Let's Go To Court! - 13: The Home Owners’ Association From Hell & Jennifer Jackson’s Murder

Episode Date: April 25, 2018

When Jim Hildenbrand moved to the Avignon Villas in Olathe, Kansas, he thought he’d found the perfect place to live. But pretty soon, he started butting heads with the neighborhood’s home owners association. Then one day, he did the unthinkable. He installed some unapproved landscaping. What followed was a costly, lengthy legal battle that epitomized first world problems. Be ready to clutch your pearls. But they can’t all be lawsuits about landscaping. This week, Brandi tells about the hunt for Jennifer Jackson’s murderer. Her murder appeared so deeply personal that police quickly zeroed in on Jennifer’s teenage daughter, Noura. But did they catch Jennifer’s actual murderer? 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: “Olathe man’s war with HOA over landscaping: $400,000 at stake,” the Kansas City Star “Church deacon’s relative has cancer, but HOA says he can’t park extra car in driveway,” the Kansas City Star “$400,000 case pitting Olathe man, HOA needs more work, court rules,” the Kansas City Star In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “My Mother’s Murder” episode, 48 Hours “She Was Convicted of Killing Her Mother.  Prosecutors Withheld the Evidence That Would Have Freed Her.” by Emily Bazelon, New York Times  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about landscaping. That sounds like a joke, but it's not.

And I'll be talking about the murder of Jennifer Jackson, a successful investment banker and single mother whose lifeless body was discovered by her 18-year-old daughter. investment banker, and single mother whose lifeless body was discovered by her 18-year-old daughter. I just dribbled tea down my chin. And now I'm about to tell you a story. I can't wait. Did you know that spilling tea is like... You sound really old right now.

Did you know? Yeah, yeah. Gossip. Spilling the tea, yeah it's like giving the gossip so you literally spilled the tea down your face and now you're gonna spill the tea to me i sure am get ready people i feel like do you ever see on youtube where people like they want to talk shit on something and it's just them like with a little mug of tea and they've got their eyebrows raised that's that's how i am right now so i have a confession to make okay

last week broke me uh last week broke me i literally have been sleeping on a hot pad for a week now because i was brought so down by your topic that I was slouched in this chair as if I was melting into the floor and I physically hurt my back. You looked like Froyo. You know, how it just like melts in your head. So last week I talked about Lamonte McIntyre, a Kansas City case. He was wrongfully convicted for 23 years in a double murder. There was corruption at every turn. It was horrible.

It was fucking terrible. We cried like three times during it. Yes. And I can't say anything other than it just, something, it snapped inside me. And I had this list of cases that I wanted to cover because my friend Sandy, like I was telling you, she sent. And you're like, nope. Yeah, I was like, can't do another murder. I need something light.

I need the cool whip of lawsuits. And I found it. Wonderful. I'm so excited. This is, okay, this case cracks me up it's another local one really yes yes um this is like you know how people are like first world problems this is a first world problem of epic proportion excellent. This is a story about the homeowners association of Avanon Villas in Olathe, Kansas. Yeah, I'm familiar with Avanon Villas. How are you familiar? Just I've seen them. Yeah, that's my bubble. That's in the Johnson County bubble, which is where I like

to conduct my business. Just my own personal business. I don't work in the Johnson County bubble. No, you don't. Okay, so I'm glad you brought it up because I did want to start with, you know, last week we kind of explained to people, you know, when you say you're from Kansas City, it can kind of be from like actual Kansas City, Missouri or Kansas City, Kansas, which is divided by the state line, obviously, or one of the surrounding suburbs. You and I grew up in Johnson County, Kansas, which is divided by the state line, obviously, or one of the surrounding suburbs. You and I grew up in Johnson County, Kansas, which means jack shit to anyone outside of this bubble.

Outside of this, yes. But would you mind telling, so what's the perception of Johnson County, Kansas? Johnson County is a, well, it's one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. It's predominantly caucasian yeah overwhelmingly it's uh it's the white bread of yes it is um i mean there's the worst part of johnson county would be described as middle class like there's no yeah there's i mean and then there's very very wealthy areas of johnson county as well so mcmansions as far as the eye can see yes everything is beige yes yes johnson county beige is a term that is used to describe the way people decorate their houses in johnson

county various shades of duck poop is how i would describe it. Like no one goes outside this like range of like seven colors. Yes. I still live in Johnson County. I've never lived outside of Johnson County. And every time I kind of like mentioned to my dad that I have like looked at a house that I like that's outside of Johnson County. He's like, why would you want to live there? So you want to die? Right. So I was born and raised and have never ventured outside of Johnson County. Except to record this podcast.

That's correct. I have to travel across enemy lines into Kansas City, Missouri. Your dad requires that you check in every half hour. We have to disrupt the podcast so you can say it's still living. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so that's good. That's what I wanted people to understand. It's like Olathe, Kansas.

Do people outside of here, they think, oh, Kansas, small town, cows. No, Olathe, Kansas, to people outside of here, they think, oh, Kansas, small town, cows. No, Olathe, Kansas, think more stuck up, Stepford-wise. It's one of many suburbs that are in the Kansas City metro area, but it is stuck inside of the Johnson County bubble. What if this podcast really wasn't about lawsuits? What if this is our sneaky way of like giving people information about we have talked about several different neighborhoods within kansas yes starting with like the first episode when we talked about how like no um every you know that episode of american greed that was like yeah humble people from you you know, and it's like, no, some of us

are assholes. We've got people of all kinds here. Okay. Anyway, I will move on. All right. 2012, Jim Hildenbrand moved to Olathe, Kansas. He'd been living in Iowa. He had this architectural consulting business, but you know, he'd raised his kids, his dad had died, and he wanted to move closer to his mom. So he looked at Avanon Villas in Olathe, Kansas, and he thought it seemed like a nice place to live. It's one of those places where you pay like 200 bucks a month and you get maintenance provided, you know, snow removal, blah, blah, blah. And let's see, there's a pool, there's a clubhouse it's kind of like you know townhouse style villas yeah okay are they attached villas i don't think so okay well my parents live in johnson county in a villa there's our detached villas so it comes with all of the

you know you get all the maintenance and everything but it's your own right and i think that's what this is because i did look at a few pictures yeah all right let's see so jim moves to olathe into a nice three-bedroom home in avanon villas there's like 150 homes in the area nice area almost immediately jim gets off on the wrong foot with the HOA. Oh, shit. Johns County HOAs don't fuck around. No, they don't. And you're going to really find out how much they don't fuck around in this episode. So they immediately start arguing over where he can put his satellite dish.

