Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Stone-Cold

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Dennis Murphy talks with Josh Mankiewicz about his episode, “Stone-Cold.” In 2016 when 45-year-old Nick Morelos was found shot to death in his Tucson, Arizona bedroom, investigators wondered if this hard-charging boss rubbed someone at work the wrong way. What investigators uncovered was a web of complicated relationships that they had to untangle to find Nick’s killer. Later, Josh shares an exclusive clip from his interview with Pima County Sheriff’s Det. Jennifer Garcia, about a key piece of evidence not admissible at trial. Plus, Dennis and Josh are joined by Dateline producer Chetna Joshi to answer view and listener social media questions.Listen to the full episode of "Stone-Cold" here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_stone-cold

Hey, everybody. I'm Dennis Murphy, and I'm your host today on Talking Dateline. And I'm pleased to say that my colleague and good bud, Josh Mankiewicz, is standing by to help us through this. Josh, how are you today? I'm good. Hi, Dennis. You know, this story is called Stone Cold, and it couldn't be a more apt title. This is just the most brutal murder of virtual assassination. So here's a heads up. There are no spoiler alerts ahead. Josh and I assume that you've watched the episode. So if you haven't, it's the episode right

below this one on the Dateline podcast feed. Go there, listen to it or stream it on Peacock and then come back here for a deep dive. Josh is also going to be playing some extra interview clips that didn't make it into the show. First, to get everybody on the same page, here's a brief recap of Stone Cold. A former U.S. Marine named Nick Morellis is found shot to death in his Tucson, Arizona home. Investigators learned pretty quickly that some of Nick's co-workers had steam coming out of their ears because of his my-way-or-the-highway style of management. Rookie detective Jennifer Garcia teams up with the victim's brother to untangle a complicated web of relationships, both at work and in the bedroom.

They do eventually find their killer, a co-worker who settled his various grievances with Nick, armed with a.45 and a silencer. And with that, let's talk Dateline. Josh, when you first heard about this story, when you approached, what caught your fancy? Look, you know, we constantly do stories. I mean, to the point where it's kind of an Internet meme about, you know, the victim in the story lit up a room, didn't have an enemy in the world. Everybody liked them. They were this wonderful person. Well, Nick Morelos was more of an actual person

than this sort of idealized version of what victims end up becoming. He was brought in essentially to kick ass, and he did at the aerospace company that he worked at. He that made him unpopular with some of the people that he worked with. Also, he dated a significant number, I think, of women who worked there, and they were not always left enthused by the experience in their rearview mirror. So when homicide detectives showed up after his murder, his really brutal murder, and said to management, okay, why don't you tell us who didn't like him? They sort of, you know, pointed at all the people on the floor and said, well, those people, all those coworkers. So it was this big whip to untangle them, all these people

that Nick had bruised along the way. The most recent woman in his life, Josh, was a woman named Christy, who was a fiance and she finds him. She can't unsee what she found. She found the body and she went over there because she knew something was wrong. She was somebody that was very, very concerned about doing an interview. She's not somebody who sort of, you know, puts herself forward, but she also unquestionably like really loved and treasured Nick and thought that they were beginning this wonderful life together. It was clearly a sort of an internal battle for her to decide whether or not to give her side of the story because, you know, she hadn't really been a suspect in this.

It wasn't like, wasn't that kind of giving the side of the story, but it was sort of talking about what she knew about Nick and why she loved him, what his good qualities were, and why this guy who was occasionally described as this sort of hard-ass at work wasn't really the guy that she knew. I remember that I deliberately did not wear a jacket in the interview with her. But I wanted to make her feel as comfortable as possible and make her feel like this was more of a conversation and less than a TV interview. Because she was real. I mean, she spoke in a very soft voice. A couple of times she said, I don't want to talk about that or I can't talk about that. She was very effective. You believed everything she was saying.

Yeah, totally. Because I think she absolutely told the truth about everything. Josh, did investigators rule out a female as the shooter? You know, they were mostly interested in finding alibis for the women in his life. That was hard because it was evening and a lot of people, you know, might reasonably have been home alone. You know, I think they came pretty early to suspect that this was anger by another guy. But, of course, that could also be anger at having dated my girlfriend, or it could be anger at something that happened at work.

