Anatomy of Murder - Highway Homicide (Joseph "Jody" Wilder)

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

Would the contents of a briefcase be the motive of a roadside shooting? How would it lead investigators to uncovering the identity of their killer?For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/. Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

She decided she would just gather all of us together around the gas stove, blow out the pilot lights, and her intentions were fully to take us all out at the same time. You know, that's just something you don't tell people. 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. Before we get started, just a quick reminder that you can follow the latest on both the show and what Scott and I are up to by visiting our social media. For Instagram, that's Weinberger Media, or for me, it's Anastiga Nicolazzi. Today's case reveals a family ripped apart by a senseless murder. Then we'll take the most unique investigative turn we've covered on AOM so far.

For today's case, Gail Armstrong was interviewed. She grew up in Carrollton, Georgia, and she grew up the only girl in a family full of boys. She was wedged in between three older and three younger brothers. It was kind of tough growing up. You know, the three older ones were pretty rough with you. You know, they just treated me like one of the guys. I certainly don't come from a family that big, but being the middle of any family, I've got to believe, is hard. But being the only girl, the lone female in a group of boys, I've got to believe, is hard. But being the only girl, the lone female in a group of boys, I've got to think that in some ways, while hopefully she was put up on a pedestal,

and sorry if I'm sounding sexist there, but it also sounds to me like it must have felt lonely at times. Yeah, I mean, you get a little bit of everything. Three brothers who look after you, be your protector when you're at school, and three younger brothers who you could be there and influence. We lived out in the country in rural Georgia, actually. Our dad left when we were all very small. And then the three younger ones, I kind of had to be a mother to them because our mother had to work to support us. And I spent a lot of my life being a substitute mom.

And even though, as Gail has told us, she had so many siblings, we're really focusing today on one in particular, and that was her brother Joseph, who everybody called Jody. He was a little different from the rest of us. He went to work in a men's clothing store while he was a teenager, and he learned to dress top-notch. Well, he wanted to do the same for the females in his life, and he would spend way too much money buying outfits for my mother and myself. And he just loved to give.

Anybody he met, he wanted to give something to. She talked about him as being debonair, and he loved his clothes, but he was also very into his sports. That whether it was football or golfing, he gave it his all and he was good at them all. Jody was a year younger than Gail and while he was the athlete of the family, excelling at football at an early age, he had a real soft and gentle side as well. He was very loving and, you know, just affectionate, especially to me and to our mother. His work was also something that throughout his life was extremely important to him too, and for most of his life, the work he focused on was construction. He would go in and just totally remodel housing from foreclosures and repossessions and get it back ready for the market, making seriously good money.

And he branched out and started doing a little building on his own. But really when it came to Jody, he had two loves and one of them was singing. He would go to a local karaoke bar in Cobb County. His other love, and the most important, was family. By 1998, Jody had been married twice. He had a child from his first marriage, but because that marriage went south so early on, he really had no relationship with that child at all.

That thing just really went bad, and he stayed by himself for several years after that, you know, just lived as a bachelor. But he also had a second marriage that he had two children, a son and a daughter. But by 1998, that second marriage didn't look like it was going to work out either. It was devastating. He was, in his heart, a family man. For a long time, they were very active in church together. His son worked with him in construction some, and it was really hard on him.

He wrote lots and lots of notes and letters and kind of trying to work it out. You know, Scott, one failed marriage, tough on anyone. But now for someone whose family meant everything, knowing that the second one was on the fritz too, I can only imagine the sleepless nights and what his mind must have been going through as he tried to twist and turn to figure out if he could make any of it work.

Obviously a very difficult situation, not only for him growing up, but now that he was a father himself, to have to mirror that situation, hopefully he would be able to move on and become the father he wanted to be. I talked to him an awful lot about the separation and, you know, about the hopes and future and tried to help him to understand that it didn't have to be permanent, but he just kind of like gave up. To really understand why the separation and divorce devastated Jody, you have to look back at his past. I believe the reason it was so important to him was because our family was a broken family for a lot of years. When Gail and Jody were very young, their parents were in a difficult relationship and their father leaving their mother to care for six children.

