48 Hours - The Preacher's Obsession

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

Felicia Tang was an actress and model in Hollywood, CA and her boyfriend, Brian Randone, was a former minister and one-time reality show contestant. After a night of sex and drugs, Randone called 9-1-1 claiming Felicia had overdosed. But after the medical examiner determined Felicia had been smothered, Randone was charged with murder and torture. What would a jury believe? “48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/2/2014. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.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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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 Twist your hips this way. Nice. Felicia was definitely a natural when it came to modeling. Hi, my name is Felicia Tang. I don't know her as a model. I just know her as Felicia.

I think fast cars and hot girls have gone together since the beginning of motorsports. When I first saw Felicia, I said, that's my competition. We all come to Hollywood with dreams of making it. And Felicia was on the fast track. But one day in 2009, I couldn't believe what they told me. Felicia was gone. I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it.

It looked like there was a horrendous fight. Something awful happened here. Well, her body was a mess. Somebody had beat this girl bad. We were interested in the boyfriend, Brian Rendoni. When I heard that Brian was accused of that, I was absolutely shocked. I mean, there's no way. He was a youth minister the time that I met him, and just really big into his faith.

There's a verse that says, knock, and the door will be open. Seek, and you'll find. He told me she was very special to him, and he told me he loved her. We planned on getting married. It's a tragedy what I've been through. You'll be open. Seek and you'll find. He told me she was very special to him and he told me he loved her. We planned on getting married. It's a tragedy what I've been through. He's not saying what happened.

I don't believe it was an accident. There's a proverb that says, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. Because you quote the Bible does not make you a man of God. I never did anything to harm Felicia, ever. I think he's a sociopath. Textbook. What's going on? What time did you arrive on the scene? I got here about 3.30 p.m.

So the chaos was over, but the scene was still intact? Right. It didn't look like it was ransacked like it looked like upstairs. Upstairs was a completely different story. Detective Brian Schoonmaker of the L.A. Sheriff's Homicide Bureau took us to a vacant apartment next door to the actual scene. The layout is identical. When you came around this corner and just took a first glance at this bedroom, what was your impression? There'd been a fight.

As I walked in the bedroom, oh my God, it looked like a bomb went off in the bedroom. Another cop, Detective Richard Doaney, was also on the scene that day. The closet was broken. There was globs of hair on the floor. The bedding was all over the floor. There was a big wet spot on the bed. So this is an outline of where the bed was.

Right. This would have been where the king size bed is. And there was two large blood stains, one near the head of the bed and one in the middle of the bed. The doors were off the rails. This center door was actually broken through. What we saw was blood and there was hundreds of blood spots back and forth and there were smears. So you can tell that the person that was bleeding was moving in a crouched position

back and forth against this wall. You think she crawls in here? She crawled in here to hide. I believe that he was trying to get her from this side. She'd move to that side. He'd come to this side. She'd move to this side. As I walked into the bathroom, there was the victim laying on the floor.

She was naked, she was laying on her back. Her eyes were open and she was staring straight up. The girl on the bathroom floor turned out to be 31-year-old Felicia Tang, a model and actress with the typical Hollywood dream of fame and fortune. At full throttle, the cars are fast, but the women are faster. She's my best friend for many, many years,

and probably the only friend I had for a while. Christina knew Felicia for 10 years. She has asked that we not use her last name. I just knew she was making a ton of money. She had a lot of gigs and it just escalated. I love them, Portcina's full of sexy women and sexy cars. She loved the cars, she loved the crowds and she was just really into it.

Tilt your head a little in this way, perfect. Mike Ferrari got Felicia started in modeling. He runs D-Sport Magazine, a business built around fast Asian cars and models. The D-Sport cover formula is a badass car and a hot model. He put Felicia on the cover. Oh, throw the rocks. She was born in Singapore,

came over here to the United States, and was chasing that American dream. Oh my goodness. For Felicia, it worked. Snagging a couple of small roles in blockbuster movies with big stars. Rush Hour 2 and The Fast and the Furious. She was really hoping to get that big break.

