Cold Case Files - Death of a Deacon

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Deacon Phil Perry was having an affair with a member of his congregation. Shortly after he told his own wife, his body was found in the trunk of a car in Mexico. He had been murdered. Who killed Deacon Phil Perry? And how did his body end up south of the border? Check out our great sponsors! SimpliSafe: Go To SimpliSafe.com/coldcase today to customize your system and get a free security camera! Function of Beauty: Go to FunctionOfBeauty.com/coldcase to take your quiz and save 20% on your first order! Klaviyo: To get started with a free trial visit Klaviyo.com/coldcase  Lifelock: Go to LifeLock.com/coldcase to save up to 25% off your first year! Madison Reed: Find your perfect shade at Madison-Reed.com to get 10% off plus FREE SHIPPING on your first Color Kit with code CCF Change your scenery with Apartments.com - the most p opular place to find a place!

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. An A&E original podcast. This episode discusses stories of intense violence, which may be disturbing to some listeners. Please listen with caution. Phil Perry was 40 years old. He was serving as a deacon at his local church. On April 13, 1992, he left the church and seemed to have disappeared.

His wife reported him missing, though she told police that she didn't always know where he was. Their relationship was rocky at best. Mr. Perry had been having an affair with a member of the church congregation, Lisa Bragg. Phil was found three days later in Mexico, in the backseat of a car. He'd been shot and abandoned. The car was registered to Carl, Lisa's husband. From A&E,

this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. I'm Brooke, and here's the renowned Bill Curtis with a classic case, Death of a Deacon. I start screaming and yelling at him and telling him this wasn't supposed to happen. You were just supposed to scare him. You're just supposed to tell him don't mess with married women. You weren't supposed to kill him. In an interrogation room, police watch as a wife talks

to her husband. And I told him if I ever said anything, that he would kill you and kill the kids. The topic of conversation? Murder. Why in the hell are those f***ing people going to do this to me? It's a story that begins almost ten years earlier, with the end of a marriage. He took his ring off and he put it on the counter and I took mine off and put it on the counter and we were just real quiet. In 1992, Christine Perry's life is coming apart at the seams. Her husband, a deacon at the local church, is having an affair with a member of his congregation.

Now Phil Perry wants a divorce. I laid down, and I couldn't even talk, and he just laid down next to me. There was a quiet resolution. It's over. It's done. It's done. Phil Perry leaves the house the next morning. The day after that, Christine discovers her husband has vanished and talks to police.

The question specifically was, do you know where your husband is? Does he always tell you where he is? And I said, no, I don't always know. And the officer said, okay. That was enough. He got the message. He understood that things weren't okay. Police generate a missing persons report.

Then Christine finds a letter in the mailbox, purportedly from her husband. The content was just saying that he was going to be away for a while and get clear his head and he'd be okay. And he'd check back later. He had signed it and in the bottom then it said Phil Perry underneath it. Phil wouldn't be that formal with me.

It just seemed too businesslike. Even with the subject matter that was there, it was just a little bit too formal to be the way it was. Bob Emerson is a detective with the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department. He sits down with Christine and her son Russell and talks about what might have happened to Phil Perry. When we first started, it was a missing person. You know, he'll be back in a couple days. And then when the letters started coming in

and then the notification from San Diego is when it really turned hard that there was more to it than what we had just thought it was a missing person. The call from San Diego is about a body found south of the border. But back then, it was, it's still days worth of work. This one right here in front of me is a picture of Mr. Perry's car parked along the sidewalk in the street in the city of Tijuana. Three days after Phil Perry is reported missing, Detective Emerson drives south to Tijuana.

On a residential street, he finds an abandoned white Chrysler in the back seat, the body of Phil Perry. It appeared from the evidence that he had actually been pushed down and the gun went off or shot him in the back as he was being pushed down. The entry wound was into his back and it exited through his cheek area. and the gun went off or shot him in the back as he was being pushed down. The entry wound was into his back and it exited through his cheek area as if it was shot in a downward air trajectory. This document is from the US Customs. It's a border crossing. Emerson asks Customs to determine when Phil Perry's car crossed the border. He also requests that customs check on two people who might want Phil Perry dead, his rumored lover Lisa Bragg and her husband Carl.

