally came back in and
Speaker 6: you know, sat down and talked with her and went
Speaker 6: through the whole story of how she'd gone to work
Speaker 6: and the whole story I just explained earlier about Chucky
Speaker 6: being there babysitting and when he came over and when
Speaker 6: she left, and she went through that whole scenario, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, trying to recall from the best of her memory. Uh,
Speaker 6: you know, what had happened. And she was there for
Speaker 6: probably a good four hours before they you know, finally
Speaker 6: finished there for that day. And then so she walked
Speaker 6: out of the room. You know, child Protective Services was
Speaker 6: there obviously they were called in because of the surviving
Speaker 6: children that needed to be cared for, and that's why
Speaker 6: they they brought in her mom, Ronica's mom, in so
Speaker 6: that she could take custody of the children, at least temporarily.
Speaker 6: So anyway, that's that was kind of gist of her
Speaker 6: first interview.
Speaker 5: Right, let's use this as an opportunity to stop for
Speaker 5: a second for these messages.
Speaker 3: Lucky Land casino asking people, what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 3: gotten lucky?
Speaker 1: Lucky in line at the Delhi I guess ah, in
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Speaker 4: Yes?
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Speaker 5: Right now?
Speaker 3: Are you feeling lucky.
Speaker 5: Now? He talked about that first interview, but they're anxious
Speaker 5: to talk to her again in regards to her boyfriend
Speaker 5: Chucky and his potential involvement, especially considering all of the
Speaker 5: information that they have so far. What are the questions
Speaker 5: regarding Chucky to her.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, they're they're they're asking her questions about Chucky.
Speaker 6: You know, if she knew anything about his criminal history,
Speaker 6: and she did, and uh, what else.
Speaker 5: One of the things guilt? Does she they mentioned anything
Speaker 5: regarding his potential guilt and what does she say in
Speaker 5: terms of that potential.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she said he hadn't mentioned it to her yet,
Speaker 6: but she told the investigator right near the end of
Speaker 6: her interview that that was her intention to once she
Speaker 6: got out of there, she was going to go back
Speaker 6: to him and see if she could learn something from
Speaker 6: him that she could bring back and share with them. So,
Speaker 6: you know, she wasn't initially. She she didn't want to
Speaker 6: believe that Chucky had anything to do with this because
Speaker 6: he'd always treated her and the kids very well, So
Speaker 6: she was kind of in denial that anything could have happened.
Speaker 6: So she was kind of under the belief that it
Speaker 6: was some type of accident or something. But she didn't
Speaker 6: know what happened and was basically trying to defend Chucky
Speaker 6: initially because she didn't know how severe the beating was,
Speaker 6: at least not at that point. So she had told
Speaker 6: the investigators that she was going to because he'd already
Speaker 6: been released before the end of her interview, so she
Speaker 6: said she was going to, you know, connect with him
Speaker 6: and see what she could find out and let him know.
Speaker 5: With the interview that they have, which is is not
Speaker 5: very long. You talk about Anthony Dials, and you talk
Speaker 5: about Sergeant Tom Egleton conducting the interview and speaking to him.
Speaker 5: What is some of the again not typical behavior that
Speaker 5: this chucky exhibits when they're not in the room, very
Speaker 5: much like Veronica, but also when what does what are
Speaker 5: his concerns and what are some of the allegations that
Speaker 5: he makes to these police officers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's he's kind of saying repeatedly, you know that,
Speaker 6: you know, they're looking at me like I'm a suspect,
Speaker 6: Like I'm a freaking killer. You know. He's telling everybody
Speaker 6: he's talking to that, including Veronica. He finally got a
Speaker 6: hold of Veronica at the hospital and he's telling her
Speaker 6: the same thing. Yeah, they're looking at me like a suspect.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm the killer. I'm about to be arrested,
Speaker 6: you know, And I've never been through this stuff before,
Speaker 6: and just all kinds of bizarre things that, you know,
Speaker 6: and and he's saying some of these things, even before
Speaker 6: it's been announced that Lyric is dead.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what about the he he knows they know about
Speaker 5: the wall, the hole in the wall. So they ask
Speaker 5: him about the wall and the bleeding knuckles. What does
Speaker 5: he have to say, And they are aware of some
Speaker 5: of these other things that are that that there was
Speaker 5: seen at that by doctors at the hospital. Do they yeah,
Speaker 5: question them about those specific things. And what's the follow
Speaker 5: up to those questions?
Speaker 6: Yeah, one of the things they they were they were
Speaker 6: asking him about. Of course, they asked him if he knew,
Speaker 6: you know, knew what had happened, and he says no,
Speaker 6: and he denied ever seeing Lyric that night at all.
Speaker 6: He said he he did feed the kids and and
Speaker 6: he he said he and he cleaned up four empty plates.
