48 Hours - Post Mortem | For the Love of Cayley Mandadi

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

The team behind the episode takes you inside their reporting and what you didn't hear about the death of Cayley Mandadi. 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant and producer Chris Ritzen discuss following this case for over five years, two trials, and the unconventional investigation that Cayley’s parents undertook to seek the truth about what happened to their daughter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Hello and welcome to another episode of 48 Hours Postmortem. I'm CBS News correspondent Anne-Marie Green, and today we're going to take you inside the most recent episode of 48 Hours for the love of Kaylee Mendotti. episode of 48 Hours for the love of Kaylee Mandati. You're going to hear the dramatic story of not one, but two trials as family members and friends seek justice for the death of Texas College cheerleader Kaylee Mandati. And joining me now for a deeper dive are Peter Van Sant and

Chris Ritson, who have been reporting on this case since 2019. Thank you so much for joining us. Hello, Anne-Marie. Hey, Anne-Marie. Good to see you again. I know folks have a lot of questions about this episode, but first, of course, as per usual, we're going to start with a short recap of the case. One October night, Kaylee Mandati's sometime boyfriend, Mark Howerton, brought her to a hospital in rural Texas. He told police officers they'd consumed ecstasy, and after rough sex in the car, 19-year-old Kaylee stopped breathing. She was nearly naked and bruised. Howerton expressed concern. Why isn't she responding?

She died a day later. A medical examiner ruled Kaylee died of blunt force trauma to the face and head. Mark Howerton was charged with murder. All rise. 2019. Prosecutors argue that Howerton beat Kaylee, but his lawyer said her bruising was caused by resuscitation efforts at the hospital and possibly a fall. It ended in a mistrial. A second trial was set for 2023. Kaylee's mom, Allison Steele, and stepdad, Lawrence Bateland, went on a mission. You became investigators. We did. Yes. They tracked down Howerton's car and bought it. Kaylee was assaulted in the passenger seat. They commissioned a video using actors. Could this convince a second jury that Mark Howerton killed Kaylee?

So, like I said earlier, you've been reporting on the death of Kaylee for five years. What was it like for you revisiting this case? For me, there was this emotional attachment that we have to the story, to Kaylee's memory, you know, I was there for both trials. And, you know, I'll say that the first trial is actually one that I will never forget. You could feel the tension in the room. You know, when you see the photos of bruising on Kaylee Mondati's body and when you learn about Mark Howerton's past abuse of Kaylee, the fact that defense attorney John Hunter was able to persuade jurors otherwise shows just how good of a lawyer, you know, he really is. Yeah, Hunter is one of the most impressive young defense attorneys I've seen in the United States. And for Cayley's family, though, they see him in a different light. So speaking of attorney John Hunter, he was part of another case that

we recently talked about on this podcast. Yeah, John Hunter represented Air Force Major Andre McDonald. In another San Antonio case, McDonald was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter in the death of his wife, Ann Dreen. And this was the case in which Andre McDonald confessed to killing her just a couple days before the trial started. And yet Hunter was able to get a manslaughter as opposed to a murder conviction. And for him, that was a big victory. So Hunter's a big deal.

He's a big deal in Texas. He played a pivotal role in the first trial when it comes to the testimony of Kaylee's ex-boyfriend, Jet. Did he ever. And Jet Burcham, who was a former boyfriend of Kaylee's, he was a very important witness because when she and Howerton got inside Howerton's car at this music festival in San Antonio and drove off, everyone who knew the two of them, they were concerned about Kaylee's safety. And so Jed Burcham decides to tell authorities that Howerton manhandled her to get her into his car. Well, so he gets up on the stand to tell this

story. And it turns out that portion of it was a lie. And Hunter knew this. And Hunter takes him apart in a cross-examination unlike anything I've ever seen. And you advised the police that you saw Mark physically pick her up and place her in his car. Isn't that correct? Yes, sir. And it differs from the testimony that you gave today, right? Yes, sir. I did not see him put her in the car. Isn't that correct? Yes, sir. And it differs from the testimony that you gave today, right? Yes, sir. I did not see him put her in the car. And then there was a crazy moment where he took the fifth since he had been on probation for a drug charge at the time of Kaylee's death. You know, I'll say, you know, sitting in that courtroom when Jet took the fifth 30 times,

you know, my jaw literally dropped. Never seen that before. I know you've seen your fair share of court cases. Yes. This, this, like, I hate to say it this way, but it was like watching a slow motion train wreck. Seriously. I, it was, I will never forget it. And the fantasy, if you're the prosecutor or defense attorney, is to turn the other side star witness into your witness. And that's what John Hunter did here. And by the time Burcham stepped off of that stand, he was a broken witness. And Lord knows what the jurors at that point are thinking about.

