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Season Seven Dirty Badges; Death Poole, The Sentence
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We talk about what is really in a name.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Introduction to Timothy Poole's Case
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:00:57
Speaker
We left off in kind of an awkward spot because I was down this rabbit hole on the name Timothy Poole. And we start with this deputy down in Florida.
00:01:08
Speaker
And then we kind of maneuver our way through this murder case. And, you know, as we're talking about the murder case part of this, the...
00:01:23
Speaker
The outcome for that is interesting because like my first instinct with the second Timothy Poole, who, by the way, his name is Timothy Clyde Poole, is I went like through like what was happening with him.
00:01:36
Speaker
And that Timothy Poole... ultimately does not get the death penalty. So I pulled up an article. It's ah from 1982.
00:01:49
Speaker
eighty two And the article just says convicted murderer Timothy Poole, whose life was once spared. John Friese wrote this, and it this is on UPI that I'm reading this.
00:02:00
Speaker
So it's in the archives now, but it was interesting because it says convicted murderer, Timothy pool, whose life was once spared by Maryland's court of appeals must wait for the state's highest court to decide if he should die in the gas chamber.
00:02:14
Speaker
Pools attorney told the court Friday that his death sentence should be overturned a second time because of misconduct by prosecutors who handled the case. So this is that public defender I mentioned, uh, George Burns.
00:02:28
Speaker
He, they They go through this article and they explain they're simply trying to save his life over this whole – it's a robbery gone wrong in a pharmacy.
00:02:43
Speaker
And in 1981, the Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, but mostly because of the way prosecutors had questioned the witness in the original trial. They then order a new trial.
00:02:55
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They move the case over to a new county, to Charles County.
Legal Challenges and Appeals
00:03:00
Speaker
And Timothy Poole is again convicted, and again he's sentenced to death. And there's not a lot more to this except that he's never put to death. He goes back through the appellate process multiple times.
00:03:14
Speaker
And at the end of the day, and I looked this up, hi he's still in a Maryland prison. Did you see this? Yeah. but He's still alive today.
00:03:25
Speaker
but he So he doesn't get put to death for this pharmacy murder. Did you have anything else on this one, like on this case? No, not really. it's I thought it was interesting. I get into these the rabbit holes. you know You go down this like deep, deep rabbit hole.
00:03:42
Speaker
And Timothy Clyde Poole was based off of Deputy First Class's shooting down in Charlotte County, Florida. That's how I get here. But would you believe that like I got hung up a third time on a guy named Timothy James Poole?
00:04:04
Speaker
Yes, I would believe that. So ah what kind of what caught my attention was ah like an FBI, ah you know, Justice Department press release. Right.
00:04:17
Speaker
So I had to go like start digging on this because i was like, what am I reading here? And this is where it swings back around to being dirty badges again.
Family Dynamics and Financial Struggles
00:04:28
Speaker
Okay. Because I know like we kind of got away from that for a second, but this moves us up to South Carolina, specifically to Florence County, county South Carolina.
00:04:42
Speaker
I'm going to give you like the the overview of this. It starts with a crime in August of 2006 that like it starts to get attention.
00:04:52
Speaker
This is like a really sort of a wild story. If you pull up the documents on this, we get sort of a fact summary background. and ah And I'll tell the story from that to make it a little more palatable.
00:05:07
Speaker
But it says in 1981, nineteen eighty one long before we ever have this criminal case going on, Timothy James Poole is seven years old.
00:05:20
Speaker
So he and his three siblings, so four kids, they are adopted by Richard and Linda Poole. In 1991, the Poole family, so Richard, Linda, these four adoptees, they moved down to a place called Lakewood Plantation.
00:05:41
Speaker
And this is so interesting to me. It is a 3,000-acre estate in a rural, isolated area in Williamsburg County, South Carolina.
00:05:53
Speaker
I'm not really sure that I can actually fathom how big 3,000 acres is. I was just about to ask you that question. like I live on multiple acres, but a small number.
00:06:04
Speaker
And then like I have like acreage beyond that that can never be sold because of how like the planning map rolls out. But when you picture 3,000 acres, like, are you able to get, like, a number? I'm not. I have no idea.
00:06:22
Speaker
It's just gigantic. I imagine standing in a field with nothing around me except trees and nature. That's what I imagine. Well, like, so multiple parks when I was growing up were like at least 3000 acres. Most of them were getting into the almost 10,000 acre. So if you imagine like a park near you, like you're probably still under the amount that these people had to live on for their quote unquote estate.
00:06:54
Speaker
Um, so the story that's told is that Richard Poole, he's a successful businessman He establishes what they describe as discretionary trusts for Lynda Poole and all of these children.
00:07:11
Speaker
So the idea is if something happens to him, Lynda and the kids are going to benefit from this money. And then if something happens to Lynda, the children become the primary income beneficiaries at the discretion of whomever is the trustee.
00:07:32
Speaker
So they would be entitled to receive income from these trusts. In 1994, so he's seven years old, Timothy Poole is seven years old in 1981.
00:07:47
Speaker
We move forward in time 13 years and like a 20 year old Timothy Poole marries a woman named Jody Wise, W-I-S-E.
00:07:59
Speaker
In 1998, they've been married for almost four years. Jody Weiss has a baby. So from 1997 to September 2002, five years, Timothy Poole is a deputy with the Florence County Sheriff's Office.
00:08:23
Speaker
And he does the thing that police officers do during that time. And they record in the Statement of Facts that during this time, he purchased a.38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.
00:08:36
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In 2001, Richard Poole dies. Linda takes into account all of his wishes, and she prepares this will that establishes these trust funds And she also gives money to Timothy Poole to support his family.
00:08:56
Speaker
The way the court spells this out for us is Timothy Poole and his family are receiving $833 a month. But a year later,
00:09:10
Speaker
she gives two hundred thousand dollars each to pool and those three siblings now when this happens Timothy Poole quits his job as a deputy sheriff.
00:09:24
Speaker
And within 11 months, he has spent all $200,000.
00:09:31
Speaker
So 2003 rolls around and Timothy Poole comes back to Linda Poole, his adopted mother, and he says, I am broke. And she says to him, i will give you some more money, but you need to do better this time.
00:09:50
Speaker
And she gives him $70,000.
00:09:53
Speaker
Within 90 days, Timothy Poole has spent $70,000. Not only has he spent the $70,000 that she gave him, and remember, he quit his job, right?
00:10:06
Speaker
Yes. So at the same time, Timothy Poole starts writing checks that are being returned for insufficient funds. Right.
00:10:16
Speaker
And from what I can tell overall, it looks like Linda is kind of taking care of some of that. By August 2004, so this is going to be ah three years after Richard Poulis died, Linda gets remarried to a guy named Henry Hilton.
00:10:35
Speaker
And she basically says to Henry Hilton, look, I've got these kids. I've got this massive estate.
00:10:43
Speaker
i don't care to be in charge of all of this. If you don't mind, would you like be in charge of Lakewood estate? At least that. And Timothy Poole does not like this.
00:10:57
Speaker
In March of 2005, so not very long into a marriage, Linda Poole, now Linda Poole Hilton, she amends her will and she makes Henry Hilton her executor.
00:11:14
Speaker
Not only that, she makes arrangements for him to be the primary beneficiary of Lakewood Estate and everything in her own personal estate.
00:11:27
Speaker
So this they file what's known as a codicil. you know what a codicil is? I do. So this is like an amendment to a will.
00:11:38
Speaker
She substitutes Henry Hilton. for the children. So these four adopted kids are on the will as the beneficiaries, and then they're not.
00:11:53
Speaker
She puts Henry in there, basically saying, if I die, he gets everything. And under this new arrangement, the trust that's supposed to be formed for these children would not be legally formed If Henry Hilton survives Linda Poole Hilton.
00:12:16
Speaker
So the short translation of that for people is if Timothy Poole and his brothers and sisters are all alive and Linda passes away before Henry, they get nothing.
00:12:34
Speaker
It all goes to Henry. It all goes to Henry. But if Henry dies before Linda... you know Everything could go their way. So March 23rd of 2005, Timothy Poole gets a letter, and that letter spells out everything that's going to happen here.
00:13:01
Speaker
He had had this like story that he told his wife and his mother-in-law when he left the sheriff's department. It was because he wasn't going to make any money and there was all these internal politics.