Speaker 6: But he said he never saw, never saw Lyric. I'm
Speaker 6: trying to think of everything else, he said, let's see
Speaker 6: during a blank here.
Speaker 5: Well, he talked about you know, his testimony was a
Speaker 5: little bit different in the interview when he talked about, uh,
Speaker 5: the order of some things about the feeding. He had
Speaker 5: mentioned that he had fed them late night. Veronica had
Speaker 5: forgotten that detail, Yeah, brought in the book there there's
Speaker 5: a lot of details that, as you say, she certainly
Speaker 5: suffered from trauma, so some of minor details were inconsistent
Speaker 5: and it was discrepancies. Yeah, there were to him when
Speaker 5: they spoke to him. They also asked him things like
Speaker 5: would you have changed the diaper? Because again they had
Speaker 5: some information about that diaper. Now, so tell us what
Speaker 5: his responses are to the crucial questions of in terms
Speaker 5: of did he feed them, did he see them? Were?
Speaker 5: What was he who changed the diaper? Last, would he
Speaker 5: change the diaper? Those are the kinds of things that
Speaker 5: they were speaking to him about, and it looked like
Speaker 5: they were putting him in a corner regarding those comments.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean yeah, they did ask him, you know,
Speaker 6: who would change a diaper? You know, would you ever
Speaker 6: change the diaper? Or who would change diapers? And he
Speaker 6: said he said on me once in a while, but
Speaker 6: usually it was Saveronica or her oldest daughter Raven. And
Speaker 6: as far as feeding the kids, yeah, he did say
Speaker 6: that he uh, he fed all of the kids. Uh,
Speaker 6: after she left for work, and he and and he
Speaker 6: said when he when he when he came out of
Speaker 6: the game room after they were done eating, there was
Speaker 6: four uh, empty plates there. Uh, and he said he
Speaker 6: was cleaning up in the kitchen. But he denied ever
Speaker 6: seeing ever seeing Lyric or seeing him eating at the
Speaker 6: table with his sisters, which which didn't make a which
Speaker 6: didn't make a lot of sense. But the other thing
Speaker 6: they questioned him about was the uh when they saw
Speaker 6: his bloody knuckles.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: That was right right right near the end of his interview.
Speaker 6: In fact, Uh he had asked for a cigarette and
Speaker 6: the sergeant Eggleston say, I'll see what I can do.
Speaker 6: So he comes back later and he's handing him his cigarette. See,
Speaker 6: Chucky reaches up for it, and that's when Sergeant Eggleston
Speaker 6: saw the injuries on his knuckles, and he says to him, oh,
Speaker 6: what happened there? So he told him, he said, I
Speaker 6: punched the wall. I was frustrated about what happened to Lyric.
Speaker 6: And then he then he holds up his other hand
Speaker 6: and and and shows them the same thing. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 6: and this one too, so so the the knuckles on
Speaker 6: both hands were were bloody, and he uh uh said
Speaker 6: that he was doing it out of frustration for what
Speaker 6: had happened to Lyric, and and that and that supported
Speaker 6: what what Veronica had told them that she had seen
Speaker 6: him punched the wall a couple of times with each fist.
Speaker 6: But but the bizarre thing, Uh, they'd also known from
Speaker 6: the from one of their investigators who was at the
Speaker 6: hospital taking pictures of Lyrics injuries, that he had these
Speaker 6: gouge marks in his neck that were crescent shaped and
Speaker 6: appeared to be made by fingernails. Right, And you know
Speaker 6: the bizarre thing for myself, you know, being a former
Speaker 6: crime scene investigator, you know, they didn't take any pictures,
Speaker 6: they didn't take any DNA, didn't take any fingernail scrapings. Yes,
Speaker 6: and I just felt that was that was pretty irresponsible.
Speaker 5: You talk about the evidence that the police gathered and
Speaker 5: put into evidence. We talked about the the pants that
Speaker 5: they had to take off at the at emergency because
Speaker 5: his stomach was distended. Yeah, but there was different evidence
Speaker 5: or there was evidence in by the by the Birmingham
Speaker 5: Police Department with a diaper. What was it about that
Speaker 5: diaper that should have been examined, should have been tested
Speaker 5: and wasn't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was that was a big thing.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 6: Like I said earlier, when when Lyric went to the hospital,
Speaker 6: he was wearing his pants had been removed, so he
Speaker 6: was just wearing that diaper and that hoodie with a
Speaker 6: white red shirt underneath. So each of those items were
Speaker 6: secured by an officer who was there, and they were
Speaker 6: each placed in his separate evidence bags and tagged accordingly.
