Hidden True Crime - Psychologist Explains Robert Telles' Bizarre Testimony - Las Vegas Reporter Murder Trial

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Jeff German, an investigative reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was deeply dedicated to his work—a commitment that might have ultimately cost him his life. Jeff was a well-known figure in the community, celebrated for his fearless coverage of notorious mobsters, corrupt politicians, and criminals. In September 2022, he was fatally stabbed by an attacker outside his residence. Prosecutors allege that Robert Telles, a local politician, is responsible and was later charged with Jeff's murder. Shop early access to Beam's Labor Day Weekend sale! Click https://shopbeam.com/hiddentruecrime and use code TRUECRIME to save up to 40% for a limited time. Telles Testimony Livestreams - Law & Crime Network https://www.youtube.com/live/lJg51eoYifI?si=wXoip-Dw1zQVU94p https://www.youtube.com/live/YtcLGWbh8Ls?si=dayUueJC3pWdYDz6 https://www.youtube.com/live/yU49DxAXB_E?si=KfVWrjouey3PzQI4 Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and has followed the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case since 2019. She and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders and prophet. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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dot com just use code hidden true crime to save 20% off plus if you subscribe you'll get an additional 20% off discover your true age today no no no you believe the professional assassins want to draw attention to themselves when they're carrying out murder when when they're framing someone yes sir so the answer to my question is yes sir you believe professional assassins like to draw attention to themselves it depends on what the nature of their goal is and if it's to frame someone yes sir so the answer to my question is yes absolutely okay Hello, Hidden Gems. Hello, everyone. Happy Hidden Hour. We're so glad to be here tonight. And boy, do we have a lot to talk about, those that were with me watching the trial of Robert Tellis, the murder trial of Robert Tell us. You'll know what I'm talking about when we have a lot to talk about because we all

watched the accused murderer testify on stand, and it was fascinating. And I'm not the only one that thinks that. The psychologist in the room with us right now also thinks it was fascinating. He said as much to me privately on the phone between breaks going, what? You're shaking his head texting me during court saying, this is wild. So if you want to know what someone thinks from a journalist that was actually there in court and a criminal psychologist watching it live, you're in the right place. It was totally bonkers.

I've been a forensic psychologist now from him. was 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. First of all, it's extremely rare that a defendant will testify in a narrative format. And that's usually, that's going to occur usually by the way when the defense team, when the offense attorneys are just throwing up their hands and they're like, I don't, whatever, you know, this guy, Talas or Teas, we'll talk about that. Apparently he wants to, we'll talk about that. But he was initially pro se, so he was representing himself. And then I think the judge, I don't know if he forced him. it, but I think she was pretty persuasive in terms of him getting defense attorneys. He went through

a number of defense attorneys, by the way. So I think these attorneys pretty much just, they were at the end of their rope. And, you know, he was persistent about wanting to testify on. They're just like, look, you know, we're not going to have anything to do with perjury here. So just go up there and do your act or do, you know, put on your show and we'll just sit back and watch. So, but I mean, the fact that you had a defendant in such a high profile case, take the stand in essentially a narrative format is highly unusual. Usually the offense is directing people like this so that they don't step on landmines. Not so in this case. There were a lot of landmines to step on, and he found a lot of them. He did step on them. So it's incredible to watch this kind of testimony because you really get

to see in kind of an unvarnished fashion. I guess I still have to say alleged murderer, but you get to see an unvarnished fashion an alleged murderer talking openly in a narrative format about their perception of a crime. And so that's, that's rare. I think you and I have talked about we're going to do a deeper dive at some point where we can kind of go through step by step his testimony and break it down tonight. We'll just, we'll talk in broad strokes about what happened, but I, this was wild. This is wild. And I've never seen someone, as you point out, narrate. Well, you said, by the way, in your excellent analysis, which I want to get to, because I feel like everything you said was exactly right before trial started. Everything you said

in your testimony, in my opinion, you nailed it. We'll get into that. But one thing that you said is that he wants to control the narrative for everything. And then he actually got up. with a request from his defense attorneys to narrate. Right. I talked about this notion of control in our last show and how important that is to him. So let's talk about, let's start with some of the nonverbals.

There's almost desperation with him. And I mean, you see it. He's anxious. You can see it like he keeps furrowing his brow and his forehead. Like you see the anxiety he's displaying is palpable. That's for sure. But what's driving it? What I wrote down in my notes is,

I put down desperation. When you talk about control, there's this desperation. He keeps looking at the jury. And it's almost like he's trying to befriend the jury. He's like having a conversation with the jury. And how close was the jury, by the way, to the witness stand? They looked fairly close. Yeah, they were close.

It's a small courtroom. It was small. And he was in the center of the courtroom. And they were to the side in the jury box. it wasn't those incredible, it wasn't incredibly close. He was kind of away from his mic and sometimes wondered, can they hear everything? But it was certainly, it was a lot closer than, let's say, Chad Daybell's trial.

So he turned to them and medium close. I don't know, like venti close, I guess you could say. Yeah, you have, but you can sense with him that he's so desperate to get their attention and convince them of his narrative. He wavers between like this desperation, like, It's almost like he wants to just like shake them and say, can't you see this? Right. So you've got this desperation.

But then you have this other side of him, which he's trying to be humble and he's trying to be respectful. But you can tell it's hard for him to do that. He has to really restrain himself to kind of present this humble side of himself. In fact, there's a moment there. I think it was at the end of testimony at the first day where he stands up at the end. And he starts talking to the judge. Like he's the attorney. That's when the mask comes off.

There's no humility there. He's acting like the defense and he's acting like he owns the courtroom. He's directing traffic in the courtroom. He's telling the judge what to do. Right. So this whole facade of humility and respectfulness, it might be partly true, but he's really holding himself back. He's really restraining himself.

And the reason I say this is because in those moments when he's standing up acting like an attorney, you see that other side. of him that's really desperate for control. The desperation, I think, is really the desperation of getting that jury to believe him. You really have the sense in which he believes he can do that. You know, one of the extraordinary things here is evidence is self-explanatory. I could argue that in the first 30 minutes of the prosecution presenting their case, and by the way, I think Christopher Hamner and Pamela Wackerley have done a really excellent job. But So Pamela gave the opening statements for the prosecution.