And I didn't write this part down, but... That's mistake number one. A satellite dish? Well, here's the thing down but that's mistake number one oh a satellite dish well here's the thing they didn't have an issue with the satellite they wanted it and again i should have written this down because this seems so hard to believe they wanted it like on a pole in his front yard and he was like no that sounds tacky which i agree he wanted it like back kind of hidden by the ac unit but they they have these standards and this is the way it is and so they argue back and forth back and forth

sounds crazy then they get mad at him over where he had placed this big ceramic flower pot wow yep he um wherever he put it was not okay uh Same with this little, like, statue of St. Francis. I assume, like, one of those just kind of lawn things. Again, not okay. HOA was on him. Another fun thing they did was they charged him tens of thousands of dollars for parking cars in his driveway for too long. What? And I wish I could have found the actual number

because tens of thousands of dollars? I don't know. That seems insane to me. That sounds crazy. So Jim was not a fan of the HOA, if you can believe it. And they were not fans of him. Things were not going great. Then in 2013 jim did the

unthinkable so he got some landscaping done and he wanted i love how big your eyes are like oh no so here's the thing he had this landscaping planned he sent it to the hoa they approved it my understanding is that once the landscaping guy actually got out there, he's like, you know, because of where your utilities are buried, we're going to have to change a few things. And the guy suggested putting in a very low accent wall that would go. And we're talking like I saw a picture like a foot. Yeah. Maybe two feet. I don't know.

A foot or two tall and then it would wrap around from kind of the back all the way snaking through to the front yeah so that part was not part of the plan that was approved but jim was like go ahead and do it anyway it's going to look really nice big mistake huge Big mistake. Huge. To quote Julia Rivers. So he took his shopping bag and he just... Okay, so almost immediately as they're putting this in, people start driving by his house, slowing down, taking pictures, and driving off. What? Like, not stopping and talking to him.

Not saying, hey, we don't like this. It's just like, according to him, they were slowing down, taking pictures. I mean. Oh, my gosh. I don't know. Like, he's under FBI surveillance. It sounds so weird. So pretty soon, Jim starts getting these letters from the HOA attorney, like,

that accent wall is not appreciated or allowed. That soil you added is over the top. Get that river rock out of here. Tear it all out. Mr. Hildenbrand, tear down this wall. I can just picture you writing that line. Oh yeah. And you're like. I was giggling at my own jokes. So I'm going to jump in right here because if I were you, I'd be like, okay, this sounds kind of over the top, but I wonder what that accent wall looked like. Yes. Okay. I think it is beautiful. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. And just from what little landscaping we've had done at this house,

I mean, it had to have cost a fortune. When you were describing all that he was getting done, I was like, this has to be a very expensive. Oh, yeah. Not cheap at all. Yeah. So I've got a picture of Jim's house with the landscaping and the accent wall. And I'm just going to show it to you. It looks great. Yes.

It looks amazing. It looks absolutely amazing, doesn't it? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. Okay. So we're on the same page there. Yes.

It looks amazing and super expensive. Yes. It's not like he got, like, shoddy work done and the quality didn't match the neighborhood. Looks amazing. Looks great. Right. But no one had a hobby, I guess, because the HOA, like, was on him. Oh, God.

They kept sending him letters telling him his landscaping was against the rules and he needed to rip it all out. Mm-hmm. Which, like, good God. Yeah. Anyway, so here's a quote from Jim. He said, So here's a quote from Jim. He said, I thought in my career I'd come across just about every walk of life.

But this group takes the cake. They are the most hateful, mean-spirited people I have ever seen. Wow. Damn. In case you're wondering. Yes. So Jim sued them. Yeah.

And they countersued. So this went to Johnson County District Court and Jim lost. But at the same time, the judge was like, look, guys, come on. You didn't submit your full plan. So why don't you go ahead and submit the full plan? Let the HOA review it. And, you know, who knows? Maybe they'll approve it.

You know, my take is maybe the judge was like, can we? Is this for real? Is this what we're using our time for right now? Yes. So Jim did. Jim submitted the full plan to the HOA. And they were like, nope, we still hate it. Oh my God.

They rejected most of his plan and told him that they rejected a bunch of the stuff he'd already done, too. Jim was pissed. Yeah. But the court was like, sorry, dude, this was, you submitted the plan. They acted in good faith. They reviewed it. They rejected you. Time to walk away.

Right. Jim's like, I never walk away. Oh, God. I, okay, well, I'll tell you my theory on this later. Okay, so he took it to the Court of Appeals. Wow. Yes. And this time, Jim won. The appeals court reversed the lower court's decision and sent it back to the lower court.

They're like, district court, can you wrap this up, please? So the appellate court said that the district court used an incomplete test when it said that the HOA acted in good faith when it denied Jim's full landscaping plan. And what I think that means is, because I was only reading articles and not reading the actual court opinion, is that the court, the lower court didn't try to figure out whether Jim was treated differently than other residents when they came forward with their plan. So how do you know that they were really acting in good faith? So Jim's like, cool, let's do it.