00:13:13
Speaker
And he had put himself in line after his adoptive father, Richard Poole, died that Timothy Poole thought what was going to be happening when he left the sheriff's department was he's going to be running the estate.
00:13:29
Speaker
By the time we get to March 2005, Linda's estate is estimated to be worth $5 million. dollars And she has already told her adopted son, Timothy, I don't want you to run this stuff.
00:13:42
Speaker
Now, Timothy Poole, to his credit, even though he's married with children, he starts an affair with a woman named Mia Evans. And that plays into some of the statement of facts and this like appeal that's going on.
00:13:58
Speaker
Because that's what I'm reading from. For those of you who don't know, I'm reading from an appellate document, and I will get to like why we're here in just a minute. So during this affair in August 2005, and the reason we bring up the affair at all, is Mia Evans...
00:14:16
Speaker
She purchases a particular pair of New Balance shoes in Timothy Poole's size, and like he's going to wear these shoes, and those are going to be relevant to what happens.
00:14:30
Speaker
Mia Evans also observes that when Timothy Poole is riding around in his Cadillac Escalade, He has a revolver in there in the console of this Escalade. And remember, we pointed out, while he was a sheriff's deputy, he purchased a Smith & Wesson.38 caliber revolver.
00:14:52
Speaker
By October 2005, Timothy Poole is having regular arguments with Jody Wise Poole, his wife. And
00:15:05
Speaker
She has figured out that he is sleeping with Mia Evans. So after they have this big argument in October, Jodi calls Linda Poole and she says, look, not only are we broke because your son has spent all our money, but also he's cheating on me.
00:15:28
Speaker
On November 17th, Linda Poole writes a letter to Timothy. And she chastises them for having had an affair and for cheating on his wife of, what, seven years at this point, give or take and Longer than that, I think. They got married in like… 94, 98?
00:15:47
Speaker
Something like that. something bit something like that So, oh yeah, 94, sorry. It's 13 years. is it's just He's cheating on his wife of 13 years, and Linda calls him out on it.
00:15:59
Speaker
Then she sends another letter. This is a fascinating to me, because it's only 20 years ago, but like she's sending him multiple letters. On November the 19th, he receives a letter where Linda Poole threatens to remove Timothy Poole as a trust beneficiary altogether.
00:16:14
Speaker
Now keep in mind, like money is still going to these people during this time. It's just small amounts. She also says in this letter, it's time to get a job and take care of your family. Somehow, Timothy Poole's financial problems are getting worse.
00:16:28
Speaker
In 2006, they have escalated to the point that he is notified by his bank that future missed mortgage and other loan payments could potentially lead to foreclosure proceedings.
00:16:44
Speaker
So on June 4th of 2006,
00:16:48
Speaker
six and six months and change after she sends this letter saying, stop having an affair and get a job.
00:16:55
Speaker
Linda Poole sends Timothy two letters. In the first, she advises Timothy that beginning January 2007, she was going to give him and his siblings an annual sum in lieu of the $800 a month payment.
00:17:13
Speaker
And that annual sum is going to be $10,000. Okay.
00:17:17
Speaker
She also advises him that she does not want any further requests for money coming from Timothy Poole other than medical emergencies and that she expects him, using his own money and the money she's providing, to establish his own reserve funds.
00:17:35
Speaker
That's the first letter. While this is all going on, one of the things that had happened makes this come about is in 2006, he had borrowed $75,000 from Linda and said, I'm starting a business.
00:17:48
Speaker
But instead, he was, according to the court and according to the statement of facts, he was just paying his bills and his living expenses with his money so that he didn't have to work.
00:18:00
Speaker
That's how this like comes to a head. And she's like, look, I'm not sending you a monthly check. I'll give you an annual check of 10 grand. I got to be honest, though, that's still roughly the same amount of money. That doesn't sound terrible. It doesn't sound like something that should agitate a normal human being, right? It absolutely should not.
00:18:17
Speaker
Right, yeah. So in the second letter that Linda sends, she sends Poole a check for his June mortgage payment. And she says that she's going to cover July and August. But once August gets here,
00:18:30
Speaker
Timothy Poole and his family, like his wife and kids, they're going to be responsible for their mortgage payment. So
Murder Investigation and Suspicions
00:18:40
Speaker
on several occasions during July, according to friends that will give statements later on, Linda says that Timothy has been coming to Lakewood Estate uninvited.
00:18:51
Speaker
And she can't figure out why he's coming because some of the times that he comes, she's not even there. And she says she is not afraid of Timothy Poole. But she's very, very afraid. And that's in quotes everywhere i've seen that for Henry Hilton.
00:19:08
Speaker
So noon, August 1st, 2006 rolls around. And Timothy Poole is visiting Rachel and Robert Atkinson at their home.
00:19:21
Speaker
He leaves there by around 5.15
00:19:27
Speaker
According to Rachel Atkinson's statement, she did notice that Timothy Poole was wearing tennis shoes. So as he's leaving, he makes a comment to Rachel that he's heading down to the GNC store, and then he's going to return home.
00:19:43
Speaker
if you've seen pictures of these guys. Have you seen their photos? No. No. So it's him and his wife in the photos, like if you go and scroll to him. um He has that pattern baldness of like a guy who used to use steroid and realized he was losing his hair, so he stopped.
00:20:01
Speaker
And even though he stopped, his hair is not really coming back. right yeah so from day until ten twenty two a m the following day Timothy Poole's cell phone had been turned off.
00:20:21
Speaker
Now, this is 2006. This prevents the cell phone provider from providing accurate tracking location data during the period of time that this phone is off. So it's off for a little less than 24 but It's – this is no longer true, by the way.
00:20:43
Speaker
But it was possible back then, if you turned some phones off, and I don't know if you remember this, but you took the battery out. Do you remember that kind of phone that had the battery? course. Yeah.
00:20:55
Speaker
Because we've talked about it on different cases over the years where you – Right. pop and you think you're not being tracked anymore, a different timeline is put together to understand what Timothy Poole was doing. At 5.30 p.m., Timothy Poole goes to the GNC store. It's about 38 miles away. It's a 44-minute drive from Lakewood Estate.
00:21:15
Speaker
But what's notable about it is Timothy Poole gets into an argument with the store clerk,
00:21:22
Speaker
So according to Jody, who was home that day, she again sees Timothy Poole around 10 o'clock that night at the latest 11 o'clock. She believed that he had been working at a local Honda plant and that he was going to be working the night shift.
00:21:42
Speaker
On the morning of August the second A Lakewood estate employee noticed that the padlock at the front gate was upside down outside the gate.
00:21:53
Speaker
Normally, if Linda or Henry locked the gate, they would lock it behind them. So the padlock would be in its normal position inside of the gate.
00:22:05
Speaker
That afternoon, another set of Lakewood estate employees, they found Linda Poole's body near the house. She had died of two gunshot wounds.
00:22:17
Speaker
Inside the residence, so the main house of the estate, they find Henry Hilton's body. Henry Hilton had been shot four times.
00:22:31
Speaker
So when you shoot people that many times, unless you're a very particular type of criminal, you leave bullets behind, you leave projectiles.
00:22:44
Speaker
Authorities are able to recover the projectiles that killed Linda, Poole Hilton, and Henry Hilton, and they discovered that those are consistent with bullets that were fired from either a thirty eight caliber Smith & Wesson revolver or a.357 Magnum.
00:23:04
Speaker
State law enforcement agents arrive at the estate later that day, so SLED has to come out, and I imagine SLED comes out down here One, it's 3,000 acres to cover.
00:23:16
Speaker
And I know some of that's wooded and forestlands, but like that's sort of a massive undertaking for like a small town sheriff or a small county sheriff's office and their resources. Don't you think? Yeah, I agree. um The other thing that happens here is like anytime, i know it's a little different in most of the movies and television that we watch today, but anytime there is a murder that involves multiple people,
00:23:43
Speaker
it is a It's kind of a big determination early on. Like, did they kill each other or one kill the other and them themselves? So this is automatically probably more homicides than the area around Lakewood has had that whole year.
