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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 6: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 8: Good Evening on a hot night. In July nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 8: Janet Downing, a forty two year old mother of four,
Speaker 8: was brutally stabbed ninety eight times in her home in Somerville,
Speaker 8: a city two miles northwest of Boston. Within hours, a
Speaker 8: suspect was identified, fifteen year old Eddie O'Brien, the best
Speaker 8: friend of one of Janet's sons. But why Eddie. He
Speaker 8: had no prior history of criminal behavior, He was not
Speaker 8: mentally ill, He had neither motive nor opportunity to commit
Speaker 8: the crime. Yet none of that mattered, because powers beyond
Speaker 8: his Somerville neighborhood decided that Eddie needed to be guilty.
Speaker 8: The timing of this case did not bode well for Eddie.
Speaker 8: A movement hoping to stop the supposed rise of young
Speaker 8: super predators was sweeping the nation, and juvenile offenders were
Speaker 8: the targets. Both the Massachusetts governor in an elected district
Speaker 8: attorney who personally litigated this case, supported juvenile justice reform,
Speaker 8: and both aspired to higher offices. Eddie O'Brien's case garnered
Speaker 8: both local and nottional publicity. He was a youthful Irish
Speaker 8: Catholic boy. Next door his grandfather was the retired chief
Speaker 8: of the Somerville Police Department. Court TV covered the trial
Speaker 8: in adult court gavel to gavel, calling it the Altboy
Speaker 8: Murder Case. His highly publicized case changed the juvenile laws
Speaker 8: in Massachusetts. Other states began to follow suit. But did
Speaker 8: the justice system fail Eddie? That's the contention of author
Speaker 8: Attorney Margot Nash in her explosive expose The Politics of Murder.
Speaker 8: Appointed Eddie's guardian ad litem, Nash attended every court session
Speaker 8: eventually gained access to all his files. Now, after painstaking
Speaker 8: research and examination of each step of the investigation, trial transcripts,
Speaker 8: and the forensic evidence, Nash makes the case that Eddie
Speaker 8: could not have committed the crime and that other viable
Speaker 8: suspects were never properly considered. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 8: this evening is the politics of Murder with my special guest,
Speaker 8: journalist and author and attorney Margo Nash. Welcome to the
Speaker 8: program and thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 4: Margo Nash, Thank you Dan, and thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much. Fascinating case. Again, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 8: I'm learning so much for the differences between the vast
Speaker 8: differences between state law. Incredible difference. Let's get right to this.
Speaker 8: I won't ask why you got involved with this because
Speaker 8: we will see very early on why you were involved
Speaker 8: with this. As I mentioned, you were appointed the guardian
Speaker 8: ad litem. Let's just start with what a guardian ad
Speaker 8: litem is. Give us that background, and give us your
Speaker 8: background as a lawyer before as an introduction to how
Speaker 8: you came to this case.
Speaker 4: Sure, a guardian lightem is an attorney, usually an attorney.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have to be appointed in a lawsuit, and
Speaker 4: generally it happens in child custody proceedings and they are
Speaker 4: appointed to protect the interests of the child who is
Speaker 4: a mayor. And in this particular case, Eddie's attorneys asked
Speaker 4: for the appointment about guardian ed Letham for various reasons,
Speaker 4: and the judge appointed me to help Eddie navigate his
Speaker 4: way through the system he was in the juvenile system
Speaker 4: at that particular point, to help him understand the proceedings
Speaker 4: and various things that were happening to him. My background
Speaker 4: is that I graduated from law school in nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: three and for five years I was an attorney with
Speaker 4: the State Department of Social Services, where I prosecuted abuse
Speaker 4: in neglect cases. And I then went into private practice
Speaker 4: and did a number of different areas of law, one
Speaker 4: of which was juvenile law, another was divorce and child custody.
Speaker 4: And I also was certified by the court after taking
Speaker 4: certain courses required courses to be a guardian ned lightem tactics,
Speaker 4: a guardian dead item, so that I could protect children's
Speaker 4: rights in the court system.
Speaker 8: Now, as you talk about in the book, here we
Speaker 8: you set up the story. Begin the story with a
Speaker 8: little background on Eddie O'Brien. His grandfather's birthday was a
Speaker 8: week before this incident. His grandfather, TJ. Or Chief, as
Speaker 8: he was known, was the chief of police for the
Speaker 8: Somerville Police as we had mentioned, and he had retired
Speaker 8: years before. Eddie's Father's name is ed. So tell us
Speaker 8: a little bit about who Eddie's family was, the members
Speaker 8: of his family, and tell us about the Downing family
Speaker 8: which was right across the street before we talk about
Speaker 8: this little neighborhood a little ways out.
Speaker 4: Of Boston, Okay. Eddie's parents, their names are ed and
Speaker 4: Tricia Patricia and Tricia was her maiden name is also O'Brien.
Speaker 4: They both grew up in Somerville. They both come from
Speaker 4: Irish Catholic families with several siblings. Ed is the youngest
Speaker 4: of his group of siblings, having been born much after
Speaker 4: some of his older siblings. He grew up in the
Speaker 4: house that Eddie later and his siblings later grew up in.
Speaker 4: It was a family home owned by the chief. There
Speaker 4: were five children in the house. Eddie had an older
Speaker 4: sister named Jean Eddie Jessica was twelve at the time,
Speaker 4: two little girls named Mary and Meghan three years old
Speaker 4: and three months old at the time of the incident.
Speaker 4: So that's who was living in the Eddie O'Brien house.
Speaker 4: And Papa, the grandfather, the chief, was in the house.
Speaker 4: As you said, There was a birthday party for him
Speaker 4: the week before this incident. He had just been diagnosed
Speaker 4: with terminal cancer and he was not well and he
Speaker 4: would die not too long after Eddie's arrest of cancer.
Speaker 4: Across the street, the Downings, they purchased a house whereas
Speaker 4: the O'Brien family had lived in that house for at
Speaker 4: least one generation so far. The Downing family moved into
Speaker 4: that house when Janet married her husband, Paul Senior. At
Speaker 4: the time of the incident, Paul and Janet were divorced,
Speaker 4: had been divorced, I believe Paul. I know Paul was
Speaker 4: remarried at that point and lived in another town. Janet
Speaker 4: lived there with. Janet had four children. The oldest was
Speaker 4: Carrie Anne, and then Aaron, and then the twin boys,
Speaker 4: Ryan and Paul Junior were fifteen sixteen years old at
Speaker 4: the time and in the house. The only child that
Speaker 4: was not in the home at the time living in
Speaker 4: the home was Carrie Anne. The family. I'm sorry to
Speaker 4: go ahead, I say that I'll wait for your question.
Speaker 8: To round this out. You have you mentioned that Janet
Speaker 8: rented the other part of the duplex that she lived
Speaker 8: into Barry and Virgina Wrecley, And you also talk about
Speaker 8: again a very crucial person and character in this story
Speaker 8: is Gina Mahoney. So let's talk about Virginia and Barry Wreckley,
Speaker 8: and then we'll talk about Gina Mahoney to round out
Speaker 8: this this very very important neighborhood in this story.
Speaker 4: Okay, I was gonna say earlier that Paul Downing Senior
Speaker 4: and Janet Downing were not from Somerville. They were not
Speaker 4: originally from Somerville or from that neighborhood, unlike Gina Mahoney,
Speaker 4: who is the third has the three generations of Mahony's
Speaker 4: have grown up in her house. She lives two doors
Speaker 4: down on the on the O'Brien's side of the house.
Speaker 4: There renters. I don't believe they were from Somerville, but
Speaker 4: they were renters there for about five years. Since they
Speaker 4: had a daughter who was married, who had not been
Speaker 4: married when they first moved there. They were only renters
Speaker 4: there for about five years.
Speaker 8: Now, you talk about Gina Mahoney, and you talk about
Speaker 8: how close Janet was, and so tell us about where
Speaker 8: Janet was that day that we're talking about, July twenty third,
Speaker 8: nineteen ninety five. So you talk about the time Janet
Speaker 8: spent with Gina, tell us about what Gina recalls from
Speaker 8: that afternoon, that many hours that they spent together. What
Speaker 8: did they talk about? And tell us a little bit
Speaker 8: about Gina Mahoney.
Speaker 4: Gina Mahoney is a wonderful, wonderful person. She's an icon
Speaker 4: in the neighborhood. Everyone knows her. She's been there forever.
Speaker 4: She grew up there as a child. She's known Ed
Speaker 4: Senior since Ed Senior was smaller. He there. There's at
Speaker 4: least ten or fifteen years difference between the the uh
Speaker 4: uh Gina Mahoney and the O'Brien parents.
Speaker 8: And she.
Speaker 4: Uh she as I said, she lives two doors down
Speaker 4: from the O'Brien's and she is just a friend to
Speaker 4: everybody in the neighborhood. Janet came over to her house
Speaker 4: very early that morning was a hot, hot, muggy day,
Speaker 4: and it had been a hot week air conditioning. Air
Speaker 4: conditioning was not prevalent in the neighborhood. These are old
Speaker 4: three three decker houses and wooden framed houses, and and
Speaker 4: there may people may have an air conditioning unit in
Speaker 4: their bedroom, but there was no such thing as central air.