But that really big break never came. And by 2009, after 10 years of the fast life, chasing her dream, Felicia decided to slow down and start school. She also met a new man, a successful salesman, a board-again Christian who found a unique way of spreading the gospel. Stand firm and say we need God In America again He definitely has a lot of presence. He's some type of Bible mime,

so he's got this thing about him. I use my body like dance and movement and mime and speaking. Just traveled all over the world and showed people basically how to apply the Bible to life. Strangely enough, Randoni the preacher also loved Las Vegas. That's where he met Felicia in April 2009. He just was straight at her with that intensity and just went boom, right at her.

She's like the perfect girl. She was like my dream girl. It felt like that guy that was just trying to score. He was just trying to pull her in to him as if he was already going to walk away with her. That's when I turned around and I said, hey, you already got her number. That's it.

Enough is enough. But Brian Rendoni was charming, attractive, and he had money. So a few days later when he called, Felicia agreed to a date. Still, her friend Christina was skeptical. What kind of a guy says to you on the first date, what would your parents think if you married a white guy? But that suggestion of marriage may have been exactly what Felicia was looking for.

She wanted to create a home in that type of lifestyle. That's what she was like. She was a betting homemaker. And they found out they had a lot in common. We liked hiking. We liked jet skiing. We liked dancing. And we liked partying.

In just two months, Felicia was practically living in Brian's suburban L.A. apartment. So on the day that paramedics found Felicia's body and Brian's bedroom destroyed, it seemed fairly logical that police would suspect Randoni. He had been home. He was the one who called 911. And according to the cops, he was acting a little strange.

When I walked in the room, I noticed the boyfriend, Mr. Rendoni, was sitting with his arms on his legs, and he had his head down, and he was just sitting very quiet, very still. The impression I got that he wasn't upset, there was no emotion. And my God, I mean, even if I had a dead stranger upstairs in my bathroom, I'd be very emotional. I just point blank asked him, what happened? He looked up at me. He was not crying again, which I thought was a little strange. And he said, we both used GHB and we were having rough sex.

GHB, Gamma Hyd hydroxybutyric acid. It's a naturally occurring substance found in the body, but it can also be made synthetically. And in the last few decades, it's become a popular illegal party drug. A drug that is supposed to make you feel sleepy and sexy. And it's supposed to be sipped by the capful. Felicia drank it like water, Brian says, from this bottle on her bedside table.

Did you tell a cop who was there that morning that the two of you were having rough sex? No, I saw that in Felicia's brother. Where does this guy get this from? You never told anyone? Never. We never had rough sex. Why would I lie about that? I have a clean, perfect record.

I'm straight arrow. If it's true that they did have rough sex, if it's true that they were under the influence of GHB, sometime during this rough sex, he got too rough with her. And I firmly believe that this is a murder case, and he killed her. Randoni was charged with Felicia Tang's murder just hours after she was pronounced dead.

When he remembers his early days in jail, Randoni says the charge was not only a rush to judgment, but a flat-out lie. Did you kill Felicia? Absolutely not. Did you beat her? Did you lay a hand on her in any way? I've never hit Felicia. I've never hit a woman. I just... I just... I don't do that.

I did just the opposite. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately

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To listen ad free, join Wond the truth, the truth will set you free. It's a tragedy. It's a nightmare. I mean, Felicia died. I'm in jail. This is just the worst thing in the world. 1,500 miles from an LA County jail, a squeaky clean Brian Randoni grew up in Nebraska, played football, and when he was a senior in high school,

found Jesus. That's also when he discovered a deep desire to spread the gospel. You listen and you'll learn. Brian Randoni. He created his own preaching style, a sort of religious performance art. I had a drama where I start out with rockabye baby music and this guy's a little baby and he's playing around in this pen, he's holding onto these bars. The whole theme was, you know, babies are in pens because they're immature.

When they get older, if you start to do things that can hurt yourself or hurt other people, you know, your freedom's taken away again. And isn't that ironic? Yeah. [♪upbeat music playing on radio I had read that you had committed to celibacy for a while. Well, I still believe in that. I mean, I believe that you should be celibate until you're married.

