Let's Go To Court! - 118: The Lululemon Murder & A Woman in a Trunk

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

Mary Scott Castle was hot, rich, and well connected. But when she met a 21-year-old Porter Charlton, she was down on her luck. She’d just gotten divorced, and she’d blown her reputation to bits by shooting a man in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria. But when Mary and Porter locked eyes, it was love at first sight. They got married a month later, and took off for a romantic European honeymoon. There was just one problem. Porter wasn’t so stable himself. Then Brandi tells us about a horrific attack in a Lululemon store. It was March of 2011. Coworkers Brittany Norwood and Jayna Murray had just left the Lululemon Athletica store in Bethesda, Maryland, when Brittany realized that she’d left her wallet in the store. When she called Jayna to tell her what she’d done, Jayna was accommodating. She told Brittany she’d meet her back at the store. The pain re-entered the store, leaving the door unlocked behind them.  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Lady in the lake” by Mara Bovsun The Daily News. “The Murder of the Beautiful and Accomplished Mrs. Edith Woodhill, 1909,” written by Thomas Duke in 1910, posted to historicalcrimedetective.com “Charlton Must go to Italy for Trial,” The Evening Times-Republican, June 10, 1913 “May Ask Wilson to Save Slayer,” The Washington Herald , June 11, 1913 “True Detective Tales: What is Justice? Murder at Romantic Como,” by Peter Levins for the Pittsburg Sun-Telegraph, April 24, 1940 “‘On Trial’ -- Omaha Boy in Spotlight,” The Omaha Sunday Bee, October 17, 1915 In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Brittany Norwood” episode Snapped “‘The Yoga Store Murder: The Shocking True Account of the Lululemon Athletica Killing’ by Dan Morse” by Daniel Stashower, The Washington Post “Lululemon victim was alive through most of beating” by Andrea Noble, The Washington Times “Brittany Norwood sentenced to life without parole” by Richard Reeve, WLJA 7 News “Maryland Lululemon Store Gives ‘Love’ Memorial to Family of Woman Killed There” NBC4 Washington “Lululemon Murder” wikipedia.org

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a woman in a trunk. And I'll be talking about the Lululemon murder. Ooh, you got this idea off Twitter. I sure did. Are we talking like the trunk of a car? Are we talking about like a steamer trunk? What kind of are we talking about? Like an elephant's trunk? Hey, I've got a great idea. What? Why don't you keep your pants on and find out?

And obviously, if it was an elephant trunk, don't you think I would say a woman in an elephant trunk? You know, I was just wanting to explore all the possibilities. Before you hear the story. Yes. So, Brandy. Yeah. How the hell are you doing today? I mean, what day is it?

Okay, don't say that because I always know it's Wednesday. You're right. That's the only day that I'm sure of at this point. Yeah. Wednesday is when we record. It's when only day that I'm sure of at this point. Yeah. Wednesday is when we record. It's when we release new episodes. I know Wednesdays. Don't know any other day. That's exactly right. No, I'm doing good. How are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Hanging in there? Well, it's kind of boring. I mean, my updates are very boring. Been sitting around. Yeah. I've been

doing a lot of staying in the house. Mm-hmm. Had a thrilling doctor's visit yesterday. What would you do if I told you, like, oh, well, I've just been, like, hanging out with people. Been, like, throwing some house parties. I would be so upset. And then I'd have to tell you why all of that stuff is important not to do. Brandy, I've just, like, I've i've noticed that you know people are bored and sad especially elderly people so i've been throwing house parties for the elder for the elderly you're doing mass amounts of elderly people over that's right that's right and we are having a good time

oh do we want to talk about what my state just had to do go ahead OK. So it was obviously just Easter. And the stay at home order previously in Kansas had excluded religious organizations. Which is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But with Easter coming up, the governor, Laura Kelly, decided that she needed to amend the stay at home order to include religious organizations because the risk is just too big. If you get that many people together, there's just too big of a risk. And so she did. She issued an amendment to the executive order saying that now religious institutions are no longer exempt.

And the frickin' legislator, Kansas legislator, overturned it. And so she had to sue them. And it went all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court and yeah they they upheld her executive order but oh I mean the fact that that even had to happen or be a conversation is is pretty disappointing people are stupid people hear these orders and they're like you can't do that to me and it's like no no one's doing it to you. They're doing it for you. Yes. Dumb, dumb. Yes. And I'm sorry, but how many old people go to church? It's like all old people. It is. Yes. Yeah. So that was, that was a really frustrating thing that had to happen. Made us look pretty cool here in Kansas.

Kansas is always making itself look cool. Not to be outdone by the great state of Missouri. But you know what we should do now, Brandy? What? Now that we've talked about the dum-dums, let's talk about the smart-smarts. And you know how to be super smart-smart? You get in our Patreon. You join us at the $5 level.

You get to listen to nine bonus episodes. And you get into the Discord where you can chit chat with all of us. And at the $7 level, that's the Supreme Court level. You get all of those bonus episodes plus the Discord. Plus you get bonus videos. And you get a sticker and our autographs. Are you still sending those out or is that going to be delayed it will be delayed um i've sent out everything that i already

had stamps for but i have to go to the post office to buy more stamps and i'm not allowed to do that currently with the pregnancy vibe and all of that so i have them already yeah you know so um they are just awaiting stamps so i will get them out um as soon as possible i've got everything addressed that you know is due at this time so how dare you ma'am you're just like that kansas governor and like a good preacher i demand that you go out to the post office you do whatever if you have to hand deliver it to people if you have to throw a house party for everyone who's joined the Patreon, you will do it. Just note that they are on their way to you folks, just might be slightly delayed. All right, all right.

Okay, shall I start us off here? Yeah, let's talk about this elephant's trunk. Brandy, you're going to be very disappointed. To find out no elephant trunk is involved? I'm sorry, are you turning your head away from the microphone? I did. I'm sorry. Day one.

I'm sorry. Well, I was very disrupted all of a sudden by a noise. I couldn't tell what it was. It was Oliver shaking it out. What did you think it could possibly be? I wasn't sure. I actually thought that he was in bed, but he's joining me for the podcast. Probably he hears my voice.

How could he hear your voice? You're in my headphones. Dogs have amazing hearing and he loves me very much. He does love you very much. You are his best friend. Sorry to tell you, Brandy, you thought we were long-term friends? No. It's you and Oliver were long-term friends? No. It's you and Oliver all the way.

That's right. Okay. Huge shout out to the article Lady in the Lake by Mara Boveson. Oh, yeah. That's my girl for the New York Daily News. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Are you serious?

I've used her multiple times. I mean, she's amazing. She's an excellent journalist. All right. So she wrote a wonderful article. A ton of this comes from that article. But also I hit up newspapers.com like you would not believe. Wonderful. Also, old timey disclaimer. Excellent. All right. It's August 3rd, 1909. 3rd, 1909.

We're in the original Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. By that point, it had been open for about 12 years, and it was the place to see and be seen. P.S. You can't Google it because it's now the site of the Empire State Building. But back in the day. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. That's a fun fact. Have you already learned something new?

I have. Should we close up shop and end things today? Yeah, that's it. All right. I'll take my elephant trunk story elsewhere. But back in the day, the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria was so jam-packed with fancy people that it was nicknamed Peacock Alley. Wow. Because all the wealthy women would strut around in gorgeous gowns and pearls and diamonds.