Speaker 4: And Janet came over in that hot morning and brought
Speaker 4: her coffee, and she wanted to talk to Gina because
Speaker 4: Gina had worked in a union office for a utility
Speaker 4: company all of her life and knew a lot about
Speaker 4: labor relations and about unions and about employee rights. And
Speaker 4: Janet was concerned because she felt she was being pushed
Speaker 4: out of her job at a local health insurance facility
Speaker 4: where she was a clerical worker, and she wanted Gina
Speaker 4: to review her performance reviews and to give her an
Speaker 4: opinion as to whether or not she should try to
Speaker 4: fight the potential discharge that she thought was coming, and
Speaker 4: that's what her initial purpose was when she came over.
Speaker 4: During the day, Gina's daughter, Danny came in and there
Speaker 4: was some discussion about her going out that and Janet
Speaker 4: immediately remarked, you know that she should be careful where
Speaker 4: she goes at night, because three months before this, a
Speaker 4: young girl named Deanna Kremons had been brutally murdered just
Speaker 4: blocks from where this house is. And no, they had
Speaker 4: never they still have not charged anybody with that murder,
Speaker 4: or they don't know who killed Deanna Cremons. She's been
Speaker 4: dead now almost twenty three years, so that was much
Speaker 4: on everybody's mind. And after Danny left the room, Gina
Speaker 4: explained to to Janet Downing that Danny was friends with
Speaker 4: Deanna Kremens, and that was upsetting, you know, And she
Speaker 4: was still very upset about that, and at which point
Speaker 4: Janet said, if anything like that ever happens to me,
Speaker 4: I want you to promise me, Gina, that you will investigate, investigate, investigate,
Speaker 4: And she pounded her fist into her other into the
Speaker 4: palm of her other hand and saying, investigate, investigate, investigate,
Speaker 4: and I would never kill myself, and even if it
Speaker 4: looks like an accident, promise me that you'll have the
Speaker 4: police investigate. And Gina was taken aback and she said,
Speaker 4: my god, is something are you afraid of something? Is
Speaker 4: something happening? And why would you even say that? And
Speaker 4: she then explained that she was afraid of someone, and
Speaker 4: she explained why she was afraid of this person. And
Speaker 4: this person happened to be a family member of hers
Speaker 4: who she felt was following her and was trying to
Speaker 4: terrorize her. And she believed that he had been coming
Speaker 4: in and out of her house while she was at
Speaker 4: work and moving things around, taking her personal diary from
Speaker 4: the nightstand. Another parrowing incident which had happened maybe several
Speaker 4: weeks before that, when she was coming home from work.
Speaker 4: The family member who she was afraid of worked for
Speaker 4: a cab company, and she was coming down a one
Speaker 4: way street and suddenly she was surrounded by these cabs
Speaker 4: and there was one on either side of her, one
Speaker 4: in front of her, one behind her, flashing in their
Speaker 4: bright lights it was dark out, honking their horns and
Speaker 4: penning her in and she said she was so scared.
Speaker 4: All she could do was look straight ahead and try
Speaker 4: not to hit one of the cabs. And it was
Speaker 4: this family member's cab company. And she was absolutely unhinged
Speaker 4: by that incident, and it really really terrified her. And
Speaker 4: as I said, another incident, she found a personal diary
Speaker 4: missing from her night table. She couldn't figure out what
Speaker 4: had happened to it, and she had actually went over
Speaker 4: to her house to get it to bring it to
Speaker 4: Gina's to show her. And then she said that several
Speaker 4: weeks after the diary went missing, this family member, her
Speaker 4: brother in law, she was getting in her car again
Speaker 4: from work and he was standing beside her car, and
Speaker 4: she looked up and she was startled, and he had
Speaker 4: the diary in his hand and he handed it to
Speaker 4: her and he said he had found it on the
Speaker 4: street somewhere, you know, that was absolutely not plausible. That
Speaker 4: scared her. And then she said to Geena, do you
Speaker 4: notice do you ever notice cabs here at my house
Speaker 4: when I'm not home? And Gina said, there's a cab
Speaker 4: every day in your driveway. He's here all the time.
Speaker 4: Gina knew this brother in law because the brother in
Speaker 4: law had lived with Janet and her family for a year.
Speaker 4: When they became homeless, they moved into Janet's den, and
Speaker 4: her sister and her brother in law and their baby
Speaker 4: moved into the den and lived with them for a year.
Speaker 4: And it was in March of two thousand, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: of nineteen ninety five that Janet had to ask them
Speaker 4: to leave the house because, according to Janet, the brother
Speaker 4: in law was dealing drugs to the neighborhood children from
Speaker 4: her basement and she would not tolerate that. And he
Speaker 4: was very angry at being asked to leave. And she
Speaker 4: had asked him many times to get her keys back,
Speaker 4: and he said he didn't have them, that he lost them,
Speaker 4: but apparently it would appear that he still had them
Speaker 4: because he was in her house every day when the
Speaker 4: children were at school, and she was gone. Gina saw
Speaker 4: him there. So that is a lot of what they talked.
Speaker 8: About right now with this as well, they also talked
Speaker 8: about Carrie Anne being a problem because Janet.
Speaker 4: Had a struggles. Yeah, she had had struggles as a teenager.
Speaker 4: She struggled with I think dabbling in drugs. She had
Speaker 4: some you know, issues of anger and rage and various
Speaker 4: situations that had caused disruption in the family and caused
Speaker 4: Janet to have to call the police several times and
Speaker 4: go looking for her several times when she'd run away.
Speaker 4: And I believe she was a truant at one point
Speaker 4: or you know, there had been a difficulty in that situation.
Speaker 4: So carry Inn at the time of her mother's murder
Speaker 4: was living in a women's shelter with her baby.
Speaker 8: Now you talk about Virginia and Barry, and they had
Speaker 8: been next door for five years, and that day, July
Speaker 8: twenty third, nineteen ninety five, they were home. Virginia and
Speaker 8: her daughter Christine heard a loud boom at eight fifteen
Speaker 8: and they knew They noted that the time, sounding like
Speaker 8: make you right, that someone was falling down, had fallen
Speaker 8: four or five steps downstairs. Now, apparently the daughter was alarmed.
Speaker 8: They didn't hear janets and typical barking dog. So what
Speaker 8: was their reaction other than noting that they heard something,
Speaker 8: What did they do? And tell us what happens? What
Speaker 8: they soon see? Ed O'Brien, Tricia's husband, tell us what
Speaker 8: happens after they notice and shortly after what happens involving
Speaker 8: the senior Ed O'Brien.
Speaker 4: Okay, they the Recklers were home all day babysitting for
Speaker 4: their granddaughter, Christina's daughter, and they had dinner. Came at
Speaker 4: six o'clock. They had dinner together. It was Barrie's birthday.
Speaker 4: They brought the After dinner, they had spaghetti and meatballs.
Speaker 4: After dinner, they brought the baby out to the backyard
Speaker 4: to give the baby a pool in a little waiting
Speaker 4: pool the cool or down. They played out there for
Speaker 4: a while and when they came they were going back
Speaker 4: in the house to have birthday cake and both Christina
Speaker 4: there was a clock right over the cellar stairway as
Speaker 4: you walk in the back door. It was right there.
Speaker 4: Both of them noted that it was about ten after eight,
Speaker 4: eight fifteen when they walked in the house. They went
Speaker 4: to the dining room to change the baby, the mother,
Speaker 4: Christina and Virginia directly, and the baby went to the
Speaker 4: dining room, and the dining room wall is the wall
Speaker 4: that is the party wall to the Downing home where
Speaker 4: they were changing the baby, they heard what sounded like
Speaker 4: somebody crashing down the stairs or falling down the stairs
Speaker 4: at Janet Downing's home, and Christina was so alarmed. She said,
Speaker 4: oh my god, did you hear that? Should we do something?
Speaker 4: And they stopped for a minute to listen, and Virginia said,
Speaker 4: you know, their dog barks at everything and not barking,
Speaker 4: so I think it's probably okay, or the dog would
Speaker 4: be barking. So the fact that the dog wasn't barking
Speaker 4: gave them some reassurance that everything was okay, that it
Speaker 4: wasn't anything untoward. But they were very clear, and they
Speaker 4: both were very clear about what time this happened. And
Speaker 4: then they had the birthday cake, they had the celebration,
Speaker 4: and they packed up the baby and Christina and her
Speaker 4: husband and the baby left at about nine o'clock and
Speaker 4: she Virginia went in to do the dishes. They had
Speaker 4: heard nothing after that bang, and she noticed when she
Speaker 4: turned on the water to do the dishes at nine
Speaker 4: o'clock that there was no water pressure. This was a
Speaker 4: constant problem that they had in the house, and they'd
Speaker 4: had for five years. When anybody was using the water
Speaker 4: on the downing side of the house, there was no
Speaker 4: pressure on the wrectless side of the house. So she
Speaker 4: said it took five minutes to fill up the spaghetti
Speaker 4: pot with sudsy water to let it soak, and then
Speaker 4: do all the dishes and the cake dishes and all
Speaker 4: of that stuff. She said it took a long time
Speaker 4: for her to finish the dishes. It was nine thirty
Speaker 4: or after nine thirty by the time she finished the dishes,
Speaker 4: and the entire time there was no water pressure in
Speaker 4: her house. She went into the living room. She was
Speaker 4: sitting on the couch. Barry was watching television, and she
Speaker 4: was there for she doesn't know how long, she said,
Speaker 4: sometime a short time after she finished the dishes and
Speaker 4: went into the living room, she saw and heard Big
Speaker 4: At O'Brien as he's known in the neighborhood, run by
Speaker 4: their front window and say, Barry, come and help me.
