48 Hours - Hollywood Secrets

Episode Date: September 4, 2016

An aspiring actress is brutally strangled.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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When most people think about Los Angeles, when they think of palm trees and beaches, they're thinking about Santa Monica. Juliana Redding is 21 years old. She's an aspiring model and has come out to study in Santa Monica. Juliana was one of those people, like, when you meet her, you just know she's going to go far in life. And she was the sweetest girl ever. And her laugh was infectious.

She just loved life. And she was like a magnet to a lot of men. Hello, what's your name, please? Julianne Redding, hi. Men just go, you know, goo-goo-ga-ga over her. She had her modeling and acting career, but things took a really unexpected turn. She does not seem like the kind of person who's going to be found murdered in her apartment. Juliana Redding was found brutally murdered. This was a slow, brutal murder.

There was a huge fight. She was beaten. She was strangled to death. Inside the apartment, the gas had been turned on. There was a lit candle, basically creating a bomb. Whoever was responsible for this wanted to blow the entire crime scene up. I can tell you in 18 years of prosecuting cases, I've never had this much

DNA. The DNA was on the door lock, DNA on a plate in the sink, DNA on that stove knob, which you'd expect because someone turned it on, DNA on the front and the back of Juliana's t-shirt, and possibly most importantly, DNA on her throat. Well that sounds like if you can identify who that DNA belongs to that's your killer isn't it? You would certainly think so. The DNA in this case very clearly pointed in one direction. With that much DNA most people would think the case was a slam dunk, but it wasn't. When I heard that verdict, it was just shock. Just shock. I'm Maureen Maher. Tonight on 48 Hours, Hollywood Secrets. in your fridge, or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly. Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising

origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad

free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years,

I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story

of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely, Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This was a targeted offense, without question. A targeted offense, and she was the target. She was Juliana Redding, a beautiful 21-year-old student and model in Los Angeles.

This is the type of neighborhood that Juliana lived in. The last place in the world that she would ever think she's being stalked or hunted. Where are we right now? We're on Juliana Street. Alan Jackson is a former Los Angeles prosecutor. He was the original DA on this case. The front bungalow right here, this was Juliana's bungalow. The bedroom where her body was ultimately found is in the back bedroom. Juliana's L.A. story started out like a lot of other young women. She came here in 2005 from Arizona with stars in her eyes and high hopes of making it big. And occasionally she was getting work as an actress and model. big and occasionally she was getting work as an actress and model but mostly she was taking classes at a local college and trying to make ends meet as a hostess me and juliana were both full-time students genevieve steward met juliana at santa monica college they were both ambitious

she was getting jobs to model products or being music videos and stuff. On average, probably $3,000 and up, you know, per job. Are you serious? Why are you with this girl? Here she is in a casting reel, reading lines for a role. Hello, did you forget about me? Juliana also had a taste for the good life. She lived a pretty fancy lifestyle, so she was a jet setter. She liked to travel. You know, she liked to do fun things. I usually write about the underbelly of society. Jack Leonard writes about crime for the Los Angeles Times. I don't usually get to write about whodunits.

This was a whodunit. This is the front door, and when you open the door, the first thing that you see is a coffee table with a big decorative candle, and the candle's lit. When the police got here and the firefighters got here, when they opened the front door, the first thing that happened is they were hit by a wall of this natural gas odor. They realized that this was a bomb waiting to go off.

It probably would have leveled this entire building. And there'd be no evidence. There'd be zero. But police got lucky. It was an old house, and the gas didn't concentrate enough to explode. And the bars that I see now, were they here at the time of the crime? They were. They were. So whoever was in got in through the door?

Absolutely. Yeah. No, this was not a break-in. There was no sign of a struggle to get in or out. It was a cool Saturday evening, March 15, 2008. Police believed the killer entered Juliana's bungalow just before 10 p.m. Things just got out of hand. It got violent. The fight was on. One thing led to another. They're fighting throughout the house. Fingernails are being broken.

Juliana's head is being smashed against the floor. She had deep contusions of the skull. Her throat was being crushed. This was an absolute fight. This was a brutal, brutal fight. A fight to the death. A fight to the death. There's plenty of DNA at this crime scene.