Speaker 6: So everything was done properly, and they were brought back
Speaker 6: to the station putting the evidence locker. But it wasn't
Speaker 6: until January seventh, So now we're talking about a week
Speaker 6: later that another evidence technician takes those items out of
Speaker 6: the evidence locker to examine them, and she, you know,
Speaker 6: she takes them out one by one and takes pictures
Speaker 6: of them and looks them over. She didn't do anything
Speaker 6: much with the sweatshirt or the T shirt, but the
Speaker 6: diaper was kind of a different story. It was a
Speaker 6: disposable diaper, and as she's looking at it, what really
Speaker 6: jumped out was the fact that there was five specs
Speaker 6: of blood on the outside of the diaper, not the inside,
Speaker 6: the outside, and uh, she carefully photographed the diaper and
Speaker 6: and she even took these little red sticky arrows and
Speaker 6: to help point to where what what she was showing,
Speaker 6: and some close ups and and one of them, one
Speaker 6: of those spots was was a a rather large spot
Speaker 6: which looked like it was right on one of the
Speaker 6: closing tabs of the diaper that looked just like a
Speaker 6: bloody thumbprint. And uh that that jumped out at me
Speaker 6: right away when I saw that. And uh so when
Speaker 6: I when I when I first saw that, I said, Okay,
Speaker 6: uh you know, where's the where's the lab results? You know,
Speaker 6: where's the DNA? But there wasn't any They they never
Speaker 6: tested it, and that that just kind of blew me away.
Speaker 6: I said, how can you not do that? Uh, you
Speaker 6: know Bronica was in the interview room that morning, she
Speaker 6: wasn't and Chuck he was and uh uh Lyric Lyric
Speaker 6: wouldn't have changed his own diaper, and uh, it just
Speaker 6: it just kind of blew me away that that it
Speaker 6: was never tested and it got even worse dan it
Speaker 6: was about five months later, uh, well before she was arrested.
Speaker 6: H the disc attorney uh uh got a hold of
Speaker 6: the Binghamton police. He wanted to look at that diaper himself.
Speaker 6: So he goes over there. They pull it out of
Speaker 6: evidence and they show it to him. He looks it
Speaker 6: over for about eight minutes, according to the log, and
Speaker 6: uh so when I when I found out they were
Speaker 6: doing that. Okay, now they didn't test it, but poor
Speaker 6: but he's gonna have it tested. Well, he didn't either.
Speaker 6: They just put it back in the bag and back
Speaker 6: in evidence, and uh, it just kind of blew me away.
Speaker 6: I said, how can you not do that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about who they start speaking to. Well,
Speaker 5: they have to speak to they should speak to the stepbrother, Jammel,
Speaker 5: and also anybody else that he called from custody. But
Speaker 5: they asked Jammel about the night before because he's there
Speaker 5: before Veronica leaves for work with a friend. What does
Speaker 5: he say regarding the clothing that Lyric is wearing that night?
Speaker 6: When they interviewed Jammel, Yeah, he had gone over there
Speaker 6: with Chucky that night. He didn't mention what Lyric was
Speaker 6: wearing that night, but he'd been there earlier in the day,
Speaker 6: like in the morning with with Chucky and they had
Speaker 6: breakfast or something. He noticed that that Lyric was and
Speaker 6: the other kids were all in their pajamas and said,
Speaker 6: Lyric was in a it was wearing the SpongeBob pajamas.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: But but when when he went over there that night
Speaker 6: with Chucky, he didn't mention what what the kids were wearing.
Speaker 6: I mean, he saw the girls, but he he he
Speaker 6: kind of backed up his brother and saying he didn't
Speaker 6: he never saw a Lyric, but but he did say
Speaker 6: that his his brother Chucky was in his sleep clothes. Uh.
Speaker 6: So that that's pretty much what what what Jamel had
Speaker 6: to say about about his his being there. You know
Speaker 6: that he did he kind of backed up his brother
Speaker 6: that he didn't see Lyric, but did see the other
Speaker 6: girls and uh and that Chucky was in his uh
Speaker 6: his sleep close. He was, he was tired, he changed
Speaker 6: into his sleep clothes and it was talking about going
Speaker 6: to bed as soon as the kids were were in bed.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about this in terms of with the autopsy
Speaker 5: with doctor terzi In. He initially says, and from his calculations,
Speaker 5: he puts the time of death at three am to
Speaker 5: four am. And of course Veronica's at work, and they
Speaker 5: checked that out to make sure she didn't leave work whatsoever,
Speaker 5: and she didn't. Now they can't they don't have, as
Speaker 5: you right, they don't have a really good opportunity to
Speaker 5: question Chucky about anything regarding this. And they have a
Speaker 5: willing person that's willing to answer questions in three interviews. Yea,
Speaker 5: so how does this person named Jesse Nole factor into
Speaker 5: this story?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Jesse Nole, you know. His name came up fairly
Speaker 6: early on. During one of Veronica's interviews, she mentioned that
Speaker 6: she'd been in a brief relationship with this Jesse Knowle,
Speaker 6: but the police never pursued that initially. It wasn't until
Speaker 6: June of twenty eleven, six months into this and when
Speaker 6: Noel got arrested for domestic violence and contempt at court,
Speaker 6: he had to rather link the arrest history. He'd been
Speaker 6: arrested several times due to a domestic violence incidents with
Speaker 6: the woman he had children with, and so in June
Speaker 6: he gets arrested again and the police arrest him and
Speaker 6: they take him back to the station and he sits
Speaker 6: down for an interview with one of the investigators. But
Speaker 6: they don't talk about what he's just been arrested for.