And being in that environment, all of the kids could see how their mother was struggling. She had a real hard time taking care of all of us and nobody to leave us with. And the landlords didn't jump on the opportunity to rent a house to a working mother. I mean, we can all imagine what that must have been like for her, that she was the only one to look for every moment of need that they had, that it got so rough for her at one point that she and her brother Jody faced,

I cannot imagine this traumatic moment, what it must have been like, but their mom almost called it quits, and not just for herself, but for all of them. Because she couldn't handle it, she decided she would just gather all of us together around the gas stove, blow out the pilot lights. You know, if you turn the gas on all four eyes and turn on the oven

and there's no pilot light on, then you've got raw gas escaping in the house. And her intentions were fully to gather us there and just take us all to our death at one time. That way, we didn't have to grow up in the world of uncertainty. I was probably five. Somehow or another, she told me that she started coming to herself and realized there had to be another way. You know, that's just something you don't tell people.

I don't know that he ever told his family that. In fact, there's very few people I've ever shared it with. And, you know, my husband is one of them. I have to stop us for a moment to talk about this story. You know, it stopped me in my tracks when I heard it, and I've got to think that it did the same to all of you. It's uncomfortable to picture a child that young seeing one of their own parents struggle like that. And it's sad. I guess that probably made Jody want a family life and stability and more for his kids than he had. I also think most parents want to give their children more than they had

to learn from the difficulties your parents may have had and to make sure that you try not to pass those similar situations down on your own family. So I'm sure, as I said before, that was really weighing on Jody's mind for quite some time. When you come from a broken home or where there's just one parent trying to take care of you, you know, it leaves something there. It leaves something in your mind and in your heart, and it's carried on throughout the rest of your life, no matter how hard you try for it not to be, you know, it just is. And soon after that, Jody's life took a darker turn.

Let's now go to August 7th of 1998. The last time I saw him alive when he came in my office, that's just kind of seared in my mind and in my heart because of the way he had to leave that day. And I'd helped him as far as I could go. And we were making strides and finding him a place to live. Well, that night when he left, it was a little after midnight, I think. I had already gone to bed. Late that night, Gail received a call from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office with devastating news. The call began with a question. Do you have a brother, Jody? And when she answered yes, the deputy telling Gail that her brother had been killed. My heart just dropped, and he said,

I need you to contact his family. Now, she did know that she had to get to her parents quickly because the sheriff wanted to speak to them all. So she quickly got into her car, and she headed down the highway. She passed another scene of something going on there. There was so many lights flashing and so many emergency vehicles around. Traffic was virtually at a standstill.

But her focus was one thing, get to her parents. And when she did, the sheriff came to see them shortly. And that's when the entire family got the news of what had happened to Jody. The officer came in and explained that he'd been shot multiple times. They didn't know if the person knew him or exactly what it was at that time. There was a lot of speculation. It's just that it appeared that somebody just emptied a handgun on him. At that very moment, it was clearly early in the investigation, but the family was only told that Jody was found shot multiple times in his car, which was sitting on the side of the interstate. What became very

clear to Gail was that she had passed her brother's crime scene on the way to the family home, and all of those emergency vehicles on the side of the road were responding to his scene. It never crossed my mind that that was him. If it had, I would have turned around and went back. I mean, just to think that that commotion that she had seen was actually the scene of her brother's homicide. And it's one of those tiny little rays of light that you're just so happy that life worked out that way. And what I mean is that she didn't stop.

Because while life was never going to be the same, she was losing her brother and all the grief that was going to come about, she didn't now have that image of walking to the car and either being able to see inside for herself as her brother laid there dead inside that car or for investigators trying to push her away. And just the turmoil of that in and of itself. It's just so thankful the way sometimes those little moments happen that at least saved her that pain that day. I don't know. I don't know what it would have done to me had I, they wouldn't have let me close to the car, I'm sure, knowing what I'd be faced with. So the big question is who killed Jody? It really is the unlikeliest of homicide scenes. You know, usually it is if you're inside a house, you can usually work that way.