Speaker 4: There's something wrong. And they both rushed out of the
Speaker 4: house and followed him into the downing house, and when
Speaker 4: they got inside the downing house, they saw Janet lying
Speaker 4: in a pool of blood in her dining room and
Speaker 4: she appeared to be deceased. And at that just at
Speaker 4: that moment, Ryan, who was Eddie's best friend and one
Speaker 4: of the twin sons, started to come into the house
Speaker 4: and his roller blades in Virginia was in her bare
Speaker 4: feet and she stepped on it. What was a picture
Speaker 4: frame that had fallen in the struggle that Janet had had,
Speaker 4: and she hoped she hadn't cut her foot or broken
Speaker 4: the glass, but she knew she had to get Ryan
Speaker 4: out of that house, and so she took him outside
Speaker 4: and ed called the police.
Speaker 8: Now you talk about, yes, you talk about. Virginia and
Speaker 8: Barry were never interviewed by Summer police immediately after or
Speaker 8: state police until you'll before they were going to testify.
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Speaker 8: Tell us how police proceed here, with what they do
Speaker 8: find and what they do conclude. Tell us who is
Speaker 8: involved and what they conclude from the evidence there. When
Speaker 8: do they talk to Eddie O'Brien and tell us how
Speaker 8: long it takes for that arrest.
Speaker 4: The police arrive and there were approximately seventeen people including police, civilians, detectives,
Speaker 4: EMTs in and out of that house before they secured
Speaker 4: the perimeter, so it wouldn't be contaminated by everybody walking
Speaker 4: around in this blood and so in other words, I'm
Speaker 4: saying that the scene was terribly contaminated by the failure
Speaker 4: of the police to secure the scene. The police officer
Speaker 4: who was there would not let the EMTs in in
Speaker 4: the beginning because he determined by his own calculation by
Speaker 4: going over to the body and feeling for a pulse
Speaker 4: in her neck, that she was deceased. She was cold
Speaker 4: to the touch, that's what he said, and that there
Speaker 4: was no hope of reviving her, so that he would
Speaker 4: try to preserved the scene. At some point he changed
Speaker 4: his mind and he let them in. So the EMTs
Speaker 4: came in, three or four of them, and they cut
Speaker 4: her clothes off and they they you know, they intubated her,
Speaker 4: they did cp R on her, and finally they put
Speaker 4: her on a stretcher to carry her out of the house,
Speaker 4: and she was there was so much blood that it
Speaker 4: was drifting down off of the stretcher and they had
Speaker 4: to stop at some point and secure the stretchers so
Speaker 4: that they wouldn't just have a trail of blood wherever
Speaker 4: they were going. She was stabbed ninety eight times.
Speaker 8: Now you talk about he stabbed ninety eight times, but
Speaker 8: there's more. He removed eh bra. Perpetrator moved her bra,
Speaker 8: sliced that bra thirty six times, and placed it back
Speaker 8: on her body. And he's also supposed to spend some
Speaker 8: time inflicting twenty two other slice wounds, some of as
Speaker 8: deep at four inches on her neck or the fourth.
Speaker 4: The insize wounds are not superficial. They break the skin,
Speaker 4: but they're not deep wounds. They're not four inches long
Speaker 4: four inches deep. They're twenty they're ear to ear across
Speaker 4: her neck, twenty two insize wounds like that. There were
Speaker 4: stab wounds to her the middle of her chest, but
Speaker 4: not on her breasts. However, the bra that she was
Speaker 4: wearing had thirty six stab wounds in the cups of
Speaker 4: the bra that didn't correspond to any stab wounds on
Speaker 4: her body, so they concluded that the perpetrator had and
Speaker 4: they also she was terribly bruised. Her ear was bruised,
Speaker 4: her chin was bruised, she was beaten, and there was
Speaker 4: blood up and down the stairs, the last four or
Speaker 4: five stairs, on the wall, on the baseboard, on the stairs,
Speaker 4: in the in the entrance to the dining room, and
Speaker 4: then a huge amount of blood in the dining room.
Speaker 4: They determined that she had been she had struggled, and
Speaker 4: that she had tried to find her way into the
Speaker 4: dining room. They believed that she tried to turn the
Speaker 4: light on or off, it's unclear which way it was
Speaker 4: when when she was found and they found her, and
Speaker 4: they determined that the person had at the perpetrator had
Speaker 4: at this time undressed her, stabbed the bra and then
Speaker 4: replaced the bra back on her. Because the bra was
Speaker 4: on her, but it was not hooked in the back.
Speaker 8: Okay, now, so we have the police trying to examine this,
Speaker 8: but meanwhile you have information later we put as you
Speaker 8: put in the book. Her neighbor Gina Lamhoni, would spend
Speaker 8: ten hours with Janet, was taking once in the action
Speaker 8: unfolding from her porch, and she thought at first it
Speaker 8: was maybe another incident with carry Enne. However, she saw
Speaker 8: Ardie Ortis, her brother in law, that's the brothers from
Speaker 8: the hamlet street towards her house. So describe what she saw.
Speaker 8: What was his description which seemed out of whack for
Speaker 8: out of out of the norm for the considering the temperature.
Speaker 8: So tell us what she saw and what she thought
Speaker 8: at that time.
Speaker 4: Well, Gina went over to the house. Gina went over
Speaker 4: to the downing house. She went inside, so she was
Speaker 4: one of the other people inside. Nobody had protective booties,
Speaker 4: nobody had medical gloves. You know, there was medical debris
Speaker 4: all over the place. They'd been thrown about, but they
Speaker 4: were still working on Janet. When when when Gina went
Speaker 4: in there Gina said no. She said, there's too many
Speaker 4: people here, and you know, I'm going to go. I'm
Speaker 4: going to leave this scene and go back to where
Speaker 4: go back to my porch. And just as she was
Speaker 4: on her porch, she saw Bartie Ortiz, who is janice
Speaker 4: brother in law. He used to live with her, walking
Speaker 4: up from the direction of Janet's backyard, passed his cab
Speaker 4: and his cab was penned in by the ambulances and
Speaker 4: first responders, the fire trucks and police cars, so that
Speaker 4: he had been parked there obviously before they got there.
Speaker 4: And they got there about two minutes after ten, and
Speaker 4: she she saw him. He walked over to her house,
Speaker 4: and she said, it was the hottest, muggiest night, and
Speaker 4: he looked like he had just stepped out of a
Speaker 4: shower and he was, you know, very well groomed. And
Speaker 4: he claimed that he'd been driving cab and he claimed
Speaker 4: that his dispatcher called him and told him that his
Speaker 4: sister in law had been murdered. And this is seconds
Speaker 4: after Janet was still in out. Her body was still
Speaker 4: in the house and they were still working on her,
Speaker 4: so she had by no means been dead, and that
Speaker 4: seemed very odd to Gina that he should do that.
Speaker 4: Then he asked to borrow her phone, and he borrowed
Speaker 4: the phone and he said that he had called it.
Speaker 4: I can't remember quite who he said he had called,
Speaker 4: but I think his words were, well, she's officially dead now,
Speaker 4: but she hadn't even been transported to mass General, which
Speaker 4: is where she was declared dead. So it was very,
Speaker 4: very very odd his behavior and his comments about the
Speaker 4: state that Janet was in, and the fact that his
Speaker 4: car was parked there before the first responders, So it
Speaker 4: appeared from what Gina could could see that he had
Speaker 4: been there and had been at the scene long before
Speaker 4: anybody anybody was called.
Speaker 8: You also write that he sprinted across the lawn and
Speaker 8: was stopped by an officer. He told the cop that
Speaker 8: he lost his keys and wanted to go to the
Speaker 8: backyard to look for them. He told Gina the same
Speaker 8: and said like, essentially, I'm screwed, you know. He it
Speaker 8: was he was in a panic over the lost keys
Speaker 8: that he said, we're in the backyard.
Speaker 4: He said he'd lost his keys in the backyard, and
Speaker 4: the police at this point had put the yellow tape
Speaker 4: around the house and the backyard because the escape route
Speaker 4: of the perpetrator was through the backyard, through the back door,
Speaker 4: and that's what's assumed. Anyway, there was blood all over
Speaker 4: the back door, so uh and and the and the
Speaker 4: cellar door was wide open.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: And he he they wouldn't let him go back and
Speaker 4: get his keys, and he had to call a tow
Speaker 4: truck to come and get the cab. Gina didn't know
Speaker 4: that the back door was open at that point or
Speaker 4: what role that had played in the whole scenario. And
Speaker 4: she tried to calm him down and said, you know,
Speaker 4: don't worry. I'm sure this happens to cab drivers all
Speaker 4: the time, and just call them. They must have an
Speaker 4: extra set of keys at the office. And he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: you don't understand, you don't understand. I'm really this is
Speaker 4: really bad. And she said, well, and then apparently he
Speaker 4: called it a tow truck, and the tow truck came
Speaker 4: and got the cab. And I don't know, actually whatever
Speaker 4: happened about his keys. I have been told that they
Speaker 4: were retrieved by the police and returned to him, but
Speaker 4: I don't know that for a fact.
Speaker 8: Sorry, you ask, well, you talk about Gina, and of course,
Speaker 8: Gina is a friend of Janet and the family and
Speaker 8: a neighborhood fixture, and so investigators asked her a couple
Speaker 8: of questions, When was the last time you saw Janet
Speaker 8: Downing and when did she leave your house? So then, Gene,
Speaker 8: that was the following day she made a day that
Speaker 8: she had additional information, So tell us about what she
Speaker 8: wanted to tell them and this transaction where she couldn't
Speaker 8: get that information to these police, and why.