Speaker 6: They want to know what he can tell them about
Speaker 6: Veronica Taft, and so he proceeds to tell them that
Speaker 6: she he he was in a relationship with Veronica, and
Speaker 6: she told him what happened to Lyric and and that
Speaker 6: that Chucky had been threatening her after this happened, and
Speaker 6: so he tells the police that after she learned about
Speaker 6: Chucky threatening Veronica, him and two of his friends went
Speaker 6: over to see Chucky with the intent of beating him up,
Speaker 6: but instead, when they got there, he confronted Chucky about
Speaker 6: what happened. Wanted to know why he he was beating
Speaker 6: up Veronica and and you know, whatever happened to the
Speaker 6: little lyric And then he he claims that that Chucky
Speaker 6: at that time, Chucky admitted to him that he had
Speaker 6: killed the little boy because he was he was he
Speaker 6: was frustrated, he was angry with Veronica because she was
Speaker 6: cheating on him and she was a crack smoking horror
Speaker 6: and uh and and that's why he uh uh uh
Speaker 6: killed the baby and then put him back in bed.
Speaker 6: So he tells, he tells the police that probably three
Speaker 6: or four times.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: So they lock him up. They lock up Jesse Knowle,
Speaker 6: and then then we fast forward, uh about about two
Speaker 6: weeks later, he's in the jail. They so the disc
Speaker 6: attorney and then three and three or four investigators go
Speaker 6: up to the jail. Jesse Knowle's there with his attorney
Speaker 6: and now now the camera's rolling and so they they
Speaker 6: have him sign what they call a debriefing agreement, and
Speaker 6: he agrees to the conditions that he signs it. And
Speaker 6: so then they said, okay, Jesse, tell us again what happened.
Speaker 6: I've already got a pretty good idea of what you're
Speaker 6: gonna say, but tell us again. So he lays out
Speaker 6: the same story and then and then all of a
Speaker 6: sudden they start leaning on him and telling him they
Speaker 6: don't believe that he's being truthful and and none of
Speaker 6: his story makes any sense. And I would agree, but
Speaker 6: any but anyway, so Jesse Noel knew that, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: he was obviously looking for a deal for himself and uh,
Speaker 6: but when they started confronting him with his lies, he
Speaker 6: knew that his deal was probably out the window. But
Speaker 6: then then but then one of the investigators said, look, Jesse,
Speaker 6: we're we're willing to give you a clean slate here,
Speaker 6: and uh. And then one one of the other investigators
Speaker 6: made the made the suggestion, was it her that made
Speaker 6: the admission? Was it her that told you that? And
Speaker 6: of course they had already told him that Veronica was
Speaker 6: on the verge of being arrested anyway, So so that
Speaker 6: was his cute to throw her under the bus. So
Speaker 6: he changes his story and and he said, no, yeah,
Speaker 6: it was it was Veronica who admitted to killing her son.
Speaker 6: And then he so he describes the same the same scenario,
Speaker 6: only he puts Veronica in place of Chucky, and that's
Speaker 6: what they went with. They used his testimony at the
Speaker 6: trial later.
Speaker 5: So, so tell us, now they have this new they
Speaker 5: have this new confession from this witness. They think they're prepared.