It's kind of like the Cracker Barrel of today. No. On this particular day, Mary Scott Castle was strutting her stuff, and for good reason. Mary was hot as hell. She had long, shiny, dark hair, big, expressive eyes, a pouty mouth. Plus, she belonged in this crowd. She was distantly related to President William Henry Harrison. Ever heard of him? I'm familiar. And the Breckenridges of Kentucky. She was hot. She was rich. She was

well connected. Am I supposed to know the Breckenridges of Kentucky? Okay, so I didn't, but I later looked it up. And I believe that we had a Breckenridge as a vice president around this time. And so, you know, vice presidential knowledge is terrible. Well, as is everyone's from like, you know, the 1900s, early 1900s, late 1800s. I mean, who gives a hoot, right? But anyway, you know, Brandy, money isn't everything. And looks aren't everything either. Even though you chose me to be your long-term friend based on my beautiful, beautiful looks. Solely on your bangs that you have in the trade.

They were quite stunning, weren't they? And as were yours my ladies yes oh god it's gracious sorry you must have come over to my old people house party so even though mary was cute as a bug and dressed to the nines she had some personal problems bug and dressed to the nines she had some personal problems about 12 years earlier she'd been married to a lawyer named neville neville castle i mean terrible name this is why you don't see it today neville's not bad oh okay no nuts name your baby Neville. Well, no. Do it. It's not bad. Well, it's a boy's name for one.

I think it could go either way. I think it's so beautiful. Stop it. So their wedding had been the event of 1897. It was a hot ticket. But now, a few years later, their love had faded. They separated. And you know, Mary went off to pursue her theater career, which hadn't really taken off. And so there she found herself, all done up at the Waldorf Astoria's Peacock Alley, with a bit of a chip on her shoulder. When all of a sudden, she saw an attorney named William Craig.

Mary became enraged. Enraged? Did she know this man? Uh, yes, she certainly did. Okay, there are a couple versions of this story. One is that William had said something rude about her in the past. And that day at the Waldorf Astoria, Mary wanted to confront him about it. Another, and I think this sounds like the real version, is that William and Mary had been having an affair, and he had broken up with her, and Mary had been having an affair and he had broken up

with her and he had been talking shit. And so she saw him there and wanted to confront him. Either way. Yeah. She wanted to talk to him. So she went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and asked him for a moment of his time. And he ignored her. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm yeah so what did she do uh tapped him on the other shoulder interesting technique she pulled a tiny gun out of her purse. Well, you heard what he did. She pulled a tiny gun out of her purse, aimed it at his chest, and shot him. What? People freaked out. William fell to the ground. Yeah, right there on Peacock Lane. Peacock Alley, excuse you. Whatever.

There was ink everywhere. What? Ink? Yeah, there was ink everywhere. You see, Mary had aimed at William's heart, but in William's breast pocket, he had this big honking old timey fountain pen. It was probably like state of the art fountain pen then. I mean, you don't have to defend the guy. Don't worry, he lives.

And that pen had saved his life. Oh, my gosh. But sadly, the bullet did manage to mangle that state of the art pen. Rest in peace, pen. William was incensed. He was like, are you fucking nuts? You just tried to kill me. What is wrong with you?

That's it. I am pressing charges. And Mary was. Pressing charges. Aren't the police going to take care of that? Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. Mary was like, oh, no, no, no, no.

Hey, hey, hey, let's be cool. I mean, you lived through the shooting. Can we just pretend this didn't happen, please? Sure thing. But William was not swayed by that excellent argument. He wanted ensure that mary was charged with attempted murder because duh yeah but counterpoint mary super did not want to go to prison so she turned to her brother henry harrison scott who was this big important military guy and she was like please help me. So Henry went and talked with William. And there's no record of what was said. And no record of whether maybe Henry paid William off

or something. I don't know. But the bottom line is that at the end of that conversation, William agreed to drop the whole thing with Mary and Mary got away with attempted murder scot-free wow the case was dismissed I I don't know exactly how they must have done this but he must have just said that he would not cooperate with the prosecution I mean it Mary came from a very influential family and they pulled some strings is the bottom line. Wow. That's there's some hefty strings there. Yes, indeed. I'm sorry. I was trying for a Pinocchio joke and it couldn't come. Didn't work out. Except Mary didn't totally get off scot-free because now people thought she was a bit of a nut job. And six months after the shooting, Mary's husband was like,

okay, enough of this separation business. I am ready for the full divorce, please. So there was Mary. 28? Question mark? 38? Question mark? Oh, yeah. It depends on what article you're reading. And we'll get into maybe why there's such a big discrepancy in the reporting of her age later. I for sure won't forget. Don't even worry about it. But there were a few things for certain. Mary was single and her reputation had been shut to bits. See what you did there.

Thank you. I'm quite proud. And that's when she met this super hot 21-year-old named Porter Charlton. Porter was the son of a former federal judge who was now working in a high-up government job. So his family had money, but Porter hadn't made much of himself yet.

He was just a bank clerk. And you know, he was just a kid at any rate. And he was banging a 28, 38 year old. Yeah. So I, yeah. Okay. I'm going to save that stuff for later. But for now, let's assume they're eight years apart.

OK, 28 and 20. That's my math on full display. Thank you. You're welcome. I mean, for for blessing us really with that display of. Oh, actually, earlier I said he was 21. So that math was wrong. Anyway, moving on. You're not here for the math. So Mary and Porter were on each other like white on rice. They were infatuated. So after knowing each other for one whole month, they got married. In a secret ceremony in Wilmington, Delaware, without either of their families present.

Then they headed off to Europe. They were going to take a three-month honeymoon to Europe. Hello. How great. How fun. They drank. They lounged around. They fought.

They drank. They fought. I don't know. They fought. They drank. They fought. I don't know. Did I mention they drank? And I think they fought. They did. Fast forward to June 10th, 1910. We're in Lake Como, Italy.

Fishermen are out doing their thing, putting nets out, bringing them back in. Is that the extent of your knowledge? Ask me anything about being a fisherman. And on this particular day, they brought in a net and realized that their net had captured an elephant. Shut up. had captured an elephant. Shut up. And that elephant, within its trunk,

held a smaller trunk. And inside that trunk was a woman! Let me tell you, it was a bitch to get this elephant on board. I mean, it took a lot of strength. Luckily, these guys had very good upper body strength bitch to get this elephant on board. I mean, it took a lot of strength. Luckily, these guys had very good upper body strength. They pulled the elephant on board. Yeah, it's from casting those nets and pulling them in all the time. That's right.

They're just throwing them out and pulling them back in. Occasionally there's fish. Occasionally there's an elephant. You just never know. No, enough of this tomfoolery. It was just a trunk. It was just a steam tomfoolery. It was just a trunk. It was just a steamer trunk, okay? It was all normal.

So they dragged that trunk aboard, and they opened it. And they discovered a corpse. It was the body of a woman, fully dressed, wrapped in a sheet. In the trunk with her were papers with her name on them. The body belonged to Mary Scott Castle Charlton. Ooh. Her autopsy revealed that she'd been hit repeatedly on the head and that she'd been alive when she was put in the trunk and tossed into Lake Como.

Oh, gosh. Porter's body was nowhere to be found. Italian police retraced the couple's steps. The villa where they'd stayed was covered in blood. There was blood on the first floor and a ton of blood upstairs in the bedroom, mainly on the bed. Could you say that there was blood everywhere?