Brian admits he had a hard time sticking to that one. I have kind of an ADD-type personality, so I just like excitement. And it was the promise of an exciting life that lured him here in the year 2000 to the bright lights and big stars of Los Angeles. What took you from Dallas and religious performance art to Los

Angeles and kind of a wild and crazy and somewhat lewd life? I started doing some acting, I started doing commercials and then I got selected by Fox for the crazy and somewhat lewd life. I started doing some acting. I started doing commercials. And then I got selected by Fox for the Sexiest Bachelor in America show. Representing the Cornhuskers State, Mr. Nebraska. Hi, I'm Brian Randoni.

I'm an inspirational performance artist from Omaha. And LA did not disappoint. Brian had moved here to become an actor, but quickly realized his real talent was in sales. He started his own business, worked hard and made a lot of money selling phone and internet services. By June 2009, just two months after meeting the woman of his dreams, Brian says he was already planning their life together. We were gonna get married. Really, had you proposed?

Not, I hadn't actually proposed, I had told, I mean, I had told my parents. When he called, he said, mom, I met a girl. So he took her home to Nebraska for the 4th of July. He said, well, dad, what do you think of Felicia? I said, she seems very pretty, very nice. He said, well, Dad, what do you think of Felicia? I said, she seems very pretty, very nice. He said, well, good. He said, because I think I'm going to marry her.

I said, whoa, whoa. I said, when did this happen? It happened before Brian had time to learn about Felicia's past. When she told me about some of her past, it was like, wow. Wow is right. She had done some nude stuff, soft porn before,

but she hadn't done anything for years before I met her. Did she have a nude website? She did, but she didn't tell me about it until July. My grandkids and grandpa, she's got a thing on the computer. I said, what? Holy mackerel. Softcore porn wasn't the only part of Felicia's life that Brian says he had known about.

The other was drugs. She pretty much introduced me to the terrible drug, that GHB. She goes, look, I do this all the time. I know what I'm doing with it. But she said, if I ever do too much of this, don't ever call 911. On the night of September 10th, 2009, the night before Felicia died, Brian was late getting home and Felicia was mad. I got back to the car about 12.05 and I flip up my phone. I see all these texts that says, get home right away. Felicia's texts got pretty angry pretty quickly.

You're the hurtful one. I don't like that you effing disrespect me by hanging up and I'm freaking out. I got home and then she was like a tornado coming at me. About 3 a.m., Brian says Felicia calmed down, and they both drank some GHB. I take some, and then she grabs it, and she goes, go, go, go. She downs it.

And was the point of taking it because the two of you were going to have sex? Probably, yeah. It hit me. And all of a sudden it hit her, and she kind of went like this. Basically it was like two drunk people, and I just remember her rolling off the bed. And that, according to Brian Randoni, is when a normal night of sex and drugs began to spiral out of control. For the next several hours, according to Randoni,

Felicia was freaking out and thrashing about. And at one point flung herself head first through those closet doors. So the two of you fall through the closet door. Yeah, well, I remember she fell through and then I just, I was trying to pull her up and then I just, no, you know, just rest here because this is safer than out in the room.

I passed out and about 6.30 in the morning, I hear this slow, methodical, I wake up and I think, where am I, what happened? She was slowly thrashing about. So I just thought, I just got to get pillows. So I grabbed as many pillows as I could and I shoved them all around so that if she was slowly thrashing about. So I just thought, I just gotta get pillows. So I grabbed as many pillows as I could and I shoved them all around

so that if she was doing this movement type thing, that she would hit the pillows. A couple of hours later, Brian says Felicia seemed fine. She had no blood on her face. But I've seen the pictures of her on the floor in the bathroom. There was definitely bruising and cuts and scrapes. When you saw her at eight o'clock in the morning,

which is four hours earlier than when the paramedics arrived, there was no blood, no cuts, no scratches, no scrapes, no bruising on her face anywhere, on her arms, on her legs? I didn't see her arms and her legs, because remember, the room is dark. OK, but on her face? She had't see her arms and her legs, because remember, the room is dark. Okay, but on her face? She had little red beads up here, but nothing like you saw on the...