Yes. The first DNA identified belonged to Juliana. It was embedded under her own fingernails. When you're being strangled, you tend to grapple at your own neck. Trying to get that person's fingers off of your throat. Trying to get that person's fingers off your throat. That's the natural reaction, and that's an extremely common injury that we see. You immediately grab for your own throat, and Juliana did that in this case.

And indicative of just how hard she fought to try to live. Absolutely. And there was plenty of other DNA. There's DNA. There's DNA belonging to a mysterious person that is all over the crime scene. Police sent those DNA samples to the lab. Meanwhile, they built a timeline. A neighbor had reported hearing screams and

furniture moved around 9.53 p.m. Another telling clue was found in Juliana's cell phone. When Juliana's phone was recovered, the evidence very clearly shows that 911 was dialed and the call was terminated before it could go through. Detectives were quick to talk to the people closest to Juliana. 48 hours obtained these police videotapes, starting with her father. My message always to her was be vigilant, keep your eyes peeled, you know. Greg Redding is a pharmacist from Arizona. Almost immediately, he had a suspect in mind. You talk to John Gilmore, and she's been off and on with him for a year or two.

I think it's John. John Gilmore is a surfer. Gilmore had been dating Juliana and went by her house the morning after the crime, before her body was discovered. He, too, was interviewed by police. Greg Redding told police that his daughter's sometime boyfriend, John Gilmore, had a history of violent behavior. He went into some kind of drunken fit of rage and kicked in the door on her car. And that's not all. Redding even told

police that Gilmore tried to break into Juliana's apartment. I told Juliana that. I said, you get out of there. This guy is dangerous. But Juliana didn't listen to her father. She stuck with John on and off for nearly two years. They argued often, including the day before the murder. You said you guys had an argument? I was like, I'm going to have a couple beers with the boys. And she's like, okay, fine, and then hung up on me. That might not seem like much, but Gilmore admitted to police that he did have the occasional outburst, though he claimed it never became physical.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that time, you know, when I kicked the door, I was all pissed. I kicked it a couple times. Whatever the state of their relationship was, John's story was that night he and Juliana had each gone their own way. Juliana out with a girlfriend and John out with his surfing buddies to a house party several miles away. But the two were still exchanging text messages until about 10 p.m. when Juliana abruptly stopped communicating. By the next afternoon, Gilmore says he became increasingly concerned because he still had not heard from Juliana. I called Juliana numerous times.

Juliana's mother was also concerned, and she called the police. The police just opened the doors. She called the police. The police just opened the doors. And then, yeah, they told me she was in there. It would take the lab three months to fully process all the evidence found at the crime scene. But it was worth the wait. The results would take the case in a new direction. They discovered that all that DNA found on Juliana's throat, on her clothes,

on the stove, on the doorknob, even on that plate, it all belonged to a woman. So I'm just speculating here, but you find this beautiful young girl in her apartment. She's been horribly brutalized. She's been strangled. She's been beaten. I mean, investigators must have been saying, who the heck could have done this? This is really a whodunit. That's exactly what they were saying. So then all of a sudden, a wealth of DNA is found, and it comes back as female. The head scratching went on for some time. Authorities began gathering DNA samples. Those individuals included just about every female

that you could imagine in or around Juliana's life. And every one of them were testing negative, negative, negative. 41 females. Investigators were left with very few options. So they began to dig deep into Juliana's relationships. Perhaps the most interesting one was with an older man, a flashy surgeon named Dr. Munir Uyeda. Who is this guy, this Dr. Uyeda? Early 40s, Lebanese-American. Dr. Uyeda was an international man of mystery, a rich Los Angeles-based surgeon with expensive real estate all over the world.

There is a horse farm in Germany. There is a house by the beach. Attorney Birgit Jarsen knew Dr. Ueda when she argued a case against him in court in 2008. At least one other house in Beverly Hills. And just the whole status as a renowned surgeon in the community is very impressive. Beirut, Lebanon. Ueda got his medical degree there, then completed his training in New York City and at Stanford. He became a surgeon and a successful medical entrepreneur with several clinics.