And in the first 30 minutes, she lays out a narrative that's almost indisputable. She has video evidence of this guy who walks like Tellis and has no alibi for that time frame. He drives Tellis his car. He wears a hat and has a bag and wears shoes that are found in Tellis's home. Right. Under his couch, stuffed in his couch. Yeah, right. She lays all this out.

So if you go back to the opening statements, she lays this out in like 30 minutes. It's like case closed. Victin had his DNA under, not just near him, but under his fingernails. This is one of those cases where the evidence is self-explanatory. They have every kind of evidence, cell phone, video, DNA, right? And it all lines up. So you have this defendant testifying who really thinks he believes deep down at some level, obviously, that he can convince the jury.

In spite of all this evidence, like he really thinks that his case is going to be so compelling. That's something you would definitely see from someone with some narcissistic features. They believe that they're so exceptional and so special that no matter what the evidence is, their persuasive powers can override all that evidence, and the jury will clearly see his perspective, and they'll clearly side with him. And that's what he thinks. you have this clash between reality, which is the evidence, and his perception of the world,

which is this narcissistically distorted, grandiose, exceptional view of himself and his powers of persuasion. There was one other moment where his mask came off, and it was near the time where you referred to him standing up, but I'll say the cameras missed this. Okay. This was a moment to just take the standing up,

but times it by 10. So it happened after that moment where he stood up and started talking to the judge. And then he stood up one other time, you know, to talk. And then he sat back down. And there was a moment where they were talking and he got really upset that his defense attorney was talking to the judge, that same 10 minutes there. And the camera, unfortunately, this wasn't long crimes fault because their cameraman felt really bad that they'd missed it too. but he's like, we don't have, they weren't choosing the angles. Like, it was on automated.

But as they were off of him, he jumped up. I'd never seen him jump up so fast. And he was going like this, just shaking his head as he jumped up like, no, no. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And he was so angry. And then it was like he caught himself and he never said anything. His defense attorney looked at him. And then he just sat back down.

When did that happen? The jury obviously saw that. The jury obviously saw it. And everyone in the courtroom saw it. but you didn't see it at home. So he stood up. So it was the same time. It was about five minutes after the first time he stood.

But he jumped up even like a rocket, like even faster. And as he was doing it, he was just shaking his head and going, no, no, no. And then it was like he kind of caught himself. His defense attorney, he just said anything to him. He just kind of looked at him calmly. And then he sat back down. So you have this clash between reality and this kind of distorted, narcissistic perception that he has,

I'm going to be really interested to see how he reacts. You know, this clash between these two competing realities is so massive. There's a moment here at the end when he's done testifying that I think really stood out for me. And I want to talk about that. From my perspective, as a forensic psychologist, is you've got issues around potential issues around amnesia and dissociation. and memory, defense, denial, repression, personality disorder. You know, you've got so many potential explanations here.

I think it's really, be really important to kind of weigh those components and figure out what the most important elements are. And I'll try to explain that. Perfect. And before we do that, then with that, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor for tonight. And we'll jump right in. We are getting ready for tonight's hidden hour.

I am so excited because, of course, we're going to talk Robert Carlos' testimony. But I wanted to quickly share the good news. Our sponsor for tonight show, Dream, Beams Dream, my favorite natural sleep aid, the one that I say has changed our families' lives for the better that I use every night. Now, they are giving us early access to their Labor Day sale. This actually truly does not start until next week. And they said, hey, Lauren, by the way, you can let people know. And I said, look, we go live on Saturday nights.

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you, Dr. John. I make a, I make a little cup of it. I put hot water in it and I sip it just like an herbal tea. I used to do camomble tea. Now I do my dream. Now I also mentioned by the way, I've got to show you these. It's because of the heat, it has been so hot here. In fact, the only reason I'm sitting back outside again is because it's now back down in the 90s after an entire summer of like almost 115 degrees every day. So now it like is feeling all balmy outside right now. So when it was so hot and I didn't want that hot drink, I was doing these capsules. So sometimes, you know, you're not at home or I'm traveling. I'm going to be traveling this week, by the way. I'm going out of town tomorrow. We'll tell you more about it tonight.

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and we'll let you know where I'm going soon. I'll be taking these with us and probably the chai too. I'm loving the chai. All right, we'll see you guys. Back to the show. We have some clips. All right, ready to play it? Yep.

Video camera that was right across the way from Mr. German's house. You know, I do not engage in crime. But if I wanted to do something while not being caught on camera, and I knew there was a camera right across the way, I wouldn't do it. Which also brings up another point. If I knew there was a camera right across the way, I certainly would find another means of transportation besides using my own vehicle. You know, certainly, you know, I didn't have, I wasn't rich,

but I certainly did okay enough that I could rent a nondescript car, you know, but I just couldn't see myself as the kind of person who would be foolish enough to use my own vehicle to allegedly commit any kind of crime. I would never engage in any criminal conduct because I respect the law. And I was trying to uphold the law in my position. And certainly I would not commit a murder because I have respect for human life. I don't believe that anybody should be, should have their life cut short at the hands of another person. I am not crazy. I am not trying to avoid responsibility. This entire situation, well, I'll put it this way.

I'm innocent. And, you know, I'm not the kind of person who could really murder another man, do it with apparent experience and training, and then go to the gym, and then go pick up my children, I can't imagine being that type of person. I didn't kill Mr. Derman, and I'm innocent.

Sir. Okay. So, so he's not crazy and he wouldn't commit a crime. He's not crazy. And clearly if he knew there was a doorbell camera across the street, he wouldn't have done this, right? that, I mean, the thing I want people to pay attention to in that clip, and that was the very last part of his testimony, is he says at least three times, I'm not the kind of person who would do

something like this, right? To me, that's fascinating. I'm going to get back to this because I have to build up towards it, but it really explains what's going on here. as a start, I would say there's an utter lack of self-awareness in the sense that when you think about the kind of person he is, so let's use his logic for a second. When you think about the kind of person he is, this is someone who's lied to the court and to his defense attorneys. This is someone who potentially has perjured himself. This is someone who on the stand the other day

admitted to having an affair at work. This is someone who under oath acknowledged that there was a moment in 2019 when he was open to taking bribes. Uh-huh. This is someone who was arrested for domestic violence for choking his wife. Yeah, that happened. So if you look at all these, you know, potential, I don't know what moral and discretions, I don't know what we, and he's saying he's not the kind of person that would murder.