Like, her face just looks like she's high. Brian says he left the bedroom and started his workday downstairs. I had payroll coming up, and all my sales guys were calling up. Then, at about 11.30 in the morning, Brian says he came back upstairs to the bedroom. Only then did he see the extent of Felicia's condition.

I saw her arm was all bruised up. And I looked at her legs, and she had all these little scratches down here. I looked at her, and I said, baby, you look terrible. I said, let me get some stuff. Finally, according to Randoni, hours after the chaos began, Brian ran to get a bottle of hydrogen peroxide to try to help the woman he loved.

I said, this is going to hurt. I said, so just be prepared. So I poured some on the big, long scratch on her leg, and it kind of busted up., and then she's like, and I'm like, Felicia, Felicia, Felicia. It was the morning of September 11th, 2009. So you're tending to the scratches and you pour the peroxide on, you warn her this is gonna sting, and there's no reaction.

Very little reaction. So it's now 11.45. Now I'm freaking out. Now you're freaking out. Now I'm not. And you're freaking out because? Because she wasn't responding. So what happens from that moment?

Well, at that point, that's like a five to 10 minute time between the time she actually stopped breathing and I called 911. But you weren't on the phone with payroll people in between the time that she didn't react to the hydrogen peroxide and you calling 911, were you? You know, I was getting so many calls right after the other. As I was, I mean, I can do two things at one time. I mean, on the phone, yeah, okay, I'm looking around thinking. So I'm...

Yeah, but she's not reacting. Is she conscious right now? No, she's not conscious. I'm hearing her mouth to mouth. I thought, I got to get her to the shower. So I pulled her as fast as I could to the shower and I started, I called get her to the shower. So I pulled her as fast as I could to the shower, and I started, I called 911 at the same time. Is she breathing? She's breathing, yeah.

Okay, if she's breathing, do not give her mouth to mouth. You know, when I breathe into her, she's breathing, but... So she's not breathing, you're breathing for her. Yeah. Come on, baby, fight. Come on, baby, come on. When paramedics arrived, Felicia was dead.

But the EKG still showed a signal. It looks something like this. It's called PEA, Pulseless Electrical Activity. And it's going to play a very important role in this case. The presence of PEA indicates Felicia had been dead no more than 30 minutes. When police canvassed Brian's apartment, they found some mysterious clues and started to piece together what might have happened in the hours leading up to Felicia's death. It looked like the place might have been gone through and cleaned up maybe.

The dryer was actually cycling. Like someone was doing a load of laundry. When we were searching inside we found bed sheets and pillowcases that belonged to the king size bed in the master bedroom. The pillowcases in the dryer appeared to be bloody and police say the stains matched the stains on the bedroom pillows and there were odd clumps of hair on the floor. Myself and the sheriff's belief, he dragged her by the hair because we found such big globs of hair in the bedroom. Was your gut reaction murder?

Oh, absolutely, yes. She did not get in this condition by herself. There were dozens and dozens of wounds all over her body, her knees down over her body, her knees down to her feet, her elbows down to her hands. Solid, dark, purple bruising. Enol, scoonmaker says he counted some 320 bruises, lacerations, and abrasions on Felicia's body.

He strongly believes that pattern, from knees to the feet and elbows to the hands, is a hallmark of defensive wounds. According to the detective, Felicia wasn't flailing about and out of control. She was curled up, defending herself. These parallel marks, they are wrapped around her legs. How does someone get a mark like this? I think he was probably whipping her

with some kind of instrument. If she bends her knee, these two patterns line up. So you're saying that if she was... I'm going to get down and do this if I can. If she's in this defensive position, like this, and the leg goes down, that this would match up straight across.

And you think this was whip, hanger? It could have been a wire hanger. Abrasions or lacerations on forehead, both eyes, bridge of the nose, upper lower lip, inside the lip, she had bit through her tongue, the right breast is lacerated, bruising on the left, and then,

really, the most bizarre part of it were these double, these parallel lines that were all over her legs. It is an extraordinary amount of bruising and cuts. Would you not agree? Yeah. It seems almost impossible to believe that someone could inflict all of that on themselves.

