Anatomy of Murder - Getting Away With... (Daniel Keys, John Lloyd, Michael George)
Episode Date: February 14, 2023Larceny, brutal assault, murder plots — a diabolical plan being set in motion, and investigators have to stop it before it is too late.For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatom...yofmurder.com/ Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc
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The planning, the fact that he drew maps of different properties, and they were accurate,
these maps were accurate to what he was describing.
Some of them eerily so, it's just uncanny that he was stalking Judge George to this
level.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anasiga Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor
and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murder.
To begin our journey into this case, I do want to mention it's the type of case we've never featured on AOM before, including some of the investigative techniques you'll hear about.
Let's just say you'll definitely walk away saying, wow, those were pretty amazing.
It's just something I've lived with this case for a long period of time. We're listening to Brian Sinnott, who is the elected district attorney of Adams County, Pennsylvania.
And while you may not be sure if you actually know where Adams County is or anything about it, you've definitely heard of the county seat, Gettysburg.
You know, the whole four scores seven years ago in the Gettysburg address.
The two big economic draws are first and foremost the tourism,
which is based upon the Civil War battle that happened here.
We have a big farming community, a lot of apple orchards and peach orchards
and things like that that provide industry for the rest of the members of the community.
It's very rural outside of the town of Gettysburg,
which is a small little quaint town, but it's a nice little town.
We were fortunate to spend time with Brian in Gettysburg a few years ago,
back for an episode of True Conviction.
Gettysburg, while it has this amazing history,
it has this feel to me, at least, of a college town.
I remember there was like lots of great gastropubs and restaurants,
and it really has this vibrant feel when you're there.
It was really a great town and great to spend some time there.
But when this case happened, Brian was not the DA at the time.
It predates me becoming the elected DA.
I handled this case when I was the first assistant here.
On April 30th of 2006, about two years after Brian became the first assistant DA,
state troopers responded to a call about an assault.
But what police didn't know at the time was that there was actually multiple lives really at stake.
They were called because the man had originally called because he found Daniel Keyes beaten severely and laying in his front yard, I guess, attempting to get help for himself.
And I think Keyes also was able to at least make a partial phone call to get 911 at least involved.
It was around 8 p.m. when Daniel Keyes returned home, only to be confronted by a masked man.
He had been out to dinner with his brother, and when he opened the door to go inside his house,
somebody was waiting in there for him.
That was the first thing they did to him was throw this pot of boiling water like that right into his face to kind of overtake him.
Boiling water to his face.
You know, just hearing that makes you cringe and turn away.
Because beyond the injuries that this type of crime would obviously inflict upon someone, there is a sadistic element to causing that type of injury.
And after he was incapacitated by the boiling water,
the intruder struck him again and again and again with a baseball bat.
He'd been beaten a lot among his head and face and neck and upper torso area.
Until basically, I think he was rendered unconscious.
He's got fractures of his head and all over the place.
Now, we can only assume that after he regained consciousness,
that he used what little strength he had left to try to get help by literally crawling outside onto his front yard.
This, again, is a rural part of Adams County.
He's flown via helicopter to a hospital for treatment.
Air flight is normally used for really critical cases where time is of the essence.
Often you see this most when there are these wide, rural, open spaces,
exactly the type of places here where it would take you a long time to physically get to a hospital,
or it's also if the victim needs a different type of care than what's available locally.
If a helicopter can respond quickly,
they have more life-saving measures on that flight
when they're going to the trauma center
than the ambulance would have.
And the ambulance ride from where Daniel Keyes lived
probably would be an hour in any direction
to a trauma center for sure.
Let's talk about his injuries.
Daniel suffered injuries to his eyes,
lacerations to his head that required 103 stitches,
three broken fingers on each hand, a broken wrist, a broken hand,
and of course, like we mentioned before, burns to his head and the surrounding area.
I think at one point in time, there was some concern he might not regain his sight
because of some of the damage that he had suffered.
I've never seen anybody take a beating like this.
I don't know how he didn't die.
Fortunately, Daniel Keyes didn't die and he survived.
He was able to regain his sight and I think for the most part had a full recovery.
Now, considering how this attack unfolded, the perpetrator was already, as we know, in the victim's home.
And the first question I would have would be, how did he get in?
Did he have prior access?
And could those answers provide any clues to maybe who he was?
Or was this a burglary in progress that was interrupted by a homeowner?
The thing that, for me, honestly, that throws a curve is the boiling water.
I mean, that just doesn't happen as somebody's inserting a key into a door.
There's some planning that goes into that,
almost sort of like a lying in wait element.
It's exactly right.
Well, at first, like, okay,
could it be a burglar interrupted?
But again, what is the burglar doing?
Sitting having tea that they've just boiled water?
Of course not.
So was this for a certain purpose?
It certainly sounds personal.
I don't remember this type of attack, lying awake in someone's home and going through these efforts to kill them or attempt to kill them ever.
So think about the boiling water for a moment.
Was this to disable him and then obviously give the intruder an opportunity to swing that bat?