And then the detective is interviewing lots of people in the workplace, and it's very complicated. But Detective Garcia is not getting an answer to that question of who done it. It's not coming together for and for that we've got to introduce a great amateur detective brother john yeah because it's his observation that leads to the big breakthrough in this case i think josh uh he's a kid brother by what year and a half or so and he for some reason his fuse is lit and he's going to ride side saddle with detective Garcia to see this thing through. What impressions do you have of Brother John? I really liked him.

I just thought he was a terrific guy. I mean, there's no question he felt the same grief that a lot of other people did. But he really just sort of became inquisitive about this. And that really, I think that made a difference. I do think that made a difference. And rarely do we have an HR executive show up in a Dateline story playing a prominent role, but he does in this one. And again, it's Brother John who goes to the HR guy at this aircraft maintenance plant and mentions, you know, the cops told me that this perpetrator, the killer, left a lot of blood. He probably cut himself.

And then the HR guy says, almost in an offhand way, funny you should mention that. And then you have a new name. It's a great element, Josh. No, it is. And it's also an example of how in homicide investigations, sort of, you know, one of the most important things is to just sort of keep your ears open. You know, it's not only the questions you ask. It's the questions other people ask and the offhanded things people say. And in that case, you know, what the HR guy told John sort of pointed them in this other direction, which was great.

And they go into the files and this guy with a bandaged arm does have a beef against Nick. Yeah. I mean, I think didn't like him for stuff at work. And also I think what had dated was dating his ex and maybe wanted to, I don't know, wanted to prove something. I don't know. So here's a huge break for Detective Garcia. How does she handle it?

Handle it, Josh. What's she do? She's got this name now through the hr guy james lepan who was the guy with the bandages and the guy who sort of you know became the focus of this for a while he didn't like nick there wasn't any question about that but james lepan had an alibi which was his wife said no no he was with me all night and you know he was home in bed. And they talk about the wife is brought in and she says the same thing. He was with me.

Yep. And then knock, knock. Here comes bandage guy back to talk to the cops. Yeah. Yeah. He says, by the way, my wife's alibi is true. However, I was having an affair. And that tends to make investigators perk up a little bit. Not just any woman.

It's this woman who also had a relationship with Nick, the murder guy. So, you know, all of that, the bandages on his arm and the admission that he was involved with or had been involved with a woman who had also been involved with Nick. That was sort of enough for a search warrant. Okay. When we get back, we've got some extra sound from Josh's interview with a detective about that search warrant and her fear that she'd messed up the case. So it's time to let's go get a search warrant. And this becomes an interesting part of the story because your Detective Garcia slips up and she admits it. Something is wrong with her search warrant application.

What's going on? She had not done a lot of search warrants in murder cases before. And in this case, I think what she wrote was a little too broad. Here's a clip that did not make our broadcast of my interview with Detective Jennifer Garcia. Your search warrant got thrown out. It did, yes. I used the wrong verbiage, or not enough verbiage in my search warrant. Not specific enough. Yes. What'd you lose when that happened? A lot of electronic items were taken from the LaPan home. On some of those devices, I found a photo of what I believe to be the murder weapon in this case. It was a.45 caliber para-ordinance handgun, and it had a Osprey silencer attached to the front of it.

And when I saw that photo, I felt that that was the murder weapon. The gun that was never recovered. Yes. So that was a fabulous piece of evidence. The photograph of that gun, which prosecutors would have said, we believe this is the murder weapon, which, you know, why would you have a picture of a gun that you own on your phone, but you don't have the gun? That would have been the circumstantial case that they made there. In any case, it gets thrown out and a jury's not going to see that picture.

That photograph was not ever admitted at trial. Did your detective feel bad? Did she feel like she really messed up and might have lost the case with that error? Oh, yeah. No, I think she thought that she had screwed everything up and that James LePan might never actually be tried. Potentially, items in the search warrant not being able to be used at trial was going to be a huge problem for prosecutors. But prosecutor Jonathan Mosier had a sort of different view of that. I asked him about that. Here's a clip of that. You know, in the end, what did we lose? We really didn't lose that much because... Okay, but, and so the jury's not going to see that.