Yeah. But you believe, and you say, that could inflict all of that on themselves. Yeah. But you believe and you say that she did all of it to herself. Yeah, I mean, I don't believe. I know. Is it possible that, yes, there was an altercation, but she still did die of an overdose? Yeah, I would consider that. But the thing that convinces me and that persuades me that this is a murder is the medical examiner who actually did the autopsy says that all the markers of smothering are present.

Those markers include the dark mask of bruises, abrasions and scrapes on Felicia's face and forehead, the teeth marks inside her lips, and the bite through her tongue. The medical examiner concluded that Felicia had been smothered, forcibly suffocated by covering her nose and her mouth. He believes that that deep bruising on her face and the bite mark on her tongue

were a result of Felicia's desperate struggle to breathe. mark on her tongue were a result of Felicia's desperate struggle to breathe. Brian Randoni was charged with murder. But prosecutors didn't stop there. When they saw the extensive bruising and cuts on Felicia's arms and legs, they added another charge – torture. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't.

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I just remember being just so sad and so devastated. And I just remember saying, God, you know, you have to get me through this. On November 14, 2011, two years after Felicia's death, Ryan entered a Pasadena courtroom to be tried for murder and torture. I definitely wanted to know what happened that night. You know, what if it was an accident? The cops didn't think so. She did not get in this condition by herself.

We had our victim, we had our suspect, and we knew what happened. The prosecution was trying to prove a murder when there was no murder. Ryan's defense attorney attorney Mark Overland. He says the case is simple. Felicia died from an overdose. This was a case about GHB and the effects of GHB.

The problem with GHB and why it is so dangerous is that there's no way to measure what that lethal level is. The toxicology report did show Felicia's GHB level was very high. But because of those facial markers, the LA Medical Examiner still calls it smothering. In fact, at the trial, the medical examiner admitted he concluded it was smothering before even seeing the toxicology report. Something the defense says is just bad science. They reached conclusions that were just medically unsound. Smothering is something you reach when you don't have any other explanation. Look no further, he says, GHB is the explanation. 515, I said get me an ambulance here.

Sit. Oh, oh. It's almost like drinking, a little catful, it's almost like drinking six beers with a touch of PCP on top. Trinka Perata is a retired Los Angeles Police Department narcotics cop. I like to put people in prison. I love the sound of handcuffs, morning, noon or night, but I like for them to be guilty. And there just wasn't enough there.

Since retiring from the LAPD, Perotta has become an activist and go-to expert on GHB. She testified for the defense. Hey, Tony. Perotta has amassed a video library of people under the influence to help illustrate the dangers of GHB. It has a great amnesia effect. It has a sexual component for many people. It also requires a very tiny amount to cause these effects.

You can die from the same amount that another person has a good time on. In your opinion, was this a murder case? Based on the information I was given, this to me is a GHB death, and I don't believe it was a murder. When you first look at those photos, they're pretty devastating. But it does look like the people that I deal with,

many of whom bang themselves into things, they have what we call sometimes a head snap when they take their dose. One young man broke the mirror in his bathroom six times sometimes a head snap. When they take their dose, one young man broke the mirror in his bathroom six times from the head snap. Sir. Oh, I'm all right. You're not okay.

Oh, I'm all right. Sit down on the ground. I'm all right. No, no. So I was a narcotics detective for 22 years. I saw a lot of overdoses. Never saw one where it was violent, where people threw themselves into a closet

or where people thrashed themselves up. Never saw it. But Perotta says these videos prove it. You know, as he's falling down, he's just crashing it all over the place. Detective Doni argues overdoses are quieter than this. They usually fall down right where they're at and massive heart attack or their heart just stops or they wake up in the morning down right where they're at and you know massive heart attack or their

heart just stops or they wake up in the morning not breathing and they're dead. And on that point, Perotta agrees with the prosecution. That's because she believes Felicia took two doses. One the night before she died that caused a rage. Based on her text messages and what was going on with her, it's obvious that she was in a rage for whatever reason. He says that he tried to stop her and they fell through the closet door. And then the next morning, Perrata believes Felicia took another dose, the fatal dose.

