Anatomy of Murder - Lie or Die Part 1

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Murder, another murder, and a hand on a shoulder. How these three things intersect and how the tangled web was unwoven hits at the heart of our justice system. Part 1 of 2.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

I'm handed this case and and while I'm hesitant to ever characterize any murder case as a garden variety murder it's really what it looked like and there was never an inkling that this was going to turn into the case that it became I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. Today's story takes place in Brooklyn, New York, where, you may remember, I was a prosecutor for many years,

and it was handled by colleagues who are also friends of mine. But this is a case that no one working in our office will ever forget. For this podcast, we spoke to two of the prosecutors that handled this. The first was Stephen Murphy. It's late summer of 2001, and within a highly dense residential area sits Willoughby Park. In the summer, there's a group of kids in a neighborhood of Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and there's two brothers, and in a neighborhood of Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant. And there's two brothers, and these brothers are pivotal in this case.

They are Corey and Dennis Brown. Just to give you a little bit more about the two brothers, they were super close. Dennis was the older of the two. They were seen together all the time. And they're not only brothers, but they look very much alike. Now, both of them had round faces. I've read in multiple reports that they both had gap-toothed smiles.

Now, the two brothers were very close, but they were thought about quite differently. Dennis Brown, he did not have the colorful past like his brother Corey Corey, did. Both of them were referred to very often by their nicknames, and Dennis' nickname was Doughboy. Well, Doughboy, I know, is a character from a movie. People said he looked like the heavyset character in the film, as you may know, Boys in the Hood. Now, Corey's nickname was a bit different. Corey's nickname was Slay.

I think you can use your own imagination as to why they called him Slay. But it wasn't an affectionate nickname based on a character in a movie. They are sitting in the park. There are other people in the park, including young girls, teenagers. They're hanging out.

This park is something that's wedged between a grammar school and a Catholic church, and it doesn't in any're hanging out. This park is something that's wedged between a grammar school and a Catholic church, and it doesn't in any way stand out. But for these kids, it was an oasis for them to come to, spend summer nights, and hang out. You know, it reminds me, I don't know, Anastasia, have you ever seen Spike Lee's movie, Do the Right Thing? I've seen all of them. Yep. So as you know, that's shot in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and it really shows the way these kids use these areas. One of the Brown brothers got drunk that night and he ended up smacking a girl. The brother who did that was Corey, also known as

Slay. That sort of set this case in motion because he smacked the girl who happened to be dating a man by the name of McCullough. And that small portion of that pivotal night had tremendous consequences because you fast forward now to September 4th, different set of characters, same park. Dennis and Corey Brown are both there. And about 8 o'clock that night... McCullough now comes riding into this park. He's riding in on a bicycle with another man. And they came riding in very slowly, very ominously, and they approached the Brown brothers.

Now remember, Corey Brown is the one that hit the girl, but now there was a gun being hoisted upon Dennis Brown, someone who the kids in the neighborhood called Doughboy. And Doughboy had his hands up, quietly begging for forgiveness or to try and make apparent that he was not the person involved in this. Gunfire erupted, and when the smoke cleared, Dennis Brown had been shot two times. Corey Brown and some of the other people in the park all ran and scattered away.

The person who fired wasn't McCullough, but his unidentified friend. Scott, I'd be feeling this way no matter who it was, but knowing that this is the wrong brother. Just when you hear that, let's just talk about the mistaken identity aspect of it. Incidents like these happen in a flash. Remember, it's nighttime, minimal lighting, I'm sure, and the shooter is on a bike circling around, waiting for the right moment and trying not to be suspicious, which I'm sure he was anyway. He was almost menacing, if you can imagine that in a sense. He reached for his weapon, pointed at the brother's direction, and pulled the trigger twice. And while his target is

the person who disrespected his friend's girlfriend, and that would be Corey Brown, both rounds struck Corey's brother, Dennis. The deceased Brown, Dennis Brown, was actually a very likable and innocent victim. You know, I was working at NBC in New York at the time of the shooting. And I will tell you, shootings were not uncommon in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. It's unfortunate to say that, but certainly not uncommon. But if the shooting was someone where the victim was not DOA or the victim wasn't a child, it would not make the headlines. And now one thing that I have to point out, because I think it's relevant here, is that Dennis Brown didn't die right away. Mr. Brown was taken to a local hospital.