Who would have been inside the house? If you were at a bar or a restaurant, did something happen there? But here he is pulled off to the side of the road. Not the type of place that you expect people coming into contact with one another. For investigators, even though the stretch of highway was a highly traveled road, would they be able to find any eyewitnesses? And for investigators, you clearly want to first turn to the public for information. Investigators would also try to ascertain whether that stretch of the interstate had any video surveillance. When the police got out there, the first thing they saw was that inside that car, Jody Wilder was slumped over the steering wheel, is still in his seat.

He had been shot seven times to his chest and abdomen. Giving investigators the early indication that this homicide was likely personal. Also at the scene, investigators found and collected six.45 caliber shell casings, but no weapon was recovered at the scene. When they looked at the doors, his vehicle doors were actually locked. So to me, that says that he didn't even try to get out because they at least would have been unlocked at that point. So you have to wonder, was he pulled over because of car trouble?

And this is just clearly a very random act. Or was it someone was chasing him and then, in fact, very personal? But then why didn't he try to get out of one side of the car or the other? The whole thing really is quite baffling on its face. But there would be an important break in the case early on. And it would come from an eyewitness who was actually driving on that very same interstate, I-20. There was this passing motorist who had seen the shooting from the road and actually circled back and stopped to check on the man who was Wilder inside the car but was already dead.

The witness was able to tell police a little information about the shooter. It was a man and the type of vehicle he was driving. A dark pickup truck, like a full-size pickup truck, had some kind of like damage on it, like a fender or something like that. But the next break would take this case for a giant leap. The exit was on I-20 where the shooting occurred and was right near a DOT or Department of Transportation depot.

And that location had cameras. And while the camera perspective was from far away, investigators were able to make out that two persons in their dark truck, which was parked in front of Jody's car. The grainy video showed one of the suspects firing a weapon as they walked towards Jody's car. Put the gun inside the car and shot him and continued to shoot.

Just actually backing away from the vehicle, still fired the last shot. Apparently, he emptied the entire gun. And while how the shooting may have become clearer, the who and the why still remained a mystery. Now, information is uncovered that could change the course of this investigation. Police had a strong lead as to why Jody was killed, and it revolves around a briefcase that Jody may have had on him.

As the motorist looked inside the car, he saw Jody Wilder, who he didn't know, slumped over the seat. He saw his injuries. He saw that he didn't appear to be breathing. He didn't see anything around him, no weapons or anything else at all. And while the witness was not able to get a license plate, the information enabled investigators to determine that a bumper from a car that was found at the crime scene may be directly related to the suspect vehicle. That's a pretty big break as well. It's one of those things that I look at it. Am I going to be excited to something that doesn't pan out at all? Because how many of us have driven down the highway and seen random tires that have come off a car or bumpers? I've seen more than one. So it's just going to be

unrelated, but in this nearby vicinity, or is it going to be the exact bumper from the car of the people that now got on? We're going to find out that in some way it's related to the people who took Jody Wilder's life. So there's a big question mark and you're certainly hoping it's the latter. Yep, I agree. I mean, a couple of things. The bumper was painted so it's likely to confirm the color of the vehicle and potentially the make, model, and maybe even the year of that vehicle. So that could be a huge development. It's a great lead, but clearly it's too early to determine how much value it will actually bring. I'm not a big car buff, so forgive me if something I'm saying isn't accurate. But when I think about a bumper, I've got to think that at least a lot of them are very generic. A lot of paint colors are very generic. So unless there's something very

distinctive about it, it's going to be pretty tricky to track down a car just based on the bumper, unless someone took a car nearby into an auto shop. I did wonder where the vehicle was and, you know, what body shop did the paint job. One time I did go to a body shop that I knew Jody had done business with in the past on some of his vehicles. I asked them, and of course, their answer was they work on a lot of vehicles, but without a name, they couldn't really tell me whether they'd ever worked on anything like that or not. Investigators were trying to rebuild his last steps of that fateful night to see what clues

