Law&Crime Sidebar - Serial Criminal Makes Chilling Confession in Real Estate Agent’s Bloody Murder

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Months after Whitney Hurd was found stabbed to death in her Charlotte, North Carolina home, a former classmate has been arrested and charged with her murder. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber digs into the details about Brandon Braxton’s life and criminal history with North Carolina criminal attorney Jason St. Aubin.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. After 32-year-old realtor Whitney Heard was found stabbed to death in her Charlotte home last summer, all eyes were on her former high school friend turned to Q's killer Brandon Braxton. Now we have brand new information about the case, from Braxton's alleged violent history to an apparent chilling jailhouse confession. This case, full of shocking turns. We're going to break it all down for you right now. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. What began as a frantic search for a missing woman last summer has unraveled into a disturbing

tale of alleged obsession, violence, and apparently a shocking jailhouse confession. Brandon David Braxton, a 33-year-old former Duke University football player, now stands accused of brutally stabbing 32-year-old real estate agent Whitney Hurd to death in her North Carolina home before stealing her car and phone. Now, we covered Hurd's case in a previous episode of Sidebar, and this was back before Braxton was an official suspect. But police had just begun investigating him for any potential involvement in Hurd's death. But now, with new charges and a newly released arrest affidavit, with a possible confession, this case has taken an even darker turn. Now, before we get into the affidavit, a lot to get into, I want to

catch you up on what has happened so far in this case. So it was the absolute worst nightmare for the family of Whitney Hurd back in July of last year when the 32-year-old failed to show up for the family's 4th of July gathering. This is according to reporting from WBTV. Now, after days of silence, Hurd's family reported her missing on July 11th, and it was three days later when investigators made a discovery that would raise more questions than answers. Hurd's body was found inside of her home signs that she had been stabbed multiple times. A search warrant says that she was wrapped in bloody betting. Her BMW, was also missing from her home, obviously, presumably stolen by the suspect after the killing,

but that car was later recovered by police abandoned. Now, police say they collected fingerprints and DNA evidence at the scene and from Hurd's car, and as they searched for a suspect, a few significant things happened. First of all, Brandon Braxton was arrested on January 2nd, 2025. This was regarding a robbery at a first-watch restaurant in Charlotte, and it was after this incident the police sounded the alarm bells that Braxton was potentially a dangerous individual. According to that affidavit, quote, an alert was put out for the defendant as well as due to random acts of violence occurring in the past two days, including assaulting random individuals

and breaking windows. And after that case was dealt with, he was arrested again for an unrelated incident. And he allegedly made a shocking confession from inside the jail that was apparently captured on the jail surveillance. And this is just part of what police say led them to Braxton. He was arrested on March 20th, charged with first degree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon for the death of Whitney Heard. So according to court records, aside from what we've already mentioned, this was apparently not Braxton's first running with law enforcement, not even close. In fact, we were able to find out information about Braxton's criminal history on TruthFinder, the powerful background checker that was able to find details about Braxton's

arrest. By the way, long time, we partner with TruthFinder. We use it to get details on people involved in our stories, but even if you don't work in true crime, this just can be an excellent resource to give you some peace of mind. After all, it's one of the largest public record search services in the United States. And with a paid subscription service, you can get access to unlimited reports about almost anyone. So right now, if you're interested, you can get 50% off of your first month of confidential background reports. Just go to truthfinder.com slash LC Sidebar. Now, before we go any further, I want to bring on special guests, Jason St. Aubin, North Carolina to trial attorney. He was with us last time as we covered this episode. Jason, so good to see you again.

Thanks for taking the time to come here on sidebar. Yeah, of course, your thoughts on this latest development. Wow. I mean, what a twist this case has taken. Jesse, this is, it's just such an interesting situation. The last time that I was here, I had read through all of the arrest reports about Mr. Braxton. And I had wondered, how are these two people connected? What thread joined them that the Police would think that someone who is so mentally unstable that they would get naked on the busiest street in Charlotte in the middle of the day would know a real estate agent in the South Park area, which is one of the nicest areas in town. And reading through the arrest paperwork and seeing that they actually had a prior connection and knew each other in high school, explained just so much about what would have brought these two in each other's orbit. And that, I think, was a really fascinating thing to learn and explain so much about our prior discussion regarding. Mr. Braxton. My thought on this case, though, would be that there is another twist to this

that I don't know if we picked up on, which is this alleged confession is what led to the arrest. There were months and months of time in between this homicide in July and this arrest in March. And I ask you about that. Yeah, I mean, the fact that you have a huge gap here, so Herds' death back in July, arrest charged March 20th. That's a significant. piece of time. What does that tell you? It tells me that that confession was the key piece of evidence that resulted in the arrest warrant being issued. And it tells me without that alleged confession that the state didn't feel comfortable pressing charges, even with fingerprints, even with evidence that may have linked Mr. Braxton to that scene.