They slept for a while and I think that when she woke up while he was downstairs, she took more. The defense brought 17 witnesses over six days. It all sounded very scientific but none of that made any sense. But the worst part, says Christina, was how the defense painted Felicia as a lowlife. I felt like I was just going to a really bad funeral day after day having to see those photos and them just you know picking her apart as some druggy. The defense maintains Felicia's many wounds were nothing more than self-inflicted scratches,

a far cry from torture. To torture somebody, it's got to be a methodical infliction of pain for a sadistic purpose. You didn't feel that the scratches and lacerations and bruises, etc. spoke to that? Torture by scratching? Hardly, no. And what about those stained pillowcases in the dryer? When lab tests were completed, they showed no blood. Hardly a case for murder, says the defense. And what's more, the defense adds,

Brian simply had no motive to kill Felicia. We had plans to go to Houston. We had plans to go to Las Vegas for our concert. And then after that, we were going to go to my parents' 51st wedding anniversary. So our relationship was fine, you know? It was actually really, really good. Brian Randoni did not take the stand,

so the jury never heard him tell his version of what happened that night. They only heard about the brief statements he made to police and that desperate 911 call. But they didn't need to hear from Brian, given what they were about to be told by this man. There's no way she was smothered or was it a homicide. Former San Diego Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Harry Bonnell says homicide is simply impossible and claims the PEA paramedics found in Felicia's body proves it.

PEA stands for Pulseless Electrical Activity. So you have the electrical system of the heart working, but the heart itself is not pumping. Dr. Bonnell says there are only two causes of PEA. With reasonable medical certainty, the causes of PEA are drugs or blood volume loss. And Dr. Bonnell went on, telling the jury there is no PEA in smothering. There was no murder.

There was no evidence to support a murder. And that is when a real-life courtroom drama unfolded. The prosecutor, who was clearly surprised by this testimony, begged the judge for an opportunity to call a rebuttal witness. But the judge refused. So were you concerned going to jury? Absolutely.

I was wondering, is this a fatal point in our case? Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announce they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes.

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fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. There's a verse that says knock, the door will be open. Seek and you'll find. Brian Randoni's murder trial lasted four weeks. I just believe whenever you seek after truth, you find truth.

The trial had become quite the sensation, with local media dubbing it the case of the preacher and the porn star. The newspapers just grabbed on to that. He wasn't preaching, he just believed. Brian's parents had come all the way from Nebraska to LA for the trial. We didn't know the streets, we didn't know anything. They stayed the entire month. We didn't want to miss a lick. The defense had scored some points during trial.

Torture by scratching? Hardly, no. There was no murder, there was no evidence to support a murder. Especially when the prosecution lost the opportunity to rebut dr. Bonnell's testimony. Prosecutors still believe they had a very strong case felicia's injuries and that busted up room. They believed the only explanation was murder. In my opinion, yes, I thought we had a slam dunk case. The jury got the case on a Thursday morning. Now it's just wait for their verdict.

And they were back on Friday afternoon. The verdict? Not guilty of torture. Not guilty of murder. I was stunned. I was literally speechless. Actually, I said, okay, stop joking. Really, what did they say? No, not guilty, both counts. It literally was the worst day of my life.

And sometimes if you have a complex case, No, not guilty, both counts. It literally was the worst day of my life. And sometimes if you have a complex case, it's hard to explain that to 12 people and make them understand what happened. After the trial, two of the jurors agreed to speak with 48 Hours about their decision. They have asked us not to use their names. The first picture that they put up on the screen across the room was her face all bruised and I'm a nurse, but it shocked me. I remember almost jumping in my chair. Those photos might have made her jump, but surprisingly, as the jury poured over the evidence, what police thought was the strongest point of the case, Felicia's injuries, did

not seem to impress either one of these jurors. But when we were actually in the jurors' room and we were looking at them close up, it became obvious to me that they were more like scratches with scabs on them, almost like what a drug addict does when they pick. And what about that charge of torture? Did the charge of torture seem reasonable in this situation? No. Overkill?