Or really was his intention on a secret
to kill him? There are different possibilities when we talk about the weapon of first choice,
which was the boiling water. First, if it's just to injure or maim or even kill, then you just
could have used the bat that the attacker also obviously had at the ready. So when I think about
this boiling water, Scott, obviously it inflicts great pain. It was thrown at the face, which again, when you recover, if you recover
from those burns, you will likely have scarring potentially for the rest of your life. Your eyes
are there. So was it to make this person, the victim, not able to identify his attacker? You
know, there's just so many different levels of why.
Why the boiling water that we need to answer.
Yeah, when you were just saying that,
I was thinking about part of the story, Anasika,
that police talked about,
that when the boiling water was thrown onto him,
he was screaming the name John, John, John,
which was his brother who had just dropped him off and potentially
wanting to alert his brother he was being attacked.
Maybe the bat was a way to either silence him or to prevent John from coming back.
We wonder if he might have been involved because nothing was taken from the house.
So they're wondering, you know, what's the motivation here?
If he went in there, why didn't you take anything?
And of course, the bigger question right now, what's the motivation here? If you went in there, why didn't you take anything?
And of course, the bigger question right now is who was the intruder?
That's a $64,000 question here.
We have gone through that a million times among all of us.
And it's nothing but suspicion and conjecture.
He never was able to get identification.
He was able to give a general description like a size, medium build, his height,
no hair color or anything like that. The intruder was wearing a mask. We've already said that. And to me, it's like he wouldn't put the mask on as he's approaching the house because that would be
too suspicious. The neighbors would obviously say something. So donning a mask once you're inside the house, for me, leaves two possibilities. One,
the homeowner may recognize you, or two, be able to identify your features post-attack.
And I think you have to look at it both ways. I think the initial thought was that it was
somebody he knew. It was not a random attack. There was not a series of these that were
happening. So it's no reason to think, you know, this was going to be happening to other people. But especially given
the fact they knew his habit, they knew he was out to dinner, kind of knew, I would imagine,
what time to expect him home, or at least generally, you know, which door he would come
inside of his house, things like that. So it's somebody who was familiar with his behavior and
his routine, or at least his routine on that particular night. And the initial scrub by crime scene investigators of the home
made it more apparent that the attacker may have been familiar with the victim's home.
A rear screen of the home was removed,
where the attacker was able to enter through a space left at the central air unit.
Investigators found the back door unlocked,
but it's possible that the egress, or that's how the attacker left the home, obviously not locking as he was leaving.
Even though Daniel Keyes never saw his attacker's face, he did know that there was someone who held a grudge against him.
Keyes had a lot of properties around the whole county, and this particular property would have been several miles away from where he lived. But apparently there had been an ongoing feud about
either delinquent rent or circumstances surrounding living conditions or something like that that made
them think, well, this guy's made some pretty bold statements directed at Keith in the past.
And it's not uncommon for a landlord-tenant dispute to be something that we hear in a homicide bureau about
the motive for murder. You know, it really happens, unfortunately, more than you think, because
on top of it being disputes about money, it's where someone's domiciled, and when tempers flare,
unfortunately, sometimes it can lead to death. Maybe that person, you know, needed to be checked
out and was checked out, and they were never able to develop anything to suggest that that's who it was. And obviously,
it wasn't. We often know that besides love being a motive in these type of attacks,
the next really is money. And it's clear that the person inflicting these type of injuries
did expect that the result could lead to death. Investigators would
have to begin to think who would want Daniel Keyes dead and who could benefit from it,
considering that many people in the community knew that Daniel Keyes had money.
So now investigators also had to think about his own brother. Did the brother stand to inherit a
lot? And unfortunately, we have seen things like that, even within family relationships, that one plans to kill the other
to inherit what they have. There was at least an initial suspicion, well, you know, was Lloyd in
on this? Did he set this up? I mean, I think there were suspicions, like I said, early on,
maybe one or two people of particular note would be investigated, and then it went nowhere. And I
think there might have been some frustration as well.
Was the police, was he telling them everything, or was he preventing further investigative
leads from being developed for whatever reason?
This attack happened back in 2006.
So if we jump ahead to four years later, on September 7th of 2010, police uncovered information
that pulled back the curtain on this
mystery. Around 10 a.m., a trooper heads to Camp Hill State Prison as part of his routine duties.
But this time, there would be an interesting development. Prison officials told them about
one person in particular who had information on a crime they had heard from another inmate.
He's a career criminal also, which makes these things difficult, as you know, but he was also
in state prison for a bunch of thefts and related crimes, and he had had a history of serving as an
informant, not at the direction of police, but I think he's one of these guys that gets locked up
and figures, all right, how am I going to get myself out of this? Who can I set up? Or how do I keep my ears peeled? How do I work this to my benefit? Right from jump, this is basically
going to be someone that has zero reliability on their own unless they're able to really
corroborate independently what he said. What's interesting about this informant is that he
had become quite good at getting other inmates to open up to
him, of course, strictly to benefit himself. It's sort of his get out of jail card. But since there
was a built-in benefit for him, he may be embellishing the story. So while authorities
are probably not paying too much attention when this guy walks in the office, they certainly sat
up straighter and really gave a listen once he told the trooper what it was that the other inmate had said. He also confessed to
this other inmate that he had laid in wait, attacked a man, beaten him with a baseball bat
after scalding him with boiling water and leaving him for dead. So Anasika, I see this as unlikely
just being a coincidence.