Speaker 4: She wanted to tell them about Janet's fear of her
Speaker 4: brother in law and her brother in law's behavior the
Speaker 4: night before and his appearance the night before while Janet
Speaker 4: was being worked one by the EMTs, and what he
Speaker 4: had done at her house and what he had said
Speaker 4: at her house, and also what Janet was afraid of,
Speaker 4: and that how she expressed that fear literally hours two
Speaker 4: hours before she was murdered. And they said they didn't
Speaker 4: need to know any of that. That's all they needed
Speaker 4: to know right now, was they didn't need to know
Speaker 4: anything else. They needed to know what time Janet had
Speaker 4: left her house and was that the last time she
Speaker 4: saw her? And that was it. She said, I have
Speaker 4: a lot of information about this. She was with me
Speaker 4: all day and they said, no, we're all set. That's
Speaker 4: all we need to know right now. And then for
Speaker 4: a year she Gina called the Detective Bureau to try
Speaker 4: to get them to interview her and to tell them
Speaker 4: that she had information she thought was relevant, and they
Speaker 4: just said, we have all the information we need. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Now you take us back in the book to where
Speaker 8: Eddie tells his dad he's going to the Burger King,
Speaker 8: and then he goes to his friend's house, which is
Speaker 8: next door, Ryan Downing, and wraps on Ryan Downing's window
Speaker 8: like he had done many a time. So what does
Speaker 8: he hear and what does he do as a result
Speaker 8: of what he hears? When he bangs on that window next.
Speaker 4: Door, he heard what he thought was somebody saying help me.
Speaker 4: And it was very dim, and the front door was
Speaker 4: wide open, and he walked into the little foyer and
Speaker 4: then he opened that door that opened into the house itself,
Speaker 4: and he looked and he saw the blood he saw,
Speaker 4: and straight ahead in front of him he saw the
Speaker 4: bathroom door open, the saint running at full force. And
Speaker 4: he turned to his right he saw Janet lying on
Speaker 4: the floor, and he thought maybe she had fallen or fainted.
Speaker 4: He didn't know she was on her side and he
Speaker 4: and he didn't know, he didn't know what had happened
Speaker 4: to her. So he went over to her and he
Speaker 4: knelt down and he he he, and he shook her
Speaker 4: and he said, Janet, Janet, are you okay? Are you okay?
Speaker 4: And and she didn't respond, and she felt funny, and
Speaker 4: he turned her over and that's when he saw all
Speaker 4: the stab wounds in her chest and he realized that
Speaker 4: she was terribly terribly not you know, injured, and not
Speaker 4: by simply falling down. He then stood up and turned
Speaker 4: to go back out the front door, and it was
Speaker 4: he didn't know where this person came from. It seemed
Speaker 4: like he had come from behind the front door, he said.
Speaker 4: But a person who had a nylon stocking over his
Speaker 4: head confronted him with a huge knife and told him
Speaker 4: to close the inner door that he had come through,
Speaker 4: the inner fourier door. And Eddie backed himself up to
Speaker 4: that door and closed it with his hand, and the
Speaker 4: guy held the knife to his neck and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, if you tell anybody what you've seen, I
Speaker 4: know where you live, and I know, and I'll kill
Speaker 4: your whole family. At that point, they both the perpetrator
Speaker 4: and Eddie heard the knock at the door of the
Speaker 4: three friends who had shown up at nine to twenty,
Speaker 4: and after the three boys stopped knocking, he told Eddie,
Speaker 4: you know, to get out of there, and you know,
Speaker 4: just get out of here and don't say anything, and
Speaker 4: if you say anything, I know where you live to
Speaker 4: kill your old family. So Eddie took off. He ran
Speaker 4: through the kitchen, down the cellar stairs and ran straight
Speaker 4: out the back cellar door, which was wide open. It
Speaker 4: was already wide open, and he ran through there. In fact,
Speaker 4: he didn't want to go turn right and go into
Speaker 4: onto Hamlet Street because he was afraid the perpetrator might
Speaker 4: have gone out the front door and be running down
Speaker 4: Hamlet Street and he would get him and kill him.
Speaker 4: So he ran into the bushes and they were behind
Speaker 4: Janet's house, and that's when the three boys who had
Speaker 4: been knocking at the front door moved. Three friends of
Speaker 4: Eddie's and Ryan moved towards the backyard and heard the
Speaker 4: rustling of Eddie and the bushes, and Eddie jumped out
Speaker 4: of the bushes and ran down Hamlet Street. And that
Speaker 4: was at nine twenty. As I said, so, Eddie had
Speaker 4: left his house telling his father that he was going
Speaker 4: to burger king, and he decided he would stop to
Speaker 4: see if Ryan was home. Yet Ryan had gone swimming,
Speaker 4: and he knocked on the window encountered that scene that
Speaker 4: I just described, and that was at nine point fifteen.
Speaker 4: He left his house at nine fifteen, and at nine
Speaker 4: twenty the boys knocked on the door, and that's why
Speaker 4: the guy told him to get out. So for Eddie
Speaker 4: to have committed this is why it's ludicrous to think
Speaker 4: that Eddie could have committed. One of the reasons why
Speaker 4: it's ludicrous because Eddie would have had five minutes to
Speaker 4: walk across This is twenty five yards away, and Eddie's
Speaker 4: spots on the front porch. Most of the neighbors are
Speaker 4: on their front porch. The whole neighborhood is out to
Speaker 4: walk across the twenty five yards fifty two feet. I
Speaker 4: think it is across the street. Murder his neighbor in
Speaker 4: five minutes, not going to drop of blood on him
Speaker 4: and flee out the back door without all within five
Speaker 4: minutes is just that. It makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 8: But not helping him is the one of the most
Speaker 8: profoundly unbelievable stories I've ever heard. He then encounters at
Speaker 8: the burger king another two teenagers confronting him, demanding his
Speaker 8: money seventeen dollars, flashing knife, saying now I have to
Speaker 8: cut you because I may I saw your face. And
Speaker 8: he side steps if he gets it, but he gets
Speaker 8: his hand cut, you know.
Speaker 4: So well that's where he got his hand cut. Yes,
Speaker 4: he was in a complete state of shock, you know,
Speaker 4: he was. He went to the burger king, he did
Speaker 4: in order food, He went to the bathroom and he
Speaker 4: just sat there trying to compose himself. I mean he
Speaker 4: he was. He was completely in, you know, in a fugue.
Speaker 4: And he doesn't remember his hand being cut then and
Speaker 4: he finally, after he composes himself, he leaves burger King
Speaker 4: and he starts walking down Somerville Avenue toward the convenience store,
Speaker 4: which is where he worked. And it was on that
Speaker 4: little walk that he gets confronted by two teenagers to
Speaker 4: say give me allion money. He gives him seventeen dollars
Speaker 4: and he and one and the guy says, well, I
Speaker 4: think you looked at my face and now I'm going
Speaker 4: to have to cut you, and sort of lunged at
Speaker 4: him with the knife, and he grabbed a knife, and
Speaker 4: he thinks that's where he got cut. But he you know,
Speaker 4: he doesn't remember feeling that he got cut anywhere. I mean,
Speaker 4: he doesn't remember getting hurt in the bushes, which he did.
Speaker 4: He was not in a he was in a complete
Speaker 4: state of shock the entire time. You also say, too unbelievable.
Speaker 4: How many how many fifteen year old boys see their
Speaker 4: best friend's mother murdered and within another half an hour
Speaker 4: get mugged. I mean, the chances are a gazillion to one.
Speaker 4: And as an attorney, it's like you cringe when you
Speaker 4: hear that, because you think, I will never get a
Speaker 4: jury to believe that. You know, and sometimes the truth
Speaker 4: is stranger than fiction, and it's very very hard to
Speaker 4: deal with. And no one ever believed the mugging story.
Speaker 4: That's how Eddie became a suspect. You asked me, what
Speaker 4: evidence did they have? They had no evidence whatsoever. The
Speaker 4: only evidence they had was that after Eddie got mugged,
Speaker 4: he walked into the store where he worked, and they
Speaker 4: called the police to report the mugging, handed Eddie the phone.
Speaker 4: So that this is at about ten o'clock that he
Speaker 4: was mugged. So that's exactly when the first responders are
Speaker 4: getting to Janet Downing's house and finding her murdered. So
Speaker 4: they patching these calls, they learn through their radios that
Speaker 4: Eddie has a cut on his hand at midnight, convenient,
Speaker 4: and Janet Downing is stabbed. Therefore we should look at Eddie.
Speaker 4: That is basically what happened, because when the police came
Speaker 4: and looked at the empts came, they looked at Eddie's hand.
Speaker 4: They said there was no blood. He wasn't bleeding, He
Speaker 4: didn't have any blood on his hands, you know. They said,
Speaker 4: you know, we think you're okay to just go home.
Speaker 4: They let Then the police drove him home, and it
Speaker 4: was his grandfather who said, no, you need to go
Speaker 4: to the hospital and you need to get a technis
Speaker 4: shot if nothing else, And so his family drove him
Speaker 4: up to the hospital. And it was then that the
Speaker 4: summer of a police dispatched somebody from the District Attorney's
Speaker 4: office and somebody from Somerville up to the hospital where
Speaker 4: Eddie was being seen for the cut on his hand
Speaker 4: and swabbed the blood on his legs.