He was not what we call in our world likely to die. And that is how it's termed. In fact, he was taken to the hospital for gunshot wounds to the stomach. Over the next 23 days, he endured nine operations. He spent the next three weeks or more in that hospital, but he was pronounced dead on September 27, 2001. This began, obviously, as an attempted murder investigation at a local precinct. In Brooklyn, they have different categories of response from the police department. And I think that the categories sort of trigger a level of intensity. This case was not considered a likely to die case early on.

So Mr. Brown's shooting was being investigated by local precinct detectives, and the local precinct detectives went through what I would qualify at that time as a routine investigation. And they got some statements, but the investigation had not really ratcheted up until after Mr. Brown was pronounced dead. Now that it's a homicide, it would be brought to the Brooklyn North Homicide Unit to start working the case. However, those investigators are already 23 days behind. What that also means is that the case isn't processed the same way. You don't have that same crime scene unit coming and gathering the forensics and doing the same deep dive and really looking at every possible avenue that day because there just unfortunately isn't the man and woman power.

So it isn't until much later that it becomes this homicide case. And now everyone is off to the races to catch their killer. They're generally going to start by going back to the area where this happened, speaking to people who are in that area. Are there any eyewitnesses? So on that night at the crime scene, they weren't really able to get any traditional forensic evidence from the scene. No shell casings were recovered, no fingerprints, no surveillance video.

So at this point, eyewitness testimony is the best that they can rely on. And you know, anyone that's out there saying, well, wait a second, you're saying this is a case that really didn't have forensics. Well, how could it ever go anywhere? Let me give you this newsflash is that so many of our cases do not rely on forensics. Just think about it for a second. Someone comes up and they fire a gun and then they leave. Well, you don't have the gun. So if you don't have the gun to compare to any ballistics, even if they're not found, so you aren't going to have forensic evidence really advancing the ball. And so you really have to rely and hope that witnesses are able to ultimately and willing to talk to you and tell you what they saw. But here's the problem,

especially in an area like Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, where the code in the street, amongst some at least, was not to cooperate with police. Particularly in Bedford-Stuyvesant, there's an imposing wave of really deadly violence that grips a neighborhood like that. And it affects profoundly the cooperative nature or lack thereof of witnesses. There's a lot of metro areas in this country where the relationship with local police may not be at a level where people feel comfortable enough to come forward.

People are not leaping at the opportunity to help the police for obvious reasons. They didn't want to be known as that one. You know, you all have heard that saying, snitches get stitches. Well, I can tell you from working in this line of work, and I've been involved in a lot of research projects actually on witness intimidation, because I was always so upset by it. And what can we do about it? That is a very real thing. So the first big break in this case was an anonymous tip that came in describing the man on the bicycle with a gun and they said he was dressed in all black with a black cap. And further the details involved in

this anonymous tip included the approximate age of the shooter. And the shooter had a glass eye. So now police need to find the glass-eyed murderer before he strikes again. And so what they did was they zeroed in on some old police reports and photographs and looked for people who had a glass eye. They found a suspect. His name was Wesley Sykes, a 21-year-old with a known tie to a very violent street gang in Brooklyn. And he himself had been shot in the face when

he was just 16 years old. And that's why he lost his eye. Then investigators needed the help of witnesses. That was a crowded park, but there were only a few people who were willing to come forward and actually speak with the police. One of them was Corey Brown, who was Mr. Brown's brother. And then there were three different girls. They also were. Brown's brother. And then there were three different girls. They also were present in the park. And then there was one other person named Bobby Gibson. And investigators were easily able to locate Sykes, who was arrested on his front porch in his Brooklyn home.

With all the pieces now in place, the case was ready for the prosecution to take it from there. And that's where our second guest comes in, Mitch Benson. I think my title was executive assistant district attorney. Functionally, I was the chief of trials in the Homicide Bureau. At the time, I think he had either tried the most cases in the office or certainly close to it. And one of his duties was to assign the cases. He was walking around with this file, almost like it was a bag of groceries. And he was just looking for some unsuspecting victim to give it to. And I think he looked at this case and said, hey, this is a relatively straightforward shooting in a park.

And I thought that this was something that a new prosecutor could prepare for relatively easily. And I happened to be in my office. Steve Murphy had just recently gotten to the Homicide Bureau, so while already a very experienced trial attorney, he was still considered one of the newer or greener attorneys in the unit at the time. And I think he said, let's give it to the young guy.