Let's find out if I was really treated fairly. I bet not. And the HOA is like, could we not though? Because this is taking forever and we hate this. By this point. Okay. I want you to guess how much Jim had spent in legal fees. That's what I was literally just thinking. How much are they spending in legal fees and who's paying for the HOA's legal fees that are i mean that that's the responsibility of the residents holy shit can you believe that how much jim had spent two hundred thousand dollars and the hoa had spent a hundred and sixty thousand dollars shit over landscaping

that looked great. Holy shit. Yes. I mean, this is the epitome of, just, last week we're talking about a man who's wrongfully convicted, couldn't afford a decent attorney, and this week I've got people who are throwing $360,000 in legal fees over a retaining wall that looked amazing. Yes. Holy shit. We've got a lot wall. That looked amazing. Yes. Holy shit. We've got a lot of extremes in Kansas City. Yes.

Okay. So, and oh, and by the way, this had been going on for four years at this point. Oh my gosh. Yes. Ridiculous. Now I have a hilarious quote from Kevin Drake, who was on the HOA board when the lawsuit went to trial.

He honest to God told this to the Kansas City Star. We're not the Gestapo. We try to work with everybody in this neighborhood. But we have to enforce our deed restrictions. This individual was not going to stop with just putting in the wall. Next would have been a koi pond. Or he would have put some playground structure or something up. We had to say no.

You knew the rules when you moved in. If you don't like it, you're free to move someplace else. Oh my god. A koi pond? Oh, the humanity. The playground. My favorite part is we're not the gestapo i feel like if at any point in your life you honestly feel the need to like clarify i'm not

the gestapo maybe it's time to stop yeah maybe you need to reevaluate your life. Oh my God. To me, to me that sounds like a joke. It honestly sounds like a mockumentary type thing. Absolutely. So let's all just take a minute and be so glad that we don't have to be near

a koi pond or playground equipment. Perish the thought. So again, everyone needed a hobby. No one had one. So they kept going. And along the way, they were like, loser pays legal fees because, you know, these are racking up. So here's another great quote I love.

So the Kansas City Star did a whole series on this, and it's really entertaining. And a lot of people didn't really want to talk to the star directly, but people would still post on the HOA website. Yeah. And one person posted, and I think this is so true. She wrote, or he, who knows, I think it's time for the homeowners to vote as to whether we wish to keep spending our money on this litigation. My objection to continuing is that the landscaping we are trying to fight is the nicest looking in the entire neighborhood. And so all we're doing is trying to make a point rather than improving the quality of the neighborhood.

Thank you. Yes. Yes. My God. Why are we doing this? No kidding. And I'm sure as a homeowner in this neighborhood, they were like, I am done footing the bill. Yeah.

This is ridiculous. That was going to be my next question. Like, at some point, the people in this neighborhood have got to be like, wait, I am not spending my money on this. Yes. I have way more fun ways I can think of. Yeah. So I'm going to interrupt things for just a minute here, because as I was reading some of these articles, I kind of honestly was thinking, all right, this HOA sounds nuts.

But is Jim kind of nuts, too? Because, you know. Yeah. of nuts too because why you know yeah i and i say that as a person who on principle does a lot of stupid shit like i i see myself in jim a bit of like i've got this house that's worth like four hundred thousand dollars um which that's not the part that I relate to. The part that I relate to is I got a house worth $400,000. I'm going to spend $200,000 in legal fees just to prove a point. I'm going to clear out all my savings just to be like, you can't tell me what to do with my yard. Yeah. So anyway, I was seriously thinking, okay, is Jim a little over the top here?

Yeah. Then this same neighborhood made headlines for a different reason. Oh, my gosh. This story is nuts. Oh, my gosh. It is like twirling the mustache evil. Okay. Oh, God.

So, I'm going to tell you about Stuart and Marsha Holland. They'd been in the neighborhood at this point for about five years. They were actually next-door neighbors to Jim. They were in a reverse one-and-a-half-story house, which is like, you know, you've got your main level and then the lower level. It's not like some crappy basement. It's, you know. It's a finish. There then the lower level. It's not like some crappy basement. It's a finish. There's bedrooms down there. It's a complete finish. And the reason they moved in there was because Marsha's dad, Ed, had cancer. So Ed and his wife, Mary, lived in Florida, but Ed's, you know, going through cancer. So Marsha and Stuart were like, hey, please come

live with us. You know, you need, you need more care than youcia and Stuart were like, hey, please come live with us. You know, you need more care than you're getting now. We want to be around you. We want to kind of take care of you. So they bought this house in Avanon Villas for this purpose so that, you know, the mom and dad could have the main floor. Stuart and Marcia could be on the lower level. And like the day before they bought the place, their real estate agent was like, oh, hey, you know, by the way, you can't park a car in your driveway overnight in this neighborhood. And so they're kind of like, huh, oh, uh-oh. Yeah, that's going to be a problem if we have three people living here. Yeah, well, and actually four.

Yeah. Oh, right, yeah. But, yeah, they had three vehicles yeah and the real estate agent was like you know i i imagine it's not going to be a big deal you just have to get approval from the board so like you ask them for permission for to have this third vehicle and then it's one of those things where every year you renew the permission so that's what they did yeah no big deal that's what they did. Yeah. No big deal. Okay. So they're like, you know, this is perfect for all of us. What could possibly go wrong? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Then in January 2017,

they applied for their renewal, but they didn't hear back. that summer a board member apparently approached stewart and was like we really don't enjoy that car being in your driveway anymore and the guy apparently asked what will you guys do if we deny your permit and stewart was kind of like uh uh why would you deny it what yeah and the thing was, so Ed's still going through cancer treatment. He uses the car just about every day, usually to go to his medical appointments. And, you know, you don't want to get rid of the car. So he's like, well, we might have to move. A few weeks later, they got a letter from the hoa oh god and this comes directly from the kansas city star article

i'm gonna read to you from the letter they received the look on your face the decision is that you will no longer be granted a parking exception, and all vehicles parked at your residence must be in compliance with the current parking policy. Avanon Villa Homes Board of Directors has a duty to fulfill their responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood. The Hollands were perplexed. I wasn't sure what that meant, Stuart Hollins said, as if having a car here would somehow destroy property values. Oh, my gosh.

