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Season Five: Epiphanies in Automation
274 Plays4 months ago
In today’s episode, we discuss an update on a case that we covered with the author of the book Trailed and its effect on some of the players in that case.
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast may contain disturbing content for some listeners. It's intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Upcoming Projects and Case Discussion
00:00:40
Speaker
Well, this is gonna this is go to be one of those a news roundup episodes. And we're doing this right at the end of covering David Carpenter. Now, David Carpenter's gonna come up again in the fall with something we're doing. That was the reason for doing a series on him in the summertime. And it also gave you and I some time to work on an unsolved murder case in real life. And that's going to be coming. I think that will drop into the feed in August. And we have a couple of episodes between now and then, but that's something that you and I, um I've actually been talking to the suspect in that case. And then you and I together have been talking to the family in that case. It is one that no podcast is covered.
00:01:29
Speaker
And it's right now it's looking like four or five episodes, possibly six, depending on how it wraps up. But there there are multiple episodes that we're going to do about that because it has some interesting social media turns and twists. There's a lot of time that we have spent with ah particularly the victim's mom and We do want to get his story out there because it's something that you and I worked pretty diligently on. It's actually a really important story and it is actually, I i think, I don't know, you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's actually sort of a first of its kind for us because of sort of the light it's in and the light that it should be in. Yeah, it's ah it's a first of its kind. From everything I can tell, it's completely solvable now. It is unsolved in terms of
00:02:20
Speaker
adjudication, but even our interaction with investigators and the police and the family, it indicates that like everybody knows like something could be done about this. And this is soft but not adjudicated. That's how we would describe it in a sort of bird's eye view
Challenges in Solving Clear Cases
00:02:39
Speaker
perspective. Like I've talked about cases that are soft but not adjudicated on the show before. and that means basically everybody knows what happened and they don't have enough evidence for whatever reason, right? Whether it's it doesn't exist, whether it's there is no nobody trying to marry the evidence with the crime, right? yeah For whatever reason,
00:03:06
Speaker
ah the investigation is not going forward. And I feel like this is one of those cases. And I was a little closed-minded to the case at first. And so because of that and because of the change that I had, I feel like it's really important for somebody to talk about it. Yeah, and it's one of those cases where, you know, if you go even hunting ah the name of the victim all you come up with, you come up with a obituary and like a handful of real time and like sort of the year after and two years after ah news articles locally.
Media Representation Issues
00:03:42
Speaker
And I think one content creator made one like very brief piece about it that
00:03:49
Speaker
It sort of spurred my decision to collaborate with the family and to put something out because to be polite about it, after we put it out, you go Google the name, you'll see what I mean. The story's wrong. um It is. And it's not that it's wrong from the perspective of, it basically, think of it this way, there's three sources for this story, that's it. And everybody just retold the same story from those three sources over and over and over. and unfortunately, in some ways, it damaged the case. Right, and I suffered from a little bit of what, it without the further investigation that we ended up doing, it would have been essentially confirmation bias, like, because I would have confirmed to myself, based on the information that was available, that this wasn't something we were gonna cover, right? Yeah. And that's not the case at all. So it was very enlightening.
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, it was. So that's coming up. There's a couple of people. So we're going to start having some people in the show in the fall.
True Crime Author Interviews
00:04:51
Speaker
And I'm taking a few minutes to talk about it here because it's summertime and this episode is more of a news roundup anyways. But we are talking to a couple of different authors have like five potential guests on the list. I saw that there are two on the schedule. One is an author who's been around for a while and they have a true crime book that I want to talk about. ah There's another author coming up that has a pretty cool book. I think I'm gonna work those episodes into Probably September will be back on Something serial killer related. It's not Israel keys Someone sent me a message and asked me if there was more about Israel keys. My 11 victims for Israel keys has not changed um I am doing something with that but it's related to video and streaming that I'm I'm pitching and going through the development process on related to keys right now
00:05:41
Speaker
ah for For stuff that Meg and I have talked about, we I like basically cleaned it all up and turned it into like a very narrow series that we're hoping will get funded. we have ah We're going to talk about one of those huge super cops this fall and how some of the things he's done has affected more recent true crime stuff. There's ah there's a couple of cases that have wrapped up that we have covered and covered with other people. I'm hoping that potentially ah one of them will will come on this show ah to do a follow-up and to talk about a new case that they're working on. and um And I'll just go, we'll start with that one today. That's actually trailed, ah which I think is the name of the episodes that we did
Shenandoah Murders Case
00:06:26
Speaker
with her. This is Catherine Miles. ah She's an author who was covering the Shenandoah murders. And you and I had, for a long time, and
00:06:40
Speaker
not just on the show, we had covered that case in a way that like, I guess was more personal. Right. And so that was a timing thing because of the timing of when the case happened and how life was at that point in time. Yeah. We noticed it, right? Correct. So yeah, you're right. It was like sort of a more personal approach to it. You can go back and listen to trailed. The overall on that one is a, A young woman named Lolly Winans and her partner Julie or Julianne Williams, they were killed at a ah Virginia campsite in 1996. We talked about them from the perspective of ah them being the Shenandoah National Park murders. And when we brought Catherine Miles on to be
00:07:32
Speaker
quite blunt We put her in the pile of like things Israel Keys could not have done, and we talked about them during the Israel Keys season because they were an interesting couple. She had written and a book called Traled. And she had two goals with that book. One was to get the focus off the wrong suspect who made no sense and to get the focus on who she believed was ah the right suspect, which who is someone that we have still been doing some work on the side on a guy named ah Mark Yvonne. Now he's not the killer in that case. And I i wanted to kind of mention it here because
00:08:12
Speaker
It's important that everybody know that that case has now been solved. It was 30 years old. Well, not quite 30 years old, but it's 28 years old. It would be 30 in 2026. And I pulled from a couple of sources for this for us to talk about two aspects of this. the Interesting thing is I had never heard of this guy. And now he is the fourth one this year in terms of serial killers that they weren't on my radar. They're being identified by DNA. They have absolutely nothing to do with anything I've ever looked at before. The first source source that I pulled up was a June article from Antonio Polanis from NBC News. And I'm just going to run through that for a second, then we'll we'll talk about it.
00:09:00
Speaker
It says decades after two women were killed in Shenandoah National Park, serial rapists is linked to their deaths. Nearly three decades after two women were found dead in a national park in Virginia, their killer, a serial rapist, was identified through forensic tests according to the FBI. This is ah the FBI press conference back and in early June. DNA tests confirmed that Walter Leo Jackson Sr. killed Laura Lolly Winans, 26, and Julianne Julie Williams, 24, at Shenandoah National Park on May 24th, 1996. This is according to a joint statement made by the FBI's Richmond Field Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Virginia. ah Chris Cavanaugh, who's a U.S. attorney up there, he said, after 28 years,
00:09:57
Speaker
We are now able to say who committed the brutal murders. I want to again extend my condolences to the Winans and Williams families, and I hope that today's announcement provides some small measure of solace. Their family members called the National Park Service when the women did not return home as planned. Their bodies were found June 1st, 1996, following an extensive search. They had been killed at their campsite near the Skyland Resort. This case was unsolved for many years, and in 2021, a new FBI team was assigned to review the murders. Special agents, intelligence analysts, and other FBI personnel reevaluated hundreds of leads in interviews. ah This is according to this news conference. The team prioritized evidence from the crime scene and had it retested by an accredited private lab. The private lab connected DNA from several items of evidence, and with the help of the Virginia State Police,
00:10:51
Speaker
That DNA profile was sent to the FBI's, to CODIS, Combined DNA Index System. That led to a positive match to Jackson, a convicted serial rapist from Cleveland. The FBI also compared evidence from the slayings of Winans and Williams to a buckle swab containing Jackson's DNA. So that's gonna be, for for reference, that's gonna be a direct comparison. They knew it was Jackson's DNA and they're comparing it to evidence from the scene.
00:11:23
Speaker
These results confirmed that we had the right man and finally could tell the victims' families we know who was responsible for this heinous crime. That's according to the special agent in charge of the FBI in Richmond, Stanley Meader. Jackson, who was a painter, was an avid hiker. He was known to visit Shenandoah National Park. He died in prison in March of 2018 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. His criminal rap sheet included kidnapping, rapes, and assaults. And the FBI noted that it had worked with the Cleveland police in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office on the case. That's a huge deal. That is one of those cases that, like, when people have those conversations where, like, if if if you could solve any case, ah this is pretty high on my list for a long time. Well, it was a really terrible case. Yeah.
00:12:14
Speaker
the dynamics of it, the fact that it went unsolved for so long. Now, I may know the answer to this, but when you said that, like, so there was a CODIS hit, right? They had d add DNA profile was developed from the evidence at the scene of the crime, and they put it, and there was a CODIS hit, and then they compared it to the buccal swab that CODIS indicated was the match, right? Now, he had a buccal swab available because I assume because he died in prison, they took one.