Speaker 5: You think it's uh, you know, outrageous what they are doing,
Speaker 5: given the information that they have. And you can't see
Speaker 5: any really honorable reason for doing this. It just seems
Speaker 5: a practical. They need a prosecution, they need somebody to
Speaker 5: pin this on, and it seems to be Veronica. So
Speaker 5: tell us about the the Lukia Lucia's prosecution and this
Speaker 5: arrest and trial.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know, first it went to you know,
Speaker 6: first they arrested her and then a week later they
Speaker 6: indicted her with lengthy grand jury testimony, and then in
Speaker 6: August of twenty twelve she went on trial. And Peter
Speaker 6: de Lucia was the senior assistant disc attorney who prosecuted her,
Speaker 6: and he was the same one that I mentioned earlier
Speaker 6: about not examining the diaper, and so he calls in
Speaker 6: all of his witnesses and probably one of the I
Speaker 6: don't know if I should use the word bizarre. I
Speaker 6: guess that's appropriate. Yeah, he calls in some of these
Speaker 6: witnesses who had no information at all about what happened
Speaker 6: to Lyric, right, but they had provided information uh long
Speaker 6: before through child protective services that Veronica was uh uh
Speaker 6: an unfit, abusive mother to all of her children, and
Speaker 6: they and they and they described numerous incidents, none of
Speaker 6: which were ever substantiated. And uh so they very DeLucia
Speaker 6: very successfully uh portrayed Veronica as this monster, you know,
Speaker 6: then getting the jury to to really hate her, and
Speaker 6: and he was very successful at doing that. And then
Speaker 6: uh th the first uh material witness was the doctor,
Speaker 6: doctor Terzian, and of course he he went on to
Speaker 6: describe Lyrics uh injuries and in what he discovered during
Speaker 6: the autopsy and uh and then uh then they put
Speaker 6: the pictures of Lyrics injuries, uh his little thirty pound
Speaker 6: body up on the big screen and uh it was
Speaker 6: pretty brutal, you know, and you could you could look
Speaker 6: at the eyes of the juror. And then they glanced
Speaker 6: at the They were appalled, obviously, and anybody would be.
Speaker 6: And then they glance over at Roka, and of course
Speaker 6: I noticed those things, and from that point on it
Speaker 6: was it was over. And that was early in the trial.
Speaker 6: But from that point on, I think she was They
Speaker 6: weren't going to let her out of there.
Speaker 5: How did they adjust? How did they try to explain
Speaker 5: the adjustment from three to four am to the new
Speaker 5: theory that she had killed Lyric before she left for
Speaker 5: work and maybe from nine pm to eleven pm and
Speaker 5: sometime in that area. How did how do they answer
Speaker 5: to that or how do they explain that?
Speaker 6: Well, he didn't explain it very well, but anyway, they
Speaker 6: what they did was they they got the doctor to
Speaker 6: testify that it was within the bounds of possibility or
Speaker 6: with in the realm of possibility that could have been
Speaker 6: uh uh. There could have been a fifty error rate
Speaker 6: in the in the time of death, which would mean
Speaker 6: that uh, Lyric was killed around nine pm with dinner
Speaker 6: around eight pm, because because there were when they did
Speaker 6: the when he did the autopsy, they found some stomach
Speaker 6: contents that still remained in his stomach, and they were
Speaker 6: they were saved and frozen for further study. But then
Speaker 6: you know, in the trial, he he you know, obviously
Speaker 6: they have to they have to find a way to
Speaker 6: push back the time of death. It was it was
Speaker 6: a huge hurdle for them, and and they didn't do
Speaker 6: a very good job. And and the doctor kept talking about, uh,
Speaker 6: compounding factors that could slow down the the cooling rate
Speaker 6: of a body after it dies, after it's dead, But
Speaker 6: it just it just didn't make any sense that would
Speaker 6: be that much different, especially when you're talking about a
Speaker 6: two year old when when the formula he was using
Speaker 6: was based on that of an average adult, which is
Speaker 6: like one hundred and fifty five pounds. Lyric weighed thirty
Speaker 6: three pounds, so if anything, the cooling rate would have
Speaker 6: been much faster. And and on top of that, if
Speaker 6: you go back to nine pm as the time of
Speaker 6: assault or the time of death, that would mean thirteen
Speaker 6: hours or more between the time he was killed in
Speaker 6: the time he had his body temperature taken in the
Speaker 6: hospital the next morning. And if that's the case, you know,
Speaker 6: he wouldn't have been he would not have been an
Speaker 6: early rigor. He would have been in advanced, if not
Speaker 6: permanent rigor.
Speaker 5: Right They also big contention is the usker if she
Speaker 5: was the person that changed his diaper lyrics diaper before
Speaker 5: she went to work, and she said she she did. Now,
Speaker 5: given that evidence of the blood evidence on and potential
Speaker 5: fingerprints on the outside of the diaper, and the doctor
Speaker 5: had testified that there was no external injuries, Chucky tried
Speaker 5: to say that his knuckles were bloody from the wall,
Speaker 5: but that must have been happened after because Veronica had
Speaker 5: witnessed that. So how do they deal with that at
Speaker 5: this trial?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well they they uh they described the bloody knuckles
Speaker 6: as a as a red herring. Uh yeah, that's that's
Speaker 6: that's the words he used. Uh that you know that
Speaker 6: they claimed that the diaper, the bloody diaper, had no
Speaker 6: evidentiary value. Uh what was found on that diaper could
Speaker 6: have come from anyone in the household. It was it
Speaker 6: was pretty pretty bizarre to listen to that, Uh, that
Speaker 6: testimony coming from you know, experts, you know who who
Speaker 6: who's supposed to know what they're talking about, and uh,
Speaker 6: it was it was really disturbing to uh to listen
Speaker 6: to that.