I mean, so what kind of person is he? What he's not saying is, but I am the kind of person that would have an affair. that would lie under oath, that would commit perjury, that would choke my wife. So what kind of person is he? He's not helping himself by saying he's not the kind of person. They didn't bring in the domestic violence part, by the way. The defense, I think, was able to keep that out because it was dismissed. But everything else they brought in.

Well, I noticed these multiple, and we put them all together, these multiple moments, too, I'm not the type of person that would do this. I'm not a person. and I don't believe someone should have their life cut short. But there's never, there were a couple, but not as many as this. I didn't do it. To me, that's like a big difference. And I want to ask you about that.

I would have thought there'd be more of like, I did not do this. I did not do this. But what he focused on was I'm not the type of person that would do something like this. It was a weird thing to emphasize. Right. It's really those, that moment and him saying that, is really the key to understanding Robert Tell us. And we'll get there.

I want to kind of build up to it, but I'll explain why that's so important. You know, a normal defender, or I shouldn't say, I'm not sure there's such thing as a normal defendant in a case like this. But let's say that a defendant who is genuinely innocent and believes in their innocence is not going to refer to themselves that way. They're going to proclaim their innocence from the roof tops

and they're going to say, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Here's why. But he's not doing that. He's saying, I'm not the kind of person. And just a little teaser. I mean, so part of the reason he's doing that is because he's trying to convince himself

that he didn't do it. But before we do that, before we get to that explanation, let's try to answer with his words, let's try to answer what kind of person he is. I just mentioned some of the issues, the line and the domestic violence. And by the way, if you choke your spouse or partner or whoever, and your spouse calls the police about that incident, it's a pretty good bet that that's not the first time it's happened. Typically, if you're engaged in that type of violence,

it takes a few of those episodes to get to the point where somebody calls the police. But they did call the police, especially in a situation like this, where Talas is a public, as he points out to the police office, she says, you're arresting me because I'm a public administrator. You're out to get me, right? Like, he thinks he's really important.

Yeah, his wife might have something to lose if she called the police. She's married to him. This is the father of her children, and he is making the money, and he's a public official. I doubt she wants to call the police. And she did it because she felt she had no other choice.

This is this, yeah. It makes you wonder what's going on in that home behind closed doors. It makes you wonder what the history of violence or domestic violence or is in that home. He's telling us he's not the kind of person that would murder, but what kind of person is he? So let's backtrack a little and try to figure that out. And the other thing I say it is, you know, like going along, it's like I've kind of developed this analytical mind, right? And so that led to me becoming an attorney. And so then that even built more on that analytical mind where I think about, you know, all the, all the things like all the things wrong in this case.

And you add to on top of that the fact that I've, you know, I've been sitting in a cell for, for, for, close to two years. So I've had a lot of time to think about a lot of these issues. So again, I think I'm going to point out some strange things about this case. Can I also just say really quickly he admitted just there. That's what I've always been saying. He had two years to think about what he was going to say. And this is what he comes up with.

But sorry, to digress. What type of person is he? Yeah, you're right. Like, I mean, let's point out another contradiction. He's had two years to think about this case. I presume he has access to legal pads and pens. Well, maybe not pens because he was suicidal. But he has access probably to some instruments where he can write.

And he's at two years to like map out the case, his defense, to organize it. He went to law school, you know, trial lawyer or not. He's an attorney. He's right. He's had two years. And yet he gives us, when he's on the stand, he gives us this really haphazard, disorganized chaotic presentation. Like, okay.

So, I mean, what does that say about it could, you could chalk that up to anxiety. You could chalk that up to stress. But, I mean, you'd think after two years of mapping out his defense, that he would pretty much have it down. So that's another element here that's interesting to me, is that this is a guy who he says, so he tells us here that he's very analytical.

Right. An analytical mind. an analytical mind. But when you look at his defense, it turns out he's not, if he's analytical, he's not very organized. I think what he's saying when he says he's analytical is he's unemotional. And the reason I come to that conclusion is because if you look at him throughout most of this trial, I mean, he's anxious, he's extraordinarily anxious throughout this whole thing.

But the anxiety, I think, is about persuading the jury more so than anything else. But when they show him the crime scene, when they present him with evidence, that's indisputable. He doesn't show any emotion. I know. The prosecutor confronts him on the crime scene and says, this is pretty bad, don't you think? He's like, yeah, it's gruesome, but, you know, I've seen worse.

There's no really emotional response. For somebody supposedly who, according to him, who just saw the crime scene photos for the first time at trial, when the medical examiner presented them, he didn't have much emotion at all. And so he's telling us, he says, I'm really analytical, which means I really don't have a lot of emotion. But let's go to this next moment.

I had conveyed concern all along about my family. And as time went on during this detention, interrogation, whatever, various, I learned of various things that I believe would tend to, and did for me, break someone's spirit. You know, being informed, I was informed that all of my vehicles were being taken away. And this was early in this interrogation. This was before they supposedly found a shoe that they were taking all my vehicles away, which made no sense to me. And, you know, it was a lot.

Then the, then they were finished with the search. Then I walked into the house. and what I saw hit me even harder. I'd like to share the photos of my house after Metro finished their search. I think it's A2 to maybe S2. If you would mind, could you take maybe 10 seconds a photo and flip them for me? So this is what I walked into in my house starting. This is A2, A1.

I know that similar looking photo? Yes. Okay. Are you done with this photo? Yes, sir. This is B2. Coincidentally, I was led to believe that they were not going to make a mess in my house. This is C2, this is D2, E2, F2, this is G2, this is I2, this is J2.

Sitting on the floor in our bedroom, you can move on this mess. And so this for me was, you know, the thing that just broke me. I'm sorry. I knew I didn't do this thing. And yet the police claim to have this evidence did what they did to me. So. And just so you know what you couldn't see while he was crying while these were being shown. I actually didn't know you couldn't see everything.