I had the license plate's numbers of Mr. Perry's car, also the Bragg's two cars. I asked and requested that all three be run, and the Jeep did come across the border on the date that I requested. According to customs, Carl Bragg's Jeep crossed the U.S.-Mexico border the day Phil Perry was reported missing. Emerson brings in Carl Bragg to ask him why. And then he asked me a bunch of questions about, you know, Phil Perry and Lisa,

and did I know about his murder and his disappearance, and at that time I was saying, no, I didn't know nothing. Bragg's home and business are searched. Emerson finds a stash of love letters written from Phil Perry to Lisa Bragg. Carl admits to finding the letters and confronting his deacon about them. Phil denied everything. Even when I told him I had the letters, he said, no, it's not what you think. It's a sisterly, brotherly love of Christ. It's not what you're thinking. You're thinking of the lust and the flesh. He says, and we got a spiritual love.

Carl, however, reads something different in the letters. They mentioned that they were in a hotel room and they made love. It was in detail. I was angry. I was hurt. Mainly more hurt than angry. I was hurt because I trusted this man a lot. Philip Perry and I were very close friends. He was like a spiritual advisor for me.

I could talk to him about anything. Emerson wants to charge Bragg with murder. However, he has a problem. He had a bunch of alibis. Number one, he'd never been to Mexico in his life. Number two, he was busy that night. Carl can prove he was at a hospital with a sick child the night Perry disappeared.

Carl Bragg, it appears, could not have killed Phil Perry, unless, that is, he had help. Right now we're behind the St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the city of Upland. This is where Mr. Perry was last seen after a counseling session here in this building. Detective Emerson returns to the church parking lot where Phil Perry was last seen alive and a story about a woman who claimed to have car trouble. An unknown female, described as a short Hispanic female, needed a pair of jumper cables.

Mr. Perry retrieved the jumper cables, went with her. She came back a short time later and delivered the jumper cables back. No one seemed to know the person. We asked the priest if he had ever seen her before. He stated that he had never seen her before, had no idea who she really was.

Emerson wonders if the woman might have acted as Carl Bragg's accomplice and somehow helped to kidnap Perry. It's a theory that goes nowhere for more than a decade until the mystery woman resurfaces with a vengeance. I yelled at her, I said, what'd you go with Carl for? You know, what the f*** were you thinking?

What did you do? Phil Perry was found murdered in the backseat of a car. The police suspected Carl Bragg had something to do with Phil's death, but he had an alibi and they couldn't make the charges stick. Almost ten years later, at the urging of Phil's son, investigators take a second look at Phil's unsolved murder. In another attempt to collect evidence against Carl Bragg, they wiretap his stepsister's phone. The truth of how Phil Perry was murdered when the case continues.

This picture was taken the day that my dad died. This is me and my older brother David and my dad. So this is a picture I cherish. Three days after this picture was taken, Phil Perry, a church deacon, was found in Mexico, shot dead in the back of his car. What happened to my dad ate at me over the years. It just was eating me up inside. But what kept me going was hope that someday What happened to my dad ate at me over the years. It just was eating me up inside.

But what kept me going was hope that someday someone would have to pay for what they did. Russ Perry was 18 when his dad was killed in 1992. By 2001, he's 27, and the case is still cold. I called the homicide unit in San Bernardino, and that's the first time I spoke to Sergeant Bobby Dean. This is the sheriff's homicide detail, and the investigators' offices are over on the side, and this is where they keep all the cold case files or the unsolved files. Bobby Dean opens up the Perry case file and begins to read. One name immediately comes to the fore. Carl Bragg was a member of Phil Perry's congregation and the husband of a woman rumored to be the deacon's

lover. That makes Carl Bragg a person of interest once again. So definitely Carl was a suspect, but we knew from the investigation the detectives did in 1992 that Carl was alibi'd up. So we knew Carl wasn't actually involved in the Kinn kidnapped murder. We certainly suspected that he either paid or had someone kidnap Mr. Perry. Gold case detectives believe that someone might be a woman seen with Deacon Perry just before he disappeared. We knew that a lady had went to the church that night and asked for some jumper cables, said her car broke down. And Phillip complied with that and helped her out. That was the last time we was seen. So who was that woman?