Let's give it to the new guy and have him handle it. It will be a good experience for him. And I don't think he really appreciated at the time how right he was. But what no one knew at the time was this case was going to be anything but easy and straightforward. In fact, the murder of Dennis Brown was just the tip of the iceberg. He was assigned the case because the prosecutor who had had it now for many months had another trial going on.

And unfortunately, because of the way things work, Steve gets this case with only a day's notice before he has to begin the first part of the hearing. I mean, Anastasia, that seems such a short amount of time to prepare for a homicide case. I mean, give us a sense. Is that the norm? Have you had to do that? I am so happy to say that it is not the norm.

However, it certainly happened and it is not uncommon. And yes, I have been given cases. I don't think I remember ever being given one that I had to go into court the next day and actually try the case. But, you know, there are cases that when they get old enough, the judge is like, look, if you, the prosecutor, have something else going on, I need another taken. So you cannot in any way just gloss over anything and walk into court. You really need to do a very quick deep dive to understand the ins and outs. And that's exactly what Steve had to do. We started the hearings and whether or not the identification of the defendant out of court was appropriate. And that was when they looked at a photo array, was it fair? When they looked at the lineup that the police had arranged, was it fair?

You know, Steve brings up the point that, you know, would the photo array be constitutional? You know, having a glass eye is so distinctive that it would be prejudicial to be the only person in the lineup with that feature. And obviously, it would be difficult to find five other people in the lineup to all have that same feature. So in the case of a glass eye, each person in that lineup would have to cover their eye with a patch or a piece of paper. So a witness looking at it wouldn't be able to pick that feature out so distinctively. The only thing about the hearings that loomed significant later on was that we were identifying the witnesses who viewed the lineup and identified the defendant. What we didn't know at the time is that the defendant had a half-brother.

This person was sitting in the courtroom during the hearings on that Wednesday. And as far as we knew at the time, he was just a caring family member who was watching his brother's trial start to unfold. We were very wrong about who he was and what his intentions were. So once that hearing was done, now the next move was to pick a jury. Feeling very comfortable that we have a fairly strong case and one that the defendant's going to have a very, very difficult time poking holes in. So usually it would take a little bit more than a day to pick a jury,

but we were able to do it one day. So there is now one business day and then the weekend before the trial is going to actually begin. And so on that one day, that Friday, Steve Murphy meets one of his witnesses, Bobby Gibson. He came into the office and I met with him for about 25, 30 minutes. He was a friend of the deceased and expressed an interest and an intention to testify. He didn't seem overly eager, but he didn't seem like there was anything that was troubling him any more than any normal witness

to a homicide would have revealed at the time. Then everything changed at around 4.30 in the morning on Saturday. My beeper goes off, and it is a Brooklyn number. It is a precinct number, and it's got 911, 911, 911 after it. I realize that there's some sort of an issue, so I call the number number and I speak with a detective who I know well, but he is a man of few words, and he asks me, does the name Bobby Gibson

mean anything to you? And I said, it does. And he said, well, you better wake up, because he's dead. There are just so many things to talk about with what must have been going through Steve's mind when he got that call. And as a prosecutor, I can tell you, I mean, this is the type of call that literally shakes every one of us to the core. That was something that sent shivers down my spine. It was an obvious turning point in this case and a very sad point in this case because a young man's life was lost. There is a person that he just met. He had that person, Bobby Gibson, that young man's life was lost. There is a person that he just met. He had that person, Bobby Gibson, that young man was inside his office.

And now he's dead. And just the idea that could this be about the trial? Could it be because his name is now known to the defense? Well, that is every prosecutor's worst nightmare. When someone who is a witness to a murder is killed, it's really tragedy for the legal system and a tragedy for him and his family. And it really sent this case immediately spiraling

in a completely different direction. I mean, as a prosecutor or as a detective, this is a big problem for your case. in a completely different direction. I mean, as a prosecutor or as a detective, this is a big problem for your case. And the question remains, was this at all connected to what Bobby Gibson was about to do that Monday? You know, get on the stand and likely point out the person sitting at the defense table

as the alleged shooter of Dennis Brown. From the legal system perspective, I mean, this strikes at the very heart of our Brown. From the legal system perspective, I mean, this strikes at the very heart of our system. We rely on witnesses, forensic surveillance. They're great and they're needed and they help us move forward and make sure we've gotten it right. But none of that works without people. For any case, a fingerprint doesn't tell you who the killer is. It's a witness who will be the one to point the finger at the killer. But let's move back into who this is really about right now. And that is Bobby Gibson. He was going to be the prosecution star witness. He did not say anything about