I already used that saying to talk about the ink, which... But you know what? No, you're right, though, because there was blood everywhere. And police quickly developed a theory. They knew that the couple had been hanging out with this super sketchy guy

named Konstantin Espolatov. Oh, is it really spaced out like that? Yes. It's 14 words. So Constantine was this 50-year-old guy who referred to himself as an adventurer. Yeah, he sounds like a douche. as an adventurer. Blah. Pass. Yeah, he sounds like a douche.

The article in the Daily News just says that he had a shady background and doesn't go into any further detail. But police were like, okay, weirdo, you got a ton of cash on you. You've got probably a criminal record. And this woman turned up dead. And her husband's body is probably still in the body of the lake.

It's time for you to confess but why why'd they automatically think the husband was also dead okay a couple things i think the amount of blood also they found i believe they found um some of porter's clothes okay in the lake too okay just because my immediate assumption was that her husband killed her I believe they found some of Porter's clothes in Lake 2. Okay. Just because my immediate assumption was that her husband killed her. I don't think that they watched a lot of Dateline back in the day. This is probably true.

Uh-huh. So they didn't know that the husband is always the guilty one. They thought it was Constantine. But other people were like, are you sure you got the right guy anybody could have killed this couple they were rude loud constantly drunk usually half naked dancing poorly what americans am i right dancing poorly that was the feedback they were getting Am I right? Dancing poorly?

That was the feedback they were getting? Yeah, I mean, you know, drunk, obnoxious Americans on vacation. You know how it is. Every time you go on vacation, you get drunk and just do the Macarena. Just nonstop. Investigators searched the lake for poor, dead, porter's body. But they didn't have any luck like zero luck then they discovered that before porter and mary had come to stay at the villa on lake como they'd been at the hotel suisse the proprietor of that hotel was like yeah they stayed here is that like sw Swiss with an accent? It's S-U-I-S-S-E. So yeah, I assume.

Right? Did I do an amazing job? Yeah. Am I more than just a pretty face? How dare you laugh at that, Brandy. So the proprietor says they fought constantly. You could hear the woman crying late at night. Her cries were so loud that they disturbed the other guests.

In fact, one morning I woke up to shrieks. It was the woman. Her husband was dragging her into the street by her foot. Okay, that's not it's not funny. But I immediately thought of that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Do you remember the scene that I'm talking about?

No. Jason Segel is crying in the hotel room and she gets the call from Mila Kunis at the front desk and she's like, we keep getting complaints

about a young girl crying. Okay, I fucking love that movie. He's like, I keep getting complaints about a young girl crying. Okay, I fucking love that movie. He's like, I'll keep it down. Brandy. I'm sorry. How tacky as hell. Okay, sorry. So he's.

Wait till the Breckenridges find out that you were laughing about this they're not gonna think this was funny breckenridges will not be pleased at all so apparently mary had been afraid of her husband and had been hiding from him in a closet and when he found her he became violent and it was at that point that the hotel owner threw the couple out. Threw the couple out? Uh-huh. Why does Mary get thrown out? Exactly. I'm not so sure that in a lot of cases this wouldn't be handled the exact same way today.

Honestly, I know that's sad. But I think a lot of times when there's domestic violence, it's like the two of you are creating a problem. Yeah. when like there's domestic violence it's like the two of you are creating a problem yeah so at this point police started to wonder if maybe constantine was innocent and if maybe porter wasn't dead after all they reached out to other authorities across europe asking them to be on the lookout for anyone matching porter's description by this point news of m Mary's death was everywhere, and Mary's family was very suspicious of Porter because they had watched some Dateline, I guess. I don't know. They got some advanced copies. That's right. Mary's brother, Captain Henry Harrison Scott, was all over it. Somehow, maybe through the news or maybe through his job,

he found out that a man matching Porter's description had gotten on a ship called the Princess Irene. Ooh, sounds luxurious. They spelled princess with a Z, which I think is like the tackiest thing. I mean, was this whole ship covered in glitter? At first I thought it was like a terrible typo in one article. No, every article.

Princess Irene. I'm over it. It's fine. So the Princess Irene would stop in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 23rd. So Henry grabbed two detectives and he was like, come on, boys, we've got to say hello to my brother-in-law. OK, I don't know whether Henry and Porter had ever actually met, but Henry had definitely seen photos of Porter and he'd read descriptions. So when the boat docked, Henry went on board, and immediately he spotted a guy who seemed suspicious. So Henry went up to him and was like, Hey there, who are you?

And the guy was like, Uh, I'm Coleman, J. Coleman. I'm headed to Omaha, Nebraska. Oh, can't wait to get to Omaha. Okay. Are you touching your mic? I'm sorry. I knocked it on accident.

Don't say I'm touching my mic. I'm not like fondling my mic. I accidentally knocked it. You know, I think it's very bizarre that I say touch and you assume that I mean fondle. What's going on, Brandy? Are those days getting a little lonely? I mean, I said touch and you jumped to fondle. I don't know what you're doing to that poor microphone, but please, it's the property of the podcast, so keep it classy. So Henry was like, uh-huh.

Meanwhile, the detectives started searching Jay Coleman's bags. And weirdly, the bags were filled with stuff that had the name P. Charlton on it. Uh-huh. Porter Charlton had been caught. So it was the husband. It didn't take much to get a confession out of the young fella. And, Brandy, you know, sometimes when there's a murder, we tend to blame the murderer.

What? Yes. No, just sometimes, just occasionally. But according to Porter, and this is very interesting, there was plenty of blame to go around. Okay. Here's what he said. My wife and I lived happily together, but she had an uncontrollable temper, and so did I. On the night of the murder, she had the worst outbreak of temper I ever saw. I told her to keep quiet or I would make her keep quiet.

Ooh. Then she had another outbreak. I took up a wooden mallet with which I had been repairing a table and hit her on the head and body two or three times. At midnight, I put the body in a trunk dragged it to the lake and threw it in so they're he's repairing a table at a hotel they're staying at you know what i was equally confuddled by that too um what i think is he's an abusive asshole and i think he probably threw her against the table and broke it and so then was trying to repair it that's what i think because there'd be no reason for you to like repair a table in a hotel room unless you had done something to it

right yeah yeah you're not like here's my good deed. I'm going to pick up on my honeymoon. So easy peasy, lemon squeezy, right? Porter confessed to murder. I think we're done here. Except we are not done here. The crime took place in Italy. The United States didn't have jurisdiction over this case. So the United States would have to extradite Porter to Italy. But then Porter's father stepped in. He'd heard terrible things about Italian prisons. So he hired a team of the best lawyers that money could buy to ensure that his son would not have to be tried in Italy. Are you only doing Italian trials these days? Okay, I wondered at what point you would say something. Here's the truth. Here's what happened. So you know how this is. Sometimes you're researching a case. And in that process, you'll be reading some old timey article. And the

article will be like, you know, I think this is somewhat similar to the crime we all know about that happened last year around this time. And you're like, I don't know anything about that crime. So then you Google that and, you know, here we are. But yeah, I have done like, is this my third one? Yeah. That somehow involves Italy and extradition. Yeah.

Stay tuned for more. So his lawyers argued that, yeah, okay, Porter had committed the murder and he'd done it in Italy, but he shouldn't have to be tried there. You see, Italy had historically been a bit of a bad boy when it came to extraditing people. Italy had historically been a bit of a bad boy when it came to extraditing people. Porter's lawyers argued that Italy had always refused under the Extradition Treaty of 1868 to return people living in Italy for crimes they were accused of committing in the United States. So now that the shoe was on the other foot, why would you acquiesce to what Italy wanted? Hmm, that's a $10 word. Huh?