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Speaker 8: we last last off Margo, When we last least off Margot,
Speaker 8: we were talking about some of the the circumstances that
Speaker 8: Eddie O'Brien came to be the number one suspect. Let's
Speaker 8: talk about what happens to Eddie O'Brien immediately after, and
Speaker 8: you can start introducing some of the legal people that
Speaker 8: are responsible for Eddie O'Brien being arrested. Shortly after this
Speaker 8: little bit of information comes to light. For those people, the.
Speaker 4: Only information they had was that Eddie had a cut
Speaker 4: and Janet Downing was stabbed. That's really the only information
Speaker 4: they had for two days. But that night, the night
Speaker 4: of the murder and the night he was at the hospital,
Speaker 4: they brought Eddie down to the police station. They took
Speaker 4: his clothes, the clothes he had on, They took his fingerprints.
Speaker 4: They asked him if he had been at Janet Downing's house.
Speaker 4: He had left earlier in the day when all the
Speaker 4: boys were there hanging out, and he said he had
Speaker 4: not returned. He was not going to tell the police
Speaker 4: anything because he was terrified that his family was in jeopardy.
Speaker 4: His mother had just had a baby, his grandfather was dying.
Speaker 4: He you know, family would have to leave the residence.
Speaker 4: He just you know, so he did not tell the
Speaker 4: truth to the police. It was some time later that
Speaker 4: they they, as I said, they swabbed the blood on
Speaker 4: his legs and they claim they allege I don't know
Speaker 4: because we haven't tested it to but they alleged that
Speaker 4: one of those one swap one drop of blood on
Speaker 4: his shin tested as an AB type blood and his
Speaker 4: blood was oh and Janet Downings was AB. Now they
Speaker 4: never did DNA on it. We never determined if it
Speaker 4: was Janet Downing's blood or not. But they determined that
Speaker 4: because that blood was a match, and his fingerprints were
Speaker 4: found in Janet Downing's blood on the back of that
Speaker 4: door when he closed the door, that not only was
Speaker 4: he the prime suspect, he was the one and only
Speaker 4: suspect from the minute he called in to the police,
Speaker 4: from midnight convenient until he was tried and convicted two
Speaker 4: years later. They never ever.
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Speaker 4: Look at another suspect.
Speaker 8: At the same time, the uh or To and his
Speaker 8: wife Carol, they say said that there was something about
Speaker 8: a the wishes of Janet, that they wanted that Janet
Speaker 8: would want them to have her car and to to
Speaker 8: continue taking care of their home and raise their children.
Speaker 8: Even so with that audacious claim to try to get
Speaker 8: their stuff, still never raised any red flags with anybody
Speaker 8: in law enforcement. Did it.
Speaker 4: Law enforcement didn't know about it because they told that.
Speaker 4: They told that to Gina Mahoney. The next day, the
Speaker 4: day after Janet's murder, Artie came by and said, listen,
Speaker 4: Janet told her me. We had a long talk, and
Speaker 4: she told me if anything ever happened to her, that
Speaker 4: she wanted me to have her car. And you know,
Speaker 4: Gina thought, this guy is delusional. She was terrified with you.
Speaker 4: She would never have done that, and that she even
Speaker 4: wanted us to move back into the house and take
Speaker 4: care of her children. And that was all the info
Speaker 4: that Gina had that the police said they didn't need.
Speaker 8: Right now. Also, what happens is that in short order,
Speaker 8: again Eddie's cooperating and his father's cooperating, and he submits
Speaker 8: to the sodium amatal, so the truth serum, and what's
Speaker 8: the results of that, even though it's not admissile, what's
Speaker 8: the results from that?
Speaker 4: The results of that were that he told the exact
Speaker 4: same story before he was administered any truth serum and
Speaker 4: after he was administered truth serum, and the results by
Speaker 4: the PhD psychologists who administered the test said that he
Speaker 4: was being truthful and that he had not committed this crime.
Speaker 8: Now they realize that there's nothing. There's the person, the
Speaker 8: keys were in the kitchen counter, there's no robbery. Right,
Speaker 8: What is their initial idea, because quickly they have some
Speaker 8: kind of id that what this crime was all about.
Speaker 8: And of course that changed. Wait, is it initially they
Speaker 8: think that there could be a motive or reason for Initially?
Speaker 8: Initially they said.
Speaker 4: Initially. District Attorney Tom Riley, who personally oversaw the investigation
Speaker 4: and personally litigated the case. He was the elected district
Speaker 4: Attorney for the County of Middlesex, he said, we have
Speaker 4: no idea as to motive. It's going to take us
Speaker 4: a while to figure out motive. And that was there
Speaker 4: was no suggestion of motive. Really, there was a complete perplexed.
Speaker 4: Everybody was perplexed, including the investigators as to motive until
Speaker 4: the psychologists who evaluated Eddie in the juvenile facility for
Speaker 4: the court. The court ordered a psychological evaluation until the
Speaker 4: psychologist submitted his report in December and said, you know
Speaker 4: what's striking is the absence of motive and uh, it
Speaker 4: was once that report was submitted and the district attorney
Speaker 4: realized what trouble he was in, even though he doesn't
Speaker 4: have to prove motives, immediately came up with theories of
Speaker 4: a motive. And his theory started with that Eddie had
Speaker 4: an unusual interest in in Janet Downing, that he was
Speaker 4: more curious about her than he should have been. And
Speaker 4: then it evolved into that this interest had a sexual
Speaker 4: overtime to it. And you know, by the middle of
Speaker 4: the of this, the transfer hearings and the course that
Speaker 4: this case took in the juvenile court, you know he
Speaker 4: was he was a full blown sexual predator essentially, is
Speaker 4: what they were trying to say. And that of course
Speaker 4: never never held water with anybody and was not ever
Speaker 4: presented at his adult trial because it was just not provable.
Speaker 4: Uh there there, you know, but they went with the
Speaker 4: most they went. By the time they got to the
Speaker 4: adult court and did the adult trial, they went back
Speaker 4: to he had an unusual interest in her.
Speaker 8: Now that was what the biggest motiv The biggest issue
Speaker 8: of this when you and the reason why you call
Speaker 8: it politics of murder, is that there are some changes
Speaker 8: in juvenile law, incredible changes, so I'm going to get
Speaker 8: you to tell us what was before, what was the
Speaker 8: juvenile law and the split sentencing, and then talk about
Speaker 8: why there were changes in the juvenile law and why
Speaker 8: at this time and why Riley, and tell us about
Speaker 8: the politics of murder.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of talk at the time and about
Speaker 4: the super predators about running our inner cities, running you know,
Speaker 4: crazy through our inner cities and killing innocent people. And
Speaker 4: we have to titan and toughen the juvenile laws. And
Speaker 4: the governor at the time, Governor Bill Weld, was very
Speaker 4: much in favor that, as was Attorney General General Riley.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I'm sorry, District Attorney Riley. And at
Speaker 4: the same time, Governor Well was seeking to run for
Speaker 4: a Senate seat and mister Riley was seeking to run
Speaker 4: for the Attorney General's office in preparation for eventually running
Speaker 4: for governor. And this was a perfect storm, a perfect
Speaker 4: cause to come to the people with that you know,
Speaker 4: we're going to get tough on juvenile crime and we
Speaker 4: support these laws. So that the law used to be
Speaker 4: that if you were under the age of sixteen, that
Speaker 4: the government had if you were between the ages of
Speaker 4: fourteen and sixteen, you could not be charged with murder
Speaker 4: and adult court if you were sixteen or sixteen and above,
Speaker 4: the government could come in and prove that you were
Speaker 4: not a good candidate for rehabilitation and asked that you
Speaker 4: be transferred to adult court. While Eddie was in the system,
Speaker 4: those laws changed, and they changed as a direct result
Speaker 4: of this case and some others that had occurred in
Speaker 4: downtown Boston, and so that eventually what we ended up
Speaker 4: was with the law that juveniles as young as fourteen
Speaker 4: can be tried in adult court, and that it was
Speaker 4: their obligation to prove to a juvenile judge if they
Speaker 4: were between fourteen and sixteen, it was the juveniles obligation
Speaker 4: to prove that he could be rehabilitated. So you can
Speaker 4: see what the conundrum was for Eddie O'Brien. He had
Speaker 4: to prove that he could be rehabilitated from a murder
Speaker 4: he didn't commit. Plus, they were creating a whole new
Speaker 4: juvenile court system, and so the courts were in flux.
Speaker 4: And then there was split sentencing where you could they
Speaker 4: could sentence you and you do part of your time
Speaker 4: as a juvenile part of your time as an adult.
Speaker 4: And Eddie was one of the first people to be
Speaker 4: uh to be subjected to that law. And the governor
Speaker 4: was vocal in his support of that law as Eddie's
Speaker 4: case was pending and referring to the case, and the
Speaker 4: governor was appointing judges to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts
Speaker 4: who would who would rule on that case, and and
Speaker 4: and he was appearing in rallies with the Downing family
Speaker 4: standing beside him, and it was pretty spectacular.
Speaker 8: Now, you talk about we won't be able to cover everything,
Speaker 8: but you talk about some really glaring non evidence here
Speaker 8: in that he claims to have worn some clothes and
Speaker 8: he's in the same clothes. So you give us the
Speaker 8: three or four points that you have that seemed to
Speaker 8: be incredulous that Riley, despite his political aspirations, should still
Speaker 8: be an acting district attorney with some kind of moral,
Speaker 8: you know, ethical boundaries. And so what is he ignoring
Speaker 8: in your view that's so glaring in terms of evidence.