And what's fascinating about this, what's fascinating is that he was in jail from January 23rd, 23rd through March 18th of this year on really basic misdemeanor charges. During that time period on March 3rd, he made an alleged request to the jail stating on March 3rd, allegedly again, that he was the person responsible for the death of Whitney Hurd. Two weeks after that, after two weeks after that. Fifteen days, March 18th, he's released back into the public. The sheriff's department, the police, they didn't investigate that request at the kiosk and confirm that it was him who filed it until he was released. And they actually had to go back and track him down. In two days, he was free after confessing to murder, allegedly again. How does something like that happen?

And they just say, one hand doesn't know what the other one's doing or? To me, it is really bizarre that if a suspect that you are hunting for months has confessed to a crime and you believe that that confession has some truthfulness to it, that you wouldn't immediately jump to action and put the clamp down on that person to allow them back into the community for two days, it is a significant danger to the people around him. Thankfully, he was apprehended fairly quickly and placed back into custody. And again, these are all allegations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't know if the product was of a diseased mind or if the confession is even true. And I want to get into all that. But do you think that suggests a weakness in the prosecution's evidence?

I mean, for example, there are a number of ways defense attorneys can try to strike a confession or an alleged confession from a trial. Do you think the prosecution has enough to move forward with the case against him? As you're saying, does it all bank on his purported statements? And that's a really great question because the affidavit that the state has filed in this case, the police have done a pretty detailed investigation. But I think there were some missing puzzle pieces that they really had problems with. No one truly put Mr. Braxton behind the wheel of Ms. Hurd's car.

Nobody really put him in possession of her phone. There was no forensic evidence that was supposedly collected from the car, and there was only fingerprints, allegedly, from the affidavit of Mr. Brockson's found at the home. And the two did know each other. So there would be some potential grounds or basis for his materials, fingerprints, potentially even DNA, to be present at the household, especially if he'd been there before, like is detailed in the affidavit and engaging in some pretty disturbing. behavior allegedly. So let's go through that. I want to go through a little bit of this arrest affidavit, the shocking, apparent omission that he may have, that may have sealed the deal for him. So according to the affidavit that was obtained by law and crime, investigators were dispatched to Hurd's home of July of last year. When they arrived, Herd was already dead. Her

official cause of death was from multiple stab wounds. Her case was ruled a homicide. And both Hurd's cell phone and vehicle, a 2014 BMWX3 were missing from the scene. But a neighbor revealed to officers that she had apparently seen something, kind of suspicious days earlier. According to the affidavit, Whitney's neighbor advised she observed a mail driving her vehicle away from the house on July 4th, 24, around 1120 a.m. The neighbor did not see anyone in the passenger seat of the vehicle and advised Whitney never let other people drive her car. Now, investigators executed a search warrant on herd's phone and used the last recorded pings from it to locate her car. Now, unfortunately, her phone wasn't found. All that was left inside the car, according to police, was the phone's case.

And as I mentioned earlier, fingerprints and DNA evidence that were collected from both herds home and her car were sent off for processing, which helped apparently lead police to their suspect, Brandon Braxton. But Jason, what do you make of the eyewitness account of seeing a man driving herds BMW, you know? Sometimes you don't even get an eyewitness account at all, you know, could that help? So I must have handled a thousand cases with eyewitness identification, and I have seen some of the most random and bizarre eyewitness identifications, I think, imaginable. I once had a witness on the stand, say, towards my client, I remember what he looks like better four years later than I did when this actually happened. People will say and do things in eyewitness identifications that sometimes make them not very reliable. And prosecutors, judges, and even the police, they're aware of that. So when they describe a male driving her vehicle, that lacks so much indications of what that man could look like.