It appears that he can be a very successful businessman, that he can be a very charming and attentive companion, but then there's also allegations that he has a much darker side. That darker side involved allegations of fraud. Court records show Dr. Ueda's multi-million dollar medical businesses have been under investigation. For example, there's one case in which he conned a company out of a million dollar CT scanner like this one. He never paid for it. He had ordered a medical device that he didn't pay for.

The appellate court found that he'd committed fraud, and they ordered him to pay almost a million dollars in a judgment. Regardless of the questions surrounding his professional life, Dr. Ueda had a well-known, flamboyant personal life. Along with his houses, horses, and cars, he also apparently liked to collect women, beautiful women like Juliana Redding. They met in 2007. How does she meet this guy? She was young, she was beautiful,

and she was working in a restaurant. Dr. Ueda saw her before she saw him. It was here in Santa Monica where Juliana was a hostess. Within days, Dr. Ueda offered her a job. What was she doing for him? An assistant of some sort. She didn't have formal medical training. He ran a clinic, a series of medical businesses. I think he paid her a very decent salary. Apparently, a nice paycheck was only one of the many perks.

We went to her car to get something, and it's like a white Range Rover. And I was thinking, like, damn! Money, a car, and soon, the relationship really began to heat up. She ended up living at his house for a while. Like, it turned into something. Kelly Duncan, once a contestant on The Bachelor,

was a close friend of Juliana's. She was also interviewed by police. She's like, oh my God, I really like him. They were, like, dating. She told her parents that they were, it was no longer, like, Mooney or the boss. It was, like, Mooney or the guy I'm dating. It was like Muneer, the guy I'm dating. Juliana moved into a lavish Beverly Hills home, apparently owned by Dr. Ueda.

Certainly he made it easy on her. Easy, perhaps, but the relationship, according to Kelly Duncan, became uncomfortable. The guy is obsessed with her. She was giving him the time of day. Like, he loved it. He was like arm candy. He was obsessed. I could see it in his eyes. He was trying to, like, with her. She was giving him the time of day. Like, he loved it. He was, like, arm candy. He was obsessed. I could see it in his eyes.

He was trying to, like, buy her. And according to friends, he even suggested marriage and offered her even more elaborate gifts. On her 21st birthday, he was going to buy her a Lamborghini. But Giuliana was becoming uneasy with the relationship. She wanted to cool things off a bit. She turned down the Lamborghini and in September she moved out of the Beverly Hills home and into the bungalow paid for by her father in Santa Monica. In spite of that, Juliana stayed in touch with Dr. Ueda, even planning a birthday trip with her girlfriends and the doctor to Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Dr. Ueda turned his attention to Greg Redding, Juliana's dad.

He would say, Greg, I can offer your daughter the world. He even offered Redding a job, and a pretty good one. Over $400,000 a year working as a pharmacist in one of Dr. Ueda's businesses. I think he wanted my daughter. And the whole thing, you know, I'm not stupid. I mean, I thought, you know, this guy for real, I don't buy this. I just don't believe anything. Greg Redding already suspected that the doctor had some murky business dealings, but he wanted to find out more about a man who seemed to be offering the world to both him and his daughter. So Redding started digging into Ueda's background.

The story picks up in Las Vegas. They took a chartered plane to Las Vegas along with several other friends, including some of Juliana's girlfriends. The plan was to celebrate Juliana's 21st birthday, but it didn't quite work out that way. Her dad called her and said, Munir is married in another country. Married to this woman in Lebanon. And they had three children. All of that was news to Juliana. The evidence suggests that she was very, very angry and unforgiving, that she had been lied to.

That night in Las Vegas, she confronted Ueda. They got into a fight. Juliana said, that's it. That's it, she said. Five months later, Juliana was dead. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his

name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story.