they could piece together to try to figure out who had committed this crime. But it wasn't just detectives that were trying to piece things together. It was also his sister, Gail. I went to that karaoke bar, since it was, you know, so close to there, because he did like to go there and sing a lot, talk to the bartender. And the only thing she would tell me was that he did get in an argument with somebody there in the bar that night, and she either didn't, but most likely an altercation between two people that spilled out from the bar to I-20. I couldn't help but think back to another episode we did recently for AOM, Bad Times at Cozien, because in that case, it was exactly the bar fight that led to, or at least has likely led to homicide. Remember, that one's still unsolved. However, in this case, you know, again, since that is such a one-off scenario that I'm just thinking that while that is interesting and maybe go somewhere, it's still not my most likely suspect as to motive.

While investigators were looking into the angle that somehow the shooting stemmed from the bar, Gail got a call one night out of the blue that takes this case in a very different direction. A man called me one night. I don't really remember exactly what he said, but Jody supposedly had a briefcase that belonged to him. Now we're going into spy territory. It's either that or something else, that there is the random briefcase that someone has, that someone else wants.

You know, Scott, what came to mind when you heard Gail talk about that? I mean, the first question for me would be, how would this all be connected? And it wasn't just, could it have something to do with a briefcase? A mysterious caller, and also called their parents, because by this time their mom had been remarried for many years, and left this message that they believed that the parents had something that belonged to them. We were concerned about the briefcase and who that guy was and, you know, him being the killer and knowing that that

might be there at my parents' house, you know, it was pretty nerve-wracking. So we've all got to be wondering, what is in this briefcase and what is so special about it that people are calling others that they don't even know because they so want to get it back? I called the sheriff's department and told them what had happened. My parents, I told them to. I called the sheriff's department and told them what had happened. My parents, I told them to give that to the sheriff's department because they would know more about what to do with it and they don't need anybody coming to their house demanding the briefcase and taking that on them. So they told me, don't bother the caller ID, we're sending somebody out there. So they come out and they picked up the box.

You know, Anastasia, in a homicide investigation, as you know, anything is possible. And something that investigators wanted to dig in was why he was killed. Jody was not a drug dealer, but Jody did, from time to time, use cocaine. So now the thinking is that maybe this briefcase, the mystery bag, that it contains narcotics or something having to do with narcotics, and that's what this crime is ultimately maybe going to be all about. But it still requires a tremendous amount of legwork to confirm or to rule out. It was a lead to some of his activities with some disreputable characters,

kind of shady characters. But hearing now that Jody had struggled with cocaine and that maybe that drug had something to do with this briefcase, now the pieces maybe start to fall together because we certainly know that narcotics can be a big factor when you hear about ultimate violence and homicide cases. And right now, I'm starting to wonder if that's where the truth is ultimately going to lie. While the briefcase was an avenue police were investigating, it did work further with that eyewitness, the person who was driving as the shooting was happening and the one who came back to check on Jody. That witness was able to help police come up with a composite sketch.

You know how they'll do those sketches and put them in the newspaper saying, if you've seen this person, you know, it's just a sketch of what they thought they looked like. But the interesting thing about this particular sketch is that it did look like someone that the family knew. Somebody who was close, very close to Jody, who had access to a pickup truck and may have had a motive. When I got the newspaper and I looked at that picture, it just wound up looking a whole lot like my nephew. It was Jody's son. And that just didn't help my feelings none. At the time of his death, Jody had been separated from his second wife, and they had two kids together, a son and a daughter.

And the relationship with the son appeared to be the most strained. He would have been in his late teens or early 20s. Besides the time that he was spending at that karaoke bar, hanging out with some folks that he shouldn't have been hanging out with, he and his son had become distant. In fact, his son was angry at him. The main part of that anger, I think, was because of the separation. This is a relationship that, because of Jody's thirst for his work,

he was, by all accounts, or certainly, of course, to his sister, really a workaholic at that point. And all that time away from home had cost the marriage. But his son took on, I think, defense of his mother. He knew that his dad had been missing from home a lot, staying gone. There'd been some fighting and arguing and some not-so-nice things taking place between him and his wife. So his son was angry. Gail remembers how sometimes Jody was tough on his son because he wanted him to step up and, quote, be a man in certain situations. He was used to going to work with his dad, and of course Jody was hard to work for because he was almost like a warden, maybe. You know, he was rough on them.