00:24:00
Speaker
I was going to say, ah a double homicide is a lot for any it is a typical law enforcement agency. Right. Right. So, and the other reason that you bring a state law enforcement agents in is a lot of times they have better crime lab resources than the locals do. Most little, tiny, small areas don't have their own ah crime lab. The crime lab is either county or regional.
00:24:31
Speaker
Like if if you were in Virginia, there's you know there's a big office of the chief medical examiner and there's ah several satellite offices. But they serve like multiple counties through each of those offices.
00:24:44
Speaker
That's just the medical examiner. Frequently, you'll have like a small county level
00:24:53
Speaker
crime lab or at least crime scene investigators, but like they're the ones doing all of the work for all of the burglaries in the area, all of the major crimes, they do all of the sexual assaults. So for them to suddenly be at a big house like Lakewood on 3000 acres doing a double homicide, they're going to need backup. So SLED shows up and,
00:25:19
Speaker
Because of SLED and the locals' involvement, we're able to get a pretty good picture of what was going on that day. There were some signs of disturbance in the house, but from what the special agents could see from what the special agents could see, they didn't believe that a robbery had occurred.
00:25:39
Speaker
they In the Statement of Facts, it says that there were no signs of a forced entry, And that items of significant value had been accounted for, meaning things that would have been attractive and available for, like, burglars to take.
00:25:54
Speaker
They did find shoe prints in the carpet near Henry Hilton's body, and an expert shoe examiner is going to show up at trial. They're going to be able to conclude the type of prints are linked to a particular New Balance shoe, specifically a New Balance 471 shoe because of features of the prints, but they're not able to determine the shoe print's size.
00:26:21
Speaker
They make a note at this point that I'm going to ah pull from to talk about this. It says that there's a video camera located at a gas station, and it captured a car coming from the direction of Lakewood Estate, then making a turn onto a road leading up to the house around 10.53 This August 1st, 2006.
00:26:42
Speaker
this is on august first two thousand six An expert witness could not definitively state that the car in the video belonged to who was going to be the suspect here, Timothy Poole, but that he could not rule it out either.
00:26:57
Speaker
They also point out here that the details of the crime only became public knowledge after September 8th, 2006. And this would be the date when the deputy coroner He receives the final autopsy report, and they start to release details of this crime. And the press in South Carolina is able to get some of them and run stories about all this.
00:27:20
Speaker
So on the afternoon of August 2nd, 2006, an officer picks Timothy Poole up at his home, and he drives him over to Lakewood Estates.
00:27:35
Speaker
En route, Timothy Poole says that he had given a.38 caliber revolver to Linda for protection after his father's death. So this is a former deputy sheriff being interviewed by an officer en route to a double homicide scene.
00:27:55
Speaker
And he volunteers the information that he had given his mom a gun. Keep in mind, I've already mentioned, we have potentially matching shoe prints to a pair of shoes that Timothy Poole had then given by his affair partner.
00:28:14
Speaker
Now, he's also passed off this information related to the gun. So, by the evening time, the agents have separated Timothy Poole and his wife, Jodi.
00:28:32
Speaker
Like, they made sure they're not able to talk and coordinate their story. And they they give them interviews. Before Jodi's interview,
00:28:46
Speaker
somehow, Timothy Poole has instructed her to tell the interviewers that he returned home at 6 p.m. on August the 1st and was there all night with her.
00:28:58
Speaker
So Jody does this. During his interview, Timothy Poole says that he was at the Atkinson's house, which I think is Rachel and Robert, yeah and and that he had been there during the afternoon of August the 1st and returned home at 6 He then left his home, and this is his version of events.
00:29:25
Speaker
He left his home to purchase an item at the GNC store, and he returned home around 6.30.
00:29:31
Speaker
According to Poole in his interview, he didn't have any financial problems. He stated that he could always just talk to Linda about money, and he would get that if he needed it. And they end his interview around 9.35
00:29:48
Speaker
During the next 10 minutes, Timothy Poole, from 935 to 945, he starts texting and calling his wife, Jody, and he tells her to stop talking to the investigators.
00:30:05
Speaker
The following day on August the 3rd, those agents that we talked about that are working on behalf of the state, they execute a search warrant for Timothy Poole's house and vehicle.
00:30:17
Speaker
They seize multiple firearms and other items. They are unable to find Timothy Poole's.38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, and they also can't find his New Balance tennis shoes.
00:30:30
Speaker
All right, I'm going pause here for just second.
Trial and Evidence Against Poole
00:30:33
Speaker
This is a pretty standard homicide that Timothy Poole has found himself wandering into that really could go either way, some kind of intruder or some kind of insider, right? Yeah.
00:30:46
Speaker
ah I mean,
00:30:51
Speaker
from whose perspective from my perspective? I'm just saying, like, this is not, like, nothing about what we're doing is super unusual here, right? There's nothing unusual, no.
00:31:04
Speaker
I mean, there are things happening that I guess Timothy Poole is going to try to control. We're going to find out in a second. But the the bottom line is, like, once...
00:31:16
Speaker
um a crime like this has happened and the crime scene's been established and like all of the investigators move in particularly when you have a pool of investigators that's coming from like state, local, and county, and you've got like a big group. Nobody's got any real reason to hide anything or to you know cover up for anybody. like One of two things is going to happen. All of this evidence is going to lead us to the pool, or we're also going to find evidence of people that we don't know who they are.
00:31:43
Speaker
And like potentially we're going to have evidence of some kind of of ah outsider or other inside person having committed this crime. Correct. And it will more than likely, unless it's a rare case of something else, will more than likely have a very obvious traditional motive.
00:32:02
Speaker
Correct. I mean, like they're putting us front and center on the motive for money here. um thats That's what we've been developing throughout this statement of facts. and And this is not to say this is all they looked at. This is what they're giving us in terms of like this big court record of like why we're all here today.
00:32:22
Speaker
Because what I'm reading from is an appellate review. Right, and it's the narrative of the case. Yeah. um I just find like stories like this are... I mean, they're interesting to read how how we all arrive where we arrive, but like nothing about this says to me, oh, they had a 3,000-acre estate and a serial killer snuck on, or a robber snuck on, because that's the other thing. like The bigger the target is like geographically and location-wise, the more...
00:32:54
Speaker
like The pool narrows to who it could possibly be because like you're not goingnna like like professional predators are not going to come on this massive estate without some kind of plan.
00:33:06
Speaker
ah you're You're absolutely right. and actually unless ah i don't think a random like serial killer is going to do that at all. And any other sort of less inner circle, more random attack is going to have strings attached to it that you can probably find, right? DNA, fingerprints, evidence that someone covered up DNA and fingerprints, something is going to like pop out at us.
00:33:34
Speaker
Right. And I would say that this is, ah it's almost textbook and it never fails to amaze me that in his thought process, ah anyone would think this was anything but textbook and they were going to like immediately get caught.
00:33:56
Speaker
Right. And, you know, i I think of people who saying, who are thinking they're immediately going to get caught if they're smart, which if they've committed this crime, that's pretty low likelihood.
00:34:10
Speaker
um But if they're smart, they're going to lay low. And that's not really what happens here. August 18, 2006, Timothy Poole starts contacting the trust administrator and basically says, hey, I need some money.
00:34:26
Speaker
I need money to pay the bills. So between 2006 and 2008, Timothy Poole makes multiple requests for money, and he drags Jody into this.
00:34:37
Speaker
Jody is also participating in the efforts to obtain funds from Linda Poole's estate. From 2006 to 2008, the trust issues multiple checks to the family, to Timothy Poole's bank, and to various creditors.
00:34:55
Speaker
He uses these funds... To make his mortgage and car payments to pay for like his current monthly bills. On April 30th, 2009, a grand jury gets together and they charge that Timothy Poole and Jody Poole together had conspired to commit mail and wire fraud on Linda's estate.
00:35:20
Speaker
So the indictment alleges that it was part of this ongoing conspiracy that Timothy and Jody are going to conceal Timothy's involvement in these murders.
00:35:36
Speaker
And that will make him eligible to inherit money from the estate because
00:35:45
Speaker
When people have trust in estates and probates and like beneficiaries, um particularly in South Carolina, there's outside civil statutes that like come into play.
00:35:59
Speaker
The one here is known as the Slayer Statute or the Slayer's Rule. In South Carolina and other states, but particularly in this case, we're in South Carolina, the statute, the Slayer's Rule, it prevents a person from who murders someone or otherwise feloniously and intentionally kills someone from benefiting in the event of their death.