My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman,

the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola

held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true

crime shows early and ad-free right now. In a hotel room in Las Vegas, the news that Dr. Ueda was a married man ruined Juliana's big birthday party, and Juliana finally broke up with him. Juliana and her girlfriends then got a separate hotel room, and the next morning they flew back. That ended up being the end of the relationship. the end of the relationship. That was in October 2007. Juliana may have been done with Dr. Ueda, but he was far from over her. She told me that she was scared to death of me in the end. Scared to death he was stalking her. Kelly Duncan says Juliana told her

that what started with persistent text messages from Ueda soon moved to him driving by her house and showing up at places she frequented around town. Ueda also continued to pursue Juliana's father, Greg Redding. He actually flew me out for Christmas presents in Vegas to watch Mayweather fight. Him and I went. And these tickets are like $1,500 a piece. And surprisingly, despite reservations about his daughter carrying on personally with the doctor, Greg Redding continued to negotiate his own professional relationship with Ueda. Perhaps it was the lure of that six-figure salary, or all the trappings that went with it.

I was going to stay in his Beverly Hills house. He made me all these plans. He said, you can stay in my home. I'll help you with the down payment. I'll buy you a house. I'm going to buy you a car. You pick out any car you want. You want a Lamborghini?

You got it. But in March of 2008, the deal fell apart. And less than a week later, Juliana was found murdered. Could that broken business deal between Dr. Ueda and Juliana's father be the motive for this murder? Or could it be Dr. Ueda's bruised ego after Juliana's rejection? Investigators threw out the bruised ego theory and went with the broken deal. The prosecution's motive was that Dr. Ueda

was in business negotiations with Juliana Redding's father. Reporter Jack Leonard. And that motive involved Juliana's father breaking off business negotiations with him just days before Juliana's murder but that would be argued at court the other side claimed there was no motive because it was dr. you wada who broke off the business deal whatever happened investigators were now clearly focused on dr. you wada

even though the mysterious DNA at the crime scene was female, and Dr. Ueda was out of the country at the time of the murder. Still, the Ueda connection gave police some new possibilities. They struck out on these women that they were checking DNA, and it was only when they were looking at female associates of his that they finally happened upon Kelly Sue Park. 47-year-old Kelly Sue Park was a licensed real estate broker, born and educated in Southern California. Seen here with Ueda, she was an employee of his and was said to work closely with him on many of his business deals. Police followed Kelly Sue Park and picked up one of her cigarette butts. It was stunning. There were jaws that dropped.

The DNA from Kelly Sue Park's cigarette matched the DNA at the crime scene. Based on the evidence that was presented at trial, that DNA all matched Kelly Sue Park. Do you believe that Juliana had ever even seen Kelly Sue Park before that night? No, no, the prosecution theory was very, very clear. These two women absolutely, positively

did not know one another. There was no connection between them except Dr. Munir Uyeda. He dated one of them and employed her, and he employed the other. Still, there was the question of why. Why would Kelly Sue Park attack a woman she didn't even know? Investigators take a closer look at Kelly Sue Park. What do they find? They find that she is deeply entrenched. Kelly Sue Park may have been hired by Munir Uyeda in a capacity, that of an enforcer, that of an intimidator, that of muscle, which sounds odd. When I saw Kelly Sue Park for the first time, she presented herself like a thug.

Cindy Ogden is a real estate agent who had a million dollar business deal with Ueda that turned into an ongoing legal dispute with the doctor. She told investigators she encountered the nearly six foot tall Kelly Sue Park. Like she was an enforcer, a yakuza or something. That's what I felt. It was like she was going to come in and kick some ass. Ogden was brokering a multi-million dollar commercial real estate deal with Dr. Ueda when she says Ueda used Kelly Sue Park and several other women as intimidators. She says she felt they were pressuring her to come to their terms, though she never did. He's sending out these vixens to do his bidding. We were looking at this as a movie, like a Charlie's Angels type of thing,

where he's directing these women, but the dark side, you know, the dark side of Charlie's Angels. Ogden told her story to police, but prosecutors thought they had stronger examples of Park working as muscle and presented two others in court documents, including one with the banker named Jerry Lukeski. So is it true that on the wire, there's a wire, and the police hear Ueda telling Kelly to go over and straighten that blank Jerry out? Yes, except he didn't say blank. Yeah. And that is exactly what investigators say happened in Juliana's murder. According to the prosecution,

Kelly Sue Park was sent to Juliana's house by Dr. Ueda to scare her and her father back into that broken business deal. What the prosecution wanted to argue at the trial was that Kelly Sue Park was muscle for Dr. Ueda. Armed with the backstory of Kelly Sue Park as Dr. Ueda's muscle and that powerful DNA, on March 17, 2010, Kelly Sue Park was arrested for the murder of Juliana Redding. She pled not guilty and was given a $3.5 million bail. Someone paid her bail, but prosecutors were unable to prove what they believed, that Dr. Ueda supplied the money. There is no doubt, though, that he transferred other money to Kelly Sue Park.