It could be a guy in a bright blue suit with a silly pink bowtie, or it could be, you know, somebody that is a person of color of Mr. Braxton's size and bill. It is, you know, that is just not specific enough to get you where you need to be in a case like this. What should we think about with the phone, right? The phone wasn't recovered, but the phone ping data may have helped locate certain, you know, the car. Talk to me about how the prosecution and the defense may use the phone data and the lack of the phone that wasn't found. It's hard because obviously finding that phone is a key piece of evidence. Usually when you're looking at a robbery, just like what Mr. Brachson's charged with, and I've handled hundreds of those in Charlotte. You're looking for stolen property.

you're looking for a weapon that could have been used, in this case, a knife. So locating that knife, locating that stolen phone in his possession would have immediately locked up this case. They might not have needed to wait until he randomly walked to a jail kiosk and did what I've never seen somebody do in my 20 years of my practicing law and working on these type of cases, which is just to make a spontaneous confession without even the presence of law enforcement. 20 years. You're so young looking. I'm shocked. All right. So let me ask you this, not to make

light, but the matter of death, okay, rule the homicide, multiple stab wounds, no murder weapon recovered as far as my understanding is. Is that a challenge for prosecutors? Not when somebody walks in without police interference and on their own says, I'm confessing to this crime. There's a very fancy set of Latin words for this called corpus. delecti what that means is the body of the crime so when somebody makes a confession or they say i did this this is something that i did that's wrong our law says just that alone it can't be enough to convict you there has to be some other fact piece of information that makes that confession real and here when you have fingerprints or DNA that's left at the scene of the crime and

somebody then confesses to that crime. If those piece of evidence are allowed into evidence and they're truthful and the jury finds them credible, then at that point, yeah, that can form the basis of a very strong case for the prosecution. Now, you mentioned this before and I want to get into it. If this is true, right, this is not some random attack according to police, but rather, this attack, if committed by Braxton, was potentially quite personal because the affidavit reveals a pretty troubling history between these two. According to Hurd's family, who spoke with police, Braxton and Hurd were apparently friends when they were in high school,

but they lost touch, and that is when things kind of became creepy from there. According to the affidavit, quote, he lost touch with Whitney for many years and then began showing up at her residence. Braxton had fallen asleep intoxicated on Whitney's driveway one night when she wouldn't let him in. Whitney even called the police when Braxton broke into her home and told her family and friends about the incident. All pretty shocking because, just as an aside here, on Brackston's background, he was apparently a star football player when he was in high school and even into college.

According to his biography, on Duke's 2013 football roster, Braxton was a two-time academic all-conference selection at the university where he played as a wide receiver and safety on the team from 2010 to 2013. He was a highly touted recruit from Providence High School. His father, David Braxton, was an NFL defensive end drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 1989. But for now, Braxton's legacy is overshadowed by his alleged involvement, not just in this crime, but in an apparent string of other violent crimes that we're going to get into. But Jason, I guess the question is, how is this used, right? In the sense, if it's documented that she called law enforcement about this, I'm sure that's something that could be used.

but you also wonder, could that pattern be used? Because you and I both know that prosecutors can't use evidence to establish a propensity to commit a crime. Oh, he did this. He must mean he's guilty of this. But could they use it to show a pattern, a motive, something like that? Exactly, Jesse. You actually hit the nail right on the head with the magic word motive. Definitely evidence of previous activities can be used to show motive, if not used to show what you.

described you can't say well you know somebody may have hurt or done something to someone else in the past but that doesn't mean necessarily that we just say hey you're going to do it again automatically we can use that material though to show a link between these two and it can be evidence that the prosecutor uses to prove that Brandon had a motive to be at that location that he had been there before so if the defense is that he wasn't there or that material had been left before prosecutors can still use it in a way to show that he would or have the potential to return. It's definitely sad anytime we see a situation where someone's called the police alleging that they're being victimized by another person and then that situation in the future

resolves in this type of occurrence. It's very difficult. But I will assure the listeners that our community does take those things seriously. We usually have restraining orders or other methods that weren't employed in this case that had they been used, it could have upgraded the potential for maybe setting the stage to help stop this kind of activity either in this instance or in future instances. So we're not without recourse, but I would just say that it is always sad, and especially somebody like Mr. Braxton, who clearly, based on, like I said earlier, being caught naked in the middle of a skyscraper-filled city at 11 in the morning where nobody would ever be doing

that shows clear signs of having some significant mental issues that may affect his case in significant ways. Is it just wild based on these allegations that he's accused of this, but he had this once promising football career? I mean, that was an aspect of the story that shocked me, that 180, right? Well, having graduated Duke University by the skin of my teeth, I can definitely tell you. It's not an easy place to be an academic All-American. I believe Mr. Braxton had better grades than I did when I was there.