Yes. And did that affect your deliberations? Yes. I mean, when you think of torture, I didn't...my personal opinion was her injuries did not substantiate that definition. When you first looked at those pictures though, I mean, she is covered literally head to toe. She has these scratch marks. Yeah, but they're scratches. Murder, however, did seem possible at least to one juror.

What did you think of the idea, the prosecution, their medical examiner said she was suffocated. Did you believe that? I did. And one of the reasons is because no one can give me a reason why she has all the bruising on her face. But the other juror we spoke to says she thought it more likely that drugs killed Felicia.

Being a drug addict or even having that as part of your lifestyle, death always comes with the territory. And it turns out Dr. Bonnell's testimony was crucial. Was the testimony about PEA the deciding factor for you? It was. I didn't think he was guilty, but the PEA pretty much solidified my decision. Were you bothered by the fact that the prosecution did not have an answer for what the defense expert said about PEA? Yes, because they never even explored it.

They never brought it up. The jurors were totally unaware that the prosecutor had tried to call a rebuttal witness. And several medical examiners that 48 Hours spoke with made it clear. They would have testified that Dr. Bonnell was incorrect. They say PEA is possible in smothering. This was a complicated case, but for one juror it was clear that not guilty was not the same as innocent. Do you think a killer was set free? Yes.

I don't know whether he actually physically killed her or not, but I think he had something to do with her death. The problem, this juror says, is that the prosecution simply was not able to prove its case. I wish I could have come up with a guilty verdict, but with what we had to work with, there wasn't any way that I could. Does that haunt you? It does. We did what we could with the evidence and the information that we had. And I wish we'd had more. information that we had. And I wish we'd had more. I think it's a travesty of justice.

I firmly believe that he killed her. It was like they made it okay. Like it's okay for Brian to kill somebody. Brian Randoni is not a killer. He does have a life, he does have a future, and that future shouldn't be besmirched by these false accusations. And there is not a killer walking the streets. Brian Ranjoni thinks the whole thing comes down to a cop

with tunnel vision. One cop, Detective Schoonmaker. I would think that after he was examining the facts and doing an investigation, he would say, this doesn't make sense. You know, there's not one text from Brian saying, oh, I'm gonna be mad at you. There's not one voicemail from me saying,

oh, I'm gonna, you know, she has this huge level of GHB and I call 911, I'm doing CPR, and you would think, this doesn't make any sense. When the facts don't fit your theory, change your theory to fit the facts. Six months after the verdict, Randoni was asked to come back by the very same people who had accused him of murder. And it's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Brian Randoni, the Spice Police.

But this time, Brian was back spreading the good word, preaching to religious volunteers in the LA jails, at the podium of the LA Sheriff's Department. You really didn't know by all that you folded in any way. Well Jesus took that word you gave, and that's why I'm here today. She's really beautiful. She's a go-getter and I believe that anything she chose to do in life, that she would take it all the way. But in trial it was the opposite.

He's a preacher and she's the ex porn star. That's what they said. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. This holiday season give your loved ones only the best from L.L. Bean. Let them wrap themselves in L.L. Bean's wide variety of sweaters. Choose from L.L. Bean's classics like their rag wool and cotton fisherman sweaters, crafted with exceptional materials like lambswool and premium cotton.

They're the perfect way to stay cozy and warm all winter. Give only the best gifts from L.L. Bean at Oakville Place, George and Mollenberry, and CF shops at Don Mills. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood walk of. Did he built an empire and live the life most people only dream about everybody no no party like a did he party so yeah. But just as quickly as his empire rose it came crashing

down. They're announcing the unsealing of a 3 count indictment charging Sean combs with racketeering conspiracy sex trafficking interstate transportation for prostitution I was. I made no excuses. This custom so sorry. Until you're wearing orange jumpsuit it's not real now

it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace from law and crime this is the rise and fall of getting. Listen to the rise and fall of getting exclusively with wondering plus.