You come to work, you work. He held them into, you know, real strict work ethics. And his son, you know, growing up as a teenager, you know, all teenagers don't want to work hard. Some of them want to slack off, especially if daddy's the boss. Well, that just didn't cut it with Jody. And while it's very hard to think about parents taking the lives of children or children taking the lives of their parents, it does happen. Investigators want to talk to Jody's

son, beginning with where he was on the night of the shooting and treating him like any other family member who would be questioned in regards to a homicide investigation. But there was more than just the relationship and this composite sketch that drew suspicion towards Jody's son. When the family first gathered and was told about Jody's murder, his son wasn't there. He didn't come, and that would have been very unusual, even if he was mad at your dad. You know, something like that, that tragic. And, you know, your grandparents and your aunt and your other uncles, you know, regardless of how mad you might have been at your dad, it didn't make any sense to

me why he didn't show up there that night. So my mind definitely took that rabbit trail and I did wondered along those lines, hoping that that wasn't, you know, the case. And while that question was even difficult to deal with, next for the family was to prepare for Jody's funeral. And at the funeral, he did finally show up there, and there was another young man with him that just walked up and just stood at the head of the casket for a minute, and he just glared at his dad.

It wasn't a, seemed like a sadness or a hurt. It was an anger. His son's behavior at the funeral is puzzling, but relationships are puzzling. Investigators are always looking who's there, and we certainly know that people show up at funerals who've ultimately been found to have committed a crime. And by even his aunt's account, Gail, he appeared very angry. But remember, the marriage of his parents had fallen apart, and he was angry at his dad. Of course, he may have just been angry because his dad died like that, from that broken home situation. All the disappointments that may have been going on in his head. But in my head, I'm standing there looking at everybody in the whole picture.

I think it's important to establish that everyone handles tragedy differently. We're all unique. So someone's actions by not being somewhere doesn't mean they were there when a crime was committed and they pulled the trigger. His son at the funeral service just grabbed me in a bear hug and he was just crying uncontrollably. Now we're going to take another pause here because while there were many sideways glances and whispers in the rooms about Jody's son, he was never officially charged, and ultimately it was determined he was not in any way responsible for his father's death. It was ongoing, they said. They had lots of leads, and people would point them in different directions.

And so now the case went unsolved, and not just for days and months, but for years. Every now and then I'd be contacted and they would ask me if I knew a certain party. And of course, I didn't. Investigators had a whole bunch of leads to run down. And every time they went down a specific path, it did not come back with anything concrete enough to move forward on. So while you have a bunch of avenues you've gone down, it doesn't lead up to a definitive suspect pool. So at this point, police have no choice but to put the case on the back burner and put it in what we call a cold case scenario.

And here's where we take a turn. Because Jody's murder wasn't the only tragedy that Gail faced in life. Back before that, her oldest brother Jimmy had died also under mysterious circumstances while he'd been living states away. They never exactly explained how he died, only that he was found dead on a train track. His body was all to pieces in the middle of the winter. He had on no shirt, had on no shoes, and that happened in 84. And it was Jody who had stepped in to take care of all the funeral arrangements. But none of us had the money to bring Jimmy's body here, and none of us could afford to go there. Well, Jody immediately says, I'll go there and take care of his funeral. He never

wanted any payback from anybody to help cover that cost. That's just something that he felt like he wanted to do. And that's the kind of guy that he really was. Fast forward to a few days before Thanksgiving in 1990, about eight years before Jody's murder, another brother, Jeff, was also murdered. Jeff had been working with Jody and was dating a woman, and she had a 10-year-old daughter from her previous marriage, but they now had a newborn baby together. But Jeff's girlfriend had a vengeful ex-husband. Her ex-husband came to the house and it had just a terrible long history of violence and him stalking her and he just didn't want to let her go. Wound up getting into an altercation and the guy left and he come back with his 10-year-old daughter with him and a weapon

and he shot and killed Jeff. The girlfriend was trying to help him and he shot and killed Jeff. The girlfriend was trying to help him, and he shot and killed her as well. The 10-year-old saw the whole thing. For any family to go through a homicide is horrific. For this family to go through so many of them is heartbreaking. Her family faced so much hardship, and the latest tragedy, the murder of her brother Jody, wasn't likely to be quickly solved. But 17 years later, in 2015, police get a tip that sends