Speaker 4: A couple of things that he's ignoring. One is is
Speaker 4: that for Eddie to have changed his clothes, they seized
Speaker 4: his clothes, the clothes he had on that night, they
Speaker 4: seized them. They were the same clothes he had been
Speaker 4: wearing all day no blood on them, and white T
Speaker 4: shirt with no blood, sneaker with no blood. And they say, well,
Speaker 4: you know, that's easy. He must have changed his clothes
Speaker 4: and that so how did he change his clothes? And
Speaker 4: into what and when and where he would have had
Speaker 4: to change his clothes hide his old, sweaty clothes. And
Speaker 4: then you know, anybody who committed the person who committed
Speaker 4: this crime, or the people that committed this crime, if
Speaker 4: it was more than one person were covered in blood
Speaker 4: head to toe, in their hair, under their fingernails, on
Speaker 4: their eyes, on their eye lashes, they would take more
Speaker 4: than a shower to get the blood off of you.
Speaker 4: So he's claiming that he walked out of this scene
Speaker 4: covered in blood somehow put in his old clothes without
Speaker 4: getting any blood on them, and without having the opportunity
Speaker 4: to shower. And it was just ludicrous, ludicrous. So and
Speaker 4: the timeline, you know, I mean, how how he's ignoring
Speaker 4: the timeline, he's ignoring the fact that there's no suggestion
Speaker 4: that he ever changed clothes. People saw him at nine
Speaker 4: p fifteen in these clothes, They saw him at ten
Speaker 4: o'clock in these clothes, and there was no change of clothes,
Speaker 4: and they're also ignoring the fact that he didn't have
Speaker 4: time to do any of the things that needed to
Speaker 4: be done in order to change his clothes and murder
Speaker 4: somebody and then come out with out any blood not
Speaker 4: only on his clothes, but on him anywhere at least
Speaker 4: around his cuticles, under his fingernails. Nothing.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about the murder weapon and the conclusive conclusiveness
Speaker 8: of that in terms of being the smoking gun here,
Speaker 8: how strong or weak is the murder weapon evidence?
Speaker 4: Well, the Commonwealth, the District Attorney alleged that or this
Speaker 4: theory was that Eddie had committed this murder with a
Speaker 4: three inch pocket pen knife, and meaning the blade was
Speaker 4: three inches long and then the handle was another two
Speaker 4: and a half inches. Let's say it was a very
Speaker 4: small decorative knife. And they made that allegation because they
Speaker 4: found a piece of metal which they said would have
Speaker 4: been the hilt to that knife that Eddie had shown
Speaker 4: other people at some time previous to this. The Again,
Speaker 4: it's the wounds that Janet Downing suffered, Some of them
Speaker 4: were up to four inches deep, which would have meant
Speaker 4: that and the knife Eddie had had two hilts, not
Speaker 4: just one. They found one hilp, so that the perpetrator,
Speaker 4: if he used Eddie's knife, or if Eddie were the
Speaker 4: perpetrator had used the knife, he would have had to
Speaker 4: have downing with a three inch knife and gone one
Speaker 4: inch into the handle with one of the hilts still
Speaker 4: on it. And there was no evidence of any markings
Speaker 4: of that kind, no bruising around any of the stab
Speaker 4: wounds that she had, and some of them were four
Speaker 4: inches deep. One wound went through her chest, severed two
Speaker 4: ribs and punctured her lung and went into her liver.
Speaker 4: I believe that's how deep it was. You just can't
Speaker 4: do that with a three inch blade. It was five
Speaker 4: eighths of an inch wide, and some of the wounds
Speaker 4: were twice that wide, So it didn't make any sense
Speaker 4: that that would be the murder weapon. But that's what
Speaker 4: he went with. That's and he got his conviction with them.
Speaker 8: Before we get to any kind of conviction, we've got
Speaker 8: to talk about steps along the way and the brave
Speaker 8: people that came and gave you interviews and gave you
Speaker 8: the information for be able to do this incredible expose.
Speaker 8: As we talked about, you interviewed Richard Barnum you did
Speaker 8: interviews with family, you got grand eury minutes, and you
Speaker 8: butt more importantly, you interviewed Judge Paul Hefferman, the presiding
Speaker 8: judge in these transfer cases. So the transfer is to
Speaker 8: see if he's going to be raised to adult court.
Speaker 8: Judge Paul Hefferman as the judge. How does it proceed
Speaker 8: with Judge Paul Hefferman before we talk about jump ahead,
Speaker 8: that tell us what he said at the time, what
Speaker 8: he was asked to do at the time.
Speaker 4: Judge Heppernon heard the transfer hearing and he weighed all
Speaker 4: the evidence and he determined that even if Eddie had
Speaker 4: committed this crime, that he certainly was a candidate for
Speaker 4: rehabilitation and had no history of mental illness and was
Speaker 4: found to be have no mental illness and no need
Speaker 4: for any mental health care by the psychologist appointed by
Speaker 4: the court psychiatrist appointed by the court. Judge Heffernan determined
Speaker 4: that he should remain in the juvenile system, where if
Speaker 4: found guilty, he would have done time in ju juvenile
Speaker 4: detention until his twenty first birthday, at which point he
Speaker 4: would have been transferred to an adult jail or prison
Speaker 4: for another fifteen years after that. In other words, even
Speaker 4: if if he'd been found guilty as a juvenile and
Speaker 4: Judge Heffernan had not been removed from the case, he
Speaker 4: would be out of jail by now. He'd be free.
Speaker 4: Judge Heffernan. However, a week after he made his decision,
Speaker 4: he was called by a fellow judge who told him
Speaker 4: that the judges above them had made it clear that
Speaker 4: unless he changed his opinion, he would be removed from
Speaker 4: the case. Judge Heffernan, and thank God for Judge Heffernan,
Speaker 4: because he's the only one who tried to stop this
Speaker 4: train wreck. Judge Heffernan's response was, I would rather walk
Speaker 4: naked through Sullivan's station than change my opinion. Let them
Speaker 4: do what they have to do. And he just sat back.
Speaker 4: And so the District Attorney appealed the heffern In decision
Speaker 4: and asked that heffer be removed. The Supreme Court sent
Speaker 4: it back to Judge Heffernan to consider additional evidence. Judge Heffernan.
Speaker 4: The district attorney presented a motion for rechoosal, asking Judge
Speaker 4: Heffernan to step down. Judge Heffernan denied that he refused
Speaker 4: to step down and he said they would proceed with
Speaker 4: taking new evidence as ordered by the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 4: at which point the District Attorney appealed the judge's denial
Speaker 4: of his motion up to the Supreme Court, who had
Speaker 4: already considered he had asked already to have Judge Heffernan removed,
Speaker 4: and the Supreme Court declined to do that, although they
Speaker 4: had been told that he was going to be removed,
Speaker 4: and so after the second appeal and Judge Heffernan refused
Speaker 4: to voluntarily recuse himself, the Supreme Court ordered him off
Speaker 4: the case.
Speaker 8: You talk about the political aspirations when you talk about
Speaker 8: Judge hefferman In. His friend and longtime colleague, Judge Soul
Speaker 8: had spoken to him in a week later called him
Speaker 8: again and said listen, we need you to change this.
Speaker 8: They want you to change this decision. Yet they still
Speaker 8: remain friends. But it demonstrates and illustrates how important this
Speaker 8: was for the political aspirations of Riley, the DA and
Speaker 8: the governor had other aspirations as well well. This is
Speaker 8: you talk about to make a claim of manipulation.
Speaker 4: Judge Zohl was not the person who was asking or
Speaker 4: suggesting that Heffernan should change his decision. He was Judge
Speaker 4: Zohl's immediate supervist. He was Judge Heffernan's immediate supervisor. He
Speaker 4: was the one who got the call from up above
Speaker 4: saying have him change his opinion, and he told they
Speaker 4: were friends. He said, I'm not going to change my opinion.
Speaker 4: Judge Zohel I think applauded him for standings, for standing
Speaker 4: his ground and saying I'm not going to do what
Speaker 4: they want done politically because it's not it's wrong legally. Yes,
Speaker 4: so Ja Zoel's a good guy, is what I wanted
Speaker 4: to say right.
Speaker 8: Now. You also talk about again, manipulation is what the
Speaker 8: word you use. So this is a strong word manipulation, impropriety,
Speaker 8: some of these things that any other way of calling
Speaker 8: a travesty of justice. And also with this doctor Richard Barnum,
Speaker 8: and something very interesting legally adding making a forty one
Speaker 8: page report assessing whether he can be rehabilitated, Eddie O'Brien,
Speaker 8: but just addendum and then so explain them the actual
Speaker 8: manipulation that you describe with Riley and with this Barnum
Speaker 8: and what they want to do and how they twist
Speaker 8: some information and try they do not get it through
Speaker 8: with Hefferman, but they're still always trying to get a
Speaker 8: certain amount of information tell us about that manipulation and
Speaker 8: what that information is that they've tried to squeeze out of.