And I probably don't need to say this, but it was a nice car. Right. You know, like, they showed a picture. You know, it's not some clunker. Yeah. Oh, God. So, again, poor Ed. Yeah yeah he was 83 oh my god going through cancer treatments and he he said to the star what is the harm of parking in the driveway i guess i'm too old to understand what being a good neighbor is oh Oh, poor A! I know! Oh, my gosh!

What the hell is wrong with these people? These people are monsters! So, his wife, Marianne, said that basically as soon as they got that letter, she wanted to move. Yeah. She was like, I cannot believe that these people don't have compassion for this situation. Yeah. Ugh. Terrible. That is

terrible. So Stuart Holland wrote a response on the HOA's website. He wrote, the board is making it very difficult for us to stay. In fact, they seem to be trying to force us out. How did a group of three become so powerful and intimidating in our neighborhood? How sad that the integrity of the neighborhood is more important than the people. Yeah. Yeah. So, Stuart is a church deacon. At one point in his response, he wrote, We realize that everyone in the neighborhood isn't Christian, but we still ask the question what would jesus do wwjg and the neighborhood's like jesus who

never heard of the fella does he have a car not parking it in my driveway oh my gosh the oh my gosh wow so wow uh to me the craziest part is some of the responses that they got from the neighbors in this neighborhood. Because like we actually have something going on in my neighborhood right now where someone is mad that this like 80 year old woman leaves her recycling bins on her front porch. It's just it's what's most convenient for her. She doesn't have like a screened in porch or anything where she could put. So that's where she has it. And the city has sent her a letter saying, we're going to find you if you continue to keep this up. Yeah. And basically, once the entire neighborhood figured out what was going on, there was this big uproar.

There's been, you know, news stories about it. And people are siding with her like leave this old woman alone woman yes good grief and i'm sorry but there are bigger eyesores than the recycling bin on the front porch good god yeah so that was that would kind of be my expectation is like once people figure out what's going on oh my god they're trying to get this 83 year old man to get cancer yeah no no this was not that response i'm sure some people were sympathetic yeah because i mean come on yeah there had to be but i'm gonna read to you some of the quotes that were left in response cars parked in driveways slash streets can quickly become an eyesore and an embarrassment. An embarrassment?

We don't want people to know that we drive on these things. That's a secret. Yes. I believe that the neighborhood and the board has been kind and considerate to allow Stuart, for five years, to not follow the rules we all agreed to when we moved in. Going forward, I wonder why it would be so difficult for him to get by with two cars instead of three, particularly given the availability of Uber and Lyft. Yeah, you need to take a fucking Uber to to your cancer treatments ed sorry about that yeah i love the idea of i'm sure an 83 year old is just gonna pull out his smartphone and be real comfortable with uber give me a break right come on so that quote is attributed to jim and fran

mcdonald i just feel like yeah oh like we need to make sure that people know. Yeah. I'm just being an ass. Yes. It's fine. I love it. Here's another Jim. If you knew you had three cars, you should have bought a three-car garage lot.

Period. Said D. Garcia. Not the board's fault you didn't follow the rules. Rules are there for a reason. And they are only trying to uphold what's already in place. Everyone else lives by the bylaws. What makes you different? Wow.

Last one. This one comes from Gestapo man. And by that, I mean, he is not the Gestapo because he specifically said he's not the Gestapo man. Gestapo man. And by that I mean he is not the Gestapo because he specifically said he's not. He specifically said he's not the Gestapo. I am always amazed when neighbors complain about our deed restrictions years after they have moved in. I guess when they initially sign off on all the documents, they think that some of the rules won't apply to them or won't be enforced.

Good luck with your decision to comply or move. Wow. These people are terrible. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. Really bad. I would fucking move.

I would too. I would too. And you know what? Unfortunately, it's not necessarily that easy to just sell your house and move and whatever. But that's what I think that's what I would do. Well, and especially it's always a pain and horrible to move. But with an 83 year old who has cancer, are you going to move him? I mean, my God.

Yeah. Ugh. Okay, I've got a quick side note. So Norman and I used to live in a more put together neighborhood, shall we say? We got, we got a foreclosure and it was in this neighborhood where people, I mean, nowhere near this level, but you know, people really cared about appearances and stuff. And, you know, this this was our first house we were kind of just getting used to things and didn't even know all the neighbors yet someone left an anonymous letter on our door telling us that our lawn was ugly and we needed to hire someone to keep it up. Holy shit! And I wanted to move. Oh, yeah! And that doesn't even compare to what these people are...

No, I'm kidding! I just, I remember feeling so uncomfortable. Is that where Norman's obsession about lawn care came from? Maybe. Because your guys' yard, compared to everybody else on your street now, looks amazing! That's only because of where we are now. Back at the old neighborhood they were like you two kids oh my god yeah it was oh man it was crazy and you know what killed me

was the person left that note on our door while we were out at lowowe's buying flowers and stuff to put. And so then I was like, great. This person is going to think, yeah, that it worked. They're going to be like, oh, great. Anonymous letters are wonderful. This is not at all cowardly or going to make somebody uncomfortable. But seriously, we lived there for a couple more years. And I always wonder, like, okay, who wrote us that?

You know, it just you feel totally uncomfortable when your neighbors say crap to you. Let me tell you about my experience. So we, I live in a neighborhood, but we do not have an HOA. But I live in a small suburb of Kansas City. I live in Merriam. And so we have a very, I'll say, involved codes department. So codes enforcement

is like on top of shit in Miriam. So Zach, my husband, got this got this like wild hair that he was gonna, you know, redo our whole yard. He went to the grass pad, which is this place, you know, you can get a whole lawn system and whatever. And so he's doing these steps to, because we didn't, our grass wasn't great when we moved in.