Speaker 5: Knowing it was fault You talk about the uh that
Speaker 5: the CPS, uh child Protection Service evidence. I've put that
Speaker 5: in quotation marks from these people that were were malicious
Speaker 5: in their Yeah, the content of their of the things
Speaker 5: that they said. There was no real evidence to back
Speaker 5: up anything to corroborate any of these these stories. But
Speaker 5: you said that that was really some of the most
Speaker 5: damning evidence again that was brought in and likely influenced
Speaker 5: the jury. With the jury, they only deliberated about four hours.
Speaker 5: Ye in your experience, what did you think might have
Speaker 5: happened with that short turnaround in terms of deliberation.
Speaker 6: Well, we were, obviously we're pretty optimistic that it would
Speaker 6: be a not guilty verdict, you know, if they were
Speaker 6: paying attention at all. So we were really kind of
Speaker 6: blown away when they when they come back with a
Speaker 6: with a guilty verdict. You know, it just just didn't
Speaker 6: make any sense, you know that. But like I said,
Speaker 6: you know, once they saw those pictures and the she's
Speaker 6: the one sitting at the defense table, you know, I
Speaker 6: think it was it was all over.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's this is an opportunity to stop for a
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Speaker 5: Now, of course, he is devastated. David Butler is devastated.
Speaker 5: You are disappointed and frustrated. So what is the next step.
Speaker 6: Well, the next step, obviously, is the first thing Dave
Speaker 6: Butler did was to file a intent to appeal what
Speaker 6: you did. But you know that that process is just
Speaker 6: the first step. Now it has to go to another attorney,
Speaker 6: has to be assigned to write the appeal brief. And
Speaker 6: that's just a very lengthy process. It takes months, if
Speaker 6: not years, and it did. It took a very long time.
Speaker 6: Finally an a pellet or a appealed attorney was assigned
Speaker 6: and uh he had to wait for all the transcripts
Speaker 6: to come in and then review everything and and pick
Speaker 6: out the uh issues that needed to be addressed in
Speaker 6: the appeal, and so that took a long time. But
Speaker 6: I think he did a pretty good job with it.
Speaker 5: Uh, let's talk about let's talk about those issues. But meanwhile,
Speaker 5: Veronica's in prison labeled a baby killer. Yeah, what's her stay?
Speaker 5: Like David Butler stays in contact? I think you do
Speaker 5: at some point. But tell us about just a little
Speaker 5: bit about what you know about her stay in prison.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was you know when I when I interviewed
Speaker 6: here for the for the book, uh, you know, she
Speaker 6: she talked for a while about life in prison, and
Speaker 6: it was pretty brutal. Uh you know, just you know,
Speaker 6: being called baby killer and compared to uh uh that
Speaker 6: casey Anthony uh uh who was accused of killing her
Speaker 6: young daughter. And and then just the the behavior that's
Speaker 6: going on, you know, with the with the CEOs and
Speaker 6: other inmates, you know, urinating in the smoking and urinating
Speaker 6: in the showers, and you know, the cockroaches everywhere and inmates,
Speaker 6: uh you know, women raping women, and you know the
Speaker 6: CEO's treating you like crap. Just you know, just on
Speaker 6: and on and on. So I had to be pretty brutal.
Speaker 6: So she shared some of that with them. It's probably
Speaker 6: worse than what she just cried. But I can't even imagine.
Speaker 6: It must have been horrible.
Speaker 5: What about contact with their children? How difficult was that? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Very little? And I corresponded with her periodically and just
Speaker 6: maybe a Christmas card or a note to give her
Speaker 6: an update on the appeal process or something. But uh,
Speaker 6: but she'd always write right back. I got a few
Speaker 6: different letters from her, usually very lengthy ones, you know,
Speaker 6: And and in one of them she said that she
Speaker 6: did get a chance to talk to her kids like
Speaker 6: once a month, she said, the you know, they they
Speaker 6: missed her crazy, like she did them. And uh. And
Speaker 6: then later she asked me if I could dig out
Speaker 6: some of the pictures we had of her children in
Speaker 6: our case file, and so I did that and sent
Speaker 6: those to her and made her cry. So it had
Speaker 6: to be hard. And then another hard thing for her was,
Speaker 6: you know, her while she was in prison or her
Speaker 6: grandma died and she could and couldn't go to the funeral,
Speaker 6: and that, she said, that was that was probably one
Speaker 6: of the hardest things. She said. She she had a
Speaker 6: lot of problems trying to deal with that for a
Speaker 6: long time.