Beginning in June of 2008, for about the next 18 months, Kelly Sue Park was given over a million dollars by Munir Uyeda. That's inconsistent. A million dollars? A million, over a million. And that is inconsistent, according to the prosecution, with her ongoing normal employment. Was she a real estate broker? Did she do some work on the side for him? Well, that would be a hell of a salary for any particular job. Yeah. Unless, of course, as the prosecution suggested, it wasn't a salary. It was a payoff. But Kelly Sue Park will face her trial alone. Two days after she was arrested, Dr. Munir Uyeda vanished.

He was believed to be over 7,000 miles away in Beirut. Nearly three years would pass before Kelly Sue Park faced trial. Alan Jackson, the original prosecutor, moved on to private practice. She struggled to take her last breath of air. He was replaced by Stacey Weiss. Before trial, there were two critical decisions from the court. One hurt the prosecution. The other hurt the defense. The defense disputed all the allegations

about Kelly Sue Park operating as an enforcer for Dr. Ueda. The judge said, you can't bring this in. You haven't shown that she's actually acting violently, that she's doing any of the kinds of things that you're alleging she did with Juliana Redding. The jury never hears this. That means that the prosecution can't argue one of the main theories that they have, which is that Kelly Sue Park was a muscle, was an enforcer for Dr. Ueda. It is a significant setback. But the defense is also dealt a blow when the judge disallows one of its strongest arguments.

Remember Juliana's sometime boyfriend, the surfer John Gilmore? The defense wanted to argue that Juliana's boyfriend may have been the killer. But according to prosecutors, Gilmore had a solid alibi. John Gilmore was almost immediately cleared of any wrongdoing. There was a video of him at a convenience store. There was a video of him at Jack in the Box. There was a video of him at another convenience store. There was a video of him at Jack in the Box. There was a video of him at another location. The investigators were very comfortable.

They knew exactly where John Gilmore was, and he was not in Juliana's apartment. He did have a history of violence. Basically, it's very difficult for the defense to argue that someone else did it. They have to show that there was more than just a motive, more than just an opportunity. But on TV, Jack, they do that all the time. They do, I don't know. They always say the boyfriend did it or somebody else did it. But it's pretty unusual.

Perfect. Julianne Redding, aye. ...before this court, and a true verdict rendered according only to the evidence... In May 2013, five years after Julianna's murder, trial finally begins. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The prosecution opened with what many believed was an unimpeachable DNA case. The killer, the defendant, got her DNA on Juliana's tank top during the struggle and during the murder.

Kelly Sue Park's DNA is on the front door and the locks. Kelly Sue Park's DNA is on Juliana's telephone. Kelly Sue Park's DNA is on the front and the back of Juliana's t-shirt. We know that Juliana died of strangulation and Kelly Sue Park's DNA is on her throat. That sounds like a slam dunk. That's how the prosecution portrayed it. And there was even more, a single but telling drop of blood. And guess where the blood was found? In a fingerprint, on a plate, in the sink, and the fingerprint was Kelly Sue Park's left thumb. NANCY GRACE, After the prosecution rested, the defense never even challenged the so-called slam-dunk DNA. DR.

NATHAN LENTZ, I think that's a very telling point, that the defense didn't bother trying to say, well, it's not Ms. Park's DNA. NANCY GRACE, Dr. Nathan Lentz is a professor of forensic biology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We asked him to help us understand the DNA evidence. The statistics are so good that generally when you find someone's DNA at a crime scene, they're not going to dispute that it's their DNA. They'll try to dispute how it got there. And that's exactly what happened in this case.