00:12:47
Speaker
um Okay, so his deal was it wasn't just one buckle swab, there were multiples. He was convicted in multiple rape cases and DNA evidence had been collected individually ah in in those cases and had been preserved appropriately. Right, but they got a buckle swab straight from him though, right? they The buckle swab was straight from him and it was preserved, but by the time they got him as a candidate, he was dead. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I
DNA and CODIS Efficiency Concerns
00:13:20
Speaker
understood that. I just, I wanted to make sure that I had understood that correctly. I think I did. Um, it, because to me immediately I was like, I hope they check that because it's odd. Right. Um, but okay. So what does this tell us? Well, do you have any idea how long he was in jail for?
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah. So I went back through and I pulled his Walter Leo Jackson seniors information from, from what I could start to put together. Now, where where do you want to start with him in terms? Well, here's what I, here's what I was thinking. This is a situation where, uh, this crime happened in 1996. Correct. they just made this match right yeah okay and so and he had passed away in 2018 and so depending on when he went to prison and what he went to prison for i was curious to know
00:14:22
Speaker
yeah any If there was any sort of that third evidentiary category of CODIS where you know there's evidence found at the scene, you'd have the profile and then you'd have the match that of the known offender and then you've got evidence from a scene that hasn't matched anybody, right? Right. Okay. and so and My question that came to mind was, they just made this match, and so perhaps CODIS doesn't work how I thought it does. He would have been known offenders. They would have been cross comparative-comparing. Does that make sense? They would have been comparing DNA from unidentified offenders, but known crime scenes. I think what you're asking is, should they not have gotten this match a lot sooner?
00:15:14
Speaker
great and That's why I said i maybe CODIS doesn't work the way I think it does because we've talked about, like even with Keys, for example, we were able to know that he was put into CODIS. We know for certain because we saw where they said they had done it in the FBI files. and so My thought was certainly there's some sort of background algorithm that's constantly running to check this type of thing. There might be, but I think I can tell you why. I think I can give you the info there. That's why I asked how long had he been in jail.
Walter Leo Jackson's Criminal Background
00:15:49
Speaker
Okay. So he does spurts. He doesn't have a murder. So the sexual assault requires a DNA sample. Correct.
00:15:57
Speaker
So, and I have multiple mug shots on this guy. i I have already been told I can't have access. I can't have access to him right now because he's ongoing. Here's what they were able to give me. This is according to the Ohio Department of Corrections. His prison record puts him in local jail and prison between January of 1984 and February of 1989. okay He's out from 89, but he's on probation and parole, so he's still monitored. He gets put back into jail May 1994. He gets out of September 1994. Somehow this sentence gets terminated, but I don't see where. I can't tell if he goes into a halfway house or if he's on community corrections or something.
00:16:46
Speaker
But the sentence gets terminated shortly thereafter. From August 2000 through May of 2007, he gets charged and convicted in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and then he does another prison stent. This 2007 conviction, whatever happens in in this time period between August 2000 and May 2007, this is when we get his DNA. That would be but about right, as far as just not looking into it, but thinking about how you know all that worked. right I think the idea was at that time, that DNA was for that conviction. I don't know that they went crazy with it, but I do know that in May of 2012,
00:17:31
Speaker
until his death in March of 2018, so about six years later, he was again incarcerated. So he doesn't have like more than three or four years at a time where he is both unmonitored by probation and parole, out of prison, and running free in the world, if that makes sense. Sure and and so basically you're saying like we shouldn't expect a whole lot in those periods of time because he was Sort of on a short lease and or incarcerated, right? Yeah, I I don't I mean Maybe I think that's what I'm saying right now with him I was just gonna say I think there might be other assaults that pop up But I don't think it'll be murders per se
00:18:14
Speaker
And so my thought process was, OK, so you know at some point during the 2000 to 2007 stint that he served, right either on the way in, on the way out, sometime in between. I'm not sure exactly how it worked at that point in time, but they would have taken a DNA swab. Correct. At some point, it would have gotten put into CODIS. Now, what I don't know ah It seems like, especially based on um Trail, i'm I feel like maybe there was information about the DNA situation with the murders. But I can't remember that. I believe it's been a year ah since we covered that case. But so what I'm saying is like, if
00:19:04
Speaker
Offenders were to be automatically run against evidence from crime scenes. This would have been caught at the point in time shortly after his stuff was put into CODIS, right? Yes. Okay. So that's not happening, right? Well, okay. Well, hold on. So here's here's what I think happened there. I think you just have a crossing in time. Okay, but ah my point is, though, that I understand what you're saying about lacrosse in time, but it takes absolutely nothing for a computer to continuously run the... Yes, it does take one thing, and that is that the state allows the convicted felon's DNA to be in that database. Okay, but what about matching other crimes? Well, okay. So, Ohio was slow.
00:19:58
Speaker
which I understand. So they now have, I believe they now have a collection from all felony arrests, but over time they had collection from only some arrests, and at one point they had collection upon conviction only. All right, but still, if the crime scene evidence had been put in, it would have matched the, if any of his other assault charges had DNA, they would have matched. But they weren't unsolved. At all, ever. Like he's a guy that like gets caught at the scene. Now I need to see, okay, now I need to see if, well, how did he do it multiple times if he was caught at the scene? Because he kept getting out. He would get a sentence of like three years, four years, and then he would get back out and do it again. Well, okay. And so I guess my point is like,
00:20:53
Speaker
I don't feel like Curtis is doing what I think it's doing, what I have previously pondered it would be doing. I don't think he's a good candidate to test your hypothesis. I agree. it's i I'm with you. like like Yes, this should have been caught. That's basically what you're saying. this We should have known that Walter Jackson Sr. did this a long time ago. Right, because it seems to me like um a new FBI team had to specifically like...
00:21:24
Speaker
ah pull several pieces of evidence from the crime scene, get the genetic profile developed, send it into CODIS, have it be matched, and then they confirmed it with a buckle swab from the who was matched in CODIS, right? And so that's like, and so maybe it's because the crime was from 1996. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like right on the cusp of CODIS being developed so we don't know what they put in. Right, but this was certainly something that should have been a high priority, right? At least now, looking back, we know that, right? A murder rape, a double murder rape in a park, was it a national park? Yeah, it's a national park. It should have been very high on the list. We don't have a whole lot of those from 28 years ago that are involved. Well, hold on.
00:22:12
Speaker
It was very high on the list. And as far as the FBI was concerned for a very long time, as we discussed and trailed with Catherine Miles, it was soft, remember? Well, I remember that they convicted the wrong guy. Okay, but my point is, I think that the wrong... Or charged the wrong guy. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk about him too, because I have news about him. Here's the deal in what I'm saying timing wise. When you have evidence that you're thinking of running through CODIS, but in your mind, it matches this one guy and almost matches this other guy. Because if you remember how that went down, and and it's been a while. we I think it's been two years. It couldn't be excluded. We couldn't exclude Yvonne Itz, but we couldn't include the other gentleman, Darrell Rice.
00:23:04
Speaker
And that's what I think the the time issue is, is because you have this evidence. It's not active or in CODIS because as far as the FBI was concerned, they had their guy. They lost their guy. This new guy couldn't be ruled out. Why are we looking? So in 2021, ah We definitely get Jackson at that point. He's already dead. So we can take our time and confirm that it's him. And i i think I think what you're saying might still be true. And I am trying to find that out because it drives me a little crazy too. The automation of those two things working the way that you picture them is the way that it should be happening, not just with this system with CODIS, but with a number of other systems.
00:23:55
Speaker
Well, right. And so I guess my thought behind that is if we have this gigantic CODIS system that still requires the exact same work that would, the only difference here would be they wouldn't have gotten a match um if CODIS didn't exist. Like they wouldn't have had the perp to go double check against, right? Yeah. My thought was though, In a database, an algorithm can cross-track things like at all times. I do realize DNA technology is changing quite rapidly. But to me,
00:24:30
Speaker
like almost all of the legwork is taken out of a DNA match as far as all the other things you have to do to get there, right? yeah You know, we've talked about various other problems that could come up because of that. And with regard to people who aren't guilty, right? yeah but But there's certain definitive things. And I do think I will go with this is more than likely a timing issue. However.
00:25:02
Speaker
I find it very concerning with regard to what's been stated, just because that's what they stated. That doesn't mean that's exactly what happened. But my thought is that even without, and I, you know, you said something about ah the state can't have it just running. Well, this is a federal thing, right? And each state has their own laws with it. I just, I just want the state like, like any prosecution. Right. And so, you know, there's I know it's really specific, especially like in the event you end up not being convicted or whatever, they take it out. Right. That's what they say. And so. I don't know. It's just it's an interesting sort of perspective, I think it is. So just keep in mind that while Darrell Rice came to be the suspect in that case in 1997, he doesn't get indicted for another five years after he's the suspect.