Speaker 5: You say, the seppellate process takes a long time, and
Speaker 5: of course it us and there was the issues that
Speaker 5: were most important, and you felt and that for the
Speaker 5: most part that you agreed with those. What were the
Speaker 5: issues that they brought forth in the appellate.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, probably the uh there were several issues.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: The main issue was that and and and they agreed
Speaker 6: was that the verdict was against the way to the
Speaker 6: evidence and uh and and they put that almost right
Speaker 6: in the very beginning of their their decision. But then
Speaker 6: they went on to kind of explain why, and uh
Speaker 6: they really uh kind of attacked the prosecution and the
Speaker 6: police for the methods and the evidence they used. And
Speaker 6: they they kind of tore apart the pathologists testimony that
Speaker 6: he was offering uh opinions based on unsubstantiated uh uh
Speaker 6: information and he was offering an opinion based on possibilities
Speaker 6: and assumptions rather than any any direct evidence. So uh
Speaker 6: and then they then they tore apart the uh the
Speaker 6: testimony of Jesse Knowle and how he had admitted uh
Speaker 6: that telling the police uh three or four times that
Speaker 6: Chucky was the one who admitted this. And then and
Speaker 6: and then they uh they kind of really nailed it
Speaker 6: near the end when they said that, Uh. Moreover, the
Speaker 6: paramore Chucky was granted immunity uh to testify uh against Fronica.
Speaker 5: And you call that a transactional immunity, correct, A blanket immunity.
Speaker 6: Yeah, blanket immunity. It's just as if unless you waive
Speaker 6: your immunity. Uh, it's granted automatically, at least in New
Speaker 6: York State. So any any any prosecution that whoever, whoever
Speaker 6: gets immunity can never be charged with anything related uh
Speaker 6: to that testimony.
Speaker 5: Is that immunity unique to New York State?
Speaker 6: I don't think so. I'm not a lawyer, but in
Speaker 6: my understanding is it's pretty pretty consistent uh everywhere that
Speaker 6: there might be some exceptions, but to the to the
Speaker 6: best of my knowledge, it's, uh, you know, once once
Speaker 6: you're once somebody is granted immunity, Uh, they can't be
Speaker 6: charged with with any matter related to their testimony.
Speaker 5: Right now, you talk about the the decision itself, the
Speaker 5: appellate decision, you say that basically said that this was
Speaker 5: a verdict was weighed against the evidence. So yeah, there
Speaker 5: is many options or a few options for the courts
Speaker 5: to proceed. What are a couple of the options that
Speaker 5: could have happened, and then tell us what does happen.
Speaker 6: I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Speaker 5: Well, they could could chance, they could choose to retry.
Speaker 6: No, no, they, no, they can't. Uh that was my
Speaker 6: that was my original understanding when when when Dave Butler
Speaker 6: first called me and told me of the decision, I
Speaker 6: said to him, I said, but that doesn't that mean
Speaker 6: we have to go back to trial. He said no,
Speaker 6: he says, it says right here, the verdict was against
Speaker 6: the way to the evidence, it's over. So so no,
Speaker 6: they they they threw it out. So that means they
Speaker 6: can't retry her, and.
Speaker 5: And they and that's just not again in your experience,
Speaker 5: that's not typical, is it.
Speaker 6: No, No, it's not typical. I've had a number of
Speaker 6: a number of murder cases that I've worked on for
Speaker 6: the defense that for one reason or another got reversed
Speaker 6: on appeal, but they came back for a retrial. But
Speaker 6: I've never in my career had one come back like
Speaker 6: this where they just threw it out entirely.
Speaker 5: You right, though, that Veronica isn't aware of everything that's
Speaker 5: going on, She's aware of something on her behalf. But
Speaker 5: at that time that this decision comes, you're not sure
Speaker 5: if she even knows. So what happens with her after
Speaker 5: this decision is she let out immediately? Just tell us
Speaker 5: the circumstances. They're fascinating, now, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when I first heard about it, it came in
Speaker 6: on December one of twenty sixteen, so you know, that's
Speaker 6: how long she was in prison. So my first thought was,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, does Veronica know this? You know?
Speaker 6: And uh uh, so we didn't know whether whether she'd
Speaker 6: learned about it or not. Uh, but we found out
Speaker 6: later that she did hear about it from a a
Speaker 6: counselor there at the prison who had who had heard
Speaker 6: of the decision and in formed Veronica. And uh, of
Speaker 6: course she she was thinking, like we were, that it
Speaker 6: would mean another trial. But when when she found out
Speaker 6: that no, it was the decision that was set in
Speaker 6: her free uh, you know, she was pretty elated and
Speaker 6: uh but but but she sat there in prison for
Speaker 6: another week almost before they finally let her go. But
Speaker 6: it was only due to the effort of a local
Speaker 6: family court attorney that heard about the decision and stepped
Speaker 6: up to uh to kind of expedite that process. And
Speaker 6: uh so she was finally let out on the December seventh,
Speaker 6: and uh, you know, got on the bus and came
Speaker 6: back home.