I mean, much of this information was never revealed publicly.
And the specificity of the statement sounds like police are about to solve a vicious attack.
It was a case that he's referring to that had happened four years ago.
It was not like the case of Daniel Keyes was being blasted all over the news at the time.
And as investigators quickly saw, there was multiple details that had never been released publicly.
That's what started clicking off all the boxes here.
So not only, you know, does this guy confess to committing a crime that we know happened,
and he has the details pretty specific to what happened.
We knew that happened. That happened here in Adams County.
It was an unsolved case so when he heard the facts about that he's like holy cow this guy knows what
he's talking about but then there was even more disturbing details this informant told the trooper
that it wasn't about what happened but what will happen he had called and directly asked to speak
to the DA about this tip he had received.
He had received information from another inmate who was trying to solicit him to murder a judge.
A judge? Why a judge?
Why a judge?
When you heard that a judge was being targeted,
at least in words at this point, Scott,
what were some of the possibilities to you?
My head snap moment was, wow, a judge.
But then at the same time, he's asking the person he's with to commit the crime.
Nobody expected that to happen. We were all taken aback.
How does this guy who's, you know, supposedly soliciting someone to kill the judge, like,
how does he know the judge? Was the case that he's currently sitting in jail the one that the judge
presided over? And he's the one that sentenced him maybe. Was he maybe offended by something the judge said? I almost would want to get to the bottom of that very quickly to see
if in fact this guy even had a connection to the judge in a way that would make sense
that he was targeting him. I questioned that as well and I thought it had to have been a judge
who presided over one of his cases, that he wouldn't just pick a random judge out of the newspaper and commit a crime like that because he was targeting this specific judge by name.
Is it just jailhouse talk? Does this person know what they're talking about? Who are the people they're saying they want to kill?
You know, are they saying they want to kill random celebrities or is it somebody unique to them that they would know about?
It was a murder plot that wasn't just targeting the judge.
There were others on the list.
He wants to finish off Keyes and then he wants to kill Lloyd and then he wants to kill the judge who sentenced him.
The informant was able to give the trooper the name of this inmate and his name was Lance Greenewalt.
I had heard the name of Lance Greenewalt before I ever handled the case. And it's because he was kind of well known in this community for having scammed a
bunch of different people. He had actually dated one of the judge's law clerks here and had her
convinced that he was a professor at Gettysburg College, which all ended up to be not true.
He was just kind of well known for being a scam artist within Adams County.
You know, Anastasia, we've talked about the common occurrence behind bars
where inmates boast about the crimes they've committed
or just how tough and dangerous they are,
hoping other inmates don't pick on them,
or even if it's not true, but this may be different.
But what he was known for, Greenewald, at least in the criminal justice arena, was being basically a scam artist.
So it's almost like two plus two is not adding up in this case.
You're not thinking that he's jumping from forgeries and various, you know, scammer type crimes into solicitation for murder.
Well, we knew he was in the know the extent of what his military background, but we did confirm that he was prior military. If you would have told me he did this
deal on keys, I don't know if I would have believed it to begin with at first. I thought
he was just a thief, kind of a con artist, scammer type person, maybe a bit of a pathological liar,
but I didn't think he had the violence and, you know, this type of murderous ambition.
I saw more of a paper criminal or, you know, this burglar murderous ambition. I saw more of a paper criminal or,
you know, this burglar is pretty serious, but it wasn't violent. But then I wanted to know who
else he wanted to kill and why. And that was my first thought when I heard about him.
So let's talk about Greenewalt's actual criminal history, which I found pretty interesting.
There was a theft of a firearm and investigators found out later that the victim of that theft was a lieutenant governor in the state of Maryland.
And there's more.
It was also a case out of Adams County where he had been talking about blowing something up,
saying as a retired member of the military that he still had plastic explosives just sitting around his house.
In fact, he also said he was willing to show people that he really had it.
And those people eventually called the police. The police got a search warrant and hit his house
and found these military grade explosives. So he got charged in Gettysburg with having
like weapons of mass destruction type of charge. And the feds ended up indicting him and he was
prosecuted federally for those. Then he had some bad checks and some thefts after that here in
Adams County. So when it came to the why that Greenawalt would be looking to be putting a hit out on this particular judge,
it could be for any of those prior crimes.
But when they looked a bit deeper, Greenawalt looked like he was trying to settle the score
for the last case that had most recently put him in jail.
A year earlier, Lattimore Township Police Department was going
door-to-door checking in on their community. If you think Gettysburg is small, Lattimore Township
is probably outnumbers cows to people. And these small police departments were just going around
checking on neighbors, asking them about crime watch and if they needed anything.
So during this community policing, one of the residents, you can almost picture the officers walking onto his porch, knocking on the door, has everything fine.
And most people probably say, yes, officer, everything's fine and they're on their way.
But this guy's like, you know what?
Since you're here, everything's been somewhat OK, except that I have money missing.
One of my neighbors had come by.
They'd asked to borrow some money.
And then a couple of days later, another thousand dollars that I know where it was and where it had been was missing.
But I just never thought to report it.
But since you're here, I'm telling you now.
And that's how the police initially became involved.