00:36:27
Speaker
So the idea is if Poole killed his adopted mother and then i guess it would be adoptive stepfather, then he couldn't get any money from the two of them. I think it would be um his adopted mother's new husband. Yeah, that's probably the better way to look at it.
00:36:49
Speaker
Because he was an adult, right? Yeah. When they got married. Yeah, but basically that he'd be ineligible to collect money from the estate. And so joy like Jody kind of has like a reason to assist him here. Because if he goes to prison for murder, she's cut off from the estate by proxy. Right.
00:37:09
Speaker
And she's like also on her own raising their kids.
00:37:15
Speaker
So there's a 10-day jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. And the government presents multiple witnesses. Jody ends up testifying about Timothy Poole having asked her to lie as to his whereabouts on the day of the murder.
00:37:33
Speaker
Additionally, as relevant here, Mia Evans, so this is the woman that Timothy had an affair with. She's going to testify. Rihanna Cifasso, who, by the way, Timothy Poole also had an affair with.
00:37:48
Speaker
And Rachel Atkinson, remember Rachel from there being at her house the day of the murder? Right. He also had an affair with her. Right. so And I believe that her husband is his friend, right?
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, Robert is, yeah. So ah there's footnotes here I'm going to read. These people all testify. ah There's also a friend of Rihanna Kafasa, um Julia White, and then...
00:38:18
Speaker
his brother, Richard, they're going to provide testimony for the government that suggests that Timothy Poole is responsible for the murders and conspiring with Jody to conceal involvement in the murders. They do let us know at this point that Jody, she had testified under a limited grant of immunity.
00:38:38
Speaker
And that means that like, To the point she's told them the truth, they won't prosecute her for her involvement if the information is accurate and she is truthful.
00:38:50
Speaker
And it because it's limited, it must be um directed towards certain things. Correct. It doesn't mean she gets like a blanket grant of immunity where anything she says she can't be ah prosecuted for. she's and This is in federal court that this is happening, which typically means that some level of the state court is in a stumbling block. In this instance, it doesn't seem like they have enough together at this time to prosecute them for the murders, and they're ultimately sort of using this wire mail fraud issue to get some of that evidence out.
00:39:26
Speaker
Jody, with limited a grant of immunity, she testifies about conversations that she's had with Timothy Poole up to the murders. Some of those conversations include his commentary about, I want to move to Lakewood Estate when my dad dies.
00:39:41
Speaker
And She also talks about the reasons that he left the Sheriff's Department. she testified She testifies that Timothy Poole didn't discuss with her the cost of several items that he had purchased.
00:39:53
Speaker
And she gets asked about a specific fight that she had with Timothy and about a conversation between them when she confronts him regarding this affair that he's had with Mia Evans.
00:40:07
Speaker
She also testifies that Timothy had advised her back on July 31st, 2006, that he was going to go see his mother. And she testified regarding communications between her and things that Timothy had said to her after the murder.
00:40:27
Speaker
Now, i'm I'm pointing all this out, but I'm also going to say that, like, she did not have to necessarily testify here. That's one of the things that's going on. Do you know why?
00:40:40
Speaker
Spousal privilege. Correct. But also... She could be prosecuted for potential involvement in this murder, otherwise. Correct. But, see...
00:40:51
Speaker
In theory, the fact that they're granting her immunity to testify means they need her testimony. And they more than likely made the threat that, you know, if she didn't testify in ah in exchange for partial immunity, they were going to charge them both.
00:41:12
Speaker
The problem with that is the only reason that they offered her immunity to begin with is because they didn't have anything unless she testified. correct And so that's a circular battle, right? I don't really want people to get away with sinister acts for no good reason. But at the same time, it makes me wonder, like, does she have legal counsel?
00:41:38
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure there's some kind of counsel in here that's like navigating the waters for her. But probably you're right. She's talked to them without counsel at some point and made a problem for herself. And that's how we get here.
00:41:52
Speaker
Right. And so she has made the decision ah to testify. They couldn't, she could have never been subpoenaed and forced to do it, but... which is why it's kind of weird she's doing it. But I understand that they were guilty, and because they were guilty, they feared both of them going to jail. Right.
00:42:11
Speaker
So we get a further footnote that Mia Evans testifies that in 2005, which we already talked about this a little bit, she buys this pair of New Balance Model 471 size 12 shoe for ah timothy And that during the same time period, she had observed the revolver in the console of his Cadillac Escalade. During her testimony, she says he always kept it there.
00:42:35
Speaker
In November 2006, she recalls a time where Timothy Poole stated to her that he was at home during the murders. And when the shoes come up, he stated that he had thrown them away after he spilled gas on them while he was filling up his lawnmower from a can.
00:42:54
Speaker
um He stated that the police had seized all of his guns, including the.38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver that he kept in his car. And she further testifies that in February 2007, they had gone on vacation to Tennessee. And during this trip,
00:43:12
Speaker
he tells her that he had thrown away his New Balance shoes, but not because he spilled gas on them, because the dogs had chewed them up. So... And I guess he felt the need to tell her that because she had purchased them for him. She probably was like asking about it. Or he seems to volunteer information at times in here. And at other times, it seems like maybe the state is pressuring people to get information from him.
00:43:37
Speaker
Which, to me, is interesting. Because i don't know about you. and we kind of have skewed views anyway. But it seems...
00:43:49
Speaker
very odd the way that he volunteers information and it's also very obvious. Well, I will say he was a sheriff's deputy who did not have a good job to go to and left his job.
00:44:05
Speaker
I mean, so like, I don't, he is a dirty badge by definition. So is he among the brightest dirty badges that we've seen? i doubt it. Right. And, and it just seems like he's,
00:44:17
Speaker
ah perhaps more confident than he is ah the haver of common sense. Yeah, like his, well, I will say that his confidence definitely exceeds his competence.
00:44:31
Speaker
Oh, that's so much better. Yeah, is that but is that what you're thinking, though? like that like Exactly, because he's like, oh yeah, I gave my mom a gun. like They literally just picked you up and told you your mom had been shot.
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah. Well, like some of the boldness in his actions are built on the fact that like he has this cushion his whole life of money. And like that's not to say like up until he's adopted that it's not like hard for him or whatever. But like he has been adopted into a family full of people who clearly, to some degree, like have the ability to to give him some money. So he's never really been...
00:45:10
Speaker
as desperate as he thinks he is. Rihanna testifies during the relationship that Timothy Poole mentioned that Jody had moved out of a home. He also told her that he had gone and had dinner with Henry and Linda on July 31st.
00:45:26
Speaker
And whenever they went out, according to her, Timothy Poole only ever wore boots or Nike shoes. Now,
00:45:39
Speaker
Rachel Atkinson testifies during the last week of November 2006, Jodi asked her if Timothy had left his New Balance shoes at her house.
00:45:52
Speaker
And i I think this is kind of some multiple signals here. I think Jodi's asking, because she's trying to figure out like where this evidence is, but I think she's also trying to figure out who can I trust and who knows that Timothy did this.
00:46:07
Speaker
Who did she ask? Rachel. Rachel. The other, so. yes Yeah, I know who it is. I guess I'm just curious, like. Do you think that Jodi knows? I don't know. I don't know. the answer That's like, that's the other way I was going to go with this. i was going to say, this could be like, maybe it just took her a couple of months and now Jodi is in on it and knows that her husband is a murderer. Well, and finding the shoes would obviously be a key to establishing something in somebody's mind. Right. Because they identified there's ah not, I don't know that they'd be like rare, but like unique shoe prints. Right.
00:46:47
Speaker
Well, so the rest of this footnote mixes me up on this a little bit. It says when she asked her about the New Balance shoes, because remember, that's where he is the day before the murders happened.
00:47:00
Speaker
Rachel says, no, he did not have those shoes here.
Appeals and Sentencing Review
00:47:03
Speaker
And so she further testifies that Jody then told her that she thought the dogs had eaten the shoes. So that makes me think Jody knew.
00:47:15
Speaker
Well, or she was in denial. Right. or Or she was selling a story that Timothy had given her. Rachel also testifies that Jody repeatedly told her that she thought that Russell had been wearing flip-flops the day that she he came home from their house, which that could be true.