When I touch an object, if I leave my DNA, then someone else can come along and touch that object and pick up my DNA. Defense attorney George Beeler waited until closing arguments to launch his attack. And they may go touch another object and leave my DNA, and I never touched that object. The defense had a really bold argument here. They argued that the DNA had been transferred from somewhere else into that murder scene. That much DNA? That much DNA.

Had you ever heard that argument before? I had never heard it before. In his closing argument, Beeler proposed an entirely new theory of the crime, complete with a mysterious killer. You have a killer who's got a rag. He's going around, he's wiping the places to get rid of his fingerprints, his DNA, and he's got Mrs. Park's DNA, unbeknownst to him, but to his great benefit on that rag. The real killer could have cleaned up the crime scene, expunged it of all DNA,

and inadvertently planted Kelly Sue Park's DNA by using a towel that Kelly may have used once, five months earlier at Dr. Ueda's Beverly Hills house, a place Kelly Sue Park had visited and Juliana Redding had once lived. So maybe she just packed some things quickly and moved and she actually brought with her to her apartment a plate that Mrs. Park had touched and left the fingerprint on and a drop of blood on and maybe a towel, a napkin. I would say it's exceedingly unlikely that you could accomplish that. Dr. Lentz says that would be an extremely complicated process and gave us a demonstration.

Well, primary transfer of DNA is if you have any object that you touch, you're going to very likely leave behind some of your DNA. All right. So what if I touch the beaker, I pick it up, I put it down, and you pick it up? So, first of all, I'm going to deposit my DNA now, mixed in with yours on the glass. That would be called a secondary transfer. So if someone were to swab my hand later, they might get some of your DNA on my hand, with the cup being the intermediate. And is that common?

We don't see a lot of secondary DNA transfers in casework. In your expert opinion then, it's possible that the killer picked up a towel that had been used by the suspect, if they're two different people as the defense claims, and tried to clean the area up using the same towel that had the suspect's DNA on it. That you could deposit DNA from a towel onto a surface while also removing DNA from that same surface in the other direction without any mixture in both places, I would say that's exceedingly unlikely. If it happened once, I would be very, very surprised. If it happened throughout the crime scene, I think we can safely say that that hypothesis doesn't hold any weight.

But Beeler didn't have to prove his theory. He only had to raise reasonable doubt. Don't be fooled by the DNA evidence. He also told the jury that Park didn't even know Juliana, had no history of violence or motive, and neither did Dr. Ueda. There's nothing here to show that even Dr. Ueda had a motive to do this, let alone that Kelly Park would have done it for him. And he argued Park was not strong enough. Mrs. Park may have three inches and 40 pounds on Ms. Redding. I submit to you that that's not enough

to account for the brutality. And about that million dollars Kelly Sue Park received from Dr. Ueda... What have they shown you about Kelly Park? She's a successful businesswoman. For more than a week, Juliana's family and friends came to court, reliving every horrible detail of her death. living every horrible detail of her death. Now they would wait another seven long days for the jury to render its verdict. All right, the jury has indicated they've reached the verdict.

Finally, the jury spoke. We, the jury, in the vote of entitled action, find the defendant, Kelly So Park, not guilty. Not guilty. But Juliana's loved ones would get the last word. Murder! How horrible! Something wrong here.

God bless us all. The jury acquitting Kelly Sue Park, they just took that knife and twisted it a little bit deeper. Murder! No! I believe that Kelly Sue Park got away with murder. We found the right evidence, the right arguments to make, and we were confident. Would you have ever in your wildest dreams imagined that it would have been an acquittal? No, that was not something that I was predicting. I can say that. Here was a case the prosecution thought was a slam dunk.

All of Kelly Sue Park's DNA at the crime scene and yet not guilty. For this woman who played a key role for the defense, a not guilty verdict meant justice. A case like this where there's so much evidence, people would say, you know, you are working to exonerate a guilty person. But why should I believe she's a guilty person? The prosecution did not meet their burden of proof. Lee Miles is a jury consultant. She's the president of a company called Trial Partners. Kelly Sue Park's defense team hired her to help pick the jury.