Correct. And you thought to yourself, what, we're screwed or we'll be okay? We thought, I still have more evidence than I've ever had in any case ever, even without that. There was other evidence. I mean, that search warrant turned up plenty of other things that they did use. First of all, they found James LePan's DNA in Nick Morales' bedroom, where he would have no reason to have ever been. They found Nick's blood on James' pants, which were found in his house, in his closet, sort of buried under a stack of other pants. They found shell casings at James' house that

matched the ones at the scene. And they also found some carpet fibers in the back of James's car that matched the fibers found at Nick's house. So going into trial and let's go there, this is just a gift wrap package for a prosecutor. This is a conviction in a box. His alibi has gone away. The wife says, you know, I lied to you all. That was the icing on the cake for prosecutors, which was that, you know, homicide detectives frequently talk about how what closes cases are changes in technology, like something that couldn't be tested for DNA now can be tested for DNA, right? Or changes in circumstance, someone who lied for you and for whatever reason has stopped lying. And Serena, James LePan's wife, very courageously changed her testimony. Josh, kind of an interesting little excursion on how she found her moment of moral clarity.

She was on the road on a business trip and she's watching TV and that is a light bulb moment for her. Tell the story. Yeah, she's watching a Lifetime movie in a hotel room while she's, I think she deployed. She was in the military, and she was on the road somewhere. She was a sergeant, yeah. Yeah, and she sees the Lifetime movie, and that made her realize, you know what? It was a domestic issue on the Lifetime movie. And that took her back to her own issues with being married to James LePan. And she changed her testimony.

So in trial, this guy is sunk a dozen different ways. The jury comes back and he is stitched up forever. He's gone away. Yes. Prosecutors, as you point out, they can't really pose a motive question for a jury. That's not part of the burden, but everybody wants to know why did this kind of thing happen? I mean, look, I mean, finding the motive was sort of essential to finding the suspect. But the question is, you know, we still don't really know, right? I mean, James LaPan didn't like being

challenged at work by Nick. He also didn't like the fact that in his view, Nick had not treated Jennifer, the girlfriend that they had at different times shared. He hadn't treated her well. But Josh, it sounded like petty stuff, but beef over a parking place and maybe some crosswords in front of his coworkers. Is that enough to have you breaking into the window and killing the guy with a.45? No. You, no. But you and I have both seen murders committed over a lot less. I mean, certainly there's no financial motive here, right? It's not like James LePan got rich off of this. This was motivated by some sort of animus. But whether that was driven by the woman

that they had, who had both, who had been part of their lives and the relationship they'd both had. He was trying to impress her or he was still angry at Nick for stuff that happened to work. I mean, I don't think we're ever really going to know. Well, add a boy's motion,

add a girl to your detective Garcia. I mean, that was well done on both parts. Yeah, I thought so. And I hope now she's got a lot more homicide investigations under her belt because she's got a lot going for her. She was very sharp. I don't wish Tucson more murders, but I sure would like to go back to that town again. I know it's great there. Coming back after the break, we're going to be joined by Dateline producer Chetna Joshi to discuss your social about the murder of Nick Morellis. All right, we're back and Josh is still with us.

And I'm happy to say we are joined now by the producer of this segment, and that's Chetna Joshi. Hi, Chetna, how are you? Hi, how are you, Dennis? Hi, Josh. Welcome, Chet. It's great to be with you. You know, we're going to dig into what I call the viewer's mailbag, the digital mailbag.

And Chet, a lot of people were struck by the situation that poor Christy found herself in. Did you have any sense of who she was as she sat with you in the interview chair? When we spoke with Christy, it had been a couple of years after Nick had passed. It was still, you could tell, just still a very difficult time for her. You know, she had waited so long to find the love of her life, and they were clearly so in love. I just, you know, I hope that the happiness has sort of entered her heart again all these years later. Well, that's what a lot of people wanted to know, if she had another happier chapter in her life coming. Do either of you guys know? I don't know. I do sort of hope that, yeah, that she's found somebody else, regardless of what others might've thought of Nick. She was his biggest fan and I thought it