00:47:33
Speaker
But Rachel testified that she falsely told a law enforcement agent in November 2006 that that Timothy was wearing flip-flops on August 1st.
00:47:45
Speaker
She testified that she lied to the police because she was afraid that Timothy Poole was going to tell her husband that they had slept together. So, there's lot going on there.
00:48:01
Speaker
so So then we also have, so in this little pile of affair partners here, and I'm i'm not trying to trash any of these people. I don't think this woman is an affair partner. I think she's just Rihanna's friend.
00:48:13
Speaker
We have Julia White. She testifies that September 2nd, 2006, Timothy Poole tells her that his parents had been killed, quote unquote, execution style.
00:48:26
Speaker
He said that Linda had been twice shot twice in the front yard. And that Henry had been shot three or four times and he was found in the house. Why that's important is remember the coroner's report was not released until five days later.
00:48:43
Speaker
So it's unlikely that like he would have had that information on September 2nd when it's not going to be released until September 6th. See what i'm saying? I see it.
00:48:54
Speaker
I mean, it like, is it a stretch? I don't know. It's the offered information. It's him talking for no reason. Correct. Filling up the air. filling the air. that's going to come and bite him. Yeah. So his brother Richard testifies that in December 2006, so several months after the murders, Timothy told him that he had been in Myrtle Beach on August 1st.
00:49:16
Speaker
And when he tried to talk to him about where his brother's gun was, Timothy refused to talk to Richard about the gun. He said he didn't understand why the agents that came to his house did not take the shoes, because in his recollection, they were sitting outside the front door of his home.
00:49:31
Speaker
So like you know how people leave their shoes either right inside or right outside of the door? He's saying they had every opportunity to take them, but they just didn't take them. So the government introduces all this evidence of Timothy Poole having these extramarital affairs and spending way beyond his means and like these strained financial circumstances.
00:49:51
Speaker
But ultimately, they convict Timothy Poole on all the counts. At sentencing, the district court determines by preponderance of the evidence that... So this is sentencing. Keep this in mind. This is an odd circumstance. At sentencing...
00:50:09
Speaker
The court basically says, by a preponderance of the evidence, Timothy Poole killed Linda Poole and Henry Hilton with malice aforethought.
00:50:22
Speaker
So they apply what's known as a cross-reference. Now, he's just being convicted of wire and mail fraud. Do you know what it means to be cross-referenced?
00:50:32
Speaker
um Well, yeah, I know i know what cross-reference means in general. So the sentencing that they give him is quite large. What do you think they sentence him to?
00:50:44
Speaker
Um, 20 years. 400 years in prison.
00:50:55
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I actually knew that. i had seen it. I remember, but, and I, because I thought at first that they meant to say 400 months. right Yeah, it's 400 years. So that's, ladies and gentlemen, how we get here. Like, first of all, that's the appeal.
00:51:16
Speaker
And Timothy Poole is challenging multiple things. He's challenging the U.S. District Court denial of his motion for acquittal. That's one of the first things.
00:51:29
Speaker
um therere They're claiming that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury verdict. Timothy Poole also contends that the district court erroneously admitted evidence of other acts and confidential marital communications.
00:51:43
Speaker
He raises a host of challenges to his sentence. He asserts that the district court erred in enhancing it to life imprisonment, essentially. Because, like, even though they don't say, I'm giving you life in prison, Nobody lives for 400 years. Right. They're applying this first-degree murder cross-reference of 400 years.
00:52:00
Speaker
So procedurally, they're saying that is substantively and procedurally unreasonable. So the Court of Appeals is considering this at the time that like this document appears.
00:52:14
Speaker
They're considering each of these challenges. And his first argument is that there was insufficient evidence to support the convictions for substantive mail-in-wire fraud and for conspiracy to commit mail-in-wire fraud.
00:52:31
Speaker
Now, the way that a district court works at any level, state level or at the federal level, is when they hand up something, meaning they've done this, they've ruled on this, they've they found a verdict, a jury found a verdict, or a judge found a verdict, they're handing it up.
00:52:47
Speaker
The appellate court looks at that and they say, okay, we're going to review this de novo, which means we're looking at it like it's all brand new. So ultimately, they have to address these convictions on the substantive counts and they go through and they have to decide, like, is Timothy Poole likely to have committed mail or wire f fraud?
00:53:10
Speaker
Now, the thing about Timothy Poole was When it came to the mail-in wire fraud, I'm not entirely certain he really realized he was committing mail-in wire fraud, like if like from a technical perspective, which means he definitely did not understand like how to cover up mail-in wire fraud.
00:53:30
Speaker
I agree with that. I don't think hardly anyone ever that commits and is then tried for mail and wire fraud had any idea right it was going to happen. It's almost a catch-all.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yes. The appellate court goes through all of this. They offer up all kinds of things that have been proffered along the way to explain what's happening. But ultimately, we're all coming to the same conclusion here.
00:54:01
Speaker
Like, we're looking at this, and the only place we can really land is he probably was committing mail-in-wire fraud, whether he knew it or not.
00:54:14
Speaker
And the way that they explain this to us is they say they say the government presented evidence that before the murders, Timothy Poole made repeated trips to Lakewood Estate at odd times, from which the jury could reasonably have inferred that he was attempting to determine what would be the best time to kill Linda and Henry.
00:54:34
Speaker
He had turned off his cell phone, from which the jury could reasonably have inferred that he was attempting to conceal his whereabouts, and by arguing with a store clerk shortly before the murders occurred, from which the jury could reasonably have inferred that this was a poor attempt to create a partial alibi.
00:54:52
Speaker
So while Poole offers alternative explanations in each of these instances, we need only find that the jury could have reasonably credited the government's theory – And similarly, while no witness testified that Timothy Poole wore a specific model of New Balance shoes on the day of the murder, and the print could have been made by a number of other models, the jury could reasonably have concluded from the circumstantial evidence that the disappearance of Timothy Poole's shoes and his conflicting and inconsistent statements about them could potentially point to his guilt.
00:55:27
Speaker
They can also say that the testimonial evidence, while inconclusive as to the.38 caliber firearm, the jury reasonably could have concluded that his post-murder conduct indicated he had concealed the gun's whereabouts after the murder.
00:55:43
Speaker
And this is where like both of these things come from him offering up way too much information. The jury could as they could have as well reasonably have agreed with the government that the presence of only small signs of a disturbance at Lakewood Estate, coupled with the absence of evidence of anything else having been taken ah value and also anyone else's presence, could indicate that the murderer tried to create a staged robbery to conceal personal involvement and personal motive from the investigators looking into the murders.
00:56:17
Speaker
Finally, Timothy Poole's inconsistent statements as to everything regarding his whereabouts on the day of the murder, his false statement that his mother was still supporting him financially at the time of the murder, his statement indicating that he knew that Linda and Henry were killed execution style, none of which Timothy Poole or his attorneys contest, by the way.
00:56:40
Speaker
They all support his convictions. So, We have all these like weird things that he has volunteered to different people coming together. And they look at it and they say, there's nothing to see here, folks.
00:56:54
Speaker
We would have probably convicted him too if we were on that jury. So then they address the... conspiracy conviction, which is one of the counts.
00:57:05
Speaker
And they go through the same check pool, except they include Jody for Timothy Poole having conspired with her. And they come to the same conclusion. Like, everything happening here, because Jody was doing things to help cover up for something, meant his involvement should be obvious. Because if she's covering up something, she's not covering up her involvement, it's got to be conspiring with him. So the conspiracy stands.
00:57:30
Speaker
And they They ultimately make their way through every complaint that Timothy Poole has here.
00:57:42
Speaker
And what do you believe the outcome of this appeal would be? If you were looking at it and listening to what I just said, would you – remand this and like, like take away a part of this judgment and send it back to the district court to deal with it again, would you overturn the conviction or would you affirm the judgment that I like laid out in the 400 years?
00:58:07
Speaker
Uh, well, that's complicated. What I would do personally, because i just want to make sure i along with everyone else completely understands what's happening here. yeah The only way that he would be ah violating the Slayer's rule
00:58:37
Speaker
would be if he was benefiting from, if he feloniously killed the people from which he is benefiting from. i Okay, so I poorly asked that question, and I apologize. Okay.