Jody's case into overdrive. A woman who was getting her life back together had something to get off her chest and told it to a DA in Cobb County, Georgia. The details about an unsolved murder along I-20. The details she was able to provide led investigators to believe she may have credible information. During her interview, she revealed that she had dated a man back in 1998 who revealed to her that his brother had just shot someone on the side of I-20, and that person's brother was Charles Richard Kilpatrick. I never heard that name, and I didn't know the man. You know, when you hear that there is a girlfriend or a former intimate partner

saying that they heard someone say something, right away it goes, well, wait a second, what's the state of that relationship? Do they have a motivation to try to hurt that person and make something up? But normally when you get that, it's because they've already been a suspect by the police. And so they know that the police are already focused on them, so they are going to be maybe the final straw. But that just wasn't the case here. This name was really coming out of nowhere. And that to me right there starts to have that at least initial ring of truth.

Relationships over time change. People's allegiance to others change. So when you look at cases that go on for many, many years and someone who may have had an allegiance and have held a secret close to them, they may have a reason to take the weight off their shoulders. So if someone's coming into me and they have specificity and they have information about a name, I'm going to want to know everything I could learn about Kilpatrick. I'd want to know if Kilpatrick was in the area and what type of vehicle he was driving. And most importantly, did he ever cross paths with our victim? And here's where the police work starts to get really cool. Because remember, we are talking about 17 years later. So what police first do is they start to look for the vehicle or any vehicles

associated with Kilpatrick, and they find out that in 2000, he had sold a truck. And they are able actually to locate that truck in a different state in Missouri from its most recent owner. First of all, that truck could have been ended up in a junkyard, it could have been taken apart for parts, or just lost over the years. But once they actually get this truck, now they analyze it and they find out it is a match for that bumper that had been left at the crime scene back in 1998. You know, that sounds all very exciting, Anastasia, but I don't know if I would be comfortable at this point walking into your office asking you to sign off on an arrest warrant? Because it's still solid circumstantial, but is it enough circumstantial evidence to warrant an arrest?

Well, as a prosecutor, when I'm hearing that, without knowing every detail here, I'm probably not ready to walk into court. But I can tell you, just like when I read it, I'm getting excited because it feels right. They knew that what they didn't have was the murder weapon, that there had been no evidence at this time to show that Kilpatrick had the same type of gun that had been used to take Jody's life. But when investigators searched and started to dig deeper, they found out that Kilpatrick's father had reported a gun stolen in October of 1998, just two months after the murder. Now, this is where we get into the most interesting part, at least for me in this case.

Call it forward-leaning, call it creative. So police had a plan, a unique strategy to see if Kilpatrick would implicate himself. Just like a high-stake poker game. They knew exactly the hand they were playing. I've never seen anything like that. Investigators are trying to close in on Jody Wilder's killer, Charles Kilpatrick, Thank you. that he's on the radar. So investigators would have to devise a plan to gain evidence without him knowing you are. Perhaps you're thinking some incredible new piece of technology, well, you'd be wrong.

So listen to what they did. They went and got a warrant so that they could tap his mobile number and his brother's. Now, I can tell you that is no easy feat, especially we're talking 17 years later, because they had to show probable cause of why they could now get beyond that expectation of privacy that we all have to show that they believe that he had committed a crime. And this is why they wanted to hear what, if anything,

he would say about it. But they went so much further. And this is where it gets super, really interesting, because they sent a news article out that talked about this new technology that was going to solve Jody's cold case. So you might be saying, what is this new technology? There was none. They devised a fake news article and mailing it anonymously to Kilpatrick and his brother. The fake article also claimed there was a break in the 17-year-old homicide. It also included a real picture of Kilpatrick's old truck.