What were you expecting? A hung jury. A hung jury. Yes. Did you think that was the best you could get? Yes, I did. I did. We left people on the jury that I never thought in a million years would acquit. Miles was worried because DNA evidence can be very powerful.

Our biggest challenge was for most people, DNA is DNA and it tells the truth. Everybody gets that from TV. So we had to have another story about DNA. What turned out to matter in this case was the alternate theory put forth by the defense, the story about DNA transfer. I felt our side of the story made more sense in terms of, you know, it's possible they're both in the same place, maybe even on the same day, not necessarily at the same time. Really, you thought it was possible that all that DNA could be casually transferred? Doorknobs and stove knobs and the neck and the clothes and the telephone?

It's possible. Possible. What the defense needed was a jury open to its story. We were only allowed 20 minutes to question the prospective jurors. So I felt that I had to rely on as much of the art of what I do as the science. Give me some specifics of who you were looking for to be on this jury, what you needed.

I'm looking for sometimes a contrarian, someone who doesn't matter what you say, they're going to start challenging you. needed. I'm looking for sometimes a contrarian, someone who doesn't matter what you say, they're going to start challenging you. And to find that kind of person, she turned to popular TV crime shows and asked jurors which shows they liked best. Probably our most favorite juror who ended up being the foreperson. One of his favorite shows was The Good Wife. I thought that was perfect. What is it about that show that made it appealing for you? They're openly confronting the fact that they're often working for clients that they think look guilty, and yet they give them the very best defense possible.

So you think he's innocent? No. I think he's innocent? No. I think he's innocent of this. But there were other shows that signaled to the consultant that those potential jurors might favor the prosecution. Criminal Minds and Blue Bloods, if those were

a juror's favorite show, they might be more prosecution-oriented. This little piece of hardware here is going to cost you 25 years to life if ballistics matched a bullet that hit Devin Williams. Do you believe in this verdict? Yes. I think this was a model jury. I know it was not a popular verdict. Neither are verdicts in a lot of cases that I've worked on.

But they did their job. The verdict really showed that DNA alone is not enough to convict someone, at least for this jury. That was going to be a surprise to a lot of people. People don't have to agree with the verdict. People can be shocked. People can be troubled. I'm troubled, but that's my personal opinion.

I'm troubled. And there's something else about the case that bothered people. You've got this character who's been portrayed in court, but we never get to see him in person. We never get to hear from him. He's looming over the case. Dr. Ueda has never been charged with any crime in connection with Juliana's murder. His whereabouts are now unknown. Hello, what's your name please? Juliana Redding, hi.

After the verdict, Juliana's parents issued a statement. It read, in part, a statement. It read, in part, our family is deeply saddened and shocked. We believe the evidence against the defendant is enormous and that justice has not been served. I should find the defendant, Kelly Sue Park, not guilty of the crime. Two years and two months after her murder acquittal, Kelly Sue Park was arrested and found herself back in court, this time as Dr. Ueda's office manager. Park and a dozen other associates pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, lying to patients, disfiguring some in botched surgeries,

and cheating insurance companies out of $150 million. Dr. Ueda was not present. His whereabouts are still unknown. Ueda and his staff allegedly tricked 21 people into thinking he would perform their operations. Instead, they were done by a physician's assistant, which is against the law. This isn't your typical kind of med fraud case. They're claiming, hey, you put people in danger.

Richard Winton has been following the story for the Los Angeles Times. Well, what sets this apart is essentially the enormous amount of cash involved. But in the end, it does come down to one real big X factor, which is Kelly Sue Park. Mrs. Park had touched and left the fingerprint on. Attorney George Beeler, who stood by Park's side at her murder trial, was with her once again when she was arraigned for fraud. I don't think that she is guilty in this case. The district attorney's office may have an interest in making her suffer

because she was acquitted, so there may be some desire for payback. Park's bail was originally set at $10 million. It was later reduced when the court dismissed the charges relating to disfiguring patients. In April 2016, Kelly Sue Park was released on bail of more than a million and a half dollars. No date has been set for the fraud trial. Dr. Munir Uyeda's California medical license has been canceled. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.