00:58:52
Speaker
Okay, so you answered a question that is my follow-up. do you um Do you feel like 400-year sentence was just for mail-in wire fraud?
00:59:10
Speaker
So keeping in mind that the court only has ah the appeals court on a de novo review, they only have to determine if it's unreasonable. I would have affirmed it.
00:59:23
Speaker
and and And they agree with you here. they They basically said, look, we just walked through why we think it's relevant that he committed mail fraud and wire fraud, likely committed these murders, and also conspired with his wife to then cover up these crimes that he committed while continuing to commit mail and wire fraud.
00:59:40
Speaker
Right. And on review, it has to be... unreasonable and that like rarely ever happens right and for it to be unreasonable there has to be some so okay if there were like a really plausible additional suspect That the district court along the way had ruled it wasn't Timothy Poole committing the murder or the male fraud. It was Richard Poole or this other person, and here's why. And we tried to present that in court, and we preserved it with our objections when the when the court told us we couldn't.
01:00:18
Speaker
That's a different story. But we get to the end of all this, and like you you brought out the Slayer Statute. That's important because the Slayer Statute is what facilitates the ability for this to be fraud because he is like benefiting from his crime.
01:00:36
Speaker
And they they're sort of proving he committed the crime here to prove that he then benefited from the crime and also committed mail-in wire fraud to do so. Right, and but because without the underlying act of murder— he wouldn't have been violating the Slayer statute. Correct.
01:00:56
Speaker
Okay. Now, it's an interesting way that they went about this. And I would have made completely different arguments.
01:01:07
Speaker
As a defense attorney? If I was defending. Yeah. ah Well, I mean, the prosecution was fine. They actually got him convicted, right? Correct. but i question...
01:01:21
Speaker
ah procedurally the idea that he, by the preponderance of evidence, killed his mom and her husband.
01:01:40
Speaker
Okay. Well, because that's not the criminal standard. i understand that that. They're using that for the cross-reference and sentencing. Okay. Well, I under, yeah, I get it. i sitting on a jury, sitting on a jury, i would have said that it would have needed to have been established through a conviction.
01:02:05
Speaker
i tend to agree with you. um Ultimately, they don't really get there. And I looked at this several different ways. And I'm still – I understand why the appellate court is about to find how they're about to find.
01:02:22
Speaker
I'm not totally sure I agree with what the appellate court did here. But this is one of those situations – and you and I have seen this a couple different times over the years – where it's like a weird second bite at the apple.
01:02:36
Speaker
This is an end run around having to prove the murder. All they have to prove is the mail-in wire fraud. And then the judge is allowed to him apparently infer, which is what's happening, that since the jury found them guilty of the mail-in wire fraud, there was no other reason to commit the mail-in wire fraud and the conspiracy to commit wire fraud than to like cover up like and continue this like thing that had happened because he ultimately committed the murder.
01:03:08
Speaker
don't think I agree, but... If he had just been getting money from the estate like normal and he wasn't responsible for it, he there was no lie or fraud happening. 100%. am... Now, whether the...
01:03:20
Speaker
i am now whether the Appeals court ah reviewed it and found it unreasonable. I don't necessarily disagree with the situation. I don't actually see the argument being made that what what I was saying.
01:03:39
Speaker
I don't see that. I don't see them saying that we feel like. ah Because the preponderance of the evidence standard was used. I did hear that right, didn't i That is used during the sentencing process of this for the cross-reference. It's a very unusual move. It's not really litigated very much. So there's no...
01:04:04
Speaker
Yes, that's right, or no, that's wrong as far as constitutionality. Which is exactly why you would present it to the appeals court. I think that's what I would do. And ultimately, I'm i'm about to deliver a couple of paragraphs on that, but ultimately, they stop the reasonable doubt with the jury.
01:04:21
Speaker
And the judge is the one who makes the decision here to lengthen this sentence. and there So the ah the appellate court ultimately you you me to go through this sure yeah the appellate court ultimately agrees with the district court. It says the fourth issue presented on appeal is whether the district court erred procedurally so or substantively in sentencing pool to a 400-year term of imprisonment.
01:04:45
Speaker
We review a sentence for reasonableness under an abuse of discretion standard, which that would have been set out by Gall v. United States in 2007. We hold that the sentence imposed...
01:04:57
Speaker
was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. Poole argues that the district court properly applied Section 5G1.2D of the sentencing guidelines, which allows the court to impose sentences consecutively if the sentence imposed on the count carrying the highest statutory maximum is less than the total punishment.
01:05:24
Speaker
This is a very nuanced thing. And this is, I'm sorry to whichever lawyers did this out there. I'm usually completely on the defensive style, but man, you guys screwed up on this one because like, this is wild.
01:05:38
Speaker
all right. So you have to like, remember that the facts supported the conclusion that Timothy Poole behaved willfully, deliberately, mallicely maliciously, and with premeditation.
01:05:48
Speaker
So Poole's behavior before these murders, making all the visits, et cetera, everything I went back through, They give rise to the inference that the day of the murders, he was trying to avoid detection and location of like where he was and what he was doing.
01:06:02
Speaker
So he has so sufficient time to reflect on his actions as he's driving over to the plantation. Ultimately, each step of this and the planning that he took, where he references how he did it, if you believe that he committed these executions style and knew the murders had been committed execution style, before it had been established they'd been committed execution style, all of these things amply justify the conclusion that more than likely Timothy Poole had committed murder in the first degree.
01:06:30
Speaker
So under similar similar circumstances, including under United States versus Gray, which is a 2007 case from the Fourth Circuit of Appeals, they're saying essentially we can cross-reference that and that can affect the sentencing.
01:06:47
Speaker
Now the sentence imposed on this account, like the the account carrying the highest statutory maximum, has to be less than total punishment. So the total punishment would be life imprisonment.
01:06:59
Speaker
The guidelines do not specify whether a district court may um impose consecutive sentences that exceed the defendant's life expectancy. And this is where I think the defense attorneys went wrong.
01:07:13
Speaker
Timothy Poole argues that the phrase only to the extent necessary should be interpreted to limit the imposition of consecutive sentences to the defendant's life expectancy as measured by state law.
01:07:24
Speaker
The government points to precedent from other circuits recognizing the district court's discretion to impose a sentence functionally equivalent to life imprisonment by imposing consecutive sentences even when they exceed the defendant's natural lifespan.
01:07:39
Speaker
So what they're saying here, we have an issue that we get to 400 years based on consecutive versus concurrent sentences. For those of you at home,
01:07:50
Speaker
We've said this before, but concurrent means you serve the sentences at the same time. Consecutive means you serve them back to back to back to back. Now, judges can do what they want when it comes to concurrent or consecutive, as long as they're not abusing the discretion or the power of their court.
01:08:08
Speaker
So this appellate court, they agree with their sister circuits, like rulings in this regard. That view appears to be like like Taking it the way that other circuits have looked at it appears to be consistent with the other decisions they've made, and they've noted that the old mandatory sentence and guidelines would obligate a district court to impose certain sentences consecutively that would potentially exceed the defendant's lifespan,
01:08:35
Speaker
to reach the total required punishment, and which would ultimately be life in prison. For somebody who got the type of sentence under those guidelines that, say it was 40 years, 10 counts, and they had to serve those 10 counts consecutively, you get to 400 real quickly, right?
01:08:52
Speaker
Correct. So this wild sentence is poorly appealed here.
01:09:03
Speaker
And the citations they give, they give United States versus Hall, United States versus Gibbs. I actually think some of this comes from the state and the defense paperwork. They put United States versus Thompson, the United States versus Lewis. They make a state-level argument in a federal court.
01:09:19
Speaker
So at the state level in South Carolina, this might have failed. Like the state being able to support the district court's decision to give this guy forever for a few counts of mail fraud and wire fraud.
01:09:34
Speaker
But because of the way they make this argument here, and it is federal court, this court says, no, this this is okay. Because the sentencing guidelines expressly provide that life imprisonment is the appropriate sentence for premeditated killing.
01:09:51
Speaker
And we have cross-referenced here, which is, that's the part that I still don't agree with necessarily. And they cite United States versus Boettcher and the United States versus Hannah and the United States versus Schellenberger, which none of those are dirty badge cases. And at this point, I'll be honest, the Timothy Poole case is barely a dirty badge case. He just happened to be a sheriff's deputy for almost six years in the middle of all this.