That's a big word. Acquiesce? Yeah. It's very fancy. Did I just impress you? Yeah. Are you going to start fondling the microphone again? Stop it.

So this kicked off a big old talk about diplomacy and blahdy blahdy blah but porter's lawyers had another thing they wanted to discuss because sure on the surface it seems obvious that porter should be extradited to italy but porter's legal team believed that there was a loophole here was the alleged loop loophole. Are you ready? I'm so ready. You know, first they're arguing that Porter should not be extradited at all. But then they're also saying under this loophole that Porter is insane and therefore he cannot be extradited. Really? So Porter's legal team went about the business of proving that their client was insane. But a trial court was like, hold on just a minute, guys.

Under our interpretation of New Jersey law, an insanity defense is what you use at trial. It's not a factor in whether you get extradited. Did you guys only go to one semester of law school? This is the dumbest thing ever. did you guys only go to one semester of law school this is the dumbest thing ever so this trial court is like no we're not even going to discuss whether porter charlton is insane p.s have fun in italy goodbye but porter charlton's dad was like oh hell no so he appealed and this time porter's lawyers were like hey guys, the trial court was wrong on every level. And please let Porter Charlton go because he is being illegally detained.

OK. He is, Brandy. No. Why not? I disagree. Why? He's not insane, first of all. And then even if he was, I think that's a bad argument.

No. See, here's how it all breaks down, okay? Are you ready for this? I'm so ready. Number one, he should not have to go to Italy. And here he is, detained in New Jersey, and he for sure didn't do anything wrong in New Jersey. So there you go. He's being illegally detained.

I risked my case. Okay. The appellate court was like, do you guys think we're dumb? No, we're not releasing Porter Charlton. So what was Porter Charlton's dad to do? I'll tell you what he did. He took his son's case all the way to the Supreme Court. The whole time, Porter's legal team was like, did we mention how totally insane in the membrane our client is? Here's some evidence. Are you ready? Yeah.

Okay. Buckle up because this is wild. This is bad. Disturbing stuff. disturbing stuff sometimes when he was a kid he'd get so mad and this one time he got on a horse and it ran away with him and porter was so mad and he was like please let me getance on that horse. Wow. Okay, then another time when Porter was an adult and he told his dad that he'd gotten married, Porter's dad was like, really? I mean, do you have enough money to be getting married? And Porter got so mad that he refused to eat dinner with his dad.

What? Yeah. That's not insanity. I don't know what is. I guess it depends on what they were serving that night. Then this other time when Porter was on his honeymoon, he wrote his dad a letter and it was so mean. Oh, it was mean. It was foul and abusive. And it was mean it was foul and abusive and it was so just angry that his dad he just skimmed it and had to destroy the letter oh so there's not even any proof of this letter no because it was so insane oh okay so insane that the dad couldn't even keep it anymore. Okay.

Also, we're not done yet with the evidence, although I can tell you're already convinced. Mary, the victim, well, she was pretty nuts, too. Yeah, she was insane. And that took a toll on Porter's insanity. Oh, her insanity was contagious. Right. And so when their insanity combined, bada bing, bada boom, you've got a perfect insanity plea. Mm-hmm. No.

Yes, Brandy. I'm not buying any of that. It was like they both had the coronavirus. They got together, and then they got like double coronavirus. That's how that worked. Oh, okay. But the Supreme Court didn't see it that way. They were like, chin up, buddy.

The lower courts didn't make any errors. Plus, Italy is lovely this time of year. Enjoy that Italian prison. This was very upsetting news for Porter and his family. This legal battle had lasted three years. Damn. And they had lost. Yes.

They were so well connected that at this point they were talking in the press about maybe, you know, reaching out to the president, you know, blah, blah, blah. At any rate, Porter had obviously murdered Mary. There was no debating that. He would be found guilty. Duh. They'd studied a ton of Italian cases and they looked at the precedent and it seemed obvious. Porter Charlton was going to spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement. Shit. I know. Porter was brought to Italy and something real weird happened when he got there. What happened? People were stoked to see him. What? His plane landed on August 28th, 1913 and people were thrilled. Women wrote him love letters. Men wrote songs about him. What? Because here's the thing. Italian courts were known for giving tough punishments,

but if a crime was deemed to be a crime of passion, it really wasn't taken too seriously. fashion, it really wasn't taken too seriously. Wow. Uh-huh. At any rate, Porter's trial got delayed and delayed, and at one point he was put in solitary confinement for bribing a guard, and two years after he landed in Italy, Porter was ready to go to trial. In court, he explained his side of the story. He said, Oh. So here's what I think is very interesting. In all the articles leading up to the trial, all the journalists seem to agree that they only had an eight year age gap. Uh huh.

Once the reporting comes out from the trial, all the reports say that they had a 20 year age gap. Ooh. So. Was that just like to sensationalize it or here's what i believe i believe that the defense did a great job and part of their defense was blaming the victim and making her look as awful as possible and one of the ways to make him look like a victim is to say, oh, she was twice his age, twice his age. That's what I think happened. Yeah. And I think that's why even in more more modern articles, it's so hard to track down the age gap. But I'm telling you, like once the trial starts, all of a sudden everyone's like, oh, she was double his age. Mm hmm. Three psychiatrists testified. One for the defense said that Porter had been insane at

the time of the crime. One for the prosecution said that he'd been sane the whole time. Another one for the government, which I don't know how that works. I thought the prosecution represented the government. But anyway, you're not an expert on Italian court. I'm not even an expert on the U.S. court system. So this is just a mess. But anyway, that expert landed somewhere in the middle. They were like, you know, I can see both sides of this argument. Before the jury went into deliberations, the judge asked Porter if he had anything to say. Here's what he said. What'd he say? I trust entirely to Italian justice. I can only say that I am a most unfortunate man.

What the fuck does that mean? He's the victim, Brandy. Yeah, yeah. All right. You know how it goes. Yeah. How the victim usually is the one who lives through the whole thing. Right.

Yeah. The one who doesn't end up in the trunk in the lake. Yeah. The one who's not crying and hiding in a closet. You know, that's how it goes. By the way, I read that in this courtroom, he was held in like a cage thing. Really? Yeah, I think that happened in the old timey trials. Well, I mean, I hope they didn't just make it up.

But yeah, that's what they said. On October 25th, 1915, the jury found Porter. What do you think? Not guilty. They found him guilty but with insane with extenuating circumstances oh my gosh so he was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison but his sentence oh wait for it but his sentence was reduced for time served and he got a year of amnesty which apparently they

handed out like hot cakes to any prisoner who committed a crime before italy entered world war one that's a whole another fun thing so when you make all these subtractions porter was really sentenced to 29 days in jail oh that's what he had shut up that's all he had left oh my gosh by late january of 1916 he was back in new york ready to head off to puerto rico that's where his dad was a judge and that's where i assume he lived for the rest of his life and that's the story of the murder of mary scott castle charlton oh my gosh 29 days i this it's infuriating that whole thing is infuriating wow and i wish i could have found more stuff about what happened with him because you know he just like went and abused his next wives you know yeah anyway bring him over eating i'm over it you know what i want a change of topic right this instant what's that noise for no my mom so my mom is doing a grocery

delivery and so she was just asking if I needed anything. And so I'm trying to think if I need anything. Because I hate going to the grocery store right now. Yes. Anyway. Are we ready to jump back in? I think we're ready for a Lululemon murder. A Lululemon murder is exactly what I've got in store for you, Kristen. Do you remember when the douchey owner said something like,

they had some pants that were like malfunctioning, like they were totally see-through on the ass. And instead of just being like, oh, no, we are so sorry that we made these pants poorly. The guy was like, it's because women are too fat to be wearing these pants. Do you remember that? No, I don't remember that at all at all that's terrible he got in so much trouble for it rightfully so because like their pants are like a crazy amount of money yeah it's like 180 bucks for one pair of yoga pants right and totally worth it yeah and if you think that you can pay that little and expect your ass to be fully covered, well, you're wrong and you're greedy and apparently out of shape. I don't know.

