Talking Dateline: The Clearing
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Everybody judge, mates, along with .

genus Murphy. Judge, how are you? good?

I'm good. Great to see you. Good to see you. We are talking date line. So this is going to be a discussion about the episode that you should have just listen to, called the clearing.

And if you haven't just heard IT IT is the podcast episode right below this one. So go there, listen to that, and then come back here. Then, as I love this episode.

i'm glad you did. I think you are a great man and great judged. Just I was appreciate you really is.

how long did IT take you to do this? Start to finish.

I think we were doing IT for about three months. We have shooting in columbus, ohio, and we had a some stuff to do in law vegas, where matt Moore was the guy who was a accused to describe IT was an interesting thing. I think I sometimes people don't understand how we get stories, and it's kind of interesting that the unseen iceberg of our lives is all of the producers that Carry us forward.

Research stories get IT to the ten yard line and then invite us in to do the story and in this case, the producer dorthy is said, you know, I think I get an interesting one for you. It's about a woman who went missing and was found hanged in wood's nearby your house, but was IT a hanging, or was IT a stage suicide, in fact, of murder. So what made IT interesting was that we had a booking.

We, we had this guy, he was accused of this crime, who's gone to talk to us. And josh, you know, there are two certainties in life. One is that the sun will rise in the east end if it's on daylight and a woman is missing. The husband did IT right.

That's one of the great things about this episode. absolutely. IT stood .

conventional wisdom right on its head, because the the guy was accused to trial and the jury walked him.

He was out of there. So let me ask you this frequently when I am trying to book defendants or in this case, people who were defendants and have either the it's a hn jury or the case has been dropped or in this case they were acquitted, their attorneys always say to them the same thing, which is, look, you beat the odds once before most people who get hold in the court and murder charges get convicted.

You or not, why do you want to tempt again, even though you can't be charged with murder again, what you talking to date line is guarantee to make prosecutors think maybe we can get another side of this apple. And they talk these guys out of IT. I've had that to happen a bunch of times. How did you get mad more?

And that makes good sense. If I had been in this guy situation, I would have grab that not guilty ballot, go on out the front door and headed to deepest dark as idaho and never been seen again. So I I think this guy got out there.

Any thought he was keep been colosSally screwed over by the criminal justice system, and especially the cord of public opinion, as I call that, I mean, in social media. And this guy was public enemy number one. The gossip male had met and convened and found him guilty. I think he wanted to craw out from under that he wanted to reclaim his name even though he had the ballot from the jury that he was not guilty. He even wrote a uh A A kindle book and e book.

which was probably also against this eternity s advice.

I think if there's one take away that the loyal viewers of deadline should know by now is that you do not talk to police if you're charged and I don't care what you sit next to the chief of detectives in church on sunday and your soft power team plays their team. You do not talk. He met more, walked into a disastrous police interview willingly.

When I was watching your story, I wrote down, this is why you don't talk to police without your atterley.

I bet you were yelling at the screen, man, don't I? And then he consents to a light detector test and is not even a lie detector test is something that comes out of a box of cereal, you know, it's called a stress voice analyst test. IT feels very much like booo junk science, and he feels IT.

So he's gone to a police interview room. He's confronted, give IT up your killer we know you did IT now is the time so he's had an absolute disasters round talking to police and now here at the end of IT you would mention, why doesn't need disappear wise? You still talking I don't know there's something in there that wants to be heard in, get the story out against all legal advice.

One of the things I like so much was that at the beginning of this, the first hour, you only see map in the police body cam video, which is great because you sort of see IT all experiences as it's happening when you see him on the body. Can video, my first thought is, man, and I hope it's not mad. One, because then there's not going to be any mystery to this.

And second, like he seems like a nice guy, kind of a happiness guy. I hope IT isn't him. And I thought only showing him in the body cam video for the first half, this for the first hour was great and really worked.

And then later you go to him and i'm like, okay, i'm watching him very carefully, like all date line view. I'm looking at the way he's sitting and i'm looking at his background and i'm thinking either he's acquitted or also possible you interviewed him while he was out of custody. Now you might have been out on bail for some period of time pending trial. That's always you want to get somebody you want. The trial isn't happen yet and they can talk to freely because once people are locked up, it's pretty hard to disguise the fact that they are locked up.