He had his face fully in his hands just weeping, actually. I didn't know that people couldn't see that at home. It was like Alec Murdoch without the snot. Like it was just full on crying. Yeah. And so I want to keep coming back to this question about, you know, he raised it. He's not the kind of person so that would do, commit a murder. But so what kind of a person is he?

So he's analytical. He told us that. He showed no emotion whatsoever when they show brutal pictures of the crime scene and someone that he allegedly murdered. They go into Search's house. They upend his home, right? They toss his home a little bit. It's a mess. And he's, as he, I'm going to quote him, this was the thing that just broke me.

Not the fact that he's being accused of murdering a beloved member of the Las Vegas community, but the fact that they went in and they made a mess of his home. Now, last week in our show, I talked about, I speculated that I thought there were some features of OCD because he went back to the crime scene. He was potentially, he wanted to make sure, number one, that Jeff German was deceased, but he also wanted to see if he left any evidence behind. So he committed a major blunder by going back to the crime scene. And I speculated that the reason he did that was probably because he had some features of OCD. He was obsessing about the crime scene. He couldn't let it go.

so he goes back. And as Christopher Hamner pointed out, that's typically not the behavior of a professional assassin. Many times during your direct examiner, or during your direct, you stated that this is the killer of Mr. Damon, correct? I didn't necessarily, but I'm sure it is. I mean, if I heard you correct,

you kept saying, you know, looking at the killer, this guy. I know you're not saying that's me, but you don't doubt that whoever that is killed Mr. German. That would be fair, right? Yes. Okay. You had mentioned one of the things that struck you was you watched the autopsy, you saw the autopsy photos, and you were struck by the violence of it, correct? No, sir. No, you did not?

Did you, were you bothered by the photographs? I was. Why is that? gruesome. I'm not used to seeing dead people. Okay. I think you said it was ugly. Is that correct? I may have. All right. And you had told this jury that you felt like it looked like someone who knew what they were doing. Is that right? Yes, sir. You believe this was a professional hit?

And that's what I believe. Okay, see, and you believe this killer is kind of almost like a, I mean, someone hired to do this job like an assassin essentially, right? That is what I believe, yes, sir. All right. Now, I want to take a look at this picture for a second. The assassin seems to be wearing a giant sun hat. It's a pretty big hat, right? Yes, sir.

Fairly noticeable, right? Yes, sir. Do you think that might attract attention? I would think so. Okay, but this is a professional. Right. And this professional is also wearing a bright orange shirt, correct? Yes, sir.

Professional? Yes, sir. But wouldn't that attract attention? I think that's part of the reason, actually. If I could elaborate. No, no, no. You believe that professional assassins want to draw attention to themselves when they're tearing out murder. When they're framing someone, yes, sir.

So the answer to my question is yes. You believe professional assassins like to draw attention to themselves. It depends on what the nature of their goal is. And if it's to frame someone, yes, sir. So the answer to my question is yes. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So this is your assassin walking in the middle of the dead, correct?

My assassin? All right, this is the assassin, the killer, correct? Yes, sir. All right? Seems to have a little bit of a hitching his get up. Yes. I don't know. I guess it's an opinion.

And you don't disagree. That's from you've seen all the footage. That's the killer's car, right? Yes, sir. So there's no doubt that the killer took a maroon Yukon, Donali, to German's house to perform as you have explained to us to be some sort of professional hit. Yes, sir. Okay.

This is after Mr. German. has been killed, but if we watch this footage, isn't it true that we see the killer come back to the scene? Yes. And the killer seems to be looking around as if he forgot something, right? I've watched the video. I don't know what he's doing. We don't know. Right. Right. But we know a professional killer killed someone in Brock Daylight, made it a point apart on a completely different street,

but then for some reason to decide, oops, I forgot something and drove all the way back. My belief is that he wanted to make sure to commit the crime, and then when he was done, he wanted to make sure the SUV was seen in front of the house. Oh, oh. So let me get this straight. We've watched the footage, right, Mr. Talas? Yes, sir. Isn't it true that the Yukon parks on winter green initially?

I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention to the streets, but I mean, if you say so, yes. We'll put it to you this way. He didn't park on bronze circle, did he? Not initially, no. And by your logic, if the killer wanted to be seen, shouldn't you just parked on wrong circle originally? I would have thought that, you know, if he wanted to make sure he got the job done first, that he would not have actually parked the SUV in front to begin with.

That's my belief, because I would like to think that I wouldn't use my own car if I was actually the person who did this. As the Krispy Chicken Sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call. call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful.

I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet. No. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711.

Valley through 62326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. Well, doesn't it look a little amateurish to take the steps to park on the side of the street, then you forget what you drop probably or murder weapon, who knows, wear this goofy sun hat, a bright orange shirt. I mean, you really think that looks like professional killer? I do. Again, it wasn't me, so yes.

All right, sir. He was trying to argue this is a professional hit, and, you know, a professional assassin doesn't go back to check. But putting that aside, those features of OCD are wearing their, ugly head. And you see, like, this is a guy who's getting emotional, and this is the thing that breaks him is the fact that his house is a mess. Never mind the fact that a human being was brutally murdered. Like, that doesn't matter, but oh my gosh, his house is a mess. Can you believe it? He says, I don't want my family to go through this kind of torture because, God forbid,

their clothes are on the floor. The important point here is this is giving us a picture of this guy. We're seeing the rigidity and inability to adapt to the situation and the inability to integrate this information about what happened and what he did. What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich.