Wait a minute. Are these prosecutors telling us the truth? Do they have their act together? It starts to raise reasonable doubt. In this episode, you mentioned that investigators really hoped Kaylee's remains would speak on her behalf. The bruising would be evidence that she had been beaten to death by Mark Howerton. But then the defense called forensic pathologist William Anderson to the stand. Yeah, and here was another devastating moment for the prosecution side of this, because the prosecutors were trying to make the point that this was the result of a beating inside that car of a jealous boyfriend who took it out on her, and she died as a result of that.

But William Anderson, a forensic pathologist, his testimony raised the possibility that some of these bruises may have been from the times that they tried to resuscitate her in the hospital, chest compressions, you know, putting in lots of needles in the arms, legs, into veins and things, working the body over. And also the fact that she had previously signed a document that if she ever died, that she would donate her organs. And so they did an organ removal. And so what they were able to argue to the jurors is that, no, no, no, a lot of these bruises are from the medical personnel themselves. And that was an enormous moment. And his testimony was powerful.

And Chris, Mark Howerton never took the stand. Never took the stand. Absolutely. He had spoken to investigators at the hospital. They took him into the chapel. And he answered a number of questions without an attorney, a volunteer to do so. And so they got somewhat of a baseline, at least of his story of what happened that night. But

by not taking the stand at trial, Howerton never subjected himself to cross-examination. And trust me, that is one area these prosecutors would have been ready to strike. You know, a lot of the times why victims' families trust 48 Hours to tell the story is because you guys have really done a lot of work behind the scenes building up trust. And Chris, you kept in touch with Kaylee's mother and stepfather this whole time, right? Yes. You know, I talked to them a lot throughout these last five years, and I can tell you that they were suffering. As a parent myself, I really can't imagine their pain, not only losing their daughter, but the fact that one, the first trial ended in a hung jury, and then they had to wait so long, almost five years for a retrial, and they coped with their grief by really looking for answers. Here are her parents, Allison and Lawrence, just speaking about that. I knew we needed to show what happened in that car. The jury needed to know how it happened.

She's a scientist. He's a NASA engineer. They got to work. I spent hours and hours studying autopsy photos, and I really fixated on one of the autopsy photos that showed an impact on Kaylee's head, right in front of her ear. It's really incredible. Yeah, their belief is that Mark Howerton, you know, hit Kaylee in the left ear and drove her head into the window and onto the lock button of the car. Yeah, what they did with this information, remember, as you just heard, one's a scientist, one's an engineer, and they tapped into a brilliant network of experts as far away as the United Kingdom. And's almost for some, though, kind of uncomfortable, so he didn't put the face on television, but he created this so he could demonstrate exactly

where these injuries were on the head. So, you know, these are science-minded people. They want to be as accurate as possible. So it's not just about just the imaging. They actually bought Mark Howerton's car. In between trials, Lawrence kept telling me that he was looking for Howerton's car. And I really didn't believe him, you know, that he would actually find it and buy it. Once again, I feel like there's a lot of firsts in this story, and this was yet another one. I never really experienced anything like this. Just how chilling is it to hear him talk about driving the car home? This is the car in which, you know, he believes that his daughter was killed in.

I want to play some sound. It's torturous. But it's also, you know, she was showing us what happened. You know, she was guiding us to this car. I know it took him a very long time to find it. And the details I'm not really sure about. But I can tell you, Lawrence spent hours, many long hours, you know, tracking it down. Wow. All right. So we're going to take a short break.

When we come back, Kaylee's family finds hope in a second trial. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the trouble case against Carlsley Green, early and ad free with a 48 48-hours-plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly?

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you're gonna 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. Welcome back. Before we get back to the case itself, Peter, you mentioned you observed something about yourself while watching the episode again.

Can you talk about that? So we're in Fort Worth. watching the episode again. Can you talk about that? So we're in Fort Worth. I'm doing an interview with Christy Jack, a very prominent defense attorney and former prosecutor who is helping us on this story. We had set up a studio inside this large ballroom. It was all lit, but all around it was completely pitch black. Long story short, one of the crew guys put a sandbag we'd been using to keep a door open in the darkness. I'm walking back onto the set and my toe hits this bag. I tumble over forward.

I break my right large toe. I land on the barely covered floor, which is concrete, on my right knee. So I'm in excruciating pain. The knee is swelling up. And within about two minutes after I had done this, she comes back in. Christy Jack comes back in with her entourage. So I'm like, oh, yeah, have a seat, Christy. Because I still had another hour of interviewing to do. So if you look during the show, you'll see at some point that my hair's a little messed up. My face is sweating a bit and a little bit red. And it's because I am in screaming, excruciating pain with a broken toe and a damaged right knee.