But I would just tell you that to be on that football team and to compete and also to find yourself in this position, it's not even unknown in the city of Charlotte. There was a University of Virginia football player about a decade ago right across the street from where I'm sitting in my office in the middle of Uptown, Charlotte, who just out of nowhere began stabbing somebody and had severe mental issues that sound very similar to this case. So it is interesting how people, especially in that sport, find themselves years later, potentially suffering from those type of maladies. Let me add a little bit more to this. So 10 days after Herd was found dead, this is on July 24th, Pineville Police actually arrested Braxton for an unrelated charge that appears to have been in connection with the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. August 8th, he was interviewed by detectives regarding what had happened to Heard.

And he told them that he did know her, as well as some other revealing information, because according to the affidavit, Braxton stated that he and Whitney used to hang out in high school. He stated he had never been inside her vehicle, but had been inside her residence. He nodded his head up and down in the affirmative when asked if he knew what happened to Whitney and where she was currently, but would not provide further details. He stated the last time he saw Whitney, she looked petrified. But the big reveal here wouldn't come until more than six months later in January of this year when Braxton was arrested, yet again, on an unrelated charge, this time seemingly related to charges of trespassing and resisting an officer, according to the affidavit. On March 3, 2025 at 8.54 a.m., Braxton submitted a grievance to the Meckleburg County Sheriff's Office admin sergeants, which stated, I killed Whitney Heard.

And police say they were able to confirm this supposed admission from surveillance footage provided by the... the jail, showing Braxton using the kiosk at the same date and time when the statement was supposedly made, you know, Jason, it makes me wonder, prosecutors may say, one of the reasons they couldn't charge him or there was a reluctance to charge him possibly is, yeah, there might be evidence they were in the same place, but that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, he was a complete stranger to her. There might have been an explanation for his DNA and materials to be there, but it was this confession, this alleged confession that changed everything. If you're a defense attorney, just a blanket statement like that, I would love to know the context in a little bit more.

How did defense attorneys typically try to keep that out of a trial? Because that's going to be the key piece of evidence. So I'm a big fan of the Fourth Amendment. Most of us criminal defense attorneys are. And the way that the Fourth Amendment works is it involves state action. Those are the two magic words. The problem with this type of statement is that no one from law enforcement or anyone, in a state agency asked him questions or forced him

to make this alleged confession. He went up on his own accord, put those words into a kiosk, and again, I've never seen anything like this ever happened at our jail, and I've represented, no joke, probably a thousand people that have been in it. So it's something that boggles the mind that number one that would occur,

that number two, it wouldn't be investigated thoroughly until 15 days later. And the person was already released who allegedly confessed to murder. But putting all that aside, looking at just the legal concerns of this, the idea is as a defense attorney, you're going to have to find other ways to deal with that piece of evidence than potentially having it excluded. Because no one from the state or government asked or made him make those statements, and he made them without representation of an attorney without asking for advice from that attorney. It's as simple as I get pulled over by the police, and before they even ask me what's in my car, I just tell them, look, I've got a whole bag of drugs in my trunk.

If you say that out loud without the benefit or guidance of counsel, and you make that spontaneous confession in front of law enforcement who are even physically present, that's not going to be something that might be able to be kept out unless there are other really specific circumstances at play. Right. A classic example would be they fail to read him. His Miranda writes, and he makes a statement, and then you say, oh, you know, that there you go, he should have known.

But what about the alleged statement? She looked petrified. What make of that? To me, it's the product of illness that sometimes things come in bits and pieces. Sometimes when acts of violence occur with people who have mental illness, having represented all kinds of folks in all kinds of situations, this can occur very spontaneously. Sometimes it can be connected to people they know, sometimes not. And those things tend to come in bits and pieces and also be rooted sometimes in very strong

delusions that even through medication or therapy or even help from professional counselors in our country's but excuse me our state's behavioral health centers it's it's really tough to get to the bottom of and tease all those details out what likely happened is that during this first statement things were coming out in a bit of a jumbled way one of the issues though is that if somebody could be considered you know mentally insane or not guilty by reason of insanity to withhold details about killing somebody that could be used by the prosecution to show, well, maybe they're not quite insane if they're