00:25:57
Speaker
so he like His shenanigans don't even start until 2002. My point is, when you're doing that, the last thing you want to be doing is also running that DNA in CODIS and ruining your case, giving reasonable ah doubt to a defense. I disagree with that. I think that should be the first thing you do back then. They didn't know what to do with it. They just knew they did not want to like contaminate cases with the idea of reasonable doubt by like looking like they're continuing to investigate when it took them six years to get an indictment. That's what i I'm just saying now you're a hundred percent right. And these cases drive me crazy.
00:26:35
Speaker
Like you should know like before you even get that and I feel like I don't feel like there's anything Contaminating a case by figuring out whose DNA is at the crime scene. Well, you're thinking about it in 2024 terms I'm telling you what it was, you know 2002 terms and this and I'm I'm upset about all this and I'm just go ahead and tell you I have some terrible news so we talked to a couple folks about Daryl Ray. Specifically, we talked to Catherine Miles, and I had i had followed up on on some of what she was saying there, because I was very interested in a bonnet for this crime. I got another article this morning. This is from Hollis Spencer. We used him as a source originally when we talked about this. So he writes for thedailyprogress.com, and it says, this is um this is July 9th.
00:27:24
Speaker
It says weeks after he was exonerated in Shenandoah murder case, Darrell Rice struck and killed by a car. So 15 days after his exoneration, Hawes Spencer writes, it's unclear if he knew that his name had been cleared. The article says just 15 days after he was cleared of culpability in the 1996 Shenandoah National Park double slaying that clouded his life for 22 years, Darrell Rice died on a dark highway halfway between St. Louis and Kansas city. The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported that the 56-year-old was riding a bicycle when he was struck and killed by a car on Friday evening. It's difficult to wrap your head around, said Rice's longtime defense attorney, Gerald Zirkin, to the Daily Progress. It's obviously difficult to accept the extraordinary coincidence that he is killed within days of being exonerated, but that would appear to be the case.
00:28:16
Speaker
In early 2002, Rice was indicted by a Charlottesville, Virginia-based federal grand jury. Six years after 24-year-old Julie Williams and 26-year-old Laura Winans were found dead at a campsite near Skyland Lodge in Shenandoah National Park shortly after Memorial Day in 1996. Passionated about the wilderness and each other, the couple was found naked, bound, and gagged. through Their throats had been cut. It was then U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft who named Rice as a suspect and under the belief that the two women had been targeted because of their sexual orientation announced that the murders had been elevated to a federal hate crime, meaning that Darrell Rice was eligible for the death penalty. When another man's DNA was found on the devices used to bind the two women, the government dropped the charges against Rice but reserved the right to reinstate them.
00:29:08
Speaker
That cloud was only lifted on June 20th when the FBI announced that a Cleveland-based serial rapist who died six years ago, Walter Leo Jackson Sr., was the actual killer. The FBI said that multiple DNA tests showed that Jackson had raped and murdered both women. Zirkin said that a factor compounding the tragedy of Rice's death is that he may never have learned that forensic testing had cleared his name. He was very much off the grid as a result of the government's unending persecution and the internet perpetuation of the false cases against him, said Zurkin.
00:29:43
Speaker
Rice came to the attention of law enforcement in 1997 when he attacked a female bicyclist along Skyline Drive, not far from the scene of Williams and Wyman's murder. He later pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping and the woman whom he threatened and implored to get in his pickup truck testified at his sentencing that she was certain he was going to kill her. Charlottesville city counselor Lloyd Snook wasn't so sure. He was Rice's defense attorney in that case. I can't say I ever really understood him," Snook told the Daily Progress. Certainly, what he was convicted of was very bizarre behavior. Such behavior got Rice an 11-year federal sentence that stretched out to additional time due to post-release infractions, including failing to report to work, moving outside prescribed geographic boundaries, and attempting suicide. However, the government's murder case was based solely on snitches and circumstances, such as being in the park that weekend.
00:30:41
Speaker
they had only tissue paper thin evidence against him," said Snook. While the Shenandoah murder case against him was dropped in 2004, state prosecutors suggested with a subsequent indictment that Rice may have been behind the mysterious disappearance of women along a stretch of US-29 between Manassas and Charlottesville. The so-called Route 29 Stalker was blamed for the attempted abduction of at least 20 women in the mid-90s, hailing them onto the side of the highway and telling them their cars were throwing sparks. The figure also was blamed for this the disappearance of at least nine women into the 2010s. Of those later cases, only three were ever closed, resulting resulting in the convictions of two different men on murder charges.
00:31:25
Speaker
In 1996, the same year as the Shenandoah murders, Harrisonburg native Alicia Showalter Reynolds was found dead in Culpeper County after she was last seen standing along US 29 with a man peering at his car at her car's engine. Rice, his lawyer said, took a plea in one such stalking case only because he'd won a deal with no additional jail time and because the government seemed willing to reach across jurisdictions to convict Rice of something. From the beginning, the government manipulated the evidence against Rice, and in some cases they fabricated it, said Zirkin, during a June 24th press conference at rice's after Rice's name was cleared in the Shenandoah case. The preliminary accident report filed by the Missouri State Highway Patrol indicates that Rice was riding a bicycle around 9.52 p.m. Friday in Broul, Sheridan County, near the Missouri River.
00:32:16
Speaker
Although he was in Missouri, Rice's address was listed as Montrose, Colorado at the time of his death. I did not know that he was in Missouri, said Zirkin. Nor did the local sheriff, who saw Rice cycling near the town of Salisbury, a little more than 11 miles east of the accident site earlier on Friday. He was riding off on the shoulder at that point in daylight, so I didn't think much about it, said Sheridan County Sheriff Eric Billups. But at night, shortly before the crash, two sheriff's deputies noticed Rice was pedaling without lights or reflectors near the center of Tulane, US 24, the county's main thoroughfare.
00:32:53
Speaker
They were going to turn around to check on him when a car came over the hill and hit him. The sheriff said that one deputy witnessed the impact and that both rendered CPR until medics arrived. Rice was airlifted to a hospital where he died. The state report indicates that the collision destroyed the car, a 2001 Nissan Maxima driven by a 31-year-old man. A 22-year-old female passenger was taken to a hospital for the treatment of minor injuries. Before he was prosecuted for attacking the cyclist in Shenandoah National Park, Rice was a computer program who lived in Maryland. But the murder prosecutions and archived press reports kept Rice unemployed and on the move, according to his lawyers. Gerald had been forced to be off the grid due to all the horrible media coverage of his case and what the government has done. He has just been trying to survive and can't get a job. He was driven into hopelessness. That is the great tragedy of false accusations.
00:33:49
Speaker
So I wanted to bring that up. Right. And so that is, I believe it was what, June 20th is when the announcement was made about ah the DNA match. And this happened life yeah July So ah it's very short period of time, right? Yep. i I wouldn't want to characterize this in any way because I don't know, but I believe, and I can't remember, it seems like we looked pretty hard into some of this, and the exclusion was pretty definitive to me, right that the DNA exclusion, because I believe the DNA was like on the bindings.
00:34:29
Speaker
right Yeah, it was on the bindings on what was binding direct link to to whomever like had done who who had bound them and killed them right and when he was excluded I felt, I believe, unless there was something else that came up, I believe that was it for me. I don't know why the government can... conclude it it is You know what happens all the time when somebody gets on the radar. He did have this like crime that happened where with the girl near where the um where the murders happened very shortly after, right?