And so we went a few years without doing anything. And then a couple years ago, he was like, I'm going to turn this yard around. And so one of the steps is that you had to basically scalp the yard. You had to cut it all the way down and then you had to reseed. And so he did this. And then what a normal person would do, they would bag the grass as they went because you're cutting off a lot of grass. Okay. And you can't have that there when you reseed what my husband did was blow that grass into the gutter on our street

oh and so you have our ball yard and then like a foot mound of grass in the street. And was Zach just standing there like, wasn't me. Yeah, so, like, I don't know. A day goes by, and I'm at home by myself. And there's a knock on the door, and I open it up, and it's the Merriam-Codes Enforcer. Oh, my God. And he's like, is this your grass in the street? No, what he said was, did you blow your grass in the street?

Clearly there's no fucking grass in our yard. And there's a shit ton of grass in the street. So I'm like, my husband. And he's like, you have to clean it up. Because if it rains, it'll get washed into the storm drains. It'll clog them up. It'll cause flooding. And I'm like, okay.

And he's like, had you not been home today, I would have written you a ticket. Oh, my. Yes. For how much? He didn't say. Okay. And he's like, so I will send you her home. And now you're going to clean it up. Uh-huh.

I will give you a warning. And I was like, okay, thanks. And he left. And I got on the phone so fucking fast and called and yelled at Zach. And I was like, I fucking told you about the load in the street. And you were like, no, no, it's fine. Boy. Zach.

What else annoys you about him we don't have the time just kidding Zachary I love you so much this podcast is all about educating people about Kansas City and letting you air your grievances at your husband

um okay I was about to tell one on norm but we don't have the time we don't have time for this You air your grievances at your husband. Okay, I was about to tell one-on-one. But we don't have the time. We don't have time for this. Okay. Okay. All right.

So even, the point of that story was even without an HOA. Yeah, you can still have people. But I think that the reason that we got the code violation was valid. Like, you can't have a foot of dead grass piled up in the street. That sounds really nice. That sounds beautiful. So I couldn't figure out how that whole thing was resolved. But I threw it in just because I think it says a lot about this hoa a lot about the neighborhood and it really made me go okay you know what jim i get you jim yeah you know it's

you're not you're not irrational here right although maybe you have a lot of extra money clearly laying around that you just want to light on fire have you ever considered sponsoring a podcast it only costs two hundred thousand dollars per episode to sponsor us it's a real bargain that's what we need we just need like people from johnson county yeah so in late january 2018 the district court finally reached a decision uh johnson county district court judge ronda mason said that the hoa did treat jim unfairly when it denied his landscaping plan she was like y'all are intense she pointed to some emails that went back and forth between the hoa board members and was like you guys all agreed to toe a hard line here. And sometimes when you decide you're going to toe a hard line, you make it so that you can't really be reasonable.

And that's kind of what happened here. Yeah. She said, I don't think there's any secret that this was a contentious relationship. The court finds that the relationship between the parties played a role in this application being denied. For sure. But it wasn't a total victory for Jim. Because she was like,

yeah, they don't like you, they treated you unfairly, but you broke the rules when you didn't, you know, fill out the proper application before you did your project. So she ordered him to pay the hoa twenty five thousand dollars and she was like both of you are paying your own legal fees yes so again that means that the other residents in this community will have to pay that hoa bill yeah by this point

jim had spent more than three300,000 in legal fees. And the HOA wouldn't tell the star how much they'd spent, but the star did some digging. And it looks like we're talking a little over $300,000. Over very nice landscaping. Yes, beautiful landscaping. So I'm going to close with a quote from Jim here. Jim said, I hope this opens the doors for all homeowners to take a stand and fight for your rights, your integrity and your freedom. It's always been America's dream to own property.

And what I did was beautifying, not degrading. I have to agree with jim here's my thing that i kept thinking this whole time yeah first of all boy howdy do i never want to live there um more importantly quitting has a bad reputation yeah but quitting can be a good thing sometimes you know what i mean like you spent all this money just move yeah and and i say that to the hoa too yeah drop it yes drop it who cares right there are so many problems in the world get a hobby yes any hobby oh god yikes yeah huh so that was my light fluffy story well it's way lighter and way fluffier than i noticed you didn't cry this time i did not i did not why not are you not sympathetic to the landscaping drama. Brandi, just imagine, there could have been a koi pond if they hadn't stopped him.

Not a koi pond! First it's a koi pond and next it's one of those hideous gazing balls. Oh my god! I'm so glad you mentioned that. Something I did not include in here was the judge mentioned that one of the board members had a gazing ball. Well, that's hideous! And she was like, I'm sure the only reason that was brought in was because of this litigation.

Like, you guys all need to calm down. That is so funny that you brought up a gazing ball. Because I think they're hideous. When I'm, like, driving around and I see a house, that house is so nice, but it's got a fucking gazing ball. Who wants a gazing ball in their yard? Okay, I've got a question. Yes.

What's the point of a gazing ball? Is it really just to gaze? I have no idea. Okay. I have no idea. I've never understood the point of them. I think they're hideous. I don't know why you'd put one in your yard.

I can't wait to get you one for your birthday a big one real nice big one oh my god i loved that i thought that was excellent i really needed a light one yes i appreciate it yeah it was very refreshing to be reading these articles and just be kind of giggling at everyone instead of like sobbing and wondering what's wrong with the world melting into the floor yes i did last week all right unfortunately my case is not as light as yours is it it not about landscaping? It's not about landscaping. Weird. Going into this though, I did a little inventory. Okay. Of our previous episodes that we've recorded. Did you realize that you're obsessed with murder? Well, it goes a step further than

that. Oh, okay. So in previous episodes, I have covered the murder or attempted murder of 16 people. Good God, Brandi! Of those 16, 9 of them were stabbed. So, clearly, I'm a fucking psychopath who loves stabbings. So, naturally, what I do today, I have another stabbing case for you. At least you see a pattern. Jesus. My pattern is that I somehow talk about penises like every other episode. You are obsessed with penises. I'm obsessed with stabbing. Okay, for this episode, I watched an episode of 48 Hours, and then I pulled from a new york times article by emily bazellon she has a last name

bazellon b-a-z-e-l-o-n i love bazellon that sounds that sounds really cool i have no idea sorry emily okay nora jackson called 9-1-1 at 5 a.m on sunday june 5th 2005 which happens to be zach's birthday this was 2005 he yeah this would have been his 19th birthday okay um on this episode they play a bit of the 911 call. And here's like a little chunk of it. She calls and she says, please, I need an ambulance. I need an ambulance right now.