OK, shout out to the real camel on Twitter for this case recommendation. She tweeted us about this case and you said i see blood everywhere i'm not doing it actually i think two people tweeted us about this and i was just like yeah i was like you people are nuts because like the the tweet had pictures of blood in it and i was like not for me so here i am doing it because it's definitely a brandy case. Oh, yeah. The majority of this information comes from an episode of Snapped. Here we go. It was Saturday, March 12th, 2011, when Rachel Ertley. I'm sorry.

I don't know how to pronounce this poor woman's last name. It's O-E-R-T-L-I. Got any guesses? You're asking me. Whatever I come up with will be double wrong. Okay. Anyway, I'm sorry, Rachel O. I don't know how to pronounce your last name. So Rachel arrived at the Lululemon store that she managed in Bethesda, Maryland. But when Rachel went to unlock the front door, she realized it was already unlocked. So she slowly entered the store and she very quickly realized that something was wrong. The store had been ransacked. As Rachel made her way toward the back of the store,

she kind of surveyed the scene. Displays had been tossed. Shelving was disrupted. The cash drawers and the safes were open. It was very clear that someone had been there. It wasn't super clear at that point if anything was missing, but at the very least, like someone had completely ransacked the place. Yes. So Rachel kind of like was moving towards the back of the store when she heard moaning coming from somewhere in the back. That was it for her. She was like, there's someone in here. She ran out the front door and called 911. She talked to the dispatcher and said that she described the way that she'd found the store. And she said that she was certain there was someone still inside. She'd heard someone. And so they told her to wait outside until police could arrive. And so she was, it's unclear to me here if she actually

got off the phone with 911 and was just waiting for them to arrive or if she was still on the phone with them. But either way, she was standing outside the front of the store and this man walks by and it's very clear that Rachel is in distress. And so he stops and he's like, do you need help? And she was like, I don't't i don't really know and she kind of explains the situation to him and says you know i'm just waiting for the police to get here and so he is like do you want me to go in and take a look and see what's going on and she's like i mean i mean if you want to yeah i mean you can go in she's like i only mean, I mean, if you want to. Yeah. I mean, you can go in. She's like, I only made it like as far as the cash register. And that's when I heard someone.

And so I came running out. Hold the fucking phone. Some rando is like, do you want me to go inside? Yeah. And so she's like, sure. And so he goes. No. Have you ever seen a true crime show?

Oh, yeah. Get your DNA and fingerprints and all that stuff all over the place. Sure. At this point, though, all she knows is that someone has broken into the store. That's her belief is that someone has broken into the store and she believes that person might still be inside. Well, why? So why since I'm still I don't have the answer for that, Kristen. Well, OK, but this man goes inside the store and he observes exactly what Rachel had described. He walks kind of further into the store than Rachel did. And that's when he noticed something that Rachel hadn't.

There was a trail of blood leading toward a back hallway. The man followed the trail and came upon a horrifying scene. There was blood everywhere. And in the blood lay the body of Jaina Murray, one of the employees who had closed the store the night before. On top of her body was a toolbox and blood covered tools were spread out all around her. It was immediately clear that she was dead and that she had been brutally murdered. This man, this random passerby, turned to leave the store so as not to disrupt the scene. But as he did, he heard moaning coming from the bathroom. This had to be the same sound that Rachel had heard. And so he tried to open the door, but there was like something heavy behind

it. And so it wouldn't open. So he pushed harder and managed to push the door open. And there behind the door inside this bathroom tied up on the floor was Brittany Norwood, the other employee who had closed the store the previous night. Brittany's face was covered in blood. Her clothing was slashed. Her arms and legs were tied and he could see that she was breathing but she was unresponsive the man then called for rachel the store manager and he relayed the information about what he'd seen and and rachel came and confirmed that those were you know two

of her employees um and at this point she either calls back 9-1-1 or is still on the phone with a dispatcher again i'm unclear if she ended that initial call and says, we need an ambulance. Like there's someone dead here for sure. And there's another person who looks badly injured. I believe she's breathing, though. And so they send out an ambulance and Brittany was rushed to the hospital for emergency medical care. She did regain consciousness at some point during the ambulance ride. But like when emergency crews got to the scene, she was completely unresponsive when they lifted her and

put her on a stretcher and all of that. She didn't come to it all. She just moaned and she had some pretty labored breathing. Once they got her to the hospital and got her medical care and got her cleaned up and all of that, it seemed that she would likely make a full recovery. Her injuries were not that serious, but she needed medical attention. So while she was still in her hospital bed, the police sat down with her so that she could tell them what had gone on that night in the store. And this is what she told them. Brittany said that she and Jaina had closed the store around 945 that night, the store closed at nine, but they'd done their closing duties and whatever. And they were getting ready to leave the store about 945. They'd locked up,

they left out the front door. Brittany went on her way to go catch like the metro, I don't know, some kind of form of public transport and jana went the other way to her car which was parked in a parking lot somewhere around the and then britney had realized that she had left her wallet at the store which contained her metro card she couldn't get on the whatever bus train plane i don't know whatever she was taking without her MetroCard. And so she called Jaina, who was the key holder and said, Hey, can you is there any way you can meet me back at the store? I just realized I don't have my wallet. And I can't get home. Jaina was like, actually, yeah, no problem. By this time, it's like 10 o'clock, like 15 minutes have gone by. And she's like, no problem. I actually just

realized that I don't I don't have my laptop. So I was thinking about heading back to get it anyway. And so they meet back at the store. They go in and they start looking for Brittany's wallet. But Brittany can't find it anywhere. After a few minutes, Jane is like, you know what? I'll just give you my Metro card to get you home tonight and we'll look for the wallet tomorrow. Like, no big deal. At this point, though, they've been in the store for several minutes and they realize that when they came back in the store, they hadn't locked the front door. And they kind of realize this at the same time because they're in the back of the store. They've left the front of the store are two men standing there dressed in black with masks on and they grab the two women.

This is weird. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this at this. This. Go ahead. I don't know. I'm saying it's weird just because on the one hand, it sounds like a crime of opportunity.