00:35:10
Speaker
Which he was he was punished like he was a murderer being punished for another crime ahead of the murder because the way that that report was written up was like two people had a yelling match and he put his hands on someone in a parking lot over something dumb. But it became this attempted abduction on federal property. Right. And so, you know, clearly he's being targeted there, right? Oh, 100%. Now, if you were to ask any of the law enforcement side of that that were involved in it, I'm sure they had
00:35:48
Speaker
Perfectly good rational reasons in their minds why they were doing that, right? Oh, yeah, of course Now we know definitively he had nothing to do with it now. It's interesting that it the DNA definitely exonerates him. However It's an interesting headline, isn't it? It is interesting. Yeah, because exoneration I don't know the exactly dictionary definition of it, but you need to be convicted before you're exonerated now? Yes. Okay. And so he is never convicted of this. In fact, he was charged, but they ultimately had to drop the charges, right? Correct. And so he didn't even go through adjudication. Is that right? That's correct. Yeah. And so it's interesting now granted, you know,
00:36:43
Speaker
This definitively says he did not do it. It does not take back the fact that all these years there's been presumptions. And I do think the DNA testing, I think that especially on like the mitochondrial can't be excluded, is excluded, that kind of thing, it was so vague. I think it left too much room for interpretation. Yeah. And that's why like, because we're not questioning the match they just made, right? There's no question there. No. And in this case, it was like,
00:37:22
Speaker
somebody could justify it away. And I believe the FBI stated very definitively that they were so sure of the match that if he were alive today we would seek a single defendant indictment charging Walter Lear Jackson Sr. with these crimes. And you know what they're saying there is that by Christopher Cavanaugh, who was the US attorney for the Western District of Virginia, he's stating like there is nobody else involved in this, right which is pretty typical. It's it's cases where multiple perpetrators are acting like that are are very few and far between. it So he's sort of closing out like a lot of possibilities. now
00:38:06
Speaker
He doesn't, he's never gonna be held accountable for this, but the case is solved. And then, you know, now we've got Rice being exonerated, which shouldn't have ever had to happen to begin with, because he was never
Legal Proceedings and Convictions
00:38:19
Speaker
convicted. He was only charged and the charges were dropped. I wonder though, if he thought to himself, Well, they finally found, we don't even know if he knew, right? We don't even know if he knew that they had identified who killed these girls that he had been charged with. we We do not know that, no. Okay. And so, you know, if he knew, I wonder if he thought, well, I've been cleared, but you know what? It doesn't even matter at this point. And because I know that he had a lot of things happen to him that
00:38:57
Speaker
reflected how hopeless he was. I believe he did try to commit suicide previously. and i was just My very first thought when I read that was that he more than likely was well aware of what was happening. yeah I don't think it was an accident. um but I don't know that for certain. And I would hate to put in, I feel bad even saying that. It's like putting another stain on somebody who's just been pooped on their whole life, right? Well, there's this like, so there is something to be said for the fact that like suddenly his name's going to be back on the news. He finally made this whole new life, no matter what he does about it, because that case comes up again and he was the, like ah he was a huge,
00:39:40
Speaker
deal suspect wise because of the haste time attachment. But I'm saying he got a lot of attention because Ashcroft chose to put a hate crime attachment on him. Oh, right right. Right. Right. Because that was actually, it made it death penalty worthy, right? Correct. Right. And yeah, they really pushed that hard. And this dude was completely uninvolved. Yep. Had nothing to do with it. it was Absolutely nothing to do with it. And to go back and remember how that was sort of, cause I vaguely remember the news coverage on it. It was a huge deal, right? Yeah. At the time to, to, you know, fast forward to now and realize like, and you know, however many years it's been, this is a non-issue, right? Yeah.
00:40:29
Speaker
It's a little astounding to think about and I feel really bad. It's almost like as soon as the words get uttered, it it's too late to take them back, right? As soon as he was put out there as a suspect. And I don't think that zealous law enforcement officers that think they have good intentions, I don't think they mean to do it. But I also think that they're not like actively trying not to do it. Some are aware of it, but in this case,
00:41:04
Speaker
whatever evidence they had, which was, I think he said like paper thin. I think that's what the defense attorney referred to it as, paper thin evidence. yeah It was clearly circumstantial. In my opinion, he had ah exculpatory evidence with the DNA that showed he couldn't match it. um But it you know once his name had been said, none of that stuff mattered. It was just too late. He was always gonna have that cloud over his head. Nobody wanted to um deal with what comes with being accused of a hate us hate crime. yeah Like working for them or being associated with them. Yeah, he was screwed.
00:41:50
Speaker
i i don't I don't even, I look at it and like I think he was just, I think he was living in a slightly different world than the rest of us. I don't think he was anything like what was described to us in the media or by law enforcement. Yeah, and we'll never know, right? No. And um I hope that he will find some peace. Yeah, so I hope that Darrell Rice finds some peace. um I have a little bit more on Walter Jackson, who is the person who did what he was accused of, if you want to talk about that for a second. i pulled I've started pulling records on him. The FBI is not going to give me anything right now. which i This is the impression I got. this And I'm trying to still answer your CODIS question. The impression that I get about Walter Jackson is that he wasn't on their radar.
00:42:45
Speaker
I don't know that he was in CODIS the way we think of going into CODIS until May of 2012. I pulled all the court records that I could. and so He ends up, here's like the summary of of his world, ah Walter Jackson, the the murderer here. He gets hit with two counts of kidnapping, three counts of rape, one count of gross sexual imposition, and three counts of felonious assault. And those charges are filed in August of 2011.
00:43:23
Speaker
He gets arrested August 10th, 2011, and he's indicted on all of this, August 19th, 2011. And then there's a bunch of pretrial motions held between September and ah May, September 2011, May of 2012. Then he comes into court, he fires his lawyer at one point early on. He basically decides that he doesn't want, we'll just call him Dennis. I don't want to give away the guy's last name because he was the the lawyer was trying to get away from representing him. I don't know what happened there.
00:44:04
Speaker
so There's a ah lawyer that's assigned to him. And in March of 2012, he comes in and says, there's something wrong with my client. I don't know what it is. He needs to go on trial for this, but I need out of here. And the defendant says, I don't want him for my lawyer anymore. And please stop letting him negotiate on my behalf. So the judge says, OK. Within a week of this happening, the judge assigns a new lawyer. That lawyer obtains a waiver of speedy trial. basically stating that it doesn't have to like happen immediately. Now, that lawyer turns over it almost immediately all of the files and discovery to the new lawyer. So by May 10th of 2012, the state and the defense are both happy that they can go to trial. They have a hearing on May 11th
00:45:03
Speaker
basically asking for some stuff to be suppressed. Most of that gets denied. They go back and forth for a couple of weeks on on how this is how this is going to go down, and that's between the end of April ah and and these dates in May where they're having these hearings. well May 15th, it goes to trial. They've started bringing all the witnesses. The trial starts, it gets, have you sat in on a like a ah real trial in the last, I don't know, 10 years or so, that where you weren't a part of it and just watched what happened? Yes. Okay, so it has so some of these trials, when they're not murder cases and they're not highly publicized, they just kind of happen really fast.
00:45:42
Speaker
Well, right. Yeah. This is how it's supposed to going on and on and on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like sometimes people think of trials lasting like a month or something and like, Oh yeah. Like they can be in that. Like they can be in hours. Yeah, so this lawyer does a pretty good job subpoenaing and subpoenaing a number of witnesses on behalf of Walter Jackson. The state brings in a bunch of witnesses. So May 15th, May 14th, they wrap up final motions. May 15th, they have opening statements, bring in a bunch of witnesses. They all testify. May 16th, the victim comes in and she testifies. And the defendant stands up in the middle of the May 16th trial and says, I want to just enter a plea of guilty.
00:46:25
Speaker
And the judge says, oh, okay. um And he asked the prosecutor and that ah the but public defender if they wanna work this out. So the prosecutor and the public defender, they get together and they start talking. And so what I what i said there at the beginning was all that he was charged with. They work out that they're gonna advise the defendant of all of his rights, The prosecutor skims through his file really quickly. And he basically says, look, these indictments are pretty big. This is a repeat offender. This is repeat violent offender. And whatever we do here, like, he's going to prison today. So they work it out that he only pleads guilty to one count of
00:47:19
Speaker
Gross sexual imposition and I don't know exactly what that charge is in um Ohio my assumption is that on some level it is probably like sodomy Then he pleads guilty to one count of kidnapping and he pleads guilty to a felonious Aggravated physical assault not a sexual assault So basically he admits that he is, is punching someone or, or harming them in a way that is not necessarily sexual in nature. so this call Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so he retracts his not guilty pleas. He, he retracts his not guilty plea. He enters a plea of guilty to kidnapping with forfeiture specifications, which
00:48:11
Speaker
can mean different things in different jurisdictions. Then he retracts his plea of not guilty on the two counts of gross sexual imposition, and he enters one. um And then he retracts all of the other guilty pleas and enters a plea of guilty to felonious assault. Now, they decide that he is a tier two sexual offender. And they won't merge the that counts together. So basically, the the court's going to accept this guilty plea. They're going to null-pros the rest of it. They're not going to prosecute them.
00:48:44
Speaker
he gets put on post-release control for five years. That's a mandatory part of his sentence, and the court sits down to mull over what else to do with them. They give him three years of PRC time on that second count of kidnapping, and then three years of PRC time on the felonious assault. So he's he's required to no longer own air rifles or air pistols. okay That being a condition of this means he didn't have a real weapon. Do you know what I mean when when I say air rifle or air pistol? Yeah, i like an airsoft gun, yeah. ah Some kind of BB gun, yeah. So they give him a sentence of seven years.
00:49:32
Speaker
He ends up with seven years on count one, he gets a year and a half on count two, and he gets five years on count seven, and the judge decides that he's going to run them all concurrently. So he doesn't get any judicial release or suspended sentence. And he has to serve at least five years for this crime, and then he gets five years in ah parole, is what it would be. But they call it post-release control. How old was he at the time? Do you know? At the time that he did this, let's see. All right, his birthday is 1947, and this is in 2012. So just 65?
00:50:20
Speaker
so okay He is still allowed to be eligible for certain credits. He gets jail time credit of 268 days by the time this goes to trial because of the way they measure their credits there. And he's pretty much immediately transferred back to the jail and then he goes off to prison. So that's what happens in this case where he is accused of, I'm gonna say it one more time so people understand, two counts of kidnapping, two counts, three counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping, three counts of rape, two counts of gross sexual imposition, two counts of felonious assault. All of those counts are no low-prost except for the kidnapping, the gross sexual imposition, and the felonious assault. So he goes in to do that sentence.