Someone broke into my house. My mom, my mom is bleeding. She's in Memphis, Tennessee. So like they transfer her, I guess, to like the local dispatch for her, like part of Memphis, I'm guessing. So they transfer her and when the the dispatcher comes on nora is even more worked up and she says she's not breathing she's not breathing please help me there's blood everywhere when police arrived they found jennifer jackson dead on the floor of her bedroom she was naked and had been stabbed 50 times and there was, in fact, blood everywhere.

You're kidding. All over the fucking place. So Jennifer Jackson was a 39-year-old single mother. She was Nora Jackson's mom. They lived in a nice neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee. I think kind of a suburb area based on what it looked like. She was an investment banker and was very successful. She provided very well for her and Nora and they did great. Okay. Sergeant Heldorfer was one of the first people on the scene and he said, I'll always remember this case just because of how savage it was. She was just riddled with wounds. this case just because of how savage it was she was just riddled with wounds this was absolutely no doubt a very violent scene a very violent scene a very violent scene it was a bloody scene it's what we would categorize as a rage killing oh yes whoever killed jennifer jackson put a wicker

basket over her head it sounds strange but held or for said he'd seen that kind of thing before when asked who puts a basket over somebody's face held or for replied somebody who doesn't want to look at their face somebody who's close to them a stranger wouldn't do that yeah i think that makes sense yeah no that that does um but what did he mean by he'd seen it before like not is that more common than i think it is maybe he just meant in general like covering the face or not wanting yeah so. So along with this basket, there was other evidence that the killer knew Jennifer. There was broken glass from a door between the kitchen and the garage. At first glance, Heldorfer said it could have been the way an intruder broke into the house.

So it was like a three, a door that had like three glass panels on it. Sorry, I have to cough. Boy. Gross. Mess messed up the entire podcast we'll start again kristin take it away well like i said last week broke me okay so it's a three panel door so there's three horizontal glass panels and the middle one was the one that was broken, not the one that was down by the doorknob. So when you think about somebody breaking into a house, breaking a pane on a window, they would typically break the one that's, you know, right by the hand doors. So this seemed strange, right? Yes. On closer inspection inspection there was a hidden hinge lock so have you ever seen a hinge lock it's

like this yeah it's like this little thing that you slide down that keeps the door from physically being able to be open right there was a hidden hinge lock on the inside by right by the panel that was broken someone would have to have serious knowledge of this door to know that that hinge lock was there. Absolutely. And so the investigators are like, yeah, that doesn't look right. This is weird. What's even weirder is that the two exterior doors to the like that would bring you into the house. So like this was a door that went from the kitchen

to the garage but you still had to get into the garage some way sure yeah those doors were locked there was no they were never opened so nobody got into the house through this door this seemed very staged to investigators because they're like and badly staged yes because they're like no one could have gotten to this door the other doors locked. Then there's no forced entry on those doors. So mysteriously, they managed to, what, teleport into the garage. And then they had to break this door to get into the house. Doesn't make any fucking sense. No.

So they're like, okay, this is staged. Something weird is going on here. And so right off the bat, they're like, this is this is staged. Something weird is going on here. And so right off the bat, they're like, this is not what it looks like. People close to Nora and Jennifer seem to agree on one thing in the early stages of the investigation. One person kept coming up

when trying to figure out who could have done this to Jennifer. That person was Mark Irvin, a Methodist minister who Jennifer dated around the time of the murder. They were kind of like on again, off again, and by all accounts had a pretty tumultuous relationship. Okay.

Memphis detectives, Lieutenant Mark Miller and Sergeant W.D. Merritt, found out that Irvin had called Jennifer the night of her murder. When asked if they liked Irvin as a suspect, Lieutenant Miller replied, I think the common thought was, man, this guy likes to talk a lot.

He just kept coming back. He just kept calling. So you can look at this two ways. Either it's honest interest and concern, or he did it and he wants to know what police know. Yeah. Yeah. Irvin had an alibi of sorts he told police that he was asleep at the time of the murder at his house in jackson tennessee 90 minutes away from jennifer's home okay so police said if you're asleep you're asleep if you're at

home by yourself alone how can this be proven or disproven? Mm-hmm. So it's an alibi of sorts, but it's not one that can be verified. Right. It's not a strong one. Yes. What time was she murdered? Somewhere between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.

Oh, okay. And then Nora found her at 5 a.m. Okay. And then Nora found her at 5 a.m. Okay. Police in Jackson, Tennessee interviewed Irvin and found no evidence implicating him in Jennifer's murder. By now, police already had another suspect. If they're right, this crime may be even more unspeakable than it first appeared.

Ugh. The one person whose behavior seemed strange to them right from the start and someone who happened to have a cut on her left hand was Nora Jackson, Jennifer's 18-year-old daughter. Oh, God.

Hours after the discovery of Jennifer Jackson's bloody body, police started wondering about her daughter, Nora, and exactly how she'd injured her hand. Sergeant Connie Justice was the first officer. Her name is Connie Justice. Her name is Connie Justice. Oh my God. Sounds like a fake character. Yes. And it seems like the editor would be like, no, you have to change this.

So Connie Justice is the first to interviewora nora told her she cut her hand at a community festival the night before the murder so the pre the whole previous day she said that she um so the connie justice noticed a bandage on it there was like white medical tape on the back of her hand. Sorry, the back of her left hand, not her right hand as I was previously motioning. Boy, do not mess this up. So Nora explains to Connie Justice, there were some broken beer bottles and I slipped and I fell. We had been drinking that night and when I slipped and fell, I cut it. Okay, but was the cut on the back of her hand? That's correct. So, to Lieutenant Mark Miller and Sergeant Merritt, Nora's explanation only raised more questions. How do you fall on a bottle

with the back of your hand? Yes. Yes. Detective Kristen also wants to know they said it didn't make sense which i mean i'm not understanding how that would work either yeah because if you i i'm not sure but she that's her story when she falls i'm maybe if she falls i don't know forward and i mean i just think even if you're drunk and you're slipping and falling, it's your natural instinct to put your hands down, palms down. Yes. To break your fall. The only way I can think is, again, you'd have to be drunk. Mm-hmm.