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and had an impact on other people and the community. But he can come to terms of the fact that his house is now a mess, and he can't stand the fact that his house is a mess, because that more than anything, upends his world. Not only are the priorities skewed here, but this is how this guy sees the world. The important part about this, putting aside the OCD, I don't know if this guy, he certainly seems to have some features of sexic disorder.

again, somebody wrote us this past week and so they need a shirt that says I'm not diagnosing because I can't diagnose because I haven't met him and done any testing. So I'm not diagnosing. I should wear my shirt. But the important point here, I think, is that this type of behavior and this crying over the fact that his house is a mess and that this is the thing that broke him, it starts moving us in the direction of personality disorders. And the reason that's true is because I'm going to read just briefly, I'm going to read the description of a personality disorder from the DSM diagnostic and statistical manual. The current version of that is there's version 5, there's a

revision. It's defined as an enduring rigid pattern of inner experience and outward behavior that impairs the sense of self, emotional experiences, goals, capacity for empathy, and the capacity for intimacy. And there's always been this debate in the forensic and psychological community about whether personality disorders can change. There's always been this debate about whether personality disorders are treatable. And it's believed that some are and many aren't. I mean, there's no consensus on it. I think the current consensus is that there are certain treatments for certain kinds of personality disorders like DBT for borderline personality disorders that seem to be effective. But I don't think this debate is totally settled. Anyway, what's important about a

personality disorder is that they're often resistant to change. And they're often, so you have kind of this rigidity and this pattern of behavior that's just really hard to change. And you're seeing that here. I want to read quickly from, now that I'm talking about personality disorders, I want to read from an article called Controversies and Narcissism. It's by Joshua Miller at Al. This is from 2017. It's the annual review of clinical psychology. They kind of do an assessment of narcissistic personality disorder.

But one of the things they say at the end, this is on page 303, is that in summary, narcissistic personality disorder is most strongly linked with an antagonistic interpersonal approach. And then they have in parentheses an antagonistic interpersonal approach, including grandiosity, entitlement, callousness, manipulativeness, and non-compliance, and narcissistic personality disorder generally relates most strongly with disorders that share those traits. They go on to say that the disorders,

the personality disorders that share those traits are psychopathy, antisocial personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder. So in other words, without the ability to diagnose, we know from the research that those people who show narcissistic features

or have narcissistic personality disorder, they often have features associated with psychopaths, antisocial personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder. So I don't know which one it is, but the important point I want to make here, is that when they go in and search his home and he starts crying,

and he doesn't have a shred of empathy or emotion for the victim, a victim supposedly he doesn't know, except for the articles, right, that he doesn't, he's not a friend with them, he's never been to his house, he's never seen the crime scene. If that's true, you would almost certainly expect some emotion, some empathy, right, some caring, some concern, unless you happen to have a personality disorder. And so, again, I don't know.

It could be any of the ones I just mentioned. Somebody wrote and said, is he a psychopath? Well, here's the answer. I don't know if he's a psychopath, but psychopaths have a lot in common with narcissists who have a lot in common with people with histrionic personality disorder. So I'm not exactly sure where he would fit in terms of that. But it's important because somebody with a personality disorder would more than likely react to a home being searched in this manner in the sense that they feel violated, right?

They feel like their perfect world has been upended in some way. There's a rigidity here of somebody coming into their home and kind of taking it over and making a mess of it. There's this inability to see that as a necessary component of what would occur if you're accused of murder. So having said that, this is going to bring me a little closer to an explanation of what's going on. And I want to talk about, there's a research psychologist. His name is William Swan, and he has this theory called self-verification theory.

These are the elements of self-verification theory. This is from Swan. This is a chapter in a book called Self-Ferification. This is on the first page. Swan says, once patterns of living have been established and maintained for some time, people summarize them by developing stable self-views. So you have experiences, those experiences get codified into stable self-fews.

Second, these stable self-fews provide people with a powerful sense of coherence. So the second step is you have experiences, you develop self-fews, those self-fews become reinforcing, that you want to have a coherent sense of your you want to be seen as someone who's consistent. You want those self-views to make sense to yourself. And thirdly, these feelings of coherence are so alluring that people will fight to maintain the self-fuse that produce them, even if it means enduring pain and discomfort.

So the final piece of his theory is that when something happens that's uncomfortable, we will fight to maintain our self-views. almost at any cost, even if it means murdering somewhat. At any cost, including murder. Well, they don't say, they don't say, Swan doesn't talk about that. That's my two cents. That's my addition. That's my addition.

Swan says at any cost, and the addition is at any cost, including murder. I want to talk about, I want to read a little more Swan to talk about how important this idea of self-verification or self-views is to this analysis. Juan goes on, this is on page 406. People's self-fuse represent the lens to which they perceive reality, lending meaning to all experience. Should people's self-fuse flounder, they will no longer have a secure basis for understanding and responding to the world because they will have been stripped of their fundamental

means of knowing the world. I think now we're getting closer to understanding what's going on. here. Remember, tell us, he's telling us, or Teus is telling us that he's not the kind of person who would do something, right? He tells us multiple times, I'm not the kind of person that would do that. He's repeated it over and over and over again. I wouldn't do something like this. So what he's telling us, when he says that, what he's telling us is that his view of himself, his self-view, his perception is not consistent with someone who would commit murder. Right. He can't self-verify. He can't have a coherent view of the world if he has to integrate this information

that maybe he committed a murder. So what happens is if you commit a heinous act and you have a view of yourself as a good person, that creates cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is this sense of anxiety when our view of the world and reality clash. So there's a couple of ways you can resolve cognitive dissonance. So you have this dissonance here with his self-views. You can resolve cognitive dissonance by taking that information and trying to integrate it into your sense of self-of-self, into your self-view, or you can deny that information and create a self-view that's consistent with what you already believe about yourself. So if you think about Talas, when it comes to self-views, it always becomes an issue to some

degree when someone's self-view is under threat, particularly if the person in question happens to be, say, a narcissist or have a personality disorder, because threat undermines their very sense of reality and it undermines their sense of security in the world. And would tell us you have two major threats. One of one of them's obvious. One is not so obvious. One is something the prosecution has tried to point out repeatedly in the trial. The first threat is you have Gehrman writing these articles, which as the prosecutor,

which Tell Us agreed were character assassination. In his view, they were character assassination pieces. They were hit pieces. And the prosecutor got, tell us to acknowledge, yes,

these attack me personally. He acknowledged he was embarrassed by it. Right. So that's the first threat. Okay. The second threat, the second threat, which is less obvious,

is the threat of the murder itself. And that's when he starts talking about, I'm not the kind of person that would do this. In other words, if you go commit a murder, I know this sounds crazy even saying this, if you go commit a murder, and that's not consistent with your self-view, if it creates some amount of dissonance,

then you're going to have to figure out a way to get past that. I think what's going on here is Tennis is saying something. I'm trying to imagine TELUS's like internal dialogue. He's saying something like, I may have just committed this murder or this murder just happened. But because I'm not that type of person, I couldn't have done it.