threats or being fearful. He didn't act in any way different than any witness I've ever met with before. There is the possibility that his murder had nothing to do with the case. It could be a coincidence. While I'm sure the idea of testifying hovered over him and was an uneasy moment for him, I know that I could say confidently that he wasn't expressing outwardly any fear to me. And his actions are consistent

with someone who was at least comfortable with the idea that they were going to stand up and testify. And I think a lot of that was driven by his friendship with Mr. Brown. So now that Bobby Gibson is dead, let's talk about who he was. He was a 21-year-old man who grew up in that neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. He had left school in the 10th grade, but he had a job. He worked full time at a nearby fast food restaurant. He was known for his deep brown eyes and his slender build. And his family at this point had actually moved to another section of Brooklyn,

but he always came back to the neighborhood that he still considered home. And it was on that weekend, right before trial, that that neighborhood took his life. Where he was killed happened to be only a block or so away from where the original Brown murder took place. I remember a flurry of phone calls coming throughout the police department, the mayor's office, the district attorney at the time. But then really what stands out to me is trying to contact these witnesses. While police are still trying to establish whether his murder was related to being a witness, there were still several other eyewitnesses who were also scheduled to testify. And the question is, where are they? Are they in danger?

Now, keep in mind, I'm calling these three girls who happened to, unfortunately for them, have the bad timing of being in the park at the time of this murder. They've never met me. I'm calling them for the very first time on the day that their friend was murdered. And it's a friend who happened to witness the same murder they did. They were not particularly inclined to speak to me or to really speak to anyone. This case that was, quote unquote, supposed to be straightforward, well, it's anything but straightforward now. But the trial for Dennis Brown is still scheduled to begin Monday morning. What am I going to do tomorrow? I've got to go in front of a judge and talk to the judge about why, while I'm ready to start this trial, in theory, one of my witnesses was

killed over the weekend, and the other witnesses that I have are now terrified. part. And I mean, the protection of those witnesses has got to be key in the mind for prosecutors and key in the mind for detectives. Now, most of you out there listening might be thinking, well, why can't you just use the statements that Bobby Gibson made to police? Well, very clearly under our laws, you can't. And for good reason. It has to do with the defendant's right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him. And if you think about it, that makes perfect sense. However, there is an exception to that. Now, in New York, there's an interesting case that allows you to go to a judge and request a hearing, a determination that may be reached at this hearing is if you can prove that a witness's

ability to come to court was eliminated either at the behest of or by a criminal defendant, then any statements that that witness made previous to being killed or prevented from coming to court, like Mr. Gibson obviously was, can be used against that defendant. What they're trying to do at this point is prove the link to the defendant, to Wesley Sykes, because if they can link by clear and convincing evidence, that's the standard for this hearing, to the court that Wesley Sykes had something to do with now the homicide of Bobby Gibson, well, now Bobby Gibson's testimony comes in. If we were able to prove that Mr. Gibson's

death was connected to him being a witness and that Mr. Sykes or someone on behalf of Mr. Sykes participated in eliminating him as a witness, then we could use Mr. Gibson's testimony. He didn't need to be the one to pull the trigger because obviously he was in jail, but you need to show that link to get this done. And the reason for that is that you can't take advantage of your own misconduct, right? You can't make a witness go absent, you know, run them out of town, or in this case, maybe potentially cause their death, and then benefit by not getting that testimony. So it is a really big deal when we go to court like that. These legal hearings that are used when a witness

becomes available, dead, refuses to testify, are very rare, but there was a lot riding on this one. This critical witness is deceased, but you do have his prior statements. So I wanted to ask you, Anasiga, as evidence, is this effective? I mean, powerful enough to sway a jury? You know, it really depends. You know, very often in these cases, there is circumstances that ultimately the jury does find out about. So they have a little background about what's going on. But it is kind of strange.

There's times that the judge rules that, yes, you're going to get the testimony, but you can't say why it is that that's coming in. and then the jury's just left with that. Before we go any further in the trial, it is important to talk about another person in all of this. His name is Dupree Harris. Now, Dupree Harris, so you understand, was a hulking presence, an imposing man with a history, a long history of violence. And not just a history of violence, but a history of violence coupled with witness intimidation. And Mr. Harris had been involved in at least a few different homicides and shootings.