And maybe if you were, like, holding something. Yeah. And you fell and it was just, like, so fast that you didn't have time to get your hand but even then i mean that's hard to imagine the way that you could fall and cut the front of your hand the top of your hand on a broken bottle yeah and police agree they're like not sure about that. It wasn't just the cut that Lieutenant Miller thought was odd, though. He noticed the way that Nora was dressed early in the morning when they responded to the call. She had on a long sleeve shirt, which seems strange to him because Juneune and memphis isn't exactly a cool month miller wondered if nora was trying to conceal yes cut yes nora later explained in an interview that

she often wore long sleeves i was in long sleeves a lot even on the beach sometimes i'd be in long sleeves you might see someone in a bikini or a t-shirt and I might have on something that was long sleeved. It's just the way I dressed. Okay. I am someone who wears long sleeves like 75% of my life. And if they're not long sleeves, they're three quarter sleeves. I was going to say right now you're rocking the look. I always wear sleeves. But the majority of

time they're pushed up and if it's hot outside and you're standing outside with the police i can't imagine that she's like lots of people describe that she had them like pulled her sleeves pulled down like over her hands the only thing i can think of is that she's going through a crisis and maybe her body is having like a shock response, which feels like you're cold all over. That's a good point. Yes. So maybe that's one thing to look at. Would you take the time to go run and grab yourself a long sleeve shirt?

No. Maybe she was already wearing a long sleeve shirt, but she had the sleeves pulled down because she was going through that. You know. Yeah. Who knows? This is just speculation from Detective Brandy here. Okay. Detective Brandy Justice.

Memphis police then started asking Nora's neighbors and friends about her relationship with her mother. And that's when Sergeant Tim Haldorfer started hearing about the fights. Nora and her mother had problems, Heldorfer explained. Nora wanted to be an adult on her own, and Jennifer was trying to straighten her out. And just hours before Jennifer was killed, one of Nora's friends said they heard her say, my mom's a bitch and needs to go to hell.

Ooh. It's pretty damning when your mom dies hours later. Yes. But I also think, who hasn't said, oh, God, my mom's a bitch when you're a teenager. I wrote it in my diary when she, and I know everyone will be on my side. She told me that I couldn't go to the mall with you, actually. I couldn't go to the mall with you and a bunch of our other friends because my room was messy. And so, I was like, my mom is such a bitch.

That's right. All caps. All caps. Stand by it. No, I don't. So, it's not great that she said that. No, that's terrible. And then the mom died later and was found murdered later that day.

Yeah. Jennifer's friends said that she felt guilty about being a single parent and was hesitant to discipline Nora because of that. But in recent months, Nora discipline Nora because of that. But in recent months, Nora had gotten out of control. She was reportedly drinking all the time. She was smoking pot. She was abusing prescription drugs. She had a Lortab prescription, which is a pain medication because she had endometriosis but reportedly she would yeah not take them as prescribed right she was abusing them and so jennifer had tried to crack down um and be more of a disciplinarian in an attempt to rein her in so to detectives this sounded like

a possible possible motive for murder like she didn't want to be reined in. She wanted her freedom. Well, what teenager doesn't want their freedom? I was gonna say, that's not a strong motive to me. Yeah. So, what teenager doesn't want their freedom? What teenager hasn't fought with or cursed at their parents? Yeah. It happens all the time. But police thought this became much more. They thought this was a case of mattress-ide, which is not the killing of mattresses. Although that is a terrible crime. This is the murder of a mother by her own child. I see. Thank you for expanding my vocabulary.

I look forward to correcting the next person who makes that mistake. Nora's activities the night of the murder just added to their suspicions. Police believe Jennifer Jackson was killed in her home between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Nora's friends said they last saw her at a party around midnight. So where was she later? Yeah. What little they do know came from Nora's statement to Sergeant Connie Justice.

Sergeant Justice to the rescue. She said she'd purchased some cigarettes, she rode around, she went to Taco Bell. I'm sorry, I just made a fart noise with my mouth. I don't know why I did that. I don't know. I don't know. I was just listening and I was kind of nodding and I just forgot we were recording this. Anyway, Sergeant Justice is on the case and Nora tells her that she, after she left the party at midnight,

she went and bought cigarettes. She drove around, smoked cigarettes. Sorry. And went to Taco Bell. Is that your Taco Bell noise? It always is. But there was one stop Nora failed to mention to police.

Uh-oh. She went to Walgreens and purchased some medical care products. Police learned about her trip to Walgreens when they found a bag filled with first aid products in Nora's car. In the bag were bandages and peroxide, things you might need to clean up a cut. So the receipt says that they were purchased at 10 after 4 a.m oh no and she's telling them that she got the cut the whole previous night before although i do understand prioritizing taco bell over medical treatment so after they found the bag police took it to the nearby walgreens to check the sales records

and then he asked to see the video surveillance system and sure enough here comes nora walking into walgreens nora admitted that she bought those things to treat the cut that she got the night before the murder but police thought that nora was behaving as though the cut was fresh. On the video, she asks the clerk for a paper towel and she dabs the cut like it's bleeding right then. Well, and I just don't understand why you would wait that long. Right. And then all of a sudden at four in the morning, you're like, oh, now this is an issue. Now I'm going to go get it taken care of. So I don't have this in here, but later someone brings, Nora tries to say that she had told her mom the night before that she needed the bandages and her mom had written it on the, like the grocery list.

Uh-huh. But they couldn't authenticate that grocery list or know when it was written, of course. Okay. So. Okay. I don't know. I have big questions around this trip to Walgreens here. It just, the timing of it seems very odd.