Speaker 6: Dubious sources.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 4: That actually happened after Hefferingon had made his decision. They
Speaker 4: immediately well after the I'm sorry, it wasn't after they
Speaker 4: made his decision. It was after doctor Barnum produced his
Speaker 4: first report noting that there was an alarming absence of
Speaker 4: motive here and no mental illness, and it was a
Speaker 4: very confusing situation. And d A. Riley immediately met with
Speaker 4: him and and told him, oh, oh, well, then you
Speaker 4: don't know about the fact that that that he was
Speaker 4: questioned when some of his friends put a mailbox on fire,
Speaker 4: And you don't know about all the things that we
Speaker 4: should have told you about. There was a laundry list
Speaker 4: of things that he came forward with that he had
Speaker 4: every opportunity to talk to Barnum about at any point
Speaker 4: during his three month investigation, But only after he submitted
Speaker 4: his report did he determine that these things should be
Speaker 4: shared with doctor Barnum. They were completely in my opinion,
Speaker 4: this is all my opinions based on what I see
Speaker 4: as the evidence. He gave Barnum a list of things
Speaker 4: that would be troublesome, for instance, some allegations of watching
Speaker 4: women undress and being concerned about whether or not Janet
Speaker 4: Downing was having a lesbian relationship with one of the
Speaker 4: one of her best friends, or things, you know, just
Speaker 4: things that would were of absolutely no consequence or import
Speaker 4: or relationship to this case that he suddenly decided to
Speaker 4: throw into the mix. And essentially, uh, he the district
Speaker 4: Attorney Riley, had Barnum go and interview all these people
Speaker 4: to give him these stories. Uh. And none of those
Speaker 4: stories were ever proven to be true, and none of
Speaker 4: them were ever ever raised at his actual trial because
Speaker 4: they were not based in fact. So uh, that's you know,
Speaker 4: it's best basically trying to create a motive, and that's
Speaker 4: what he was trying to do.
Speaker 8: But in.
Speaker 4: Doctor Barnum made it clear to me that he felt
Speaker 4: that he had felt the political pressure of the case.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was in the newspaper every day, everybody
Speaker 4: was talking about it. There was nothing positive ever being
Speaker 4: printed about Eddie. Everything was negative. It was all coming
Speaker 4: from the quote unquote police sources and degative sources and
Speaker 4: things like that. Nothing was coming out of Eddie's side
Speaker 4: to say the things that I'm saying now, for instance,
Speaker 4: so the public's view. And I think I pointed this
Speaker 4: out when I showed that virtually there was only one
Speaker 4: person in a pool of two hundred and seventy five
Speaker 4: people who were considered for jury duty in this case
Speaker 4: that had not heard about this case. Thirty three percent
Speaker 4: of those people had already decided he was guilty and
Speaker 4: had to be excused without a piece of evidence being heard.
Speaker 4: The case against him was a foregone conclusion. It had
Speaker 4: been tried in the press by that point. And I
Speaker 4: asked Barnum about that, and I asked him about why
Speaker 4: he changed his opinion, because in his addendum to his report,
Speaker 4: which was twice as long as his original report, he
Speaker 4: decided no, Eddie O'Brien wasn't amenable to rehabilitation, and that
Speaker 4: just never sat right. I mean, that felt to me
Speaker 4: that he was capitulating to the political pressure that he
Speaker 4: was feeling. He was the director of a court clinic
Speaker 4: at that point, he was a government employee, etc. He
Speaker 4: said to me that yes, he felt the political pressure. Basically,
Speaker 4: he changed his opinion because by the time this Eddie
Speaker 4: was we got to this point in the proceedings, Eddie
Speaker 4: was now seventeen years old, not fifteen when he first
Speaker 4: met him, and he would be aging out of the
Speaker 4: juvenile system at eighteen now, so that there was no
Speaker 4: point to talk about rehabilitation because by the time his
Speaker 4: adult trial took place, he would be too old to
Speaker 4: be in the juvenile system. So, I mean, I just
Speaker 4: I asked him, why didn't you just say that, Why
Speaker 4: didn't you just say, you know, I don't need to
Speaker 4: write an addendum. I can just tell you that there's
Speaker 4: no system that can provide rehabilitation if he needs rehabilitation
Speaker 4: in the time that he has left in the juvenile system.
Speaker 4: And he said, that's a very good point. Maybe that's
Speaker 4: what I should have said, because essentially it raised the
Speaker 4: whole course of the case because once he wrote that addendum,
Speaker 4: Heffrinon refused to accept that addendum into evidence, and that's
Speaker 4: what started the appeal process, and that's what the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court remanded the case for to say that Judge Heffernan
Speaker 4: should consider Barnum's addendum. That's why that's sent back. And
Speaker 4: I believe that the judges in authority were hoping that
Speaker 4: Heffrinon would quietly step away voluntarily, and he was not
Speaker 4: going to do that. He was not going to betray
Speaker 4: his moral stance that he had made the right decision
Speaker 4: and I'm not going to capitulate to political power.
Speaker 8: Now, you talk about DNA in nineteen ninety six being
Speaker 8: in its infancy in comparison to now and day developments
Speaker 8: in the turn of the century, what was the forensic
Speaker 8: evidence other than what could be explained away by Eddie
Speaker 8: O'Brien's story of touching her and touching this and touching that.
Speaker 8: You talk about DNA under Janet's fingerprint fingernails. Tell us
Speaker 8: about all the DNA this is the evidence is very strong.
Speaker 8: Tell us what the DNA evidence was. The forensic evidence was.
Speaker 4: The DNA forensic evidence is for Eddie's DNA was completely
Speaker 4: consistent with his story that his DNA was found on
Speaker 4: those fingerprints, and every completely consistent with the story he
Speaker 4: told after right after the crime, when he it was
Speaker 4: two weeks later that he told what really happened and
Speaker 4: he admitted that he had seen this guy and that
Speaker 4: he had run from this. He stayed in jail. He
Speaker 4: didn't even tell his parents because he was so afraid
Speaker 4: for their safety. H And finally after two weeks he
Speaker 4: told them and he said, listen, I did go in there.
Speaker 4: But anyway, that all of the DNA that was found,
Speaker 4: that that was attribute built to Eddie was consistent with
Speaker 4: his story, completely consistent with his story. The DNA under
Speaker 4: Janet's fingernails, Eddie is excluded as the primary source of
Speaker 4: that DNA. There's a DNA of Janet and another DNA
Speaker 4: unidentified DNA on the alleged murder weapon, the alleged hilt
Speaker 4: of the knife that they found, the metal piece. Eddie
Speaker 4: was completely excluded from as a contributor to DNA on that,
Speaker 4: But there is an unidentified male DNA on that hilt
Speaker 4: and Janet Downing's DNA, so he is not tied to
Speaker 4: the murder weapon by DNA. He is not tied to
Speaker 4: under Janet's fingernails, which is the first source of DNA
Speaker 4: that they looked for, because that's what she bought for
Speaker 4: her life with. They didn't even test the DNA under
Speaker 4: her fingernails until right before the adult trial. I think, well,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know why. My opinion again,
Speaker 4: is they didn't do it because they knew it would
Speaker 4: not be Eddie's and they wanted to wait until the
Speaker 4: last possible moment before they revealed that that DNA was
Speaker 4: not hers, and their expert witness testified that it basically,
Speaker 4: in her opinion, the DNA was inconclusive, which is not
Speaker 4: allowed into evidence. If it's inconclusive, it's not allowed into evidence.
Speaker 4: So it never should have gone in if it was inconclusive.
Speaker 4: There's definitely identifiable DNA that is not Eddie's on the
Speaker 4: murder weapon.
Speaker 8: Now, you mentioned Gina and her finally getting to speak,
Speaker 8: and Vicki and Barry. But despite all of this, what's
Speaker 8: the conclusion in adult court? Before we talk about your
Speaker 8: interviews with Eddie, your continuing correspondence with him, tell us
Speaker 8: a little bit about what's the result of this trial.
Speaker 8: Despite what you just mentioned.
Speaker 4: The DNA evidence just never came into evidence that way.
Speaker 4: It was. First of all, there was a big failure
Speaker 4: of his defense counsel at trial. He never he never
Speaker 4: had any of these exhibits or pieces of vdence tested independently,
Speaker 4: and so he too could have had the DNA under
Speaker 4: Janet Singer nails tested, but did not so there there
Speaker 4: is some blame to go around. What what happened at trial?
Speaker 4: What and what happened at trial was that the evidence
Speaker 4: did not come in that clearly, so that the DNA evidence,
Speaker 4: as I said, uh, the jurors. Jurors were overwhelmed with
Speaker 4: it and and uh, and it was it was very confusing.
Speaker 4: His own attorney did not capitalize on the fact that
Speaker 4: Eddie's DNA was absent from the two most important places
Speaker 4: that it should have been found, either in his opening
Speaker 4: or his closing statement. He alluded to it in his
Speaker 4: cross examination, but frankly, it appeared to me that he
Speaker 4: didn't understand that Eddie's DNA was excluded from this. He
Speaker 4: got the reports very late, and I don't think he
Speaker 4: was completely familiar with them for what they meant. He
Speaker 4: didn't have his own expert to explain them to him.
Speaker 4: The only real thing they came out at trial was
Speaker 4: that there was on the hilt of the knife the
Speaker 4: DNA was identifiable, and it was not Eddie's. As to
Speaker 4: Janet's fingernails, that was never really an issue at trial.
Speaker 4: It just slipped by and slipped in as inconclusive. But
Speaker 4: in fact the report is clear that he is excluded,
Speaker 4: it's not inconclusive, and I didn't have the report at
Speaker 4: the time. I didn't know that. I didn't know that
Speaker 4: until I read it this year when I was writing
Speaker 4: the book. His parents didn't know that until I read
Speaker 4: it this year when I was writing the book. Many
Speaker 4: of these things were complete revelations to me, and I
Speaker 4: had been with the case since the very beginning. I
Speaker 4: did not understand that I had no access to the reports.