It was a Hispanic female with dark hair, short, about 150 pounds, heavy set. And it matched Liz Miner. Blue tee. Liz Miner is Carl Bragg's stepsister. Detectives decide to tap her phone. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. He immediately started chain smoking, and as we kept searching around the house,

he kept on following us around. What are you guys looking for? What are you doing? What's this? What's this about? And his big telling statement that I thought was critical in this case was, hey, you guys looked at this in 92 and you put it away. Why are you back? Bob Miner is scared and makes the mistake detectives were hoping for.

He gets on the phone with his wife, Liz. We got the sheriff's department here. Why? That damn shit with Carl Joseph. You don't know nothing, right? Uh-uh. Don't be nervous, Robert. They can detect things.

All right, kiddo. Their demeanor and their attitude and the voice inflections, you can tell the first phone call between Liz and Robert. Robert's stressed out. He knows the cops are on to him. They said that they want to talk to me more tomorrow, that you've talked to other people,

and that they still seem to think I'm not telling them everything. Liz is starting to worry because she knows she has more involvement in the case than Robert does, so she's trying to obtain information from him. He's trying to tell her what's going on. So there's a very strong dynamic going on there between them. They're both worried, obviously. He's trying to tell her what's going on. So there's a very strong dynamic going on there between them. They're both worried, obviously. Robert Miner is taken downtown for an interview.

Liz follows shortly thereafter. Husband and wife are placed in separate rooms. One will eventually be let go. The other will be charged with murder. How are you doing? Fine, how are you? You're Elizabeth Miner? I'm Sergeant Dean.

My hands are still a little bit wet. Oh, I don't mind. Cold case detective Bobby Dean doesn't waste a lot of time with Liz Minor. Liz, what do we know about the death of this deacon? Just what my husband told me when I was in Utah. With that, Liz Minor begins to tell her story, one that places her husband on the road to Mexico

with Carl Bragg and a dead buddy. What did Bob tell you that he did? He just said that he drove to TJ with Carl, that Carl told him that if he took a ride with him, that he would disregard a debt that we had owed him. What did he tell you he drove? He said he drove the Jeep. The Jeep.

He drove the Jeep down to Mexico. Right. Was anybody in it? I believe he said Carl was in the Jeep with him. I guess Carl wanted to go to Mexico to leave Deacon Phil with the car in Mexico. Is that what Bob told you? Well, that's, yes. She tried to infer to us that the source of the information was her husband

because her husband had given her that information when we suspected all along that she was the person that lured Perry from the church so that she was directly involved in his kidnapping and the subsequent murder. And I yelled at him, I said, what'd you go with Carl for? You know, what the f*** were you thinking? What did you do? And he said he felt scared and intimidated. You've seen my husband, he's a wuss. It was time to cut to the chase. She could tell us everything that Bob had told her. We want to know directly what she knew and what she participated in in an attempt to roll her into a confession.

Bob also tells us something about going to see Phil the night he disappeared. OK. Because you wanted to confront Phil about why he was having a affair with Lisa. This is the time to get truthful here, hon. This is where the hard questions are coming in. Been doing this a long time.

You're rolling the dice because she's not in custody. She can say, hey, I'm leaving, which would have been all right. She could have left. Or she could have said, I want an attorney and played that card. So we're hoping that she feels enough motivation, enough pressure. Liz feels the heat and begins to wilt just a bit. As police suspected, she did meet Phil Perry

on the night he vanished. According to Liz, it was Carl Bragg who pushed her into the meeting. He goes, I want to talk to him. He goes, I want to scare him. He goes, I just want to talk to him. That's all I want to do. I just want to talk to him. I just want to tell him to leave my wife alone. And that's what was supposed to happen. What did happen?