Speaker 5: And in terms of the custody of her children, she
Speaker 5: didn't get her children back right away. But what was there,
Speaker 5: what was their efforts in terms to get them back?
Speaker 5: Was she successful?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, it was an uphill battle. She was back
Speaker 6: in family court several times. It took a year to
Speaker 6: get her two youngest girls back and then in two
Speaker 6: years to get her oldest daughter, Havin back. She told
Speaker 6: me and I could have lost her forever. She was
Speaker 6: placed in a pre adoption home and it was on
Speaker 6: the verge of being adopted, and it was kind of
Speaker 6: just in the nick of time. She was able to
Speaker 6: get her back, but it took two years. So she
Speaker 6: didn't get she didn't get Havin back until like February
Speaker 6: of twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: Wow. Incredible. So now on behalf of her there was
Speaker 5: a law firm that filed a suit. She was in
Speaker 5: prison for five and a half years, yeah, for conviction there.
Speaker 5: So that's under way, that legal.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's pending up. There have been some depositions taken,
Speaker 6: but the last I heard, they were in the process
Speaker 6: of getting ready to depose doctor Terzian, and the state's
Speaker 6: attorney resigned and then they were waiting for a new
Speaker 6: attorney to be assigned. So that's that's the last I'd
Speaker 6: heard on that.
Speaker 5: So she has gained custody of her children, and you
Speaker 5: write that her life is not without difficulties, but she
Speaker 5: is back on her feet, a very strong woman. You
Speaker 5: write about the interviews with her mother, and you say
Speaker 5: that obviously she inherited a lot of the same type
Speaker 5: of characteristics from her mother, very strong, willed and determined,
Speaker 5: to say the least. Ye, there is an incredible story
Speaker 5: that you write just at the end of this on
Speaker 5: Fayette Street, the address of the apartment. People had moved
Speaker 5: into that apartment and unbeknownst to them, this murder had
Speaker 5: happened in one of the rooms, and she had a
Speaker 5: six year old child tell us about this incredible, other
Speaker 5: worldly event.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this was pretty unique, to say the least. Actually,
Speaker 6: I learned about this from another reporter. He actually worked
Speaker 6: for the New York Times. He'd been intrigued about the decision,
Speaker 6: the Appella Court decision that threw out these charges against
Speaker 6: Ronica so he contacted David Butler, the attorney, and wanted
Speaker 6: to meet with us to get some more details. So
Speaker 6: he came up, we met with him, and then he
Speaker 6: set out to conduct his own investigation. Butler just gave
Speaker 6: him his whole file because you know, there wasn't going
Speaker 6: to be any retrial. So anyway, he sets out to
Speaker 6: do his own thing. And during the course of that,
Speaker 6: he went back to Fayette Street and he goes into
Speaker 6: the same apartment where Veronica was living, and he met
Speaker 6: this woman and her husband and her six year old daughter,
Speaker 6: and they didn't know anything about the murder that had
Speaker 6: happened there, so they were it was news to them.
Speaker 6: But interestingly, the mother of this little the six year
Speaker 6: old girl, said that her daughter had an imaginary friend
Speaker 6: that would play in that same back bedroom where where
Speaker 6: the murder took place, and they'd laugh and giggle and
Speaker 6: that type of thing. And she even wanted to buy
Speaker 6: gifts for him at Christmas time, that type of thing.
Speaker 6: And so the reporter asked him, says, what does she
Speaker 6: call him? And the mother didn't know, she'll so she
Speaker 6: she called to her daughter and and she come over
Speaker 6: and and she hadn't she'd never heard the name before,
Speaker 6: so so she had her spell it out on a
Speaker 6: little blackboard and and then the father, the little girl's father,
Speaker 6: read it off to the reporter and said the boy's
Speaker 6: name was Eleric.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I for for what it's worth, Dan, I don't know.
Speaker 6: It's just I thought it was compelling enough to share
Speaker 6: in the story.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's an incredible, incredible event. I want to thank
Speaker 5: you so much David M. Beiers for coming on and
Speaker 5: talking about your latest Immunity for Murder, the Veronica tast story.
Speaker 5: For those that might want to take a look at
Speaker 5: your work, do you have a website Please tell us
Speaker 5: about that website or Facebook page for this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I have both. The website very simple for Davidmbeers
Speaker 6: dot com and the Facebook same is the same. Just
Speaker 6: you know, David M. Beers and I have two of them,
Speaker 6: one a personal one and I have one for the
Speaker 6: for my books. So you should be able to find
Speaker 6: it on either one. I'm you can also find it
Speaker 6: on Independent Author Network.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Great, Thank you so much, David. This is incredible you
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about this Immunity for Murder, an
Speaker 5: incredible case, the Veronica cast story. Thank you so much
Speaker 5: David M. Beers, you have a great evening. Thank you
Speaker 5: so much for this interview.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks Dan, good night, good night.