Speaker 4: I wasn't given the reports or the evidence, and I
Speaker 4: trusted that his attorney was doing what he needed to
Speaker 4: do and was presenting whatever evidence in Eddie's favor there was.
Speaker 4: But in fact, there was a lot of evidence in
Speaker 4: Eddie's favor, including the fact that there was communication between
Speaker 4: the District Attorney's office and the laboratory where they did
Speaker 4: a preliminary DNA test on the help of the knife
Speaker 4: A year four. At EA's trial, herman at his DNA
Speaker 4: was not on it, and he stopped all further testing
Speaker 4: until further notice, but didn't tell the defense that they
Speaker 4: had done a preliminary test, and then they told the
Speaker 4: trial judged that they had just sent that hilt out
Speaker 4: for testing. A couple of weeks into July of the
Speaker 4: before his September trial, when in fact that had been
Speaker 4: sent out for testing a year before and they knew
Speaker 4: his DNA was not on it and was not going
Speaker 4: to come up on it. So the final report issued
Speaker 4: saying his DNA was not on it, but that was
Speaker 4: news to his defense attorney. It was only me comparing
Speaker 4: the reports and the correspondence between the lab and the
Speaker 4: district Attorney's office that I realized they learned that his
Speaker 4: DNA wasn't on that a year before that, and then
Speaker 4: they ordered all further testing seek to cease so that
Speaker 4: they didn't have to produce a report and that would
Speaker 4: have gone into the juvenile case.
Speaker 8: We've got just a few minutes to tell the story
Speaker 8: left in this interview. You interview. You start off as
Speaker 8: guardian ad litem, but your relationship morphs into something much more.
Speaker 8: He grows up literally, physically and psychologically. Tell us briefly
Speaker 8: the correspondence who he is, who has become, and what
Speaker 8: your relationship is and how he is dealing with life
Speaker 8: without the possibility of parole. Before we talk about the
Speaker 8: one bright spot in this story, which is the Innocents Project.
Speaker 4: You have to meet Eddie. You have to meet him.
Speaker 4: He's a remarkable, remarkable kid. You have to understand that
Speaker 4: he's been in jail for he almost twenty two years,
Speaker 4: and he was only on the outside for fifteen years.
Speaker 4: He was a baby when he went into prison, and
Speaker 4: he has been incarcerated every day since then. He has
Speaker 4: He was going into a sophomore year of high school
Speaker 4: when he was incarcerated. He missed high school. He is
Speaker 4: self educated. He has spent his years in jail educating
Speaker 4: himself through voracious reading. He reads tons of history books.
Speaker 4: Is he stays current on political issues, and he's very,
Speaker 4: very opinionated about political issues and has very strong feelings
Speaker 4: about things. He's got a wonderful sense of humor. When
Speaker 4: I first met Eddie, he was a little kid. He
Speaker 4: blushed every time I talked to him. Okay, cheeks would
Speaker 4: turn bright red. He would stare at his sneakers, he
Speaker 4: would smile. You know, he just he was a child.
Speaker 4: He was he was such a young adolescent, you know,
Speaker 4: with no experience whatsoever in the ways of the world.
Speaker 4: His neighborhood was a pretty protected little neighborhood, and you know,
Speaker 4: and he had a little group of friends that he
Speaker 4: hung with since he was a toddler. You know, his
Speaker 4: life was completely different. He was incarcerated with violent juveniles
Speaker 4: who had murdered and who would murder again. He was
Speaker 4: with kids who had mental health problems, learning disabilities, all
Speaker 4: kinds of behavioral issues. That's where he grew up. That's
Speaker 4: where he learned, and you know, that's who he had
Speaker 4: to socialize with. And he does not call jail the
Speaker 4: real world. He knows what the real world is. The
Speaker 4: real world is his friend are his friends and his
Speaker 4: family outside of prison. They have stuck by him completely
Speaker 4: for the last twenty one plus years. He talks to
Speaker 4: his parents every single day on the phone. I think
Speaker 4: twice a day. He speaks to his siblings every day,
Speaker 4: one or more of them. He's a godfather to his
Speaker 4: nieces and nephews, not nephews, no nephews. Yet the babies
Speaker 4: come to visit him. They know him his uncle Eddie.
Speaker 4: He you know, he has just done everything he can
Speaker 4: to remain as socialized as he can with people from
Speaker 4: the outside. He deals with life the way you have
Speaker 4: to deal with it. You have to take it one
Speaker 4: day at a time. Nothing is guaranteed. And he said
Speaker 4: that was the most important lesson he learned. When he
Speaker 4: arrived in a dope prison. Some old timers took him
Speaker 4: under their wing, and they taught him how to do time.
Speaker 4: And that's what he said to me. He said, I
Speaker 4: wouldn't have made it if they hadn't taught me how this,
Speaker 4: how to do time. He's patient, you know, he is funny.
Speaker 4: He he loves to joke around. He loves to call,
Speaker 4: he loves to find call me out when I'm wrong,
Speaker 4: and and and uh, you know, needle me about it.
Speaker 4: He argues with me. Sometimes, he gets angry with me
Speaker 4: if I don't agree with him. Sometimes he you know,
Speaker 4: he's a normal kid. He's not a kid now, he's
Speaker 4: a man. He's thirty six years old, he's got gray hair.
Speaker 4: He's not that little kid anymore. He knows. He's very,
Speaker 4: very why so wise. He's so much wiser than I
Speaker 4: was at thirty six. And he was so much younger
Speaker 4: at fifteen than I was at fifteen. It's unbelievable. But
Speaker 4: he's just a wonderful guy. He proudly, proudly calls himself
Speaker 4: a Roman Catholic. He belongs to a Rosary group. He
Speaker 4: goes to the ass every Sunday. He's never stopped doing that.
Speaker 4: These are not things he does because he hopes to
Speaker 4: get paroles someday, because he knows that's not going to
Speaker 4: happen for him. He does these things because this is
Speaker 4: what makes his life worth living.
Speaker 8: Just to wrap up what the Innocence Project was interested
Speaker 8: in this case? What was the status of the case
Speaker 8: for them? What is it for Eddie O'Brien.
Speaker 4: The it's the it's called the Innocence Program. It's a
Speaker 4: different it's a state program that is very much aligned
Speaker 4: with the national program which is called the Innocence Project.
Speaker 4: This is called the Innocence Program, and he h Eddie
Speaker 4: has Eddie has a team of lawyers that he's working
Speaker 4: with and they are actively working with him, and it
Speaker 4: certainly is a ray of hope. For years, he's had
Speaker 4: really not no representation. He's never filed anything. He got
Speaker 4: a direct appeal automatically, because everybody who sentenced to life
Speaker 4: without parole gets an automatic appeal. That's the only thing
Speaker 4: he's really filed. He has many, many, many appellate, very
Speaker 4: very strong appellate issues in that legal issues that that
Speaker 4: will be brought to life, I'm sure by his legal team,
Speaker 4: and they're working very hard at that as we speak.
Speaker 4: So it's an open case and and you know, I
Speaker 4: would I just can't wait until there is some some
Speaker 4: more movement, and I would love to see the case,
Speaker 4: the investigation reopened, because I don't I want to know
Speaker 4: who is it that killed Janet Downing, and I would
Speaker 4: hope that her family wants to know that. And I
Speaker 4: know that they've been convinced that this that Eddie must
Speaker 4: be the true murderer because he was convicted and because
Speaker 4: they were told that, but they weren't told all of
Speaker 4: the things that I discovered when I went through the
Speaker 4: entire file. And I think the Janet Downing deserves that
Speaker 4: much respect that that we would find her a real
Speaker 4: killer and bring her real killer to justice. Now that
Speaker 4: may or may not free Eddie. There are lots of
Speaker 4: stories of people confessing to murders that other people are
Speaker 4: doing time for and the court's still not letting them out.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a very arbitrary and uphill situation trying
Speaker 4: to undo a wrongful conviction. But I have every confidence
Speaker 4: in the world that that's going to happen in this case.
Speaker 4: And I know that because I've you know, I know Eddie,
Speaker 4: and I know Eddie can stick with something until the
Speaker 4: right thing happens, and he I just believe, you know,
Speaker 4: I believe that this is going to happen, and I
Speaker 4: believe he is going to be returned to a normal life.
Speaker 4: And if I didn't believe that, I would have a
Speaker 4: really hard time putting my head on the pillow every night.
Speaker 8: Now, before we let you go, this is a wild
Speaker 8: Loop Press release. And for those that might want to
Speaker 8: contact you or see some of your other work, do
Speaker 8: you do a website? Tell us how people might contact
Speaker 8: you or see your other work.
Speaker 4: Yes, I have a website called the Politics of Murder
Speaker 4: dot com. The Politics of Murder dot com also Margo
Speaker 4: Nash dot com and the most material that you can find,
Speaker 4: including other writings that I've done and and reviews of
Speaker 4: the book, you can find at www wabou press dot
Speaker 4: com under the author profile.
Speaker 8: Well, I want to thank you very much Margot for
Speaker 8: coming on and talking about this Expose the Politics of Murder.
Speaker 8: Fascinating story. Thank you very much and you have a
Speaker 8: great night.
Speaker 4: Thank you Dan for having me.
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