00:51:11
Speaker
so He had to do at least five years with a sentence of seven because everything was concurrent, right? Yeah. And then he'd have five years of probation. So you're looking at like if he didn't die, like he would be 77 before he was fully off of probation. He died six years after this sentencing. Right, and so I know that that comes into play. um You can sort of tell the fight that you face, which, I mean, you can see it sort of everywhere. There's a lot of bad things about plea deals and arrangements, but there's also some good things about it. and In this particular case, you know, you said he stood up and said,
00:51:52
Speaker
um I am guilty or whatever, yeah and which is bizarre, but also it's interesting, right? It's an interesting ah turn of events. I would say that he got a very fair synapse in that situation. Don't you think? He did. So the odd thing that happens to him is a year later, his DNA is a match on ah an aggravated burglar kidnapping and rape. He ends up while in jail, deciding this time I'm gonna make a jury come after me. So a jury does come after him and they find him guilty of everything. Because of this other rape charge, that's when his DNA gets entered. His DNA gets entered after the jury trial in 2014.
00:52:48
Speaker
I can go along with that. That's what it says here in the court records. I don't know if this is 100% accurate, because what I'm reading from, if if you've ever seen it for audience people, it's like a giant docket list with a lot of summaries that are kind of coded out. um But ultimately, this guy, again, he gets quite a bit of credit for time served, but he doesn't get con concurrent sentences anymore. Does that make sense? Yeah, what's his sentence for that? During the jury trial, it happens in November of 2015. For what it's worth, his birthday was November 2nd. This is him being sentenced on ah roughly November 5th. The court found that all the aggravating factors were true, and this is the entry um that they end up putting in related to it because, of course, it's like the possibility of appeal.
00:53:45
Speaker
And they enter it as nook pro-tunk, which means it happened in the past and we're giving you both dates. They enter it, it looks like Thanksgiving holiday probably interrupted this getting caught up. They enter it on 11-5-2015 for something that happened on 11-24-2014. That's just their way of cleaning up the paperwork for all of us. On a former day, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of rape as charged in count one, two, and four, and a verdict of guilty of kidnapping as charged in counts three and six of the indictment for Walter Jackson. um They also entered a verdict of guilty on an aggravated burglary account. The defendant addressed the court.
00:54:29
Speaker
Prosecutor Mary C. Weston and b Brian Hoffman addressed the court. The court considered all required factors of law. The court finds that prison is consistent with the purpose of the sentence. The court imposes a prison sentence at the Lorraine Correctional Institution of 20 years. They find that count three is an allied offense of similar import to one and two, so they merged that sentence. and the defendant will be sentenced on counts one and two. They find that counts four, five, and six are allied offenses of similar import that are merged for the purposes of sentencing. So he gets 10 years, and on each of counts one and counts two, they give him 10 years to run concurrent, and then they give him 10 years on count three to run consecutive to his 10 year sentence.
00:55:20
Speaker
On count four, they give him another 10-year sentence, but somehow when they merge it, they make it only a 20-year sentence. But then they give him a 20-year sentence to be served consecutive to this other sentence, which is the sentence that we were just talking about. So that sentence has to end. before he this sentence actually technically begins. And the court finds that they're doing this as necessary to protect the public from future crime or to punish the defendant because the defendant is now a serial rapist convicted in the case of raping two women. He is currently serving a prison term for sexually assaulting and violently attacking a woman in 2011. That's the case we talked about first.
00:56:03
Speaker
The court finds that the consecutive sentences are not disproportionate to the seriousness of the defendant's conduct and to the danger the defendant poses to the public because of the seriousness of these violent offenses, the use of a knife at this time, and the fact that the defendant has continued to violently attack and sexually assault. When the court finds that at least two of the multiple offenses committed in this case are part of one or more courses of conduct because these offenses occurred close in time, both attacks were on strangers and both involved weapons and the harm caused by said multiple offenses was so greater than usual that no single prison term for any of the offenses committed as part of any of the courses of conduct adequately reflects the seriousness
00:56:49
Speaker
or of the defendant's conduct and the court finds that the defendant's history of criminal conduct demonstrates that consecutive sentences are necessary to protect the public from future crimes because he is violent. His history indicates he is likely to reoffend and he will continue to commit the type of horrific offenses that he has committed here. Post-release control is part of his prison sentence for at least five years mandatory for the above felonies. It does go under to state that he's going to get 172 days to date for jail time credit. And then it says that the defendant is now found to be a sexual predator and must register every 90 days for life. ah He gets advised of his appellate rights and they advise him that under state law at the time, they will be collecting his DNA. yeah Okay. All right. So that probably, that's still, you know, it's, it's a better gap than what I was thinking it was. like It's a shorter gap than what I was thinking it was between the time it was put in and it was found, right?
00:57:49
Speaker
I believe so. yeah um so ah Okay, so here's a question for you. All that that we were just talking about, those crimes, there were no murders, right? I haven't seen any murders that he's attributed to. OK, so like he murders these girls in 1996, right? Correct. And all these crimes are way after that. Right. OK, that's what I was going to say. So this is a very strange. i It's an odd case, an odd offender, right? I don't know. It would be sort of interesting to dissect some of that. I typically don't do a whole lot of research on
00:58:29
Speaker
like assault victims that weren't murdered, because I feel like that's, you know, they deserve their privacy, right? um And so that's kind of hard to um correlate the data on. But I think that it's interesting. And in cases when I do see this happen, I always wonder if there was something significant um that caused them not to kill again. They didn't like killing. They felt bad about it later. um And it's mostly because I can't really distinguish like why you would want to assault somebody versus why you'd want to kill somebody. Like I don't know if those are like
00:59:18
Speaker
Like once you've assaulted somebody, is it a huge leap to kill somebody? um I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I think it's all bad and I think it's sort of, I mean, killing somebody is all obviously really terrible, but I wonder if he had some sort of reasoning behind it or... not right there may have been absolutely no reasoning behind it um it does seem like there's a lot of chaos happening in this guy's court situation and he was actually it was almost like he was sort of paying the piper a little bit yeah like i think i've heard
00:59:55
Speaker
Different judges at different times and different people throw out numbers like 11 to one in terms of how many times someone appears who's guilty of something violent has probably done that. Like not necessarily murder, but like somebody who's a robber, somebody who's a rapist. Like by the time you catch him for one crime, unless it's a juvenile or a very young offender, it's likely they've committed this crime multiple times. So it's kind of like they're punishing him for all the kind of times he hasn't been caught. Oh, that's interesting. um I don't know. Like I've heard that also like when people describe how plea deals work versus
01:00:38
Speaker
the sentencing after a trial? Because somebody might make a sweet plea deal and get a year, take the same exact charge to a jury and get 12 years? um Absolutely. and so that's part of so That's part of the police system that I don't think that we hear that much about because if you think about it, what we typically hear about is when somebody was forced to take a plea when they were like factually innocent, right? Yeah. And those are the cases that are, um, they actually have some, some veracity behind them to talk about them.
01:01:16
Speaker
in the context that we discuss on this case, right? But in a situation where somebody committed a crime that warrants 12 years in prison, but for whatever reason, they end up taking a plea deal where you know they're doing a year or
Plea Deals in Judicial Process
01:01:32
Speaker
two. Those aren't the kind of cases that come out to light, right? right um However, depending on the resources available and every single situation would be different, if the person actually committed the crime, they are getting a sweet deal with that.
01:01:51
Speaker
Hopefully, it's a nonviolent crime. I don't actually know any I'm not really sure of circumstances where you could be held accountable for Double-digit years and yeah not get and get like a year, right? I don't know that that happens. But again, it's because Those aren't showcased cases, right? Yeah um however to practice judicial efficiency, we know that deals happen all the time. And in that happening, you've basically got defense attorneys negotiating with prosecutors and factors that aren't going to come in play into that. ah They're not going to come in if you were to have a jury trial, right?
01:02:39
Speaker
Right. Because literally, if you've got a prosecutor and a defense attorney who work together often, and they are on the level, right as far as like they're not scratching each other's backs, in other words, you know they know what crime is worth what. and what to do, what what somebody that has committed a crime should be punished with without having to go through the pain of putting on an entire trial or whatever, right? right there's There's all kinds of things that come into play. it's This is very interesting.
01:03:20
Speaker
so he So he had already committed the crime that he has DNA subsequently matched, right? When he stood up in court and said, I just want to plead guilty. Yeah, he never gets out of jail after he gets up and so he he has some stuff like the app appeal appellate courts mess with over the years where they like, they send it back and forth. He never is close to getting out again. Right, right. And that I was actually going to ask you about that after you were like, oh, he stood up. Because I didn't read all this on him. um I read just sort of where they had matched the DNA. i was what And then I got kind of caught up in like, why did it take so long? um I think we've pretty much established that. But I i was i guess I was wondering, like standing up, saying I'm guilty. Just let's stop the trial. Let me plea, whatever.