He was known throughout that neighborhood, and his nickname was Turf, and it wasn't because he liked to sit on green, grassy areas. Turf was someone who everyone knew. He very much thought of himself as an imposing, intimidating figure. And I would imagine that turf in some way was a reflection of him having control of a particular area in his neighborhood. And he was also known by police as a local Bloods gang leader.

And really important to this case is that he was the half-brother of Wesley Sykes. The same half-brother that Stephen Murphy mentioned was sitting in the courtroom during the hearings. When the names of these witnesses, including Bobby Gibson, were released. What we didn't know at the time is that the defendant had a half-brother who happened to be a general in the Brooklyn sect of the Bloods, and his name was Dupreeerr-Parris. So the trial was set to start on Monday, and Stephen had his plans for the hearing with the judge. But before he can even get to that moment,

he gets hit with yet another huge curveball. By Sunday night, we had received some credible information that the defendant's half-brother, Dupree Turf Harris, he had approached the three girls, but that he had compelled their appearance, the three girls, to go into the offices of his half-brother's lawyer, who is a prominent criminal defense attorney in New York City, and give statements to the lawyer. There is a lot to unpack here, right? So Dupree Harris, the half-brother of the defendant, walked the three witnesses into the offices of Sykes' defense attorney, and on tape, with a hulking Turf Harris sitting in the room, they began to recant their testimony. Each of these kids, naive kids, walked into this lawyer's office with this man, Turf Dupree Harris, and they gave statements. And each of these statements were recanting what they had previously told the police, were disavowing the testimony that they had previously provided to a grand jury. Let's just talk generally for a second about recanting witnesses, because, you know, it happens.

And fortunately, I guess, for the justice system in a way, so often these recantations are not credible. And I think every prosecutor will confirm what I am saying. Now, sometimes they are because sometimes people do lie for various reasons. And hopefully you ferret that out before it gets too far. But also, unfortunately, we talk about, you know, people not wanting to get involved and they're scared. Well, it's one thing to tell us in a closed office what someone did or in a secretive proceeding like a grand jury. Now they're going to have to go into that courtroom and point that finger and an open court say what they saw and who saw it. So sometimes that is very often the time that just to not be involved, you hear that, no, no, no, I didn't see it and it didn't happen that way or I was lying and I made it up.

So you really have to figure out where the truth lies. And obviously you have to give it to the defense. I mean, let's take it back to the streets, because when you approach a witness and you ask them for information and ask them to cooperate with your investigation, you often hear the same thing. Well, I'm not going to testify. I'll tell you what I know, but I'm just not going to testify. And often you work these witnesses and you provide them information to make them feel comfortable enough that you're going to do everything you can to corroborate that information that you may need them down the road to testify, whether it's a grand jury or whether it's

an actual trial. So while it does happen that they get cold feet or that they start to think, well, maybe I really didn't see anything or maybe I didn't really process what I was seeing. But also it's that same fear of getting involved or even worse, being approached and being told. If you are involved or you do testify, things could happen. You've got to gain the confidence of your witnesses because they're your case. I mean, as much as lawyers want to assume the role of director and star of this play, the play is really dominated by the sincerity and the credibility of the witnesses. And that was my mission, is to really allow these girls to see that we were well-meaning in our efforts, and we were going to do what we had to do to keep them safe.

Dupree Harris was the half-brother of Wesley Sykes. The two had lived together. In fact, at some point, it was Wesley Sykes that actually posted bail for his brother, Turf. And now this is the person that prosecutors are hearing has walked these girls into Sykes' defense attorney's office. Now, the funny thing, and I don't mean funny, ha- ha, about these statements is that Mr. Harris sat next to them. He gestured to them what to say. He nodded his head in approval when they said things according to design. These statements were recorded. enormous, intimidating, imposing man who happens to be the half-brother of the defendant on trial for murder is sitting next to the witness with his arm on their shoulder as they gave their

recantation. There's so many levels of wrong here about how a criminal defense attorney would be part of this situation. You're talking about recanting their statement while a family member of the defendant is in the room, a hulking family member. A couple things to note here. One, they later learned that Dupree Harris had been represented by this same defense attorney. And you know, prosecutors, we audiotape witnesses all the time. And sometimes there are multiple people in the room. But one thing that is just a given is that you're always going to lay out who are the people that are present. And you do that to document it for later, because you're never going to remember or you may well not remember later who is there. And every person in that room now

is at least from a prosecutor's perspective, a potential witness. So the one thing that is just a given is that you are going to say on that tape, everyone that is there. These three girls over time, that was like peeling layers to an onion. They finally shared with us that Mr. Harris had approached not only the three of them, but also Mr. Gibson. And the message as they conveyed it was take the money and lie or die. Wow. I mean, that is not a thinly veiled threat.