He had never contacted 911 or anything.
And if you ever met this man or his wife and the family, you wouldn't have expected them to do that.
I think they were just going to live with it if it hadn't been brought up in a general sense by the police.
And the resident told police he knew who stole from him.
His name was Lance Greenewald.
He did some handyman work.
He also indicated that he did some building projects and stuff on the side,
like a part-time construction person.
And he had been in the Macemer house on previous occasions
and had even eaten with them in the past.
And the man went on to give authorities the details, how Greenawalt, that they knew each other from the past, they were neighbors, that he had come over, he had asked for money, that he was having trouble getting by.
He had recently found out that his girlfriend was expecting their child, and so he needed this money. And so being a good neighbor, this man went to his cash box and
that green wall was right there as he opened it up, took it out, took some of the cash out to give
to him. And then sure enough, later, when he went into that same cash box, a few days later,
the rest of his money was gone. And he saw Mr. Mason go underneath an area in his home where
he kept a cash box and get money out and loan it to him. And I think that kind of planted the seed that Greenewald was thinking, if I could go in that
house when they weren't there, I know where he keeps his cash. But Mr. Mason was an accurate
record keeper. And when he lent the money to Greenewald, he marked down the date and time
and did the same when he found other monies were missing. Documentation that would really
help investigators build a case against Greenewalt.
By the time the charges were filed, Greenewalt had already then been arrested for some other cases
that happened completely unrelated to different victims, and he was facing those charges as well.
And it is also in the legal realm called potentially a present sense impression,
which could actually be used in a courtroom because if you report events,
say things at the time or close to that they are happening,
that those can sometimes be exceptions
and could be actually introduced in court
to try to prove the when,
and in this case,
to show that it couldn't have been anyone else
if they even get that far.
The case did go to trial
and Greenewalt was found guilty.
Four to 10 years consecutive for some parole violations he got as well, which I think he got
like one and a half to three on those. So an aggregate of five and a half to 13 years for that.
So they were about to have what's called a preliminary hearing. And what that is,
it's basically testing the prosecutor's decision to bring charges against someone.
You often hear about a grand jury proceeding or, in the exchange, a preliminary hearing.
And it doesn't have the same standard of proof.
It's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you have to show like you would at trial.
It's the lower standard of probable cause. And it's a bare bones presentation to just show the judge that there is enough evidence to ultimately continue
these charges in court. Now, here I did have the victim, his wife, and the police officer testify.
But a lot of times, you know, there was a period of time in Pennsylvania where we could do almost
the entire thing with hearsay. This was not part of that time frame, but it's a lot of hearsay and very
minor. It's just enough, as I tell victims all the time, for the judge to know that a crime was
committed and that this person was likely involved. During this preliminary hearing, Greenewalt was
attempting to delay the case, claiming that his attorney really wasn't ready and there weren't
any witnesses that he wanted to call, and he felt like things really weren't going in his favor. But as it turns out,
the judge wanted none of that and continued to move towards trial. He had been in front of our
president judge, a guy named Michael George, for sentencing. The defendant wanted a continuance.
Again, last minute, he claimed his attorney wasn't ready and was saying he wanted all
these witnesses subpoenaed that weren't subpoenaed and all this stuff.
So the judge heard him out on all that and basically said, well, everything you're asking
for either would not come in anyhow, or the Commonwealth, meaning me, was willing to stipulate
to you.
So there's really no reason for a continuance.
I mean, all things considered, this is a pretty straightforward trial that's going to hedge
on some credibility of these victims, you know. And the trial itself,
he specifically asked the judge, if I testify, will they hear about my record? And the judge
said yes. And he said, okay, then I'm not testifying. And so I don't even think they put
anything on. There's always been this idea of the sanctity of the system and the proceedings. So again, it really comes down to what would he
have to gain by carrying something as diabolical as this out? What I think in his twisted mind,
because he's still been infatuated with this, somehow he thinks he can get a new trial on the
burglary. Okay. So if he gets a new trial, one, he needs to kill Judge George to get a new trial,
because as long as George is there, he's never going to grant him a new trial.
Even though you and I know that's really the appellate court that would be involved there,
in his mindset, George is the key to that.
You know, he says Judge George is imperative, which I think is his house of cards, he thinks,
that somehow getting rid of him miraculously gets him a new trial, which is just ludicrous.
It wasn't just Judge Green that Greenewalt was looking to murder,
but he'd asked the informant to kill two more people,
Daniel Keyes, the victim of the assault from years earlier,
and Daniel's brother, John Lloyd.
Lloyd and Greenewalt actually knew one another.
Lloyd owned properties, and Greenewalt had apparently done some work for him over the
years. But there was also various allegations that Greenewald had stolen from him, stolen things,
you know, that you'd find in a construction site, various tools. And it went to the point that there
were charges filed in those cases. But again, we're talking pretty low-level crimes.
Greenewald had done some work. He claimed to be like this renovation,
construction type person. He had hired him to do work at a couple of different properties and that he never finished the work, that he took money. So he owed him money, number one,
that he broke into these properties and stole tools out of them. And that he also took some
power equipment that Lloyd had stored in a shed without permission and never returned it. And one
was even like a riding lawnmower or something that he sold without Lloyd's permission. So the charges were filed in all those cases. Once he was convicted
of the burglary and got that sentence, I just got rid of them all together. I talked to John Lloyd
and I said, you know, what's the point here really? He's not going to get any more time for it. He's
got this burglary and the parole violation. Let's just be done with them. And he agreed to that.