We were conscious to that when we put him in the chairs, we say we are doing an interview. And this is after the vertex of free guy, uh, we said, if we haven't talk about his backstory, the early time of the marriage, if he's not in a Green tank with a ugly polo shirt on, they're going to know that he's out and about in the free oral is warming the country um and we have to really counter game in up because people are so aware of the way we do things.

So we didn't do IT didn't we didn't try and do a fake out of whether he was out or not. And just well, with that, you know what's interesting, I think, about that cup video, which really begins listing its document. Number one.

Here comes officer holidays is got a body camino rolling takes you a minute one, and you're starting to hear the story and the prosecution, the cops, the prosecutors and trial leader said, that's all you need. Look how guilty this guy, as I said, what i'm looking at at a guy who's coming up from a his little home over, he looks like a medicated, very wild mount and dean, but he seems to be OK to me. He sent the cups, go through the house, goes from my car, I don't need to search on and they looked at that very same document. And that was where this case of office said, just look at that guy. Everything about .

him is wrong and I think he looks guy in in the and I actually thought, you know in the in the interrogation videos he's actually kind of holding his own yes.

he's she's taking the shots and standing .

yeah um I did pay attention to the cup saying that he says I love her instead of I love her suggesting that he knows that she's no longer with us little mix .

and craney thoughts fill out a whole case against a guy.

That's what made me think this might come up .

a trial and he said, you I should you remember uh, I don't actually this is I didn't do IT they had never say if he didn't do IT didn't say what IT was but said, I didn't do IT again his he's blurted out something his volunteer to the cops, he doesn't have to be in that room. He could say my atterley outside we're done here .

when I was long island, correspond for channel to the new york, which was roughly one hundred years ago. I think the .

second grand administration IT was.

yes, we were. Many of us thought that the car might replace the horse.

That was a very exciting time in amErica um I covered the disappearance of a woman named lsa salomon um who had vanished, I think on Christmas night and her husband said they had had a fight and SHE walked out a house and he never came back and so now it's like a day or two later and we're all interviewing him on his front lawn and eventually IT was my turn and so I step up there I interviewed and he says to me, look um i've called in all my friends um as I recall half of them were bikers and half or psychic good group of friends to have if you're looking for somebody and he said, and we're going to get to the bottom of IT, we're going to find out who did this right and I remember thinking, yeah how do you know anything's done? I mean, what's been done? What do you mean who did this? And my interview, unlike other interviews from other T.

V station. So let me just point out, my interview was used to trial because exactly for that uh, because of the way he talked about her and the way he suggested that he knew that some crime had been committed when in fact no crime was in fact only subsequently lease asylum was found. He was no longer alive and he's he's locked up right now.

We were looking at the transcripts of this charge of what everybody had told us. There was a phrase that that coming up in that I really was kind of haunted by, I meant to be dealing with laws and rules and forensics, and people kept saying this, you know, I just didn't feel right. IT didn't feel right in my stomach what this guy was telling me, and that's pretty much what they what went to try with.

I mean, that became the driving force. Something's not right about IT. I just think this got to be more than something doesn't feel right there.

There does that I mean prosecutor to have ethical obligations to not bring cases and less they have more than reasonable certainty, as you know that the person's going to be convicted. You can just say, let's let a jury decide. IT doesn't feel right. They have got more than that.

but we didn't quite know how to hand over a long time the forensics on this thing that could, because this case became dooling experts. We've seen experts all our lives to ask people are place thirty four thousand dollars to take the stand and tell the jury what they know. And in this case, you had a couple of him and he was a very difficult kind of science.

I mean, the forensics of the the neck bone, the anatomy of the neck bone. And people don't really know what's happen. We don't have in our common experience. So you had two theories about why this woman was dead. Was, was IT a hands on manually strangling that that account for the broken bones internet? Or was that the legatine, you know, of the thing that he was hanging from that had somehow slipped and cracked bones after four months in the clearing and we thought, how are we going to get people through this very dense technical testimony?