You know, if the store was left unlocked. Right. But if it's a crime of opportunity, two guys aren't just like walking around in all black with like masks in their back pocket just in case somebody leaves their store unlocked. Yeah. No, it's definitely it's definitely a crazy story. And it just gets crazier at this point britney says that one of the men grabs jana and takes her to one portion of the store and the other man takes her and takes her to a different portion of the store and they are both attacked for she

doesn't really know how long at one point she is sexually assaulted by her attacker she's tied up in the bathroom and he tells her not to make any noise that if she makes a sound, he'll kill her, he'll slit her throat, whatever. And so she just does what he says. And at some point, she blacks out from her injuries. And the next thing that she remembers is being in that ambulance on her way to the hospital. It's a terrible story. And police immediately are on the investigation. They start looking at security footage from the shopping center that this store is located in. And it seems this is in an area that has several shops, not like a strip mall, but more. I'm picturing more for us for here in Kansas City. I'm picturing more of like a plaza situation where you've got streets kind of all together that have multiple stores on them and then there's restaurants and stuff like that and so there's lots of security footage that they can view and so they start just kind of looking through that methodically seeing if they can catch any glimpse of these two men and they actually do catch some security footage from that night about the time that would have lined up of two men walking dressed in all

black with you know black pants black shirts black hats on like it seems to match completely and the timing is perfect and so they start looking for these men but britney had never seen her attacker's face he had kept it covered with a mask the entire time. So the description was not very good. But they end up thinking that they've identified possibly one of them. And they start trailing this guy, believing that he may be one of the suspects. In the meantime, they're looking into the scene. As I mentioned, Jaina was killed with a bunch of different tools from a toolbox. The toolbox was found at the scene the

tools were spread out all around her an autopsy revealed that she had been a horribly horribly murdered she had been the victim of over 300 different wounds from those various tools more than six weapons were used against her including oh gosh there was a knife a hammer a wrench a rope a box cutter like all things that were found there at the scene and she had over 100 defensive wounds she had fought and fought and fought. The medical examiner determined that in all the attack on Jaina had taken at least 15 minutes. She'd fought for her life for a full 15 minutes. And then there was the blood. Blood was spattered everywhere, but blood was also tracked through the store. There were footprints through the blood that went in different directions throughout the store. So they started looking into those and they determined that one of the sets of footprints

belonged to a size 14 men's tennis shoe. And so they're like, great, that's some additional information about our attacker. Yeah. Eventually, they end up clearing the guy who they had been trailing. He's not the suspect at all. Well, how did they even come to that conclusion that that guy might be their guy? I mean, that's just you know, I'm not I'm not really sure what I do know is that they were able to identify the two men that they found on the security cameras. Wow. And they were two dishwashers from a restaurant up the street leaving work in their uniforms. Oh, gosh. Yes.

Yeah. And the timing of it just happened to be, you know, kind of a coincidence. Sure. But they keep interviewing Brittany and hoping that she'll, you know, remember some more details here and there. One thing that kind of stuck out to them was that Brittany mentioned when they'd come back to the store that Jaina had just kind of pulled up in front of the store and they'd gotten out real quick, which meant that Jaina's car had been illegally parked at that time. But that's not

where they found her car. They found her car in a parking lot down the street. And so they started investigating her car. That meant someone had to have parked it like someone had to have driven it away from the store and parked it. And they found blood inside of Jaina's car. And so they start looking into that evidence. in the meantime police are starting to question britney's story a little bit well it's just like you said as hell it's a super weird story who just happens upon a store with the door unlocked and the two men just plan to rob it and then they didn't come with any weapons but they committed this brutal murder with weapons that were found inside the store. Yeah. It just seems very odd to them. And so they checked with the doctors who gave Brittany her medical care when she arrived at the hospital. And it turns out that, you know,

Brittany had told them she'd been sexually assaulted. Like her pants were cut open, like they were cut and ripped open, but there was no signs that she had been sexually assaulted. And all of the wounds on her body, she had some cuts from like what looked like a razor blade or a box cutter, and a couple of scratches and stuff on her face. They were all superficial. And then there was the position that she'd been found in, in the bathroom, with her feet tied and her hands tied. But her hands weren't tied behind her back,

like you would typically do to incapacitate someone. They were tied above her head, which wouldn't keep someone from being able to fight you if you were trying to attack them. They just keep their hands together. And so police start really looking at this and they're like, OK, she could have tied her own hands and legs. She could have, you know, self-inflicted all of these minor injuries that she had. But there's got to be more to it. Like, why did she do that? What's not making sense here?

Yeah. And so they go back to the blood evidence that's why did she do that what's not making sense here yeah and so they go back to the blood evidence that's in the store that footprint how do we get a size 14 men's footprint in the store in in the blood in jana's blood so they follow the footprints around the store and they never leave what the footprints never leave the store and so they're like did someone leave their shoes here did they take off their shoes and walk out of here barefoot like this doesn't make any so weird and there's a second set of footprints in the blood which makes sense because britney said there'd been two attackers except the second set of footprints match britney's shoes which is

confusing it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense and so they bring britney in and at this point they're really questioning her but they don't really know yet what has happened here they just know that she is not being truthful to them. Yeah. And at some point, they get some information from the store manager that Jaina had called her that night right after they closed and said that as they were walking in the store, there was company policy that they do check each other's bags as they're leaving the store. Yeah, they do bag checks. You check my bag. I check yours. We're good to go. And Jaina had found a pair of leggings in Brittany's bag when they were doing the bag

checks. And she had confronted her about it and said, you know, where's you don't have receipt for these. And Brittany had had a story about how how she had bought them from a co-worker and she hadn't the co-worker had purchased them and she bought them them from the co-worker she hadn't purchased them from the store directly i mean they were required to wear the store's clothing as their uniform and whatever and so and so jana was like no big deal like you know i'll talk to rachel about it tomorrow just you know just know that rachel will probably talk to you about it okay yeah if you can back that up

like no big deal, whatever. And so after they had left the store, Jaina had called the store manager, Rachel, and been like, heads up, I think Brittany's stealing. Like I caught her with these leggings and she had a weird story and whatever. So that coupled with Brittany's weird story and unable to back up any version of it, they bring Brittany in again for questioning.

And at this point, they've sent off the blood that was found in Jaina's car for DNA testing, but they don't have the results yet back. They don't know that it's Brittany's yet? That's correct, Kristen. But they have their suspicions. And so they try to set a little trap for Brittany. And they're like, OK, so tell us again. You left the store, you went one way, and then Jaina went to her car.

Do you know what kind of car Jaina drives? And she's like, no, I don't think I do. I mean, I maybe have seen it once or twice, but I couldn't tell you what it is. And they're like, oh, okay, okay. And at this point, it's clear that she knows she's been somewhat caught, but they don't press it any further.

They don't press that any further. They let her go that day. They bring her in the next day for more questioning. And now she offers an explanation. She says, oh, oh, you know, it got me thinking about her car. I had totally, sorry, totally blocked this out. I don't know how I had forgotten this.

I do know what kind of car Jaina drives because the attackers, they forced me to drive her car. That's the kind of thing you forget. And they're like, oh, yeah. And she's like, yeah, yeah. So what had happened was Jaina you know as i had pulled up her car you know just out front so it was parked illegally and so at one point one of the guys was like hey you need to go park her car but hey don't you think about driving away because we'll kill you and and just know that we're gonna watch you the entire time so don't try anything tricky either

yeah yeah so she said she got in jana's car and drove it up the street and parked it in a parking We're going to watch you the entire time. So don't try anything tricky either. Yeah. Yeah. So she said she got in Jaina's car and drove it up the street and parked it in a parking lot. And the police were like, uh-huh. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. And so, okay, let's just go over this one more time here, Brittany. You had been being attacked inside this store. And then all of a sudden you found

yourself alone in a car and you just drove it and parked it and went right back to that store rather than driving away. And she said, yeah, you know, I just I wasn't thinking clearly. And I was just so scared that I just did exactly what they told me to. Yeah. Yeah. And it was at this point that they revealed to her some more information that they had come across in their investigation. So right next to the Lululemon store was an Apple store. And on that particular night, that Apple store had like a bunch of employees working late because the next day was like a big launch for some new Apple product, a new iPad or whatever. And that night, the Apple store employees had heard a big commotion next door at the Lululemon store. And everybody just kind of chucked it up to like weird drama because it started pretty like they heard some like raised voices and they could make

out some words, but nothing crazy. At first it was like, talk to me. Come on. What's going on? Like, don't do this. What's the matter? Talk. Just talk. Talk to me about this.