It seems weird to me that she might have potentially fabricated a grocery list, but it didn't occur to her to, like, leave open a garage door or hide that Walgreens bag. Hide the Walgreens bag. It just seems weird. I agree. I agree. This next part, I think, also raises some questions. So police also examined Nora's cell phone records and noticed a pattern that they thought was suspicious. Nora seemed to live on her phone. But that night, between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., there was nothing.

She wasn't on it at all. There were, you know, not the normal, you know, text messages for a two-hour period. And that two-hour period happens to be when they think that Jennifer Jackson was murdered. Wow. Yeah. It's not great. No. Yeah.

It's not great. No. So that, like I said, that cell phone was nonstop except for that limited time frame from 1 to 3, which is when police believe that the murder took place. By 3 a.m., Nora was on the phone again. She was calling friends. She drove to a friend's house. Heldorfer said she did this to have an alibi. She had somebody who'd seen her. Heldorfer believes Nora then headed back home, ran to her neighbor, and called 911.

And in the process, Heldorfer said she may have dropped one more clue. The 911 call taker asked Nora. Do you like how I said 911 call taker? Oh, yeah, instead of dispatcher. The 911 call taker asked Nora, has your mother been shot? And she says no. Oh. Heldorfer says, how is she going to know that?

I don't think the average person under those bloody conditions could tell whether or not those were knife wounds or gunshot wounds. She was adamant on the call, though. It was a no. I'm kind of with him there. I mean, if it's blood everywhere and you're truly shocked, I mean, yeah, how would you know? How would you know? Huh. Yeah. So that's, I have a question with that one too so detectives now have their theory that nora is the killer but there's one big problem there was no dna blood or fingerprints from nora at the crime scene. How? There was DNA from someone else, though.

Shut up. Yes. Oh, my God. This is crazy. Yes. Later. So later they actually break the DNA down and it's possible that it came from two people or even three people. But Jennifer and Nora are excluded.

It cannot be from either of them. They never have found who that DNA is connected to. Yeah. My mouth is hanging. Right? Yes. Wow. And, okay, so the DNA, like, blood from someone else, fingerprints from someone else.

So they think blood and then either, like, sweat or skin cells. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Male or female? They didn't say? Mm-mm. Okay. Nope.

Whoa. Yes. Even though the police had almost no scientific evidence against her, they were convinced Nora hated her mother, snapped that night and killed her in a fit of rage. I think the biggest concern everybody had was we don't have an eyewitness. We don't have the smoking gun and we don't have DNA, said Sergeant Heldorfer. I would say so. But what we had was a lot better than what we didn't have.

They didn't have anything! No, I mean... They had weird behavior. Yeah, which is something. It is something. It is something, but it's not better than DNA evidence. It's not better than DNA or a smoking gun or an eyewitness. Yeah, I hate that statement by him. I think that's just dumb and arrogant.

Yeah, and it shows that you think everyone else is dumb, too. Yeah. Um, I may have not gone to Harvard, but damn it, I went to DeVry and that's better. That is so ridiculous. It is. I think it's the most ridiculous statement. Three and a half months after Jennifer Jackson was stabbed to death in her bedroom, police finally arrested her daughter and charged her with first degree murder. Her bond was set at $500,000 and unable to make it. She sat in jail awaiting trial for the next three and a half years yeah what yeah three and a half years oh my god

finally in february of 2009 nora's trial began it was aired live on court tv oh my god um nora now 21 faced a first degree murder charge and the possibility of life in prison. The prosecution announced like we're going for life.

Yeah. Prosecutor Amy Weirich. I don't really know if that's how it's pronounced. Be confident. W-E-I-R-I-C-H. It could be Weirich. It could be Weirich.

I'm going to go with Weirich. Okay. That's what I like. From now on, it's all names that Brandy likes. Princess Unicorn. That's right. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock. That's a Friends reference.

Oh, God. I'm telling you, that show, it doesn't live up to... Oh, no. It's excellent. You're wrong. Oh, God. I'm telling you, that show, it doesn't live up to. Oh, no, it's excellent. You're wrong. No, no. That and Sex and the City. You watch them now and you're like, why did we all watch this? Friends is excellent.

We watch Friends. Zach and I watch Friends every night before bed. It's amazing. And you're wrong. Will Zach be embarrassed when this is? No, I think Nick at Night plays reruns. We just like turn it on when we go to bed. I don't think he'll be embarrassed by that.

He's a proud friends lover. Zach, write in to me at lgtcpodcast at gmail.com. You can be honest. It's fine. If you want me to read a list of other shows that you also enjoy, we will do that. So people won't judge. I will say he hates Golden Girls. He gets mad every time I watch Golden Girls.

Yes, which I love. Norman is obsessed with the Golden Girls. Is he going to be embarrassed that you just said that? Not at all. Not at all. He and his mom used to watch it all the time growing up. And he introduced it to me. What? Yes, he introduced it to me and

this was a couple years ago. We were all on this big family vacation. And Norman put on the Golden Girls. And my dad thought he put it on as a joke. And kept waiting for the joke to end. But no, half an hour later. I was just watching Golden Girls.

Thank you for being a friend. Yeah. Everybody loved it. Back to the murder trial, Kristen. I think I'm shaming you. I think I'm the one that changed the topic. You are the one who brought it up. Yes.

Does Zach what? The thing against old sluts? Yes, he loves Sophia, hates Blanche. Blanche is my favorite. We're going to have real problems. Yes.

Okay. Murder time. This is the second time in this podcast that we've discussed the Golden Girls. Also in another stabbing murder, right? Well, yeah. I only cover stabbings. Well, right. Yeah.

Kind of a one-trick pony. Okay. Go for it. Prosecutor Amy Weirich had never tried a case of mattress side before. She said. You thinking about my mattress joke? When I thought of that one, when I was trying this out, I was like, oh, that's a good one. I love my puns.

And that is a good one. I like that. What are you saying? My other puns aren't good, Kristen? You read