withholding information they might get them in trouble. That's a great point. Great point. Let's talk about the charges now. So Braxton facing felony charges, one count of first degree murder, one count of robbery with a dangerous weapon. The latter, according to the arrest warrant, is for allegedly stealing Hurd's car and cell phone while threatening her with a weapon. In this case, police say it was with a knife. He made his first court appearance on March 21st when he was denied Bond. And according to local affiliate WSOC TV, the judge cited the reasons for that being his connections to Texas, having no family in the Charlotte area. Jason, why charge first-degree murder instead of maybe

second-degree murder? There's evidence, I suppose, of premeditation. Is that what the rule is under the law in that state? So the choice and decision of what to charge lies with each prosecutorial district and the assistant district attorneys therein. Officers normally will press the initial charges, but then the DA decides which type of charges will end up moving forward and how. Officers in Charlotte will almost always charge first-degree murder to begin with when there's a death involved, even if the circumstances don't seem quite that way. They will work their way down. It allows the prosecutor a lot of latitude with which to look at those charges. But why they would charge first-degree murder in a case like this is very specific.

Because it involves a robbery, allegedly, first-degree murder is predicated and used sometimes with what we call a felony murder rule, which means if there's a felony that's committed and someone dies during the course of that felony, then it's an automatic life without parole sentence in North Carolina. We have one of the harshest felony murder laws in the country, and almost any felony can get wrapped up in a felony murder here. So they know that even if they can't prove that Mr. Brandon Braxton decided or deliberated or thought about this a long time and this was premeditated and deliberate, what they can potentially show, given the evidence with the car and the phone, is that Ms. Heard died during the commission of a robbery and they would be able to proceed under multiple theories, including that felony murder rule. I'm glad you explained that. That's an interesting point. By the way, we've talked so much about his prior criminal history here and how the police put out in a alert for him due to what seems to be so many alleged random acts of violence. I actually want to get into it a little bit more what some of these prior arrests entail. There's actually too many to cover here, but here I guess are some of the highlights. Back on October 27th, Braxton was charged for allegedly assaulting a woman by attempting to grab her shorts according to a warrant.

Then on the very same day, he was arrested for indecent exposure after officers responded to calls of a naked man, which we've been talking about, according to that arrest report. report. Officers located a witness who stated that a nude male approached her at the corner of 6th and Church Street. Officers located the male who was later identified as Brendan Braxton. And both of these cases, according to court records are still pending. Then as 2024 rolled into 2025, he was arrested for allegedly breaking a window of a residence. According to that arrest report, on December 31st, 2024, the defendant walked on to the victim's property and took a landscaping brick and threw the brick through upper level window on right side. And get this, also on the same

day, he was charged for an alleged assault at a gas station. According to that arrest report on December 31st, 2024, the defendant was at the gas station, was at the same pump but on the other side where he grabbed paper towels to blow his nose. The victim was sat at the gas punt and moved towards the trash can to throw out his paper towels and the defendant made eye contact with him, then punched him striking his upper lip. The defendant then ran off. And of course, we told you about two recent offenses in January for alleged robbery and trespassing incidents. Jason, talk to me about how much of this is actually going to come into his trial regarding the death of Ms. Hurd. Well, it depends on a lot of factors. The number one reason that criminal

convictions can be used in a prosecution is for what they call impeachment purposes, meaning if somebody who's charged in a case, that's the defendant, takes the stand, then those convictions can be used to show that they are not exactly credible. And I would assume by the time a case like this would move forward that a lot of what you described may result in those type of convictions.

But short of that, it can't really be used for much. What we do, and I think is important as a society, is we don't judge people based on their charges or what they haven't been proven guilty of. That's the same protection, as I tell a jury, in every trial, in every case that I try, it protects you, your parents, your kids, all of us. And it's important that if somebody is sitting in his shoes and he hasn't been convicted of those other incidents, that if this case with the homicide moves forward, that he is allowed to have

the same presumption of innocence as anyone else until the state proves that he is guilty. And that may indeed happen, but only time will tell. Time will tell. My gosh, what an update in this case. Braxton currently being held in the Meckinburg County Jail without Bond. We will keep a very careful eye on what may happen next in this case. Jason St. Aubin, thank you so much. We're so good seeing you. Appreciate you taking the time. Oh, yeah. Thanks for having me again. It's always great to see you.

All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.