Yeah. And then it escalated to screaming and yelling. And then about 20 minutes later, they heard someone say, God, help me. Please help me. But none of them had done anything about it. None of them had gone to check out just like peek next door and see what was going on. No one had called the police. But there was something very specific that all of the Apple employees who had heard this remembered. It was that these voices that they overheard, they were the voices of two women.

There were no male voices heard at any point. of two women there were no male voices heard at any point so they lay this out to britney and then they talk about the blood evidence that was there at the scene they talk about those footprints and they're like so it's really weird that there were you know two sets of footprints but one of them is yours what about the other attacker? Where are those footprints? At that point, Jesus carried me. Is that what she said? I believe that's exactly what she said. Wow, weird. Amazing.

And Brittany doesn't really know what to say. And so then they really drop a bombshell on her. And they let her know that they were able to match the men's size 14 footprint to a pair of shoes that were still in the store and that were used for display purposes and for tailoring purposes. Hmm. Hmm. Uh-huh. So it was then that they finally laid out to Brittany what they thought had happened sometime in the course of these couple of days of interviews where this is kind of all being revealed to her. They've gotten the DNA evidence back and it was Brittany's DNA that was found in Jaina's car. My goodness. So they're like, OK, here's what we think happened, Brittany.

We think that Jaina confronted you about stealing merchandise from the store. You lured her back and you attacked her and brutally murdered her. And then you spent the next 10 hours staging a scene to make it look like someone had broken in and robbed the place and then made it look like you had also been attacked yep by the way you're awful by the way yeah no kidding this is terrible oh my gosh it's terrible over some fucking leggings exactly exactly ultimately they placed Brittany under arrest I don't know if she at this point ever admitted to anything, but she very quickly went to trial. It was like seven months later she was on trial. It's like old timey times. I know.

I know. It was very quick. So she didn't fight that part of it. Her defense is interesting. So we'll get there in just a second. Okay. So her trial began in November, I think it was. And the prosecution said, basically they laid out what the police said.

They said, you know, this was a planned premeditated thing by Brittany. When she was accused of stealing, she left that day and she thought, I have to take care of this situation. And so she lured Jana back to the store once she had her in the store she attacked her with every weapon she could get her hands on one of the things that she attacked her with was like the peg off of a display unit like this metal rod of a display unit they said that she had non-stop beat jana with all of these various weapons for 15 minutes. What the hell was wrong with this woman? Right.

She inflicted 320 separate wounds on this woman. Ugh. And the prosecution made a big deal of pointing out that this was a planned thing. From the time when she had been caught stealing to when she lured Jaina back to the store, this was her plan. Her plan was to do this and carry out this attack. And that was really important because in Maryland, when this took place, the distinction between first degree murder and second degree murder is specifically premeditation. The prosecution has to be able to prove premeditation. to prove premeditation.

If they can't prove premeditation, then she can only be found guilty of second degree murder, which means that she could get as little as like 10 or 15 years. Okay. And so that was a really crucial part of the prosecution's case was proving that she had

in that 15 minute window that she had thought this plan through and decided this is what she was going to do i i don't hang on yeah okay i think that's that's true of first degree murder everywhere isn't it i think that there's um okay i could be wrong on this but my understanding is that there are other classifications for how things can be called first degree murder like if they take place during the commission of another crime that can also be first degree murder. Oh, OK. OK. Sure, sure, sure.

OK, so the prosecution calls several witnesses. I mean, they lay out a case over about six days. It's a pretty quick trial, but they bring forward the Apple employees and what they heard. And they tried to introduce the evidence about the pants because this would be really important to proving motive. Yeah. It was deemed inadmissible. Really? Yes.

Because there wasn't any way to prove that she'd actually stolen the pants. And the only people that could testify about it were someone who had heard the story from the victim. So in this case, the store manager who'd gotten that call and that would be deemed hearsay the prosecution could not mention that this had all started because britney had been accused of stealing a pair of pants that sucks it does suck and it was a huge win for the defense so all they could do because in this investigation into Brittany, they'd also found out that she had a history of this. She had gone to college in New York. She'd

been on a soccer scholarship and she'd gotten kicked out of school, kicked off the team for stealing. She'd stolen from her teammates. She'd stolen from her dorm mates. It had completely gotten her kicked out of college. They couldn't introduce any of that. And so how do you prove premeditation if you can't offer up the motive in this case? How do you do it, Brandy? Well, so what the prosecution did is they decided to focus on how heinous this crime was. And they thought, even if they couldn't discuss the motive, they thought if they could lay out how brutally Jaina was murdered, that the jury would be able to fill in that gap themselves and know that there had to be a reason behind it. Someone doesn't just do that because the medical examiner testified in great detail about everything that had happened to Jaina.

And there was one big kind of bombshell that was dropped during this testimony. What the medical examiner said on the stand was that, yes, there were 331 independent wounds inflicted on Jaina from, as we mentioned, a whole bunch of different weapons. on jana from as we mentioned a whole bunch of different weapons but the worst part about it is that jana was alive for all but the final blow oh my god only the final wound had been fatal and it had come from a knife she had been stabbed in the back of the head blade had entered her brain. Oh my God. Yes. So this poor woman was alive for 15 minutes of nonstop torture. Oh my God. When it was the defense's turn to present their case, this was the second kind of bombshell thing that happened in this trial.

Initially, the defense attorney stood up and said yep britney did it britney killed her we don't disagree with that 100 she did it no question about it but it wasn't premeditated. She just lost it. That's it. She lost it. For what reason? Just because, Kristen. Some people just lose it sometimes. And that's what happened here.

Come on. And they did not put on any form of defense. They didn't call a single witness. They didn't do anything. All that they said was the prosecution has failed here to prove premeditation. And so you have no choice but to find her guilty of second degree murder. Yeah. What do you think the jury decided? Do you think the jury believed what the defense said? Or do you think that the that the prosecution's really graphic detail was enough to convince them of premeditation?

Do we know what the judge said to the jury before they went in? Because I think so. I do not. OK. Yeah, I know. I think some of that can be very influential. Yes. Yeah.

Because usually the judge will kind of be like, OK, here's how this is going to. I mean. Yeah. I think they probably went with first degree, but it could go either way. Yeah. So they did. The jury found her guilty of first degree murder. And yeah, they were very impacted by the medical examiner's testimony and how brutal of a crime this was.

And they kind of believed that, yeah, you couldn't you can't have that without some kind of some kind of motive, some kind of premeditation behind it. At her sentencing, Brittany Norwood begged the judge for leniency. Fat fucking chance. Yeah, no kidding. And she told the judge that her her request for leniency was not for herself, but for her mom and and dad who were having a really hard time with this i bet they were having a hard time i'm sure they were having a hard fucking time with it but don't you think jana's parents were having a hard fucking time too to that judge robert greenberg responded you are one hell of a liar ma'am oh and he sentenced her to life in prison without the

possibility of parole yeah uh she did appeal her sentence saying that she believed that she'd been questioned illegally because at one point she believed that she was under arrest but she wasn't mirandized and so she appealed based on that. And the Maryland Appeals Court determined that, no, there was no improper questioning that she had voluntarily given every statement that she'd given. And when she was officially arrested, she had been Mirandized. And so her appeal was denied. Did they say too damn bad? Too damn bad.