01:10:19
Speaker
They basically state that this isn't a life sentence per se. This is the sentence that is allowed under the sentencing guidelines. And it expressly provides that life imprisonment is an appropriate sentence it's for premeditated killing. So if you want to pick it apart and say the district court can't sentence him to this, then we have to look at it from the perspective of we cross-reference this as a premeditated murder for sentencing purposes.
Legal Reflections and Concerns
01:10:49
Speaker
They're basically punishing a murderer with an ultra-long sentence by giving him these counts, which are... the accounts that he has The accounts that he has are, he has on the original indictments, he is one count of the conspiracy to commit mail fraud, one count on conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 17 counts of substantive mail fraud, two counts of substantive wire fraud.
01:11:22
Speaker
One, two, three, four... 21 counts. He's essentially sentenced to just under 10 years for each count. But the order is consecutive.
01:11:37
Speaker
And that's the part that makes it 400 years. Right. And honestly, i don't even know why they're making that argument. Yeah. They missed the boat here completely. Like, they should have made an argument that, like,
01:11:52
Speaker
we We can't punish him for these murders just because a jury found him guilty of fraud. That's the argument they should be making, and that's not the argument that they're making. Well, okay.
01:12:05
Speaker
Is that wrong? Because they literally couldn't have found him guilty of fraud unless they thought he was involved in the murders based on the case they presented. Now, this is all the work of a jury, right? Right.
01:12:21
Speaker
Right. I would be sitting on a jury going, why isn't he charged with murder? I don't see how you can assume without deciding a vital...
01:12:36
Speaker
Fact of the case, okay, because they're just they're just saying the preponderance of evidence presented here shows that ah it's possible, it's more than likely, it's more likely than not that he murdered these people. Yes.
01:12:53
Speaker
And that is how they're able to find him guilty on all these counts, right? Right. So it's like they're saying, assuming without deciding that the preponderance of evidence shows he's a murderer, as a juror, would have said, well, if he if there really was enough evidence, he should have been convicted in state court. And then, of course, they wouldn't have brought these charges because he would be in jail in state court.
01:13:22
Speaker
Well, so what's crazy about this is, okay, there's an article that you can read from February 2010. This comes out of ABC 15 News um by Tanya Brown. She writes it. It says, former officer and wife to be tried separately.
01:13:38
Speaker
Federal court documents show Timothy Poole will be tried separately from his wife, Jodi Ann Poole, in connection with the murders of Timothy Poole's parents. Timothy Poole is a former Florence County Sheriff's deputy.
01:13:49
Speaker
In August of 2009, federal agents charged the pair in a 20-count indictment in connection with the murders of his mother and his stepfather, William and Linda Hilton. Now, for the record, I'm not sure all of that is correct there. I'm just reading from the article.
01:14:05
Speaker
The two were found dead at their home in Williamsburg County in 2006. One version of this article says they were found outside. The other one says at their home. Um... Timothy Poole was initially charged with two counts of murder in state court, but those charges were later dropped by prosecutors due to a lack of evidence against them.
01:14:23
Speaker
Federal police say Timothy Poole murdered his parents to collect money from their estate and trust. They say his wife, Jody, lied about what time he came home on the night of the murders. Throwing that out there.
01:14:34
Speaker
So this is a 2010 article. What if I told you we just went through all of this stuff and ultimately I don't know that Timothy Poole It's the dirty badge here.
01:14:46
Speaker
I think it's the federal prosecutors that went after him and did this this way. I am pretty sure, like, don't get me wrong. I am not arguing for Timothy Poole's innocence on the wire, mail fraud, any of it, or even on the the murders themselves.
01:15:03
Speaker
I am just arguing that if you don't have enough evidence to proceed in state court and you drop murder charges due to a lack of evidence like against your defendant, but then he's tried in federal court and you use it as a workaround to quote, prove by a preponderance of the evidence to cross reference 20 counts of different types of fraud against him and sentence him for their murders. I think that's dirty.
01:15:31
Speaker
I, I don't believe that a preponderance of evidence standards should come in to a criminal court proceeding.
01:15:43
Speaker
I'm with you. And that's why i guess I was confused that they were arguing about whether he should have 400 years or life in prison when clearly they should have been arguing that that they shouldn't have used the preponderance of evidence to determine, and unless I'm missing something, they shouldn't use the preponderance of evidence standard for the jury to say they've committed They've presented enough evidence to indicate that more likely than not, he committed these murders. Therefore, he violated the Slayer statute, and he is guilty of mail fraud and wire fraud.
01:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. No, I'm with you. i Look, this is i um I apologize to everybody for doing this to you. I went down a rabbit hole looking for the name Timothy Poole. Because I remember the story of a murder about Timothy Poole. And so I was telling you guys about the deputy down in Florida. And like all I could think in my head was I did not know about the federal part of this at all.
01:16:47
Speaker
I was like, is that the same guy that killed his parents in South Carolina? That's really where I started. Right, and none of them are the same people. No, no. These are all three different Timothy Pools here. But like for a brief instance, I realized that in the encyclopedic knowledge of like court cases that is inside of my head that sometimes I can't access all of it, I was like, that guy got off of that murder and went down there and committed another murder? Because I did not remember any of the federal stuff happening. Because federal stuff, like a lot of times it takes place, as far as we're concerned, as members of the public. The federal court stuff kind of takes place in press releases.
01:17:25
Speaker
We don't see a lot of federal court like like motions, filings, and commentary on in the news. And we certainly do not see any kind of broadcast from federal court.
01:17:37
Speaker
So this almost escaped me. Again, i when you said preponderance evidence, when you were reading and you said preponderance of evidence, that became very concerning to me.
01:17:48
Speaker
i am concerned about it. i don't like If it weren't a cross-reference, this is all overturned on appeal. It's the fact that he's not convicted of murder. But they had to assume without deciding that he had murdered them.
01:18:04
Speaker
right Otherwise, it doesn't it's not fraudulent. Right. but so So running it through the court system, when you get to the federal court at this level, they're like, the murder is a state matter. We can't talk about that here.
01:18:17
Speaker
But we've to show you what happened. Well, that's not what they said. They said that by they had shown by the preponderance of evidence that that fact is more likely than not true. Right, and that's why the dirty badges actually ascends to the appellate courts, because the appellate courts looked at this, and they went, oh, this is the preponderance of evidence for the cross-reference. That's fine. It is a very unique And weird. Well, to be fair, they didn't raise – the defense did not raise this. Correct. and they did not They did not raise, like, by preponderance of evidence versus reasonable doubt in this at all.
01:18:54
Speaker
Like, that does not come to play in the appellate documents I have seen here. And and i as I pointed out, that's also wrong. I think they chose the wrong defense. And because they – so keep in mind – An appeal, a court of appeals can only decide what's been put in front of it. Correct.
01:19:13
Speaker
And what has previously been decided at ah district court. Correct. So I'm not really sure...
01:19:25
Speaker
Exactly where it starts being wrong. I don't know that the dirty badge is raised to the appellate level here. i I'm not sure what their responsibility, I'm not even sure that they even thought of what I just was talking about, which is exactly why it should have been raised. I think ultimately the court, even at the U.S. District Court level here, and then like the the circuit appellate court, they're looking at it, and I think all they're thinking is, you know, that's This is interesting. This would not work in 99.9999% of cases.
01:20:00
Speaker
But there is this narrow window here where the the preponderance works for a cross-reference. This guy clearly committed the fraud. They're able to assume he committed the fraud by reasonable doubt because of his actions. Therefore, the cross-reference is appropriate because that's a preponderance of evidence sentencing thing. and like i would i think as a defense person like the way to ah The only way to have approached this would be like, they cross-referenced our case and they did it in a way that used preponderance of evidence instead of beyond a reasonable doubt. And that affected the conviction. like If you're not going to throw out the conviction, you at least need to reduce the Senate.
01:20:40
Speaker
Well, my so i again, I may have misunderstood. However, my understanding is the fact that it was assumed without decided that more likely than not It was reasonable. The evidence shared by the preponderance of the evidence presented at trial that he was responsible for the murders. That plays into the case. Well, so you heard the statement of facts that I laid out.