His dialogue is an attempt to persuade himself, convince himself, to stay coherent with the picture he has of himself as this brilliant, you know, special, exceptional public administrator that's in the public administration office, fighting evil. He's fighting the evil compass realty corporation that's trying to harm the little guy and take all our money, right?

Like, he's creating this narrative about, in a way that he's kind of this hero, which, by the way, is why he also comes out as a victim, why he kind of adopts that victim role. So what's going on is that you've got this dissonance of these self-fews. And the only narrative he can really tell himself, I think. I mean, he could say I did it. One way of resolving the dissonance is to say, you know what, I did it, I screwed up, I don't know why I did it. It was a moment of rage, whatever. I didn't know I was capable of doing that.

Right. And then it's game over, right? He goes to prison for the rest of his life. But that's what might occur with someone who's healthy. And by the way, I'm not saying that this person's healthy, but, you know, that's what Chris Watts did, for example. Chris Watts confessed. I'm not saying Chris Watts is healthy, by the way. He's a horrendous murderer.

But what I'm saying is that he's helped. He did that. He admitted to it is your point. Even Chris Watts did that. Even Chris Watts had the capacity for whatever reasons to acknowledge that he committed those crimes. And of course, it was game over. But here you have, presumably you have someone with a personality disorder who

commits this crime, but he has to figure out a way he can live with it. And so this is why you get the, I'm not the type of person. Because on the one hand, at some level, he probably knows he did it. But on the other hand, he's going to convince himself that he's not the type of person that would do that. So I guess I didn't do it. So you have this kind of internal persuasion, this internal monologue going on, which is essentially in psychological terms denial. in the most simplistic terms, that's what this is.

I think this is a personality disorder with a huge amount of denial. And by the way, so if you come to that view that you're not the type of person that could do this, and then you convince yourself of that, then the question becomes who did it, right? And that's where he pivots to conspiracy theories. That's where he pivots to, well, the police did it, and Compass Realty did it, and Rita redid did it. Like, he has no other possible explanation. But even that is wild to me because he could say that so simply he could say,

I didn't do this, but let's find out who did. He could just spend his entire testimony saying, I didn't do this. Let me explain why I didn't do this. He doesn't have to spend his entire testimony saying, and I'm going to tell you who did do it. I don't know. That's weird to me too. Like, again, I agree with the commentators that are saying, if this was me, I'd be like, I didn't do it, I didn't do it.

But someone was murdered. Like, let's find out who did it. And he doesn't, I mean, he just is like, I'm going to tell you who did it. I don't know. It's weird. It's wild to me. Sorry, keep going. This monologue, I think, that he's having about, I'm not the type of person.

Like, the only way you would say that to yourself is if you were trying to convince yourself of something. At bottom, this is denial. This is a defense mechanism. But that's what conspiracy theories are, too. There's some conspiracy theories. have some, you know, some support, I guess, some evidence. I mean, most don't, but I'm willing to acknowledge that some of them aren't necessarily defense mechanisms, but for the most part, that's what they do. Conspiracy theories are trying to present a version of reality that's not

accurate. They're trying to shield us from fear. They're trying to shield us from uncertainty. They're trying to make the world more understandable and simpler. They're a defense mechanism in the sense that they're really shielding us from the complexity of the world or the reality that's really in front of us. That's why you get this, because if you're going to say that you're framed, or if you're going to say that you didn't do it, if you're not the type of person that did it, then you're going to have to convince yourself that that's true. But you're also going to have to do something else. You're going to have to figure out who did it. And that's exactly what he did.

He's resorting, again, he's resorting to this really fantastic surreal explanation, this magical explanation that involves this vast conspiracy, like all of the, of Metro's in on it, compass realties in it. Like the prosecutor, you know, Christopher was just like, okay, like how many people are in on this thing? And he's like, oh, they all are. You know, I mean, it's not real. But it's not real because it's a defense mechanism that's shielding him from the reality that he did it or that he likely did it. You know, and I'm not saying, I sometimes go to the conspiracy theory route myself. So I just really appreciated you explaining why we do that. Sometimes I can get there. I mean, I can recognize, okay, I just jumped. I just made a jump with not enough evidence, but let's explore this conspiracy theory I have for a second. But that's why people do

that. Right. He's doing it out of fear and because it's the simplest explanation. So that too becomes a defense mechanism. The other part of this that's important to understand, some people might be saying, okay, you know, there's this dissonance, and he's trying to say, he's trying to convince himself he's not the type of person that would do it. And somehow he's able to convince himself. But doesn't that, what about the trauma? What about the event itself? Right. What about the memory? And I think that that's, doesn't he have a memory of the murder if he did it? That's where this kind of starts moving in the direction of amnesia or of dissociation in the sense that amnesia. So let's talk about amnesia just quickly. Amnesia is about memory. So it's about memory loss. So there's

different types of annesia. There's something called localized amnesia, which is when you have a complete blackout for certain events. So for example, you have a combat veteran who goes to war and let's say he's involved in an ambush and he or she's involved in an ambush. The soldier survives that. And they wake up, they're still alive. They don't remember anything that went on. That's localized amnesia. There's another type of amnesia called selective amnesia, which is, let's say the soldier goes through that same process of the ambush. They wake up. They remember some of it. They don't remember other elements of it. But it's a trauma that it's so overwhelming and it's such, it's so dramatic and it's such life and death that they

essentially repress that. You know, the brain doesn't want to deal with that trauma. So it will essentially override all of that information. And psychologists, by the way, have a term for this. So the psychologist, forensic psychologist, that testify about Annesia, sometimes refer to it as red out. Red refers to rage or anger and out means that because of this rage, that because of the heightened emotion, that sometimes defendants like Tellis may not remember a rage killing. And this is that type of killing, right? So, you know, you could argue that maybe Tellus had a red out. Maybe he didn't really remember what he did.

Maybe he was so enraged and so dissociated in the moment that he committed this crime. And it wasn't until he went to the gym or whatever if he went to the gym, that he even started having any recollection of the events. The problem with that explanation is that I'm pretty sure the defense, or Talas would have latched on to that pretty quickly. So the combat veteran who doesn't remember the ambush, they know they don't remember the ambush. They talk about it. They say they don't. There's been plenty of defendants in criminal psychology and forensic psychology that have resorted or tried to resort to the amnesia excuse or defense.