That's exactly what they said. Too damn bad. And they did specifically, like, in her denial, say say like the the brutality of this crime speaks for itself like yeah lululemon in honor of jana when this store reopened after this horrible incident they put up a stained glass mosaic window above the door that spelled out love. And they kept that there for about seven years. Seven years after the incident, that store closed and they moved to a different location in that same kind of shopping center. But at the time when they closed that store, they actually took that window down and preserved it and sent it to Jaina's parents.

That's nice. Yeah, I think that's really cool god that is a crazy story isn't that crazy yeah and like completely the police completely believed britney from the beginning like they're like oh my gosh this girl has been through so much she was you know raped and and tortured and she lived to tell the tale and then just like little bits of stuff wasn't matching up and they're like what did they like it hold on hold the phone yeah did they really believe her from the beginning so on this episode snap they talk to the investigator and they say they talk to like the lead investigator on the case and she said we 100 believed her story

from the word go it's important to do that Because if you're really talking about a sexual assault survivor, like, we have to investigate that seriously and get them justice. And so, yeah, at first, they like brushed aside the stuff that didn't make sense. And they're like, we're getting justice for this girl. And then when it was very clear that she had made it all up like okay yeah yeah that makes sense all right i'll allow it i'll allow it but yeah i mean right off the bat though that that sounded weird to me uh well yeah but just two men wandering by yeah and like one of them is obviously super evil and one of them's you know well that's just as severe yes the severity of of jana's attack in comparison to britney's doesn't make sense from the beginning exactly yes but the fact that they could find two men dressed all in black on security camera like

right around the time like that only helped to like yeah take britney's story a little bit further let her get but ultimately they arrested her and charged her with a crime like within like four days oh okay okay okay yes yeah all right yes all right i take it all back i take it all back here i am sitting here like a genius like i don't know i i suspected it for minute one good lord over some fucking leggings oh yeah i mean obviously some leggings well it's not really over it's over more than leggings obviously she had her alleged thievery in the past had led her to lose a lot and i'm sure she saw the same thing happening over this situation. And according to her attorney, she just lost it. And people just do that sometimes. I've killed many people for the same reason.

What school did she go to in New York that she got kicked out of? Do you know? I don't know off the top of my head. Damn it, Brandy. I could probably look it up, but I'm sorry. I don't know. Kristen, breaking news. news just in are you ready

to handle it oh my god what is it stay at home order has been extended through may 3rd for missouri or for both of us i think for the in kansas city metro i mean that'll fucking happen when the governor of missouri drags his fudging feet. Yeah, it was so frustrating. So, you know, for those of us outside of this immediate area, you know, Kansas City and St. Louis are the big cities in Missouri. And we've been doing our stay-at-home stuff for a long time. And the governor, just for whatever reason, waited, waited, and waited. Would not issue a statewide order. And so it's like, OK, buddy, that only makes it longer for everyone else if you're letting the vast majority of the state just continue business as usual.

So frustrating. Yeah, because the quicker everybody just like stays at home, the quicker we can get back to normal life. Yes. Huh. just like stays at home the quicker we can get back to normal life yes huh god i i tell you what this this gets scarier and scarier and i'm i'm feeling so sorry for health care workers and then like the people who are deemed essential and are getting paid jack shit to basically put their lives on the line. I mean, it is, it's wild. It is wild. I mean, it's just, these are times we're living in, Kristen, and it's crazy. Have you noticed?

It's so, it's so crazy to me. Have you noticed all the like creepy commercials now that are like, in these, in these sad sad times come buy our product and it's just so it's like would you cut that shit out cut it right you know what i heard that i absolutely love what i heard that lady gaga raised something crazy like 35 million dollars and yeah i heard that here's the thing she did it by asking for rich people to donate their money. Ooh, that's smart. Well, and it's kind of how it should be, don't you think?

Yeah. She also, I don't know if you've seen this, but she also issued this statement, which I think is amazing, about how she's really tired of hearing celebrities say, we're all in this together we're fighting the same fight and she's like my fight that i'm fighting in my mansion during a stay at home order is not the same as the fight that this poor woman who has been laid off and has no

way to buy food for her kids or pay her rent or the woman who has been quarantined with her abuser. Like our fight is not the same. Stop saying that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really important distinction because, yes, we are all affected by this. We are all affected in different ways. And some people have have a terrible situation where, yeah, they're trying to figure out how to feed their families or keep their electricity on or because right now obviously at this particular moment they can't evict you from your home but nothing's going to stop on the second all this

stuff is is lifted and people still don't have the money to pay yeah to pay all their overdue rent and mortgages like it's just it's frustrating to hear yeah celebrities who are you know whatever i'm living it up in their palaces i saw something really sad the other day so people are getting stuck in like 10 million dollar mansions but like other people are in 20 million dollar ones you know and like how sad is that to be like in a smaller pool, you know, with a smaller home theater than your friends? I think we can all shed a tear over that. Am I right? That's yeah. Is that what you were trying to say earlier? That's exactly the message I was trying to convey. Thank you. You're welcome. I fixed it. You were kind of messing up a little there toward the end.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Very good. And that's the end of that. So should we do Supreme Court inductions? Yeah.

Let me pull that up. I, of course, am always prepared. Totally unprepared. Are we on episode 118? That is correct. Okay. Okay. okay i am ready i think i can do the names i'm okay i'm looking at these just read i'm through them all i just read through them i'm like i feel i feel confident uh we are still doing um favorite movies did you tell people how to get inducted kristen do you feel like you need to hit that again? I mean, I feel like we've told them like twice now.

Okay. So, you know. Okay, cool. At this point, if it's a no, it's a no. And I will respect it. Yeah. Okay. Or will I?

Maddie. Maddie. Maddie Meininger. 10 Things I Hate About You. Eleanor D. and Bump. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rachel B. Room.

Misty McDaniel. Parasite. Katie Schroeder. Little Miss Sunshine. Lauren Goza. Spirited Away. Kathy Shroy. Willow. Ash Dare. Kathy Schroy. Willow.

Ash Dare. Labyrinth. Erin Evans. Clue. Shauna Days. The Silence of the Lambs. Melissa. Juno.

Kendra Kay. Drop Dead Gorgeous. Welcome to the Supreme Court. Do you remember we used to watch Clue all the time? Oh, yeah. Of course. Aaron Evans' favorite movie here. Oh, loved that movie.

We also watched Silence of the Lambs a lot in high school. So morbid. Well, I mean, and here we are today. Hey, welcome to the Supreme Court, guys. Yeah, congratulations on your many accomplishments. Yes. Thank you for all of your support and continuing to support us in this weird time that we're in. We really, really appreciate it.

If you have some spare time laying around, find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon, all of those places. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating, leave us a review, and then be sure to join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts.

For this episode, I got my info from a ton of articles on newspapers.com, but especially from the article Lady in the Lake by Mara Boveson for the Daily News. And I got my info from an episode snapped, the Washington Times, WLJA7 News, NBC4 Washington, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.