01:04:10
Speaker
it he So is he thinking in the back of his head, like, oh, I've got these other crimes I committed, right? i Look, I don't know what he's thinking that like, like, I don't know how this works that he looks at it and goes, this is a good idea to just stop the proceedings right now and like take part. Well, something came, obviously something was coming out that either he knew was going to do him in or he didn't want to be presented, right? Cause another thing about a plea deal is like the terms of the case, unless they're specifically negotiated as part of a guilty plea, none of it ever comes out.
01:04:51
Speaker
Well, yeah you're right. you're you're You're totally right. I got a lot on this guy kind of right as the FBI was starting to talk about him. I think I sent you the seeking information flyer like right when it happened. I grabbed a lot of stuff. and We're not going to talk about it right this second, and I don't know how much more you want to talk about him right now and this process, but I will say that something I had not noticed until you and I were like just about to start talking about him today is that one of the offenses at the bottom of the court summary journal was listed as July 16, 1996. What is it?
01:05:36
Speaker
I don't know yet. It just says this defendant has, like, so this 2014 thing that happens, it just notates that there is an offense with one of these victims that it could be... The murders were on June 1st, right? that's That's why I'm bringing it up, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, um I was going to ask you if this guy's name had ever come up. It hadn't, right? He's never come up for anything from me. I didn't know he existed. Especially not for like the Shenandoah because we, you know, we had Bryce starred and then the charges dropped. And then a Bonavitt, which is, it's alluded to entrailed, which I still think that her book is sort of masterful in letting the
01:06:20
Speaker
Consumer draw their own conclusions from it, right? i thought I thought that book was brilliant. I thought her work was fantastic on it. That's the reason I'm bringing all this up today. But the where you and I got lost, you mentioned this earlier, where you and I got lost is we went down this path trying to determine, like it it sort of took our ADHD brings in a lot of different directions. We were trying to figure out how to verify who was and who wasn't in CODIS. Oh, yeah, that's like a constant. So that's a constant thing. Nobody will tell you straight up. um You have to kind of find it. And then depending on what is sort of reported about outcomes, like in this case, we know that
01:07:06
Speaker
In 2021, some point prior to that, they had gotten evidence from the crime, they developed a profile, it matched somebody in CODIS, and then they were able to sort of independently verify with the buckle swab from the perpetrator that it was indeed a correct match, right, and not some sort of cross-contamination or anything like that. And so that's what I mean when I say, like, what's reported about something that happened with CODIS, different cases have different accounts of what occurred. Obviously, this is coming just about everything we get is either like from the FBI report or like some sort of journalistic account of it. right Yeah. Usually, I take a mainstream source and figure out where they got the information and I try and go back and see if I can duplicate it unless it's an interview.
01:07:59
Speaker
Exactly. And so up until like a certain point in time, I never, I wasn't as, I don't know, detail oriented about what I was reading until I started trying to figure out exactly how that process worked, right? Because to me, it's it's fascinating. And kind of what I want to know is,
01:08:20
Speaker
Like in this case, because this guy who had never come on our radar for any reason had been convicted of, think because you know you know what, any sort anybody who is convicted of a sexual assault is going to have their DNA taken and most likely put into CODIS, right? Yeah. Okay. And so based on that, I wonder at times, would it Like like you we were talking about when we sort of got lost after trailed, we wonder like, okay, so we know that this person has an unsolved murder, they were sexually assaulted, and there was a there's DNA that was collected, right? right So certainly it's in CODIS at this point. CODIS as we know it right now, NDIS, CODIS.
01:09:18
Speaker
was only put into law in October of 1998. It didn't exist before that. i know But there was a backlog to be cleared, right? There was a backlog to be cleared. but there was ah So it got put into law, and then it took three years to create it. Right, no. and so But what i'm all I'm saying is, like in this case, because this dude had been convicted of something that would have required him to um give a DNA sample. Right. And my thought was, specifically with Julie and Lolly, my thought was, well, can we safely eliminate everybody who's already been convicted and would have their DNA in the system, right? I think you actually said that in the episode. Well, I know. And that's where i and that's why it's
01:10:13
Speaker
so I don't think I'm adequately explaining this, but my point sort of is like I didn't want to be chasing ghosts or smoke or whatever in the assumption that we needed to be considering people who had already been convicted of similar crimes or anything requiring DNA to be put in the system and having it be run against evidence that would have been in the system. I don't know what I took into consideration at that point in time. I do know that I have never been able to tell myself investigating any case ever that like, I could safely say like, you know, nobody whose prior conviction includes something like this, I can just disregard because I've never seen it like laid out that way.
01:11:08
Speaker
It's always questionable like what's happening. and so you know It takes me back to keys once again, because keys we know as encoders, I think to myself, well, that murder that there was DNA evidence and it's been put into CODIS and it didn't match him. So it's not him, right? Except I don't think that's a valid statement necessarily. So it's interesting. I do think that you could get a lot of different answers to this question, depending on who you ask. And I really think that um without and a specific
01:11:44
Speaker
like specifically having like you know one case, one perpetrator, one set of evidence, looking at it, I think that it's really hard to sort of figure out how it works overall. I don't think it's consistent. It's not. I know it's not consistent. I just don't know that you're wrong in your thought that there should be automatic matching happening. and No, I'm sure that it there should be. um I just, I i think that
01:12:12
Speaker
i think that u I think that there might be a camp of people who think there is automatic matching happen happening. And that could actually um delay quite a few cases that could very um easily be resolved because nobody's taking nobody's comparing it, right? Thinking that it's happening. yeah And with all the data there, it seems like an a no-brainer, right? Well, let me put it into like perspective. In either 2022 or 2023, you and I were talking about the Shannon Dole murders with an author who had, she had put considerable months and years into her work there. And we were discussing a case
01:13:05
Speaker
that the ultimate outcome happened in 2024 when they put together a team in 2021 to discover the person that had committed the crime in 1996 had died in 2018 and been in prison since 2011. I set a lot of dates and numbers there to say this.
Automated DNA Matching Systems
01:13:27
Speaker
It would save a lot of time with automatic matching. That's exactly what I said to begin with. I know, but i'm I'm putting it in perspective like in a single sentence. Well, doesn't that tell you that's not happening, though? Because even- Not necessarily. Even in the account of what was sort of just said with this case, there had to be extra steps taken.
01:13:54
Speaker
You're right. there There were totally extra steps taken here. i I don't know that this is a great example, just from the perspective of they had this one person in their crosshairs. And I have seen police departments and prosecutors, and particularly when they both get on board together, get somebody in their crosshairs and make their life just miserable thinking they'll slip up and like they'll figure out they did this terrible thing. When the truth is, They didn't do it. I think that that's kind of in the past though. It is mostly in the past, but this, so look, I, I, I'm framing all of this in the past, like looking at it from now, but like the stuff that I've said to you throughout the episode about the DNA and a and the timing is because the crime happened in 96.
01:14:41
Speaker
CODIS is like in the process of being created. The accusations to Darrell Rice happened in 2002. He's essentially let off the hook in 2004 in terms of like getting convicted of that crime, but then his torture continues for another 20 years. Because there is a fundamental misunderstanding of why and People weren't as confident in the fact that he was ah ah he was excluded from the DNA match. Right, but also look at it from Walter Leo Jackson's perspective in terms of having his DNA. You've got a scumbag that has basically committed crimes in Ohio his entire life, limited to what appears to be two counties.
01:15:32
Speaker
How can this person who has done all these things from 1996 to 2011, and we can clearly track him all around Ohio because he gets a speeding ticket here and a burglary charge there and an embezzlement charge over there and a theft charge over there. He's always in Ohio. And when he's not running around Ohio, he's hanging out in Ohio prisons. I'm just saying that might not be the guy that you go, we must put him in the national database right now. i know No, I know and that's and actually part of that is it you know there's been It's a it would be a really long different subject, but um each state has the ability to decide who goes in CODIS, right?
01:16:19
Speaker
yeah um They get to make up their own rules with regard to ah the offenders. If it happens upon arrest, if it happens upon conviction, how do you get it out of there? like All kinds of stuff that each state has the opportunity to decide for itself. and so Unless you're charged with like a federal crime, like you're the state you live in governs whether a conviction yields ah a subject profile in CODIS. and so ah Part of that the reason that it came up is because of things like that like who gets to decide You know, oh this guy who's been in two counties in Ohio committing sort of these
01:17:01
Speaker
You know, ah some of them are petty, some of them get a little more violent and concerning, right? ah Crimes, right? Who gets to decide that? Well, that's why they started making laws about it is because they didn't want it to sort of be left up to somebody's discretion, right? right um Violent offenders have to have their DNA put in the DNA database. and um and And so that's sort of the gap that's being filled there. We still have a long way to go as far as that's concerned. um I do worry, though, that I just I worry that like there's some cold case investigators that maybe they don't realize they've got to take these steps.