The actual composite sketch from 1998, an age progression sketch, which was based on a current picture they were able to obtain of Kilpatrick's brother's driver's license. It's like they absolutely set the whole end-time scenario up. They knew exactly what they were doing. It's like they absolutely set the whole end time scenario up. They knew exactly what they were doing. Now, to all of you out there, you do not need to be a law enforcement buff to just see how amazing this plan was. I mean, it's ingenious.

And think about how crafty they had to be. They had to put all these pieces together. They actually had to get them on paper, make it look like a real news article. They had to put enough facts and actual things in it. Because remember, what is it they're trying to achieve? They are trying to fake him out, if you will. They're trying to get his reaction because the thinking is this.

If he's an innocent man, they're not going to get anywhere. So no harm, no foul. They tried and that's now going to take them off this pass. But if it's him, that it's going to have enough information in there that they're hoping that he's going to want to talk to someone he trusts and that he will admit his guilt and get them across that finish line. Within hours, investigators captured audio of Kilpatrick talking to a friend about the shooting.

And based on all of this new evidence, they arrested Kilpatrick. So you have this case that took so many paths. Originally, Jody's own son was looked at, and fortunately, for every reason, it had nothing to do with him. You had the mysterious briefcase, and what, if anything, that had to do. And that was another path that investigators went down. And in the end, none of those avenues had anything to do with the ultimate motive for what took Jody Walters' life. Now, the briefcase was an entirely different person who dropped totally out of the picture. He didn't pursue looking for his briefcase after he found out Jody had been killed. So as investigators pieced the story together, it was determined that Jody did have some type of altercation at the bar, but it is unclear if that event had anything to do with

what happened on I-20. But we do know both men in their vehicle striking each other as they drove down I-20. And they both pulled over on the shoulder. And moments later, Kilpatrick exited his vehicle with a weapon in hand and began to fire. And after his arrest, Kilpatrick didn't deny shooting Jody. He admitted it, but claims he did it in self-defense. So when the case goes to trial, both Kilpatrick and the passenger who was with him testified about what they claimed happened that night. The man with Kilpatrick in the truck that night testified that he stayed in the vehicle the entire time and only heard the shots, not knowing that anyone had been hit. But Kilpatrick's self-defense claim laid out two altercations

that night that led to the shooting. So according to Kilpatrick, here's what happened. He said that both their vehicles are bumping one another and they are both on the highway. That it's his Jody's SUV that hits the rear, the back of Kilpatrick's truck. Not once, but twice. And that's what now causes his bumper to fall off. You know, the one that is ultimately found on the highway. And so both of their trucks ultimately end up stopping in an emergency lane and that Jody parks behind Kilpatrick. And now, again, according to Kilpatrick, he claims that Jody gets out of his truck, pulls out a gun, and begins to run towards Kilpatrick's truck.

Then Kilpatrick claims that it is then that he gets back into his truck, drives further down the highway, and now pulls over for a second time. And that then he gets out to check the damage to his truck, and he claims that Jody now pulls over in his truck and starts driving around, actually speeding towards him, almost as if he's going to use his truck as that weapon to hit him. And that it is here, Kilpatrick, that the only way that he can defend himself is that he now reaches for the gun that he has because he believes Jody is reaching for his and that Kilpatrick pulls out his gun and fires at Jody. Now, why Jody would have stopped except for, you know, when you're dealing with a drug, you're not dealing with

human control. You're dealing with substance control. And sometimes that stuff will make you feel like you're 10 foot tall and bulletproof. Well, that would have made him pull over and stop and deal with whatever it was. Because he didn't run from trouble. So it's interesting, and they're definitely putting together these various pieces. But we also know these other things that maybe did or didn't come into play. So you have the road rage story that something happened while they were actually driving on the highway. But on the other hand, we do know that Jody had used narcotics.