And most of the time it fails miserably. So it's a really risky defense. But TELUS never came out of the blocks when he interviewed police. He never said, I don't remember. I guess that could have been another possible explanation in terms of resolving the dissonance. But he ruled that out. I know. He could have said that. That could have been something he could have thought of doing, you know. I don't remember. Right. But yeah, that's not what he did. He didn't open that door because he never, he basically said, I would never do this. I wasn't there, right? But he could have said I was there and I just, I don't know what happened. Or he couldn't, not that he was there. He could have just said, I may have been in that area. I blacked out. I had amnesia, right? But he never said that. In a peculiar way, like he precluded any explanation for amnesia.

as a possible defense. But there's something here about memory that's important, and that is that memory is malleable, and memory is reconstructive. So a lot of people think of memory as something that involves like taking a picture. They think of like it's like a camera. You take a picture, you store it in your brain.

That's not how memory works. Memory is dependent upon context cues. It's dependent upon the brain chemistry. It's dependent upon a lot of things. But what happens is that we often rewrite history. and there's been a lot of research on this. Elizabeth Loftus is probably the main researcher in this area, but it's important to know this because somebody like Tell Us,

if they feel like they're not that type of person, if they tell themselves that enough, and they reconstruct whatever that memory is he has enough, it's possible for him to create a false memory to such a degree that it's consistent, with how he wants to be seen. Memories contingent upon our needs and our desires and our goals.

Memory often fits in the context of what I talked about with self-views. That if our self-view is somehow skewed or distorted and we don't like it, we can reconstruct memory. We can even create false memories that are more consistent with how we want to be seen. And so I think you have a version of that here.

I think there's definite denial. And some level will tell us, obviously, I think Tellus knows that he committed this murder. I do too. And he planned it. And he planned it. It wasn't just passion

because he did planning. When the police showed up, so right, correct. I think he felt like he was going to get away with it. He was shocked when the police showed up on September 7th

with a search warrant and now he's a suspect. Now he's got this huge dissonance about, wait a minute, I thought I was going to get away with this. I'm not the type of person that would ever do something like this. Right now he's got to figure out a way

emotionally try to resolve this problem, this impasse. I'm going to talk about a study here just quickly. There's a study from a psychologist, Henry Otgar, 2009. This is in the Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, Volume 23. The title of this is called Abducted by a UFO. Prevalence information affects young children's false memories for an implausible event. What they did in this study was they took a group of seven to 12-year-olds, essentially, and they provided them with fictitious information,

false descriptions of certain events. One of them was like alien abductions. And essentially what they were able to do was to get a lot of these kids over 70% over 70% of the children to falsely believe that they were abducted by UFOs. And essentially the way they did that was it's one of the most bizarre.

Our studies I know of, but certainly when, and there's ethical issues here about, you know, if somebody was doing this to our seven-year-old, I would not be happy. I'd be pretty too tough. That was my first thought. I'm like, wow, they did this. Yeah. Okay. Planting.

I don't, I don't know how the hell, you know, an institutional review board approved this study, by the way. But yeah, if my kid came home and he's like, mom, dad, I was abducted by aliens, I'd be like, what experiment were you? What experience were you participating in? That's bizarre. But we have the study, so here we are. Let's hear it.

We have the study, so let's run with it. I'm going to conclude their conclusion here. This is the first study that succeeded to implant false memories of UFO abductions. And the way they did it, so they combined false descriptions of events with prevalence information. When I talk about brainwashing, essentially I say the formula for brainwashing is, essentially providing false descriptions or false information, which they do in the study, with repetition. And it also helps, if you're going to brainwash someone, it helps to have them in a really

tired, vulnerable, depleted state of mind so that they're more suggestible. But that's basically, in terms of creating false memories, that's basically what they did in this study. The reason I bring this up is because if you look at someone like Talas, who's trying to convince himself that he's not the kind of person that would commit a murder, he would go through a similar process, which would be he would tell himself a false description of events, which was a hitman did it, and he would do it repetitively over and over. And he could potentially, through that process, create false memories. He could potentially, or at the very least, distort those memories of the murder. Okay.

And so that's not amnesia, by the way. That's not a loss of memory. That's a distorted memory. But I think here, I think this is more, there might be some element of that, of kind of these false memories that he's created for himself. More than that, I think it's about belief. He doesn't want to believe that he did it. And that gets back to this self-verification idea.

And when you put that, I think when you layer that with a personality disorder and these threats to himself and to his view of himself, I think that's how you land here. That's how you get to the point where you can have someone on the stand saying, who clearly the evidence is so stacked against them, you can have someone on the stand testifying on their own behalf, and to some bizarre degree believing that they didn't do it and believing that they're not the type of person capable of doing that,

even though they did it. It's this combination of belief, self-verification, and personality disorder that really kind of creates the, the cauldron for all of this to happen. So here's a question for you. I'm going to pull something up here. You're talking about reality, and this is a question I have because throughout the entire trial, people were asking, how do you pronounce his name? Is it Teus or Talis? And I just have to ask this because I think it's interesting. So first off, let me share this right here. This is, Las Vegas Review Journal, people in El Paso still use the Spanish pronunciation Teas for the family name.

But during his time in Las Vegas, Robert Tellis pronounced his last name, Tell Us. This is Las Vegas Review Journal. This is the paper that German worked for who interviewed Tell us, who followed Tell us's story. they are stating that Robert Tellis pronounced his name, Tell Us. And that is true that he would pronounce it in person that way on his political commercials, campaign, and in the paper,

and in the media. So let me now, though, I want to show this, because I need to understand what's going on here. Robert P. Deus, the first name is R-O-B-E-R-T. The last name is T-E-E-D-L-L. E.S. Robert Thais? In court, he pronounced it Robert Thais.