01:17:42
Speaker
like Just a couple extra steps right to get a comparison. We talked about it with NamUs as well, which is a different DNA situation. right yeah But ah you know when we pull up two things and they're not excluded, what does that mean? hate well we that We look at things sometimes. like We've had a couple over the years that we've looked at and gone, I don't know how that's not that person. and We do sometimes find out we were wrong, and then we sometimes find out later we were right. So there we're we're proponents of automated matching for a lot of reasons when you have multiple databases that are possible of having algorithmic matches. Right. And i I do think it becomes less relevant with regard, especially to like missing people and unidentified bodies. That is not a situation where somebody is going to jail if the body's identified, right? Yeah. I understand where like,
01:18:40
Speaker
It can have issues when you're trying to identify perpetrator DNA at the scene of a crime and your right to privacy versus all kinds of other things that come into play. But I think that this definitely shows us this particular case, the everything that went down with it, it shows us like how valid DNA comparison resolution and resolution is, because I don't have a question in the world that this dude's responsible. Do you? Based on like his criminal history and this DNA match, it would be a grand conspiracy if he didn't do this.
01:19:28
Speaker
Right, and they're not going to do that. They've already done the grand conspiracy for this one. Yeah, or some kind of mistake on a level I don't understand. Except, see, they took it a step further, which I think is is is really important to note. They got his buckle swab, right? Okay, he they did. And they had multiple of them because they were matching him to multiple cases. So they were even able to cross match them, I'm sure. Right. And so to me, that is, you know, there can always be a mistake made, but like a mistake made when his profile was in urgent Dakotas and a mistake made when it's compared to his buckle swap, that's not going to happen, right? One of them is going to be right. i I believe that, I believe they crossed out all the mistakes that could happen here by reconfirming. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying.
01:20:19
Speaker
But I think this guy's going to come up again because of the July 16th date that I now have to go hunt that I can't hunt while we're sitting here recording. I have, I got one more case I could throw in here but before we ended today. Did you have anything else on Walter Jackson, Darryl Rice? I don't have anything else on him. I know. I think about those girls every, every year this time. I'm so glad that that case is wrapped up and I got to see it. It's a little bit, I don't want to say it's a letdown because it's certainly good that it is resolved to the extent that it will ever be resolved. But it it's kind of one of those things where I go, well, all that time, we never would have found this guy. Never. It never would have come up. He just wasn't on the radar for it. Well, i you know he's he's interesting to me and I have so many questions for him, but he's dead.
01:21:10
Speaker
i have I have a final article I wanted to run by you. Did you hear about this body being found in in New York?
Bizarre Crime Tales and Justice
01:21:16
Speaker
Yes. the The wrapped in a sleeping bag thing? Yeah. Oh, wow. Man, it's getting crazy. So they arrested a dude, and like the mob is after him. They grabbed him, and they're like trying to keep the cops from taking him in. So ah for those of you who don't know, a woman in New York City was found shot dead. She'd been wrapped in a sleeping bag, and she had been dumped at the curb. And the curb was full of trash bags that looked like totally normal trash bags, except for this one trash bag that's clearly four trash bags wrapped around a sleeping bag. So the woman was found. um I am not going to get into that case a whole lot. um I'm interested in the person of interest because I saw him getting dragged down and and kind of
01:22:08
Speaker
manhandled by the crowd while the cops were trying to take him in. He's 55 years old, and so the victim is Yasmine Williams. She's 31 years old. They brought him in for questioning about it, and he ends up being charged with concealment of a human corpse, criminal possession of a weapon, and menacing. and it's He's the only person of interest that they're naming at this time. ah Chief of detectives came out and basically said that they had surveillance footage of a man they believe is him in a wheelchair, like wheeling the body along.
01:22:43
Speaker
so They backtracked that video to the Strauss houses, and that's where they found this guy, Chad Irish, the 55-year-old. um They saw him removing the package and the sleeping bag from that location in his wheelchair. and He said that the police then identified that so They identified the victim from the neighbors there. They take her body out of the sleeping bag and a bullet falls out. So they knew it should be shot in the back of the head. So they're working it as a homicide case. And they they did say that Yasmine Williams had had stayed with Irish at times. They're not sure about the nature of the relationship or if there was something related to narcotics going on.
01:23:25
Speaker
Irish has 21 prior felonies, according to the news release, and he served three years in prison after he was convicted of attempted arson for trying to blow up his uncle's home in the Bronx back in 1994. He kicked a gas pipe loose and had set rigged two propane tanks to spark an ah explosion. He got menacing in weapons charges that were lodged against them, not tied to William's death, but outstanding warrants from a prior incident. And it comes after the person of interest, Chad Irish, was mobbed by dozens of angry locals. This was, I guess, Monday that the videos came from. The victim's mom and another family member were among the mob. They came face to face with Irish after the cops had brought him outside of the Strauss houses, which is, it's a New York City housing authority complex. So I don't know what we call those those days, but it's a place for people to go and have supplement in housing.
01:24:22
Speaker
So this is in Kip's Bay. They put him on a stretcher. They put him in an ambulance. People were yelling at him. And that's not the crazy part of all of this. I mean, the body's found on the sidewalk by the trash. Weirdly, not that big a story in New York anymore. What's interesting is he's a twin brother. So Chad Iris is a 55-year-old ex-con with a twin brother. His twin brother is currently on parole for robbery, assault, think maybe a assault on law enforcement. Guess what his s twin brother's name is? Chad Irish. It is. Chad Irish.
01:25:02
Speaker
So, you got twins committing crimes, a murder's involved, we've been talking about DNA the whole episode, but they also have the same name. I don't think i don't think this situation could be worse if it tried. Do you really believe that he has a twin brother with the same name? He does. Chad Irish and Chad Irish are twin brothers in New York. I will note that it says Chad is an alias for both of them, but they are twin brothers called Chad Irish. Yeah. So we have no idea who committed any of the crimes, right? No, we have no idea. between the two of them I'm not even sure there are two of them. I mean, their mom says, that's what I'm saying. Like it's their mom in the New York police department say there's two of them. So, I mean, it's, it would be convenient to have,
01:25:58
Speaker
a twin brother that has the same, especially if you're identical twins, because your DNA is going to match too, right? yeah And so, you know, if you have a twin brother who has a wrap sheet, who has the same name as you, you could have just not done anything at all, right? But you know, as the age, like identical twins don't look identical anymore. Like their DNA is the same. I understand what you're saying. But you do know that as identical twins age, they don't look identical their entire lives. physical ah physical physical appearance wise. Yeah, no, I understand that. Yeah, no, I gotcha. um I just, when I, so at first, ah this has just happened too, by the way, I think Friday, maybe, right? Yeah, this is all brand new. Okay, and so it's sort of unfolding, but I know that um when this came out, initially I thought they said the victim had a twin brother.
01:26:54
Speaker
You know what? I thought they said that they were Irish twins and the first thing I heard about it. Um, and so when I, when I saw, okay, so I saw that the victim had a twin brother and a younger sister. That's what I remember seeing. Okay. yeah And then I saw where they were talking about when Chad Irish, I think was just arrested yesterday. Was that, is that right? He was arrested on Monday. Monday. Okay. And so, so when I saw that, you know, cause it was an update, right? Like update, uh, suspects been arrested or whatever. And you were talking about all the stuff that happened. Um, there was sort of an angry mob.
01:27:39
Speaker
based on the situation, right? Because what happened to the victim was absolutely heinous, right? it is horrible Left on the street, but put out like trash. I mean, there's all kinds of just really bad stuff happening here that that infuriated a lot of people, ah understandably, right? yeah And so i had brett I had her mom has also spoken out. So I had that in the back of my mind. Well, then, you know, Chad Irish gets arrested and he's got a twin brother who also has the same name as him. And I got to tell you, at that point, I stopped sort of following until they kind of figure out what's going on.