Can I have a cigarette? Sure. So now it's time to tell the truth about what happened to Phil that night. Liz Miner's talk with police is not going well. You know it's going to eventually come down, eventually. There's too many people in your family that know all about this case. She has already implicated her stepbrother, Carl Bragg, in the abduction and shooting of a church deacon named Phil Perry.

Sergeant Bobby Dean, however, wants a whole lot more. We know you went to see Phil that night. People saw you. And there's another issue that took place that night that you're scared about, you're worried about, because you know that that issue can put you there that night. You're watching the body language and you're trying to watch her demeanor and her attitude and what expressions she's given off to see if she's ready to push that button and go all the way with it, and she did. Scott showed up at my house.

Scott Harrison. Whatever his last name is. Scott Harrison is a friend of Carl Bragg. Scott's an intelligent, real cool character. I think there's another person inside that individual, and he's hidden it for many years. According to Liz, she and Scott Harrison drove over to the church parking lot.

There, Liz approached Phil Perry with a story about car trouble. We were standing by my truck talking and the next thing I know Scott is standing next to Phil and I jumped because I got scared because I didn't see him come out. And he told Phil to shut up and he had a gun. Scott has some sort of tape or something and he puts it over Phil's mouth and he forces Phil in the back seat. Scott points the next thing I know, I hear a loud bang in the car. My ears are hurting, and I go, you know, and I jump, and he's all, just f***ing drive. And I'm like, you know, and I'm shaking, and I don't know what to do. And I'm like,

I need to go home. She was down at that point. Stick a fork in her. Liz Minor is booked on a charge of murder. Her husband, Robert, is released. Okay, just relax. I'll be right back. Next up, the band detectives believe orchestrated the kill. Well, Carl, where shall we start? It's up to you where you want to start at. Carl Bragg is now known as Carl D. Tommaso.

Whatever the last name, Carl's story never seems to change. You know, I did not kill him, and I'm not going to admit killing somebody when I didn't kill somebody. I'm sitting down below, and this is Carl sitting here. And I'm still trying to convince him to tell us the truth about some of the information that we obtained. What did you think was going to happen? Them just scare him.

How were they going to scare him? I mean, Scott was just supposed to tell him to stay away or else. At this point, I'm getting close to him, trying to tell him, hey, what he's telling us does not make any sense, and that he needs to come off of that story that he didn't know anything about it. You already told me that you always know that Scott had a gun. So do you think he was probably going to bring that gun to scare too? Pretty safe assumption, right? It's probably a safe assumption, but I don't think he would ever, I mean...

I'm not saying you would know that he would do that, but I didn't think you'd ever, I mean. I'm not saying you would know that he would do that, but. I know for a fact Scott Harrison carried a gun with him at all times. Okay. Carl knew that he was armed and basically admitted that he sent an armed guy over to go slap somebody around. But what you're telling me is, is realistically, honestly, is that you knew Scott was armed, or always armed, and you told him, go slap around, Phil. And this was a very crucial part of the investigation, and in the case was finally he admitted his involvement,

that he, in fact, as we believed all along, has set this whole murder in motion. Cold case detectives have the man they believe set up the hit on Deacon Perry and the woman who acted as bait. But what about the alleged trigger man, Scott Harrison? When we first knocked at the door, he was pretty surprised. He was pale, and we could see his pulse racing on his neck. He was quite concerned.

Initially, he said he didn't know anything about Perry's death and had never driven a man down to Mexico in the backseat of a Chrysler. But after a few minutes of thought and reflection and convincing from his wife, he decided to tell us a different story. We are gonna go to Mexico. To Australia with what? Colin Bobber in the Jeep and I'm in the white car.