So you may be asking, what would Greenewalt have to gain from murdering his stepbrother,
John Lloyd? Well, Brian says the answer is clear. And that really would come down to revenge,
because Greenewald had actually been put back into jail based on these charges. And it wasn't like
he went to trial on them or anything, but he was
on parole for something else. And so he was picked up on a parole violation based on the allegations
by John Lloyd about those tools. Lloyd probably had a lot of dirt on him that he was worried about.
So let's say he did get a new trial. Now he was out on the street or something like that.
I think he was concerned about what Lloyd may or may not say that would end up putting him back into jail. You know, is there some sort of connection
there that he was worried about Lloyd coming clean or something? I don't know. So let's talk about
what he would gain from the murder of Daniel Keyes. And the first thing that comes to mind is
the potential motive for murder would be financial gain, whether the defendant was able to locate
money on the deceased and steal it or his
brother-in-law and thought through him, he could benefit. So knowing that may be the plan, maybe
that was the reason why he wanted to include John Lloyd on his hit list, because he may have known
the plan. And again, this is pure speculation and has never been proven. But when it comes to Lloyd,
it would really be two-pronged possibilities. One, if he had anything to do or any knowledge
about the attack on Keyes, well, he's a potential witness. Or does it come down to something more
simplistic and revenge for the original filing of charges about the stolen tools?
In his twisted mind, I guess that makes sense that if he kills all these people,
he's miraculously going to go free. But really, if you think about it, that's the most illogical
plan that I've ever heard devised. So think about this for just a moment.
Even though Greenewalt told his cellmate that he would shower him with gifts, I think he even
mentioned giving him a Harley Davidson motorcycle, if he carried out this murder plot.
It doesn't mean he's the only person he relayed those wishes to.
The fact that they've learned about the cellmate doesn't mean there wasn't a person on the outside willing to carry out the job. So it was really urgent that police found out as much as they could about all of the potential threats surrounding Greenewald and what he was able to be willing to reveal himself. And I think that's so important when it comes to talking to him.
You know, people could think, well, maybe he did mean it, but still he's in jail.
You know, what's the harm? I'm sure people in jail talk about killing people all the time,
but we had a true, real victim who had been seriously beat. We had Daniel Keyes. We had
a real person that had been attacked, nearly beaten to death. So investigators do have a solid source for the information,
Green and Walt approaching him to carry out a murder plot. But let's just remember who this
person is. He's an informant, a self-made informant. And could he really be believable?
And is that your only source of information?
Would that be enough?
And it's also not a completed crime, which also has other challenges in and of itself.
So they really have two big challenges or hurdles that they're going to have to meet
and kind of think outside of the box potentially if they're going to be able to prove this crime
or stop this guy before he's able to prove this crime or stop this
guy before he's able to actually carry out one of these attacks. So investigators got together and
they try to work up a plan to be able to record Greenewald trying to hire his cellmate to kill
three people. Now, they can't do this in a car, they can't do it in a home, and they can't do this
at a local cafe. These two guys are in a jail cell. How't do it in a home, and they can't do this at a local cafe, these
two guys are in a jail cell.
How would it be possible to record the conversation?
You have him wear a wire.
He obviously knows he's wearing a wire.
And a couple of things could go wrong.
He could be overly suggestive, or he could blow it, or, you know, Greenewalt could find
it on him, or, you know, a million different things bad could happen.
So police devised an elaborate plan.
And when we first heard it, we actually got goosebumps because it was something we've
never heard before.
And it's something they've never done before. The decision was made.
Let's figure a way to surreptitiously put a bug in this cell and listen to them and see, you know, what's being said.
And I've never heard of it being done before or since, at least in Pennsylvania. Scott, there really is true genius in this plan
because they know that they're going to have a hard hurdle
to climb or jump with this informant
who is always looking to kind of help himself
on other cases even before this.
So to go through with a plan that neither side knows,
it really kind of pulls that piece
or takes the air out of the sails of any potential defense if they get what they're looking for.
You know, Anastasia, as we both know, this would not be an easy feat to pull off.
But I'm thinking about the payoff.
If it works to this point, you have Green and Walt Selma giving you the story.
And as a professional informant, there's a reason now to believe his credibility because you have a recording.
You have this voice and you have somebody who will be cross-examined if he testifies,
but it's backed up by actual recorded evidence.
And I know that there's some of you out there saying, wait a second, is that legal to drop
this bug into their cell even if they're in jail?
Well, two things. One, you have a
lowered expectation of privacy when you're incarcerated. But beyond that, it's not like
they're just going to go and do this. They need to get legal permission to do that. There are
various hurdles that they have to show why they need this and why they need it so quickly. But
all of that is really not the biggest challenge. It really is about the where
this is all happening. The thing about prisons and jails is that there's always someone there.
So they need to get this in place without anyone knowing what they're doing.
And let's just talk about the logistics, right? First, you have to figure out what story you have
to tell both of them to be temporarily removed from the cell.