Yeah, let's end. This is an amazing, yeah, I'm glad you brought this up because this, this is completely consistent with our discussion tonight. Yeah, right. And not only did he, as you pointed out in the article, not only did he pronounce it, tell us, but everyone in the court, until he said that, his lawyers, the prosecution, Everyone was pronouncing it tellus. And it was more than once that he said Teas. Roberta, his mistress on the stand, pronounced it Teas. And then later in court, he then again said Teas.

Right. Yeah, it's fascinating. You can't make this stuff up. It's so bizarre. But I think the short answer is it's, it gets back to that question of why is he's saying, I'm not the kind of person that would do this. You have a version here. This is not, by the way, dissociative identity disorder.

but let's call it a minor version of that. You know, in the past, people would know that as multiple personality disorder, which is a dissociative disorder, which has to do with memory, by the way. Just a quick overview about dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder. Typically, that occurs when children are traumatized, and it creates a disruption in identity where the child will typically create other identities

in order to cope with persistent abuse. So the difference between dissociative identity disorder, amnesia, for example, is that amnesia tends to be, at least localized amnesia. It tends to be a one-off event, whereas dissociative identity develops over time. It's developmental. It occurs over a fairly lengthy period of time. So this is not, let me clarify with Talis or Teus, this is not that. Okay. However, I do think in the context of I'm not the type of person that would do this,

I think you have a, let's call it a minor version of that where I think he's trying to associate the murderer with Talas. And he's trying to say that he, Teus, is someone different. That Teus would never do that because he's not the type of person that would do that. I don't think he's doing this consciously. I think this is definitely more unconscious or subconscious in the sense. that he's trying to create distance emotionally from that person that he thinks of his Talas.

Maybe Tellus committed that murder, but Teus, he didn't. And so in a way, it's also related to this idea of, so multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder is about in many ways taking flight from anxiety and abuse by creating these other personalities that are able to cope with the trauma. It's an anxiety reduction technique. even though it's a very peculiar way of doing it, I think this difference between Talus and Teus is a very peculiar way for him to try to make a distinction

from someone who could be a murderer and someone who is not. Fascinating. At the very least, it's a way for him to create distance from all the anxiety that's associated with Talis, with this person that everyone's calling Talas, that he knows to some degree, but now he's going to switch it up a little bit

and he's going to have people call him Teas and he feels like that person, Teas, is a different person than the murderer. One other thing, I just have to share this. This was a moment in the trial. I was debating how tall he was the entire time. I said he's shorter than me. I'm 5'6.

And then we learned that his arrest record said he was 5'7 and I was super confused going, wait, I swear he's shorter. Is he an optical illusion? This is how tall he says that he is. in trial. I don't know if you notice the height difference. I wear lifts in my shoes.

I'm about six foot five and a half. And call it a vanity thing, right? I just wanted to feel a little taller. And so if I may just demonstrate why this is important. So these shoes that have built in lifts, So we learned a couple things. He says he's 6.5. I guess it was a Freudian and a half.

I guess it was a Freudian slip. I suspect that he meant to say that he was 5.5.5. So there answers my question. And then we also learned that 5'7 from the arrest records is probably his lift. But I guess what I want to focus on here is the lift. you know and I mean I color my hair I mean I don't know I guess everyone's got their bits of vanity he wears a shoe lift to look taller the most interesting thing about that clip is when he says call it a vanity thing he's essentially saying I mean I don't again I'm not diagnosing here

but he's essentially saying I'm a narcissist right he's calling himself vain I mean he's not quite saying that but like if you if you get up and say that in front of the entire world like why not just make the argument about the shoes why throw in the vanity part right he wears a lift boom is he trying to be humble also let's talk let's talk about this argument like he couldn't have worn brand name shoes because he had to have lifts like okay so you couldn't have just gone out to commit the murders in brand name shoes without the lifts for one day like what so you have to have lifts and all of your shoes even when you're committing a murder. Is that, that's the argument? Like, am I supposed to say, um, he could never warn those Nikes because he wears lift no matter what he's doing. Even in his combat training, he claims he, he's got to be, he's got to be over five,

five and a half. He's got to, right, if you, I guess, I don't, I mean, it's, it's such a bad argument. There's no possible way he did this because he would have been wearing his lifts. So he would have not looked short, call him vain, if that was him in that sun hat and orange outfit. Call him vain. He would have been wearing lifts. And who, who, what defendant takes the stand for a murder and calls themselves vain? I'm going to end with, it's been a while since I've read Shakespeare.

So I, you know, this is a passage I love from Shakespeare, by the way, that's completely relevant to Robert Tellis and a lot of criminal defendants. And our discussion tonight. This is from Macbeth. People that know me know that I love Macbath. I'm obsessed with Macbeth. It's like the first book about a serial killer in Western literature. So I've been reading Macbeth since I was like 15 years old. Many times.

This is from Act 5, Scene 3. This is Macbeth speaking to the doctor, who is noticing that his wife, Lady Macbeth, is acting strangely. The doctor says, canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raise out the written troubles of the brain, to which the doctor responds,

therein the patient must minister to himself. So in other words, a diseased mind, a memory that's rooted in sorrow, written troubles of the brain, it's really hard to get rid of those. You can try to repress those memories. You can resort to amnesia, right?

You can dissociate, you can resort to any defense mechanism you can imagine. But in the end, ministering to a mind diseased is really difficult. And it's really difficult to hide. And if you're defended on the stand like Tellus, it's going to come out that you still have those memories and they're still affecting you and that he's not past it. And I think to me that was obvious that, you know, there's really no simple way to try to, try to present yourself as healthy and as someone who is part of this vast conspiracy in a way that's believable to not only a jury, but probably to the community at large.

All right. Thanks, everyone for being here tonight. Let your friends know about us. And we appreciate so much. And may justice be served for Jeff German. He did so much good in this world. And you know what? I just want to say this too. I believe that he knew and he got that DNA under his fingernails because he was in a long sleeve shirt and a hat. And his his assassin was fully covered. And he he he, he's, there was a struggle and it was a heartbreaking. I want you know, I saw the crime scene in court.

You guys didn't see that either. We saw him. We saw the stab wounds. We saw what happened to him. And we saw the struggle on camera, close up, or what we could say. see it was across the street, but, you know, it was, I believe that Jeff German testified beyond the grave by doing that in his final moments and getting that DNA under his fingernails. He told his final story.

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