01:28:22
Speaker
Oh, I was just bringing it up to wrap up this episode because like we were talking about like bizarre things that happened, and I couldn't i really couldn't top that. it no Yeah. i um i i feel like ah there's we're I feel like there's going to be some more information to sort of be sorted out here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. that one Honestly, it's probably not going to come up again. I i hope that that her family gets justice. That's all I really have on that
Identity Verification Challenges
01:28:53
Speaker
one. That that is a tragic story. you Unfortunately, it looks like it's just a person on person, anger, drug, something, homicide. And it probably won't make a lot of the news except for sort of the ridiculous way that he tried to dispose of her body and the Chad Irish twins. I think that the twin thing is, um
01:29:14
Speaker
I if it turns out to be the case, isn't that automatically reasonable doubt? It absolutely is. But you know, it's been overcome before. So I i just I think that it i I'm not sure which one exists. ah Well, if it does, i may ah I may bring that back up if he doesn't. I feel like he should, his twin should have a different name. I feel like, well, this is obviously if it's made up, like, I feel like if he's going to, because think about- That's the part that made me believe it. Because like how, like that is verifiable. Well, because, the I mean, think about it though, like,
01:30:01
Speaker
I don't feel like picking out two names, so I'm going to name you both Chad. No, mom was just so tired. They came in and they're they're like, what do you want to name them? And she's like, Chad. And she's like, I'm tired. I'll think of the other one later. So they leave and they come back. And they're like, what did you want to name the baby? And the they're like, Chad. Well, but didn't it even seem a little tongue in cheek? because i the way I read it was Chad Irish, and I think he's what, 55? He was 55. 55, yeah. Okay, Chad Irish 55, who also has a twin brother with the same name and a lengthy rap sheet, has been charged. Right. Okay, and to me, I'm going, well, of course he's got a twin brother with the same name, with a lengthy rap sheet.
01:30:51
Speaker
Like, who doesn't, right? And so after I read... Well, I sat down and I was like, I'm going to solve this and know by the time we recorded what's happening. and And I could tell you there are definitely two records of Chad Irish that are 55. I cannot tell you if they're the same person or not. I don't see how you could ever tell, honestly. um that It's one of those things but what No, no, you could tell because if they have social security numbers, they'll be different or some guy has too. Or if they have a driver's license, they'll be marked in the system. If they have a different middle initial or middle name, it'll be marked in the system. There are ways to tell and coming up with a birth certificate for your twin should be relatively easy. Well, I tell you what, if I see them both standing in front of me, I believe it. leave but
01:31:41
Speaker
yeah Well, that's all I got for this week. We're coming back. we Next week is another different kind of episode before we get into our longer series, but but we do have at least one more of those, maybe two. Did you have anything else on Walter Lee Jackson, Chad Irish, Darryl Rice, um Mark Devine? I'm good. You're good on those? All right. Thank you so much for listening today. We'll see you next time.
Podcast Sponsorships and Discounts
01:32:38
Speaker
All right, so I'm gonna tell you guys a a few things about some of the folks who are helping sponsor our show. Now, Labrati Creations sponsors our show, and you can always use the the crime excess code there. um You can also just message them at Labrati Creations, and they will generally do something for the people who come from true crime excess. They were our very first sponsor, they've done a lot for the show, and that code is crime excess at labraticreations.com.
01:33:10
Speaker
The first new advertisers that we have, and i've I've selected all of these guys, I've selected all of these advertisers. So the very first one is Cure. Now, I'm gonna tell you guys about this, about Cure as being one of our sponsors.
01:33:28
Speaker
If you're an athlete, you know that proper hydration is key to peak performance, but plain water can be boring and sports drinks can be filled with artificial ingredients and added sugars. That's why we love cure. It's a clean and effective way to stay hydrated and perform at your best. I use it late in the day when I switch out of caffeine mode, specifically when I hit the pool or I go play tennis with my wife. I use cure to help me stay hydrated. It helps me recover after a long day. Now, you guys may not know this, but I built it. Right now, I've been building several structures on our property out here. Among those is a new podcast studio space for myself. I do a lot of that work at night and into the wee hours, and I always have some cure with me to go into my aluminum water bottle. Hydration is not just about filling up my aluminum bottle with water.
01:34:22
Speaker
Cure hydration is an oral rehydration solution that contains the perfect balance of electrolytes and glucose to help your body absorb water and rehydrate quickly. Whether I'm building things or we're putting the podcast together or chasing these dogs that you sometimes hear in my studio up and down the trails to get them worn out. Cure hydration is the way that I choose to go. Cure hydration is an oral rehydration solution or an ORS that contains the perfect balance of electrolytes and glucose to help your body absorb water and to rehydrate quickly.
01:34:58
Speaker
The formula is made with all natural ingredients like coconut water, powder, and pink Himalayan salt. It's free from artificial flavors, from sweeteners, and preservatives. Pure hydration is vegan, gluten-free, and non-GMO, making it a great option for anyone with dietary restrictions or preferences. The packets are convenient and easy to use. ah You just mix them with your water, and you drink. They're perfect for on-the-go. They're perfect for travel. And anytime you need a quick and effective hydration boost, ready to combat dehydration, then you try cure today and feel the difference for yourself. You can use code TRUECRIMEXS for 20% off your order. That's T-R-U-E-C-R-I-M-E-X-S. I have a link that I'm putting in the most recent episode show notes and True Crime XS will get you 20% off.
01:35:53
Speaker
Our second sponsor for the show today is Laird. Now, Laird has a list of things that they want me to tell you about. They have better ingredients with amazing taste and functional benefits. They have a superfood creamer crafted from the highest quality, all natural, real food ingredients. All Laird products are sustainably sourced and thoroughly tested to ensure that you're incorporating the cleanest, finest fuel into your routine. They have all natural whole food ingredients, and they contain naturally occurring MCTs made from coconut oil. There's no artificial flavors, there's no colors or additives, and there's no sugar from highly refined corn syrup. They want me to talk about my love of coffee, but the truth is I don't do much with coffee. But let me tell you someone who does. My wife has to have a cup of coffee every day.
01:36:42
Speaker
Now, I've fallen off recently, but one of the big things that I've done since the beginning of our relationship is she used to go and get a Starbucks every morning. I have substituted that out by always trying to make her coffee. It's not gonna be every single day of time from when I met her, but for the most part, almost every day, I make her coffee. I put her creamers together and I make sure that she has a good way to start her day. So with Laird, he started experimenting with his morning ritual almost two decades ago. He found that when he started adding fats to his morning cup, like coconut oil, he had amazing energy throughout the rest of his day. He gradually perfected this recipe for an epic cup of fuel. And he began sharing it with his friends in the surf community. I'm an ocean guy, so I saw this item and I was like, okay, we're gonna try this one out.
01:37:39
Speaker
Are you ready to feel more energized, more focused and supported? Go to layeredsuperfood.com and add nourishing plant-based foods to fuel you from sunrise to sunset. And you can use our promo code at checkout to save 15% off your purchase today. Our offer code for this for Laird is gonna be truecrimexs. pretty much everywhere except for Lombardi Creations. If you use True Crime XS, that will get you, with Laird, it'll get you 15% off. At some of the other places, it'll get you 20%.
01:38:17
Speaker
And the last sponsor I want to tell you about is Zencaster. We're part of Zencaster's creative network. We've been using Zencaster since about midway into our first season. Meg and I experimented with a lot of different ways to put the podcast together. And the truth is Zencaster, an integral ingredient to us being able to bring you this show. It's so easy. It's now super easy. You can record a podcast with Zincaster. You can log in using your browser and you start recording a high quality podcast right away. You can record studio quality sound and up to 4k video with your guest.
01:38:58
Speaker
You get to feel a sense of zen, knowing that Zencaster's multi-layered backups ensure you will always have your recordings in the highest quality, even if the connection is unstable. You sound your best. I mean, if you've ever worried about what you sound like, Zencaster's post-production process makes you sound buttery smooth. It automatically removes those ums and ahs in your recordings. It removes those awkward pauses and conversation too. You can set the right podcast loudness and levels while reducing background noise with a click of a button. That's how you don't hear my dogs every ah second of every episode.
01:39:36
Speaker
ZenCaster is all in one. If you've thought about podcasting before and realized that you need a lot of different tools and services, those days are now over. With ZenCaster's all in one podcasting platform. You can create your podcast all in one place, and you can distribute to Spotify, Apple, and other major major destinations. Just go to zencaster.com slash pricing and use my code truecrimeaccess, and you're gonna get 30% off your first month of any Zencaster paid plan. You can also check out the other plans they have available. I want you to have the same easy experiences that I do for all my podcasting and content needs.
01:40:16
Speaker
So zincaster.com slash pricing, the offer code is truecrimexs, and it's time for you to share your story today.
01:40:32
Speaker
ah We are also adding New Era as a sponsor for the show. New Era Cap is a headwear and apparel brand founded in 1920 in Buffalo, New York. Now, I actually have some experience with New York Caps. My dad and I have been through multiple iterations of baseball caps through the years. We collect different styles, different eras, and then my teenager has started his own cap collection and has several new eras as the centerpieces. Our favorite teams may not be the same, but our outfits are all topped with the same new era ball caps. We love the quality and the ability to wear what the players are wearing, not to mention new era is the leading headwear manufacturer with quality licensed products. You can support your favorite college or pro team in style from
01:41:20
Speaker
The official headwear provider for the MLB, NFL, and NBA, you can get a stylus accessory for your everyday ensemble and support True Crime XS. Just shop the official headwear and get 15% off when you go to NewEraCap.com. That's N-E-W-E-R-A-C-A-P dot.com slash True Crime XS. You can also use the code TRUECRIMEXS at checkout. That's it. That's all you have to do. And that's 15% off your order using the promo code TRUECRIMEXS.