So you can place that listening device somewhere they won't see it and make sure only a small
amount of people within the prison administration even know about the plan. And the reason is
because word gets out, people talk. And the level of potential danger here, if it would get out,
is evident. How are we going to get this in there to
begin with? And then how are we going to record it? How long can a battery last inside of there?
How are we going to get the stuff out? All that type of thing happened. Since the conversations
within the cell don't happen at a certain time or for a certain length of time, you have to make
sure that the recording device is fully powered for as long as it can be without a plug, of course.
You know, this had to be run with a battery.
The batteries, I think, were only good for like 12 hours or something at a pop.
And going in there and changing out the battery and getting a new one in there, you know, required some real sophistication and trickery to pull that off.
And I started to think about that as a challenge that I would not even have thought about, Scott, if we were just talking about it without hearing Brian talk about it.
Because the thing about batteries is that they run out.
And when he said that this device, the batteries, would only last about 12 hours is that they need to not only go through this elaborate planning to get the device in so that no one knows where it is.
They now have to go back in to change the battery under some other pretenses within a short duration of time.
And remember, they're not listening to this recording live.
It's not like they're sitting in a room down the hall from the cell and listening in live.
This is just a recording, and they don't know until they retrieve the device, even if it works.
So this is going to be incredibly complicated to pull off, but this team of investigators, they're going to go in to get it done.
And yes, this is where we drop in our Ocean's 11Q.
First step, get Greenewalt and his cellmate out of that cell.
Okay, how are we going to separate them in order to get to a cell, put something in there, and then get them back together.
So to get them out of the cell, investigators would have to come up with an excuse or a reason they needed to leave.
So here's what they did. They told Greenewalt and his cellmate that a leak behind the wall had developed, and they needed to leave, putting them temporarily somewhere else. They opened the wall as if they were repairing the leak, but put their recording device near some piping specifically where the conversations could be
heard. So that's how they got them out. They installed it. They got behind them where the
water plumbing and everything was located. That's where they put the battery and all the guts of the
bug, so to speak, in there. Then they said, okay, guys, if you want to be back together, you can.
They did. So they put them back in there. So that's how the ruse worked to get them out of there,
to place the bug and then get them back in there together.
So it's the device and a battery attached. Plans on.
So as Scott said, sometimes wiretaps, you listen to it live, but here it's a recording. So it's
not like they even know what is going on at the time the conversations are being had.
It's not real time.
They're not sitting like in a van somewhere
like you see on TV and listening.
So, all right, what do we have?
And as they listen, I'm like,
holy cow, we've got good stuff here already.
We're going to be able to get what we need.
They have to then very quickly get the device out
and then start to listen to it
to hope that they not only get
what they're looking for, but that they can then stop whatever other planning may have gone on
during that time. And the interesting thing is that during that window, Bryce, they pull him
out to meet with him. And he says, you know, you guys better act upon this. This guy's making
statements and stuff. I don't know how long he's going to keep talking, how long I keep this up.
So he had no idea it was being recorded. And that's when they told him, just go back in,
be like you were, finish off what you do. We already have information. Just keep him talking,
you know, for the time being and we'll go from there. So he was unaware that he had already
obtained, you know, 8, 10, 12 hours of this incriminating conversation before he was ever
even told there was a wire in the cell. Once all of the recordings downloaded, investigators would scrub through it all,
keying in on the conversation most critical to the investigation, which is a plot for murder.
Right. I think it's 30 hours of tape we had in total.
It's like looking for a needle in a haystack a lot of times.
While it sounds like the stuff that you hear in the movies, it is extremely
tedious. And while what they're looking for
isn't going to be that aha if they hear it,
there's a lot of, you know,
whatever it is that people talk about,
which in reality isn't that interesting most of the time.
So it is hours and hours of tedious work
to see if that golden nugget,
in this case, proof of a diabolical crime, is there.
So the tape of the conversation
confirmed the hits against the judge,
Lloyd, and Daniel Keyes. But even further than that, they learned that this wasn't just so-called
jailhouse talk. There was such specificity in the planning. This wasn't just some guy blowing off
saying, hey, I'd like to kill this person. I'd like to kill this person. I'd like to kill this
person. He was specific in the way he wanted them killed, how he wanted them killed, like shooting them with
what type of guns, how to dispose of evidence, what route to take as exit strategy, which property
it might be best, like for Lloyd, who had several properties. He drew maps of each property,
knowing the area too, how many steps it was from the roadway to the back of his property.
He talked about a particular McDonald's for where to dump the gun after he shoots one of these guys.
And it's a real busy McDonald's that, you know, if you knew about this place, you'd realize
somebody could walk in, throw something in that trash can and no one would ever pay attention to
it. He had given it a lot of thought. And then Judge George, you know, he has in there that
he puts the dog out. When the dog goes out, it puts on a motion detector thing.
So you might want to unscrew the motion detector light.
So that way he'll come outside, too, to check on it.
And that's when you put a bullet in his head.
Things like that.
It's just he knew way too much for this to be any type of just blowing off.