First of I think you did a great job with that. You dorsy because I was pretty interested in the expert testimony by the time at around um that woman, diane, the defense expert, that woman is a reasonable doubt factory.

People don't get invited for murder because I got a set of good facts but, uh, he was able to sort this thing out and say, look, jurors, you're being asked to decide whether this is a murder as a, say, suicide or a homicide, SHE said. That's not the question. The question is, this guy sitting on the bench next to me is that his caused her death.

And the whole argument in the court were sort of derail ed by murder versus suicide. And in the end the prosecution had no, and I mean no evidence to say that his hands were on her and cause this thing, you know, I think she's a Better storyteller. I've often thought you IT doesn't matter how good your facts are, if you have a spellbinding story teller for another jury, he or SHE has Better odds of winning in the prosecution.

Whatever they paid her was worth that. I quote us all the time on twitter it's race or hands the great defense tourney from texas who famously said, what's money when you're looking at twenty five life in the cross bar hotel and and I would say, mag, god, is money worth you're talking .

about those old houston, texas lawyers back in the day and they would go to jc pennies and buy a suit to argue, uh, before the jury and have a wonderful italian silk suit to where the country club they want a good man of people. And it's one of the business of being storytellers. You have to get the attention. You have to make them think .

about your guy yeah I agree. The talent in the courtroom frequently surpasses the evidence that is or is not introduced. And you know, we've seen that again and again and again with different attorneys .

stand manasa is is an absolute ARM. The prosecution .

in this case .

never came clean about what they're theory of. The crime was, was SHE killed in the wood son? Was SHE strung up as a stage suicide? Was he killed in her house and through some machinations ans unknown her her body brought in the dark, passed all of the eyes there out there, walking their dogs and watching.

And somehow we butter into the woods and SHE, said jurors, we I just looked at the clock as one of five and jury, when we finally found out the theory of crime, he said, if that isn't reasonable doubt, I don't know what IT is. Good point. I in, you know, should they had not told in their story of what had happened?

Yeah, I I agree. And prosecutors are not required to provide a motive, but jury's like to hear them. I just can't .

see him doing this. Some of them thought he wasn't. The bright is play in the back and how how did the smoke figure this thing out and to find a LG brand, little, tinny, tiny phone card, shorter to be the news.

This is not a john wain kind of hanging tree news. This is a thing you used to charge your phone. And they said, that's what supported her for four months. This tiny, tiny cord. And that didn't seem to make any sense either, but IT did.

They worked. You know, I felt as if suicide had been A A factor in the in Emily's life, IT surrounded her. And so to sort of suggest that her suicide was no came out of the blue mean, IT was unquestionable that it's a thing that the chief thought about many time. I don't mean actually doing IT, but the issue of suicide was clearly something that was part of her conscious .

that he'd lost her husband from ten years before with a gunshot. Wonned mats son, who was medically ill. He committed suicide by hanging in the woods in the same town. Her parents died in a violent car rec SHE was surrounded by death.

I think that's right. I think there's so little that is known about suicide and about depression. In fact, um interviewing someone when police interview a friend of someone who either kill themselves or or or or IT was murder and they say, did they seem sad? Did they seem depressed in the persons? No, no, no, not all.

They didn't even all depressed. And that is frequently taken by law enforcement as evidence of clearly, this was murder and not suicide. In fact, of course, people who are severely depressed in a lot of cases are really good at hiding that, particularly from the people who are closest to them, who you would think are the ones who would recognize that. But they don't always recognize IT. And I think that that maybe played a little bit in this two.

And Emily noble was a neat that was a squared off bedsheet, not a drop in the law. I could see a person like that getting up, making her bed and then going out to the woods and killing her herself. I don't think those are inconsistent facts, prosecuted.

Thought that was absurd. Why would anybody do that? But that whole bias of, you know, he was looking SHE at the rest of her life ahead ever. And her friends could not see her ever, ever doing IT that really did drive the investigation when they talk to some of their friends and said he was not suicide. Don't think king to give us know what suicide is.

As always, if you or someone you know is in crisis, call the suicide and crisis lifeline at nine eight eight on your phone, or visit nine eight eight lifeline that org for more resources.