Any problems at the border? Customs, US guys, Mexican guys? For cold case detectives, the denial doesn't really matter. Yeah, there was. And you yourself did a poor turn, didn't I? No. For cold case detectives, the denial doesn't really matter. A murder charge is in Scott Harrison's future. The suspect's only consolation, he won't be alone in the lockup. We filed murder charges and special circumstances of lying in wait and kidnapping against Carl Dia Tommo and Scott Harrison and Elizabeth Miner. In 2001, Mike Ramos is the DA assigned to the Perry murder. He focuses on Liz Miner, who cops a plea. She pled guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping and went to prison for 11 years.

Carl Bragg DeTomaso opts for a trial. I didn't want the man killed. I never ordered the man to be killed. I didn't kill him. I told somebody to go talk to him, not to kill him. That is essentially DeTomaso's defense. The DA, however, tells a different story. They parked in a dark area.

Scott Harrison was hiding in a dark area. They brought the tape to put over his mouth. He had a gun with him. When you bring those types of items to simply scare somebody, it doesn't make sense. No, they were there to lure him away and murder him. A jury finds the state's case persuasive and finds Carl DeTomaso guilty of

second-degree murder. He is sentenced to 15 years to life. Next up, the murder charge against Scott Harrison. Sometimes as a prosecutor, you know that somebody has committed a crime and that they're guilty, but your evidence might not be, you know, the best. Deputy DA Cheryl Kersey works the Harrison prosecution with Mike Ramos. Almost immediately, the case runs into problems. In a pretrial motion, a judge rules that police failed to read Harrison his Miranda rights, and therefore Harrison's statement is inadmissible. With that, the state's case implodes. With that exclusion of evidence, Mike Ramos made a decision at that time to dismiss Scott Harrison. I told Bobby Dean's team, keep working on that case because since it's a murder,

there's not a statute of limitations problems. We may be able to refile it in the future. And then they found some other evidence. The evidence consists of two letters signed Phil Perry and delivered the day after he was reported missing. DNA testing IDs two male DNA profiles. One on a stamp is Carl DeTomaso's. One on an envelope flap belongs to Harrison. We said, okay, there it is.

His DNA is now on the alibi letter. It puts him there. In July of 2005, Scott Harrison goes on trial. His defense attacks the credibility of two people who point the finger at Harrison, Carl DiTomaso and Liz Miner. The defense works, and Scott Harrison is acquitted. In the courtroom that day is Phil Perry's son, Russ.

A jury of 12 people heard the evidence and felt that the case didn't meet the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, but their verdict also frees him from jail, from the fear of ever having to serve any custody time. Carl DeTomaso is not happy with Harrison's acquittal either. I don't understand. I really don't understand how the judicial system could allow him to walk and give me 15 to life.

15 to life will provide De Tomaso with plenty of opportunity to reflect on his role in the death of Deacon Phil Perry. I'd like to say that I'm very sorry to the Perry family. I wish them, you know, my condolences go out to them. I'm very sorry for the pain and suffering that they've all had to go through, but I do want them to understand that I never, ever wanted Phil Perry murdered, ever. I didn't ask nobody, and I didn't do it. You know, what my dad did was wrong. I don't think there's a person that would sit there and say that, you know, having

an affair with a married person is right, but certainly the punishment for that is not murder. It's not death. My dad was a good man, and he might have made some mistakes, but he certainly didn't deserve to die, and he didn't deserve to die the way he did. As for Scott Harrison, the jury has spoken, and he is innocent in the eyes of the law. I have to disagree with Bill on this one. In my opinion, Scott Harrison being found not guilty, a result that was somewhat influenced by certain evidence being dismissed on technicality, doesn't make him innocent. Innocent and not guilty are not the same thing.

There are two possible verdicts in a criminal trial, guilty and not guilty. Guilty means that the jury believes it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime. Not guilty means that the prosecution didn't prove that the defendant committed the crime, regardless of guilt or innocence. The only time a person can be found actually innocent in court, in most states, is ironically after they've already been convicted. Cold Case Files is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn, Scott Brody, and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler.

Music by Blake Maples. We're distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by the one and only Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at aetv.com.