was very courageous of her that she sat down and talked with me. Nadia posted to us, I hope Nick's family can move on in spite of the tragedy. So sorry for everyone. I'm glad they found the killer. Nick's family, Chetna, you had occasion to talk to his brother and said there's something else you should know about him. What was that? Yeah. You know, I mean, Nick was one way at work, but there was clearly so many other sides to him. And one thing that his family discovered after he was killed, they were cleaning out his house and they discovered stacks upon stacks upon stacks of books. And his brother, if I remember correctly, described it as sort of a secret passion of his. Nobody in the family knew all these years

that he was such a voracious reader. And they found books on everything from survival to how to be a good leader, to how to be romantic. I mean, this was clearly someone who was, you know, dedicated to like improving himself and wanting to learn. And, and I think it just, it speaks, you know, a lot to, to who he was. You know, we talked to Josh about motive in this case, and we're always bewildered to why these things happen. Chetna, do you want to take a pass at what you think happened here? So, I mean, again, you know, with no formal training in any of this, but ego seems to come to mind. And one thing I think is sort of interesting in this story, this sort of theme of obsession sort of runs through it, right? And not just on James

LePan's side, right? This was a story where several of Nick's exes were hung up on either the breakup or didn't deal with it. Even Nick's ex's exes had kind of strong feelings, but nobody took the steps that James LaPan did. I mean, he's the only one that went to this kind of extreme. And so many of these messy issues ended up first on the desk of the HR guy. Yeah. He's got to deal with workplace complaints. He's got to deal with bedroom complaints. And Chet, there was an element to this HR guy story that you didn't have time to fit into the spot itself. Yeah. So basically when investigators went to James LaPan's house and executed a search warrant, they found on one of his devices a letter that had never been sent to the HR director. And the letter basically was of a threatening nature and said if the HR director

didn't resign within 48 hours that he could not guarantee the safety of him or his children. Wow, that's creepy. I know who you are. I know where you live. That is really creepy. Yeah. Is he still in the field? Is he still in HR? I don't know. But it's the kind of thing that made me want to get out of HR.

Definitely. Yeah. One of the themes here, guys, became relationships in the workplace. And we raised the question, a lot of people meet in the workplace. And we heard from some of those people. Here's Curry. She posted, I met my husband at the movie theater. He taught me to make and bag popcorn.

I was 16. We've been married now for 39 years, happiest years of my life. Nicole writes, I'm married too, been married 32 years. Somebody she worked with. DMC, I work with my husband to this very day. So sometimes it works out. Sure, sure. Sometimes it does.

On the other hand, there are people who had terrible workplace relationships. Southern Beach Girl says, unfortunately, twice she was burned in an office relationship. Sally B, yep, big mistake. It didn't work out. I ended up looking for a new job. That's where expressions like, you know, don't fish off the company pier come from. But look, I mean, I met my wife at the airport in the security line. That for us, for you and me, Dennis, that is like meeting somebody at work because the airport is kind of like, you know, like part of our workplace considering how much we travel. And I like this post, MK.

He got burned also in an office place romance. And he says, but not to the level required to be on Dateline. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, know this. I mean, if you're going to start dating somebody where you work and it doesn't work out, you're still going to be seeing them all the time and dealing with them all the time. And that sometimes can be a problem. And sometimes it's a Dateline problem. Not happily ever after. Well, I've often thought that we're not a true crime show so much as we are a true romance show. Absolutely right. Look, I tell people this all the time. We could find bloodier crimes.

We could find more horrifying crimes. That's not what we're doing here. Most people will never be the victim of violent crime in their lifetime. But everybody has been in a relationship that didn't work out the way they wanted it to. And Dateline is about that much more than it is about the actual mechanics of the crime. Well, you guys both did a great job on this story. Well done, both of you. Glad you found this one and brought it to air for us. Thank you.

Thanks, Jet. Thanks. Well, that'll do it for Talking Dateline for this week. Remember, if you have any questions for us about stories or about Dateline, you can reach us 24-7 on social at Dateline NBC.

Plus, there's something you don't want to miss. Keith has a new Morals and Mysteries podcast. This season, he's reading the classic crime thriller The Dead Alive. And starting tomorrow,

you can binge the whole series for free wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dennis Murphy, and we'll see you Fridays on Dateline NBC.