And she never knew. She had no idea. Peter, I'm trying to hold back. I don't want to laugh at you, but that is hilarious. And as soon as you said toe, everyone knows it's the smallest piece of real estate on the body, but it just cannot take any pain at all. How are things looking right now? Full recovery? All is healed. Yeah, I'm doing just fine. I'm just still embarrassed. So the big reason that we're doing this follow-up episode on the death of Kaylee Mandati is that the case went to a second trial in May of 2023. But before it does, Mark Howerton is posting on social media. Here he is in a video that he posted online. Wow. 75% of people think I'm guilty. That just means 75% of people in the world are going to have to suck.

When I saw it the first time, I fell out of my chair. Well, I'm sure his defense attorneys must have been like, can you please get off of social media? When Peter asked them in the interview, they basically said that Howerton was coping with the pressure of just being falsely accused and basically said, quote, was relieving some of that tension. Okay. I suppose that's one way to do it. So, Chris, can we talk about the second trial and just like, how did it feel different? So the first trial, you know, they just had one charge, felony murder.

This trial, they decided to have more charges, including aggravated assault and criminally negligent homicide. Felony murder wasn't going to stick. In Texas, the bar is very high to prove intent to kill. And also, the defense did not call forensic pathologist William Anderson. No, here's the star witness, and he's not even called in the second. And why? Because this time the prosecutors knew everything that he had to say from the first trial. They were ready to counter it. They had their own expert ready to counter it. And through discovery, John Hunter learns that they've got somebody who can basically checkmate their star witness. So they don't bring him on. Another person who does not appear in the second

trial is the ex-boyfriend, Jet Burcham. No, they were not going to bring Jet Burcham back on the stand for humiliation round two. He played no role whatsoever. So can we also talk about that video that Kaylee's mom and stepdad commissioned? They used actors to demonstrate just how Mark could have assaulted Kaylee in the car. They faced quite a choice at trial. Here's attorney Christy Jack explaining. The judge said, I'm going to let it in. But if so, then the parents are now witnesses and they will no longer be allowed to sit in the trial.

And the prosecution went and talked to the parents and they decided to withdraw the exhibit. Remember, the parents, even though they're the scientists behind this, they did not take part in the production of the exhibit. Remember, the parents, even though they're the scientists behind this, they did not take part in the production of the video. They hired a private investigator, but the parents did tell us that they didn't realize if they introduced this, because they funded it, that they would not be able to sit in for the rest of the trial. And they told us that was the main reason why they ended up going along with not showing the video. And just to reinforce what you said,

they actually didn't even see the video until after you screened it for them. That's right. And we screened it during the course of the hour, but that was part of the condition where they would have no influence, no bias whatsoever with this video. And, you know, listen, Allison is a very,

everyone deals with their pain differently and she's not an emotional person. But when she saw that video for the first time, she did break down. And she said to us that she felt like she was watching how her daughter was killed because that's how visual and how strong the video was. It was a powerful moment. Okay, let's talk about the verdict.

Mark Howerton was found not guilty of murder, but he was convicted of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, and he was sentenced to the maximum for that 20 years in prison. I know the family really wanted murder, but Mark Howerton will be locked up for 20 years. And they do feel some sense of relief about that. But I do know that they are still angry. And during the allocution part of this trial, Lawrence basically gave some statements. And he directed a lot of his anger at John Hunter, Mark Howerton's attorney. In fact, I want to play a little sound.

My statement after the sentencing hearing was to hold Mr. Hunter accountable for his actions, to make him aware of what he's doing to the victims and his own legacy and his relationships with the people around him are going to change because of his lack of moral character. And Hunter ended up standing up during this hearing and he walked out of the room. standing up during this hearing, and he walked out of the room. Now, John Hunter told me he resented the insinuation or outright accusation that he had done anything unethical or dishonest in his presentation of the evidence. You know, he's a grieving man. And in his mind, this is black and white. And the fact that it wasn't black and white in reality, and the fact that there was a lot of complexity to it, and the fact that there was reasonable doubt that acquitted Mark of murder obviously infuriates him.

I'm sure John Hunter thought that he was doing what he's supposed to do. It's a great episode as usual. Thank you so much, Peter and Chris, for joining us today. Thanks, Anne-Marie. Thanks, Anne-Marie. So listen, be sure to join us next Tuesday, of course, for another Postmortem and watch 48 Hours, Saturdays, 10, 9 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. And if you're liking the show, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts

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