So was he acting erratically? Did he pose a threat to kill Patrick? Did he maybe start something on the highway or not? We just don't know. But I can tell you this, and this has to do with the law of self-defense. I don't want to get too deep into this, but it's going to apply, is that you are able to use like force against someone until you are able to get yourself to safety. And I'm leaving lots of elements out, but that's what's going to apply here. So regardless of who started what or what happened, think about how it ended, is that ultimately you have Jody's

car pulled to the side of the road, and you now have Kilpatrick having to get out of his car and now fired shots into that car. Regardless of who started what or when, although something must have started for him to ultimately get out of that car, is that threat ends the second that now Jody's car is stopped on the side of the road. And that is where his defense, Kilpatrick's, truthful or not, is going to fail. You do have three witnesses in this case. We had the passenger who was sitting next to Kilpatrick for the event. We've got the driver who drove by and circled back around to check on Jody. And then we have that DOT videotape, which captured the entire event.

The prosecution was able to show that Jody had no weapon at all. Remember, they got into that truck. And also, the engine wasn't running. When the witnesses had gotten there, when the police got there, which really goes against what Kilpatrick talks about this using the vehicle as a deadly weapon and coming right towards him. So while something happened between these two, and maybe it was Jody that even started it. Remember, he was coming out of another altercation inside that bar, but that it was anger got the better of him being Kilpatrick and that he got out of his car with a gun and he used it to intentionally take Jody's life. There was no way that he had deadly force about to be used against him at that moment. So self-defense is lost and now intentional murder is back in the cards. You know, I'm often surprised by this when the defense goes down a

path, which is the opposite path that the evidence leads everybody else. I mean, in this case, you had an eyewitness who saw Kilpatrick walking towards the vehicle with his arm raised, gun in hand. You had a DOT video, which showed the same thing, basically, which gave more than enough evidence who the aggressor was. So if you're presenting both cases to a jury and the evidence is strong enough to present that Kilpatrick was the aggressor, I'm not sure how it's going to work out for the person who's going against the forensic evidence in your case. When the truck pulled over and the man got out and walked towards the vehicle Jody was in, Jody, according to the pictures and what they were talking about in court, he never made an attempt to even get out of the car. Kilpatrick walked up to the car. Jody had the window down. Walked up to the car, put the gun inside, and started firing. And the other guy stayed in the vehicle. And again, the defense never has to do anything at trial, but this is the defense that Kilpatrick chose to take.

He never made eye contact with me. He just acted like it was nothing, you know, didn't seem to have an emotion one way or the other. His attorney is the whole time saying he's not guilty. He didn't do it, but he was just cold and indifferent. But there's that saying that I've said many times before, admit what you have to and deny what you can. And it's exactly that we have seen in this line of work so many times. So that again, while he what you have to. And deny what you can. And it's exactly that we have seen in this line of work so many times. So that, again, while he didn't have to do anything trial, Kilpatrick took a stab at turning the evidence, what they knew the police had and was being presented. But those efforts failed because the jury returned verdicts of guilty on all counts

and the trial court sentenced Kilpatrick to life in prison for malice murder. It was like just a, it was kind of a relief that it was over. It was like finally you can breathe. There was noticeably someone in the courtroom that day, Jody's son, who even his own family members questioned whether he'd be there or not because of all the things that he was within the family accused of. He did show up two of those days and actually sat through the trial.

And that's the first I'd been around him since the funeral. And it was kind of like a relief to him that, well, now it was out in the open who was responsible for it. In his final days, Jody was still struggling, trying to pick himself up and to move on. Gail recalled the last time she saw him knowing she did everything she can do to help him. Jody left this world loving me and loving his family, and I hold on to that. It's okay that I still love him, and I still think of him, and I think of him in a good way in the happy days, and the good, the bad, whatever didn't change that love at all.

So I keep Jody alive in my heart and mind. That's how I deal with it. And this story also, it speaks of resiliency in this family and of us all. And to Gail, we thank you for sharing the story new episode of Anatomy of Murder. 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?