The one that really got me is when he talks about, oh, make sure when you commit the crime with this gun that I'm going to tell you exactly what to use, that you tape a plastic bag to your arm so you
can catch the brass. And right after that, make sure that you dig the slugs out of the various
victims' heads. I mean, Scott, that is not blowing off steam. That is an elaborately thought out plot
that he wants to turn into actuality. It's the beginning in the planning stages.
It's the actual act of committing murder.
And it's the cleanup after.
I mean, if that's not the ABCs of a murder plot, I don't know what is.
But the thing about the ABC murder plot is that that is something you see on TV.
And when the credits roll, you turn it off.
But authorities knew that for these men,
this could very soon get very real and lives were at stake.
Even though this isn't on the affidavit, he tells them on there how to build a homemade silencer as well.
And although it's probably not as effective as what you might see on MacGyver or something, one of those shows, it's enough to think it would have a potential to work.
You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think hearing it, it's just all I could think about is just thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness that they got to this and they got this information before he got to a different guy who might actually have done his bidding.
Investigators were trying to determine how Greenewald had such specific information about the judge's house.
The planning, the fact that he drew maps of different properties,
and they were accurate. These maps were accurate to what he was describing. Some of them eerily so,
especially the stuff relating to Judge George's property. To this day, I don't know how he was
so familiar with this property because he had never had any involvement with Judge George
before that burglary trial. Could it have been his military experience? What about working in construction?
Either way, his level of potential stalking
or somebody else doing the stalking for him
seemed like a real possibility,
but it was a question that had not been answered yet.
You know, for years on paper,
at best, Greenewald seemed maybe
just like the ordinary criminal,
if there is such a thing.
But the more they looked into this plot of his, now he's more like a criminal mastermind.
It's just uncanny that he was stalking Judge George to this level.
Now, keep in mind that the military background comes into play a little bit here.
He was an intelligence analyst as part of the military.
So his training and his ability to look into stuff like that may have helped him do that more than another person in the same situation.
We have a transcript from the recording that Greenewald made in his cell
with his cellmate.
And I'm going to read a couple of the lines that stood out to us.
You know, he says, quote,
there'll be 5,000 suspects and I'll be sitting nice and comfortable right here.
And I think he's referring to his jail cell.
He will never be a judge again.
Let's get him off the expletive bench.
And in reference to the 2006 Daniel Keyes attack, listen to some of this.
When the boiling water hit him in the face, he went down like a ton of bricks.
And I'm jumping ahead.
There is no way I would believe that this man took a beating like this if I wouldn't have been there. It was foolproof, really. The only thing that missed was that he didn't die. Now listen to this line, and I quote,
I was beating him so much my arms got tired.
And then when he's talking about trying to have Keyes murdered, listen to what he said.
I quote,
I mean, I think you ought to go over there and whack keys just for practice.
I mean, think about that. You're talking about the murder of a human being.
And he's saying just kind of take that guy out first for practice so that you get it right before you go to the other two.
It really takes us inside the mind of someone willing to commit crimes like this. It also says in the recording that had he not been arrested, he would have already carried
out these three murders.
He says, I was going to do this before I got pinched.
These people have me over and it's an eye for an eye.
I mean, I have no qualms about what you're doing, whatever
I need to do. And then he says, lastly, don't let the brass fall. Make him find out what kind of gun
by dinging them damn slugs out of his head. You understand referring to if police were going to
get evidence of what type of weapon it was, he suggested that they pull the slugs out of the victim's head to be able to test it.
Anastasia, that's unbelievable.
Scott, think about this line when he says an eye for an eye.
Well, first of all, what?
An eye for an eye is the reference of, you know, if one person kills that you kill back or that you're doing this like act.
So what did these three ever do to him?
Based on his own words, he thought he was right.
He thought he was due.
And he thought these people did him wrong.
So his response was, let's kill him.
So the cases did go to trial.
I say cases because it wasn't one case for these three solicitations, but two separate trials.
One for the solicitation to murder the judge and robbery related to the Daniel Keys case.
And then three counts of solicitation to commit murder for Judge George, John Lloyd, and Daniel Keys.
Now, you might say, why did there have to be two trials?
Well, that is what the judge ruled, to sever them.
But here, when I look at it, it's going to be for this.
It's that in the cases of the solicitation for Daniel and Lloyd, well, you're
going to have to go back to the attack, the 2006 very violent attack. But you don't need that
information or that evidence when it comes to the solicitation of the judge. Remember, he presided
over a case of, you know, a larceny, basically stealing. So to now have this information put in
front of the jury about this very violent attack, the argument would be that it's overly prejudicial and that's the exact type of case that is going to be severed so that
it's protected if there's a conviction later. So we had to go through and redact all these,
you know, these hours upon hours of reporting to make sure the first jury never heard he wanted
to kill a judge and the second jury never heard that he attempted to kill and wanted to kill these
two brothers. You know, not only can I picture Brian in the courtroom, I've actually stood in the courtroom
with him. Now, I was talking to him about another case of his when we were filming
True Conviction, the television show. But the thing that was clear is that that is his natural place.
I can assure you that research and writing has never been my cup of tea.