01:21:05
Speaker
Correct. There is a sentence from an early version of this that was different than the statement of facts I just gave you. I don't know if this is true. It does not present, and again, this is federal court. It's kind of mysterious. Right.
01:21:20
Speaker
In the initial 2009-2010 news releases, which I read all of the ones I could find, the sentence appears from an article from the staff at the Low Countries News Leaders 5 WCSC or Live 5 News website.
01:21:40
Speaker
It is not credited to a person. But the sentence appears, according to investigators, Timothy Poole committed the violent acts to gain access to Linda and Henry Hilton's finances tied to trust funds and their estate. He then wired money from those accounts to his own.
01:22:03
Speaker
If that's the case, it's it's not in these documents. So if he literally physically accessed a device, which is a different charge, and like wired himself or made it to mail himself a check.
01:22:19
Speaker
Like, you know, you can go in like ah like, oh, you know I got a bill pay this month. So he's using what's essentially Linda and Henry's account. If he were to put himself in for a bill pay and send himself $10,000 owed to him for work done on Lakewood Estate, that's...
01:22:33
Speaker
mail fraud. If he were to wire that money to himself or his own account, that is wire fraud. I don't see that in here. No, that that was my understanding. it that It's all based on the fact that they... He could not benefit from the violent action he had brought on someone else.
01:22:55
Speaker
Correct. But that, again, I would have presented the argument that the entire indictment rested on a fact that was not in evidence. Right. And they don't do that. Like the defense does not do that. I don't know why. They don't do that. They spend most of his time sort of developing, like they're not even defending him from the fraud based on the statement of facts and how the defense seems to go back and forth. And like we could probably get the entire trial record. It would cost thousands of dollars, but we could get And if you go through, like, the direct examinations and the cross examinations here, I feel like they're really defending him from murder the whole time. They're not defending him from the fraud.
01:23:35
Speaker
And, like, that's a poor choice as well. Interestingly enough, do you have a lot more on this case? Because I've got a couple of, like, wrap-up things I wanted to run by you. No, go for it. So...
01:23:46
Speaker
based on changes to the mandatory sentencing guidelines that taken place over the last 10 or 12 years, I don't think this could happen again. Like, I don't think you could, one, get 20 counts of mail and wire fraud or conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud to be 400 years, the way that the sentencing guidelines are right now. But I might be misreading some of the nuances here.
01:24:11
Speaker
And ultimately, they did change a sentence because I went on because of course, I like always have to go find people. So Timothy Poole, who is inmate number 17054-171 at Federal Correctional Institute Jessup, which is down in Georgia.
01:24:29
Speaker
He's a 51-year-old white male. He is still in custody. His release date is March 22, 2349. 2349. Okay. two thousand three hundred and forty nine so twenty three forty nine which is 340 years from the date he was convicted. So they he did get a reduction of 60 years.
01:24:49
Speaker
I'm just saying. I don't think that you could technically today make this sentence work. But this is terrible, isn't it? that like I don't think anybody's going to want to take this on. like This guy killed his parents. He was a cop that killed his parents is how they look at it. Nobody wants to help that guy. i know And i understand I understand all the reasons ah that are... This is actually... ah It's one of those things, right? Yeah. One of those things. To me, the sentence doesn't matter. 400-year sentence...
01:25:26
Speaker
Whatever. It's 400 years. He's literally only able to to spend however long he lives, right? So I don't know why that even comes up. I am genuinely concerned about how...
01:25:40
Speaker
They went around certain things here. And maybe I've missed something. I don't i don't think you have. Because the questions that you have, even though I'm taking kind of the devil's advocate position here, I'm with you. And, like, I think your questions are correct. Like, I'm either misunderstanding... The application of the Slayer statute being used to say he wasn't entitled to that money, but he took it anyways, and that is fraud, both mail fraud and wire fraud, or some kind of direct access is made. If he didn't kill them, right why would it be fraud? It wouldn't be. Exactly. which See, at at first, i was like...
01:26:17
Speaker
What I was thinking was wrong with it was so obvious. I knew they couldn't have possibly done that, except you got to the end. Yeah. And I was like, they absolutely did that. They did do it. Yeah, they did. Like, ah it's a hundred percent what you think it is. Like they basically said, the state said we can't prosecute him for murder. And the fed said, well, we can't prosecute him for murder because we don't do that. And they really don't. Like, it's very rare that you see federal prosecutions for murder. I don't, People will like bring 40 cases and say, that's a federal prosecution for murder. That's true, but they did not occur on Lakewood Estate in South Carolina with two people being shot in the back of the head.
01:26:57
Speaker
you know what I mean? like There's not really a federal nexus to all of that. like and Typically, you can find one, but not when they're shot in South Carolina on their own property, presumably with a relative's gun.
01:27:09
Speaker
How would a jury feel to know that the state... murder charges couldn't advance because of lack of evidence. How would that influence their decision on whether or not he was not entitled to the funds based on the Slayer statute and therefore had committed fraud?
01:27:30
Speaker
And now you get to the part that's like really hard for me. Like, so I look at this and I, I personally see like, this is a major issue, but that guy's a terrible douchebag.
01:27:45
Speaker
Well, I keep thinking to myself, this is South Carolina. It makes sense. But then I'm like, no, this is the Fourth Circuit. This is federal court. Yeah, this is the Feds. And like so like like i want to help him, and I want to like spend the time and spend the money. But like what I would have done, I think, if I were at the pellet level— I think I would have been like, okay, why don't we like send this back down to district court and maybe modify the Senate so the state's not getting a workaround life without parole based on this mail fraud stuff and the state has to go do some work.
01:28:23
Speaker
Because that's like that's ultimately what's happening here. The federal office, so the U.S. Attorney's Office has prosecuted this case in a way that the state does not have to complete their investigation.
01:28:36
Speaker
So i I just want to be clear. My understanding was he was charged and the charges were dropped. I do realize that came from a media source. that That's the only place I had that source saying he was charged and the charges were dropped. And then this appears to have happened. And I've dug yeah i've i've dug what I will say is adequately deep enough into this. to That appears to be the case. I mean, the feds, they like – the feds come out and say – conviction upheld, and then, you know they tout all the people.
01:29:11
Speaker
Well, let me put my side of this this way. Nobody on earth, but especially in the United States of America, because I'm more familiar with those laws, nobody in the United States of America should have the fact that they were involved in a crime lead to the conviction of another crime that they're sentenced to life or 400 years, whatever you want to say there, nobody should have that happen.
01:29:47
Speaker
And I feel like that's what happened here. And I think that's wrong. Yeah, it is what happened here. It is wrong. And like, I don't know what to do about it. I just know that like, it's going to take a particular type of defense,
01:30:01
Speaker
i don't sure I'm not sure that they're going to be able to do anything on appeal. I think that this was, I think that he's going to have to get it a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel because they didn't present their right defense from the jump. Not that i I haven't reviewed everything. I'm just saying based on what we saw here, they never said, hey, you can't just say my client murdered his parents. That's not part of this case.
01:30:30
Speaker
I don't know that, like, based on not having read, like, the exact trial transcript. I don't understand yeah that, but they should have objected when it happened and therefore could have been revealed ah reviewed by the appellate court.
01:30:45
Speaker
Yeah. But it doesn't sound like any of that happened, and it's crazy to me. But I assume his defense attorneys gave him a robust defense.
01:30:57
Speaker
And sometimes defense attorneys give ah robust defenses that end with their client being convicted. 100%, yeah. and I'm just saying this is a...
01:31:12
Speaker
pretty impactful point here and i'm just kind of astonished because i thought when after we got all the way through it i would realize that of course they didn't do that because that is what i thought initially and now i'm i i think that's what they did yeah it's wrong yeah i got nothing else on this one
01:31:39
Speaker
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01:31:50
Speaker
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Conclusion and Call for Support
01:32:04
Speaker
I break things like guitars.
01:32:13
Speaker
No scars. We're in trouble. We took it too far.
01:32:23
Speaker
want to go, but it's cause I'll disappoint ya. It's all I've ever dreamed of, something I cannot let go of.
01:32:34
Speaker
I hate the competition, this culture's like a Jimin. I lost the motivation to get fit in your expectations.
01:32:45
Speaker
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01:33:03
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.