That is a direct death threat from a leader of a violent street gang who had the means to follow that through, buying their silence to aid a family member. They took the money. They gave a recantation. They walked away, at least on these tapes, from what they swore they saw.

Bobby Gibson didn't play along. Once we were armed with that information, we felt that there was a very persuasive and compelling argument that Mr. Harris, and then by connection, Wesley Sykes, was responsible for Mr. Gibson being eliminated as a witness. I want you all to just take a step back as you hear that and remember, this is a case

that was handed to the quote-unquote newbie to the Homicide Bureau. And it's a case that he only had been on for just mere days. And now it's not just the murder of a man because of a mistaken identity, but it has snowballed into a witness being murdered and allegations that other witnesses were bribed and threatened. And so we presented that in open court to the judge. This is why prosecutors so quickly zeroed right in on believing that Bobby Gibson was killed because he was going to be a witness in the Wesley Sykes murder case. I mean, now they had evidence that all these witnesses

had been approached numerous times and basically told, take the money, lie or die, and that the only one that wasn't playing along was Bobby Gibson. His name is released in court just two days before. And now the weekend before the trial, Bobby Gibson is dead. And that's what they're armed with when they now go into the hearing to try to convince the judge that they have proved that link to the defendant. And it all comes back to that hearing that happened in the court.

And it also now leads you to look much more closely to Dupree Harris. Kirk was in the courtroom on the day of the hearings when the witnesses' names were revealed. So when they were able to place him in the room at those times that that information was given out, that's potentially how he knew exactly who to approach and who to get to change their story. Kirk was in the courtroom the next day for jury selection.

And now, at the beginning of his half-brother's trial, he was sitting in the courtroom just before we were ready to start this hearing. The judge sent back for courtroom security, and the district attorney's office was called to ask detectives to race over to the courthouse to apprehend Mr. Harris. He went into the hallway after hearing what the circumstances of the hearing would be, and I went out and followed him. And Mr. Harris, in front of a number of different people, said he was going to have me killed. So working in the Brooklyn DA's office at that time, or any time in your career, Anastasia, I'm sure many people are thinking, is this something that you have actually faced?

I mean, look, for all of us as homicide prosecutors, I am happy to report that this is not the norm. It is not common. It is rare, but it does happen. It is one of the risks of the job. And, you know, I've been there myself, and fortunately, I'm still here to talk about it. And again, the question is, when someone says something or you're told there's a threat against you, is that just words? Are they blowing off steam? Are they doing it to get a reaction? And quite honestly, it is that more often than not. But you can't bet that way. You can't assume that way. You always have to assume the worst because you need to make sure that the person who has now been threatened is protected.

And that's exactly what was about to happen with Stephen Murphy here. And that's really the only time that I can recall anyone threatening to kill me. And people will frequently ask, well, you know, were you scared? Were you terrified? And I just kind of have the mindset of you might kill me, but if you're stupid enough to announce it in front of everyone, I don't think you're going to. But you're not going to scare me to death before you do. Now, even though police had what they needed to arrest Turf, the hulking man, imagine we've described him like that, was able to slip out of the courthouse and get away. To the extent that a 250-pound man can adroitly run out of the courthouse, he was able to escape. He got away. The cops and the detective investigators from the Brooklyn District Attorney's office began a frenetic search for him. And that was a search that lasted for a long period of time.

So now you have this guy who has been actually identified as procuring witnesses to recant their testimony, telling them to lie or die, which that is, as you said, Scott, it's not a veil threat. That is a threat. And now you have a witness that is dead. And now you have a guy that you don't know what part he has played in at least some of this, that he is just gone. I mean, so many things now have a big question mark attached.

We're so deep into the story at the moment. There are so many other aspects of this story to unpack. One, will the three girls still cooperate? Two, will Dupree Harris face consequences for his actions? Three, what about the conclusion of the Wesley Sykes trial? And last, but definitely not least, who killed Bobby Gibson? And next week, we'll answer those questions

and so much more. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original, a Weinberger Media and Forseti Media production. Sumit David is executive producer. Thanks for watching!