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Know social media in this while this was unfolding before that was charged, was uniformally against him IT reminded me a little bit of you know kiss case in in idaho with those those kids who were killed in the house in which social media i'm not going to say IT propelled a prosecution.

But IT was a factor in all of IT and in some cases slow dow w enforcement and accuse people who had absolutely nothing to do with the crime and in some cases like I think seriously damaged some people. This felt like some version of the same thing with everyone online yammering. This guys are correct.

This guy is is a killer. You know, we need to proceed and lock him up. I'm wondering whether that spur the the prosecution alone. I asked that question .

judged directly of the prosecutor from the court room. I said, look, did the quarter public opinion conclusion that this guy was a killer? Did that blow back in your decision to move forward the case they denied, he said IT was strickly based on the forensics, the examination of the bones, but this guy was toast by two days in the woman had been missing two days, and on the facebook pages they decided that this guy was guilty somehow, word to come out that you plan to lie, detection.

test, and he wasn't searching.

Where are you doing? If this is a love your life, how come you are not out there? Elwell elbow with us? Is work going through the woods? No, he said he didn't do that because facebook had already rally against him.

And if he was gonna into the mob, that was not the way to be. So he just took pass on that too. Another error that he made, you know, in addition to talking to the police before he talk to an attorney, he should have been seen with the researchers in your interview with that.

First of all, any preconditions that there was anything he said. I don't want to talk about no.

I I think that was, let's go far as I know, there was nothing off the table.

He seemed so much more cheerful than I expected him to be. I mean, there was smiled much more than I expected him to.

given that that's exactly what surprised me when I met this guy. We've see him in the the the officer came at the doorstep. And then when I met him out in in most vegas where he, as we do the interview, engaging, he's good.

He's totally socially appropriate. This there's there's nothing off about and he certainly not the guy in the doorway, the cop man, but IT IT is disarming. I guess I just thought .

that his demeanor during your interview would be more serious in that this is him sort of trying to reestablish his position in the world through this interview and the and the e books he wrote as I am not a killer, i'm A, i'm a good guy, I actually suffer a lost my wife killers so I didn't do IT I I don't know if I be smiling when I told that story. He said, guy.

I D likes to keep a room happy. He's a pleasure. He says that that was his dynamic with Emily SHE would kind of become Operatic, and he would keep things light and spray some litham around the room in his conversation.

Everything would be OK. And that's how he gets her alive. And I had to ask him, I said, look, you know, did you do IT the old world wants to know? Did you do IT I know you got a ticket that you didn't do IT from the county koreas. And he said, why would you ask me that if I were there? Won't think that would have been some something to convict me.

Why would you ask me that? Why do you think we're here?

Response should be, dude, I love my wife. SHE was the Spark of my life. Why would I killer? And that comes down about paragraph three, actor.

But I thought that was odd. You aren't we here to ask you that? I mean, aren't you here to answer that, to refute that? Come on. You know, when i'm watching your story, I was thinking to myself either this is a small town department that they get a lot of murder and did not want to come off him as a suspect once they sort of got that sent or they were right. And at the end, that's the question you're left with.

I don't know, judge, is what happened in the woods at night? I don't know. And new is a best friend.

Selective started off on Emily side and with her. And then SHE sort of met the new husband. He'd been there a couple of years.

SHE liked him, okay? But SHE came around thinking he was guilty. And what he told me was, I would like to know what happened. It's still the mystery of my life. SHE thinks he did IT, but I can be proved.

So this is IT. There's no wrong ful death suit coming from this. He was acquitted, and there is no other legal tale behind mh. He is free to lead the rest of his life.

The judge had an interesting, I thought, farewell to match. The jury had came back. The court was breaking up. And he said, you know, I don't think that the quest for justice for Emily should result in a quest of injustice for you.

You know that the flip side of trying to help her is not to get you hang up with this thing. I S. Dian monaco, the lawyer later, is that is IT possible that Emily wasn't fact killed, that he was a victim of homicide? SHE said two could happen, but it's not my guy.

It's not my guy. And they ever proved that he was him. So IT is still a big miry. What happens? Amy noble, at least in my mind.

yeah. And clearly in the minds of the jury and very possibly in the minds of of the daylight line audience now is thanks so much.

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