That part of law school was certainly for the birds as far as I was concerned, but a necessary evil, I get that. But I wanted to be
in court and, you know, arguing with people and fighting for victims and dealing with police
officers. And, you know, somebody put it real well to me years ago that you get to almost be like the
director and the actor at the same time when you're a prosecutor in a case because, you know,
you decide what to put on and how to present it and everything. And I've just always been drawn to that dynamic. So while it's the prosecutor and
the defense that are asking the questions during the trial, when it's during deliberations, now
it's the jury's turn. They had several jury questions, but I remember one particular jury
question, and I will for the rest of my career. They came back and asked the judge, if we find
him guilty, will he ever find out where we live?
And at that point in time, I felt pretty confident,
although I'm very superstitious.
I'm like, well, they obviously think this guy did it
and they're scared of him.
He was given somewhere of an aggregate
of 35 to 70 years for that particular case.
And that was imposed consecutively.
The second trial was the
case against Greenewald for plotting the murder of a sitting judge. Would the recordings be enough
for the prosecution to prove their case? But there's also another challenge. In the first trial,
you had not only the solicitation to commit murder, but you also had the very real completed
attack against Daniel Keyes so that he could
actually see with the evidence what he had already done to kind of give teeth, if you will, to his
words. So the challenge here is, will the jury be able to kind of understand the gravity of this
crime where they don't have any sort of underlying attack? We had that concern in that trial that we
don't have a true victim anymore.
You know, Judge George had never been attacked. The jury is not finding out about the attack on
Key. So that was our concern about that case. Are they going to think it's blowing off steam?
In a bit of courtroom theatrics, Greenewalt made the decision to come into court
wearing his prison outfit, something that I've actually never heard before.
Normally, you have to go through all these lengths so they don't see him in handcuffs.
They don't see him in prison clothes.
So the jury can't.
But he came in prison clothes.
He didn't want to change.
He's like, what's the point?
The jury's going to hear I'm in prison anyhow, which is true.
But I've never had a defendant be tried in state prison gear.
Anastasia, I mean, I'm curious to know, have you ever had that in one of your cases or
in a courthouse that you've worked?
I have. I've had it more than once.
And it's for different reasons.
Sometimes it's basically, you know, kind of a thumb in their nose, the judge and the whole system by just walking in.
But here I looked at it a little differently.
I almost looked at it like he's trying to convey this nonverbal message.
Remember, he's a guy who's, look at all he did to plot this murder he was trying
to have carried out. That it's almost like this, I almost pictured this bubble over his head
flashing, I'm in jail, I'm in jail, wanting the jury to come up with this message of like,
what type of real threat could I be from inside these walls? And I kind of thought that that was
why he came in in that prison garb every day. After both sides rested their case,
the jury went in to deliberate
and they took their time with the decision.
So they go to deliberate and they come back.
After a little while, it's been a couple hours,
and say they'd like to hear the recordings again.
And the judge is like,
are you talking about one particular part
or do you want to hear the whole thing?
And they said, we want to hear the whole thing.
We're like, son of a gun.
Because, you know, it's hours upon hours.
It's not going to be played like it was at the trial where we can interrupt and have the trooper answer.
They're just going to hear it.
I mean, even though it seems like a fairly cut and dry case, I'm sure prosecutors and investigators and anyone in a case like this would always think maybe they're just showing that they're really giving enough thought to come back instead of coming back quickly. I know that in some cases, jurors really want to go through all of the evidence,
even if it's so apparent that their decision may be easy.
So we start playing it and it goes about an hour and a half, two hours in and the judge says,
okay, it's time to take a recess for lunch. Go in the jury room. We'll get you menus,
order the food, do what they do. They go back there, probably 10, 15 minutes,
they knock and say, we have a verdict. And knock and say we have a verdict and they said we have a verdict he found guilty of
all counts and then when they were asking the jurors afterwards you know what was the deal
with the recording they said there was one juror who said she didn't recall him specifically saying
he wanted to have judge george murdered like she was saying he wanted to get back at him all this
and that so the other jurors like yes he did he said it a bunch of times and within that hour she must have heard it two or three times and that was all she needed to get back at him, all this and that. So the other jurors were like, yes, he did. He said it a bunch of times.
And within that hour, she must have heard it two or three times.
And that was all she needed to hear.
And then she was willing to sign on.
As we said in the beginning, this is a different case for AOM.
Luckily, it's not a completed homicide, but it came very close.
What it is is a rare look inside of how words and the planning can begin before homicide actually occurs.
You know, it's also a case that really strikes at the very heart of our system.
The roles of the parties within the criminal justice system, the witnesses, the judges, it's all supposed to happen inside the walls of those courtrooms.
And just think of the chilling effects on witnesses, judges, prosecutors, defense, if these crimes had been carried out.
Who would be next? Or could you be next?
Daniel Keyes endured, survived a vicious beating that could have ended his life at the hands of someone who just wanted money.
For years, that case went unsolved.
For years, that victim lived in the fear that the attacker could return to finish the job.
Little did he realize that, in fact, that was the plan that was formulated all along to do just that.
Had it not been for some seriously crafty and MacGyver-like investigators, the plot may have been carried out.
Daniel Keyes did make a full recovery.
And in this case,
peace of mind seems to be part of that equation.
Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original
produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.
Ashley Flowers and
Sumit David are executive producers.
So, what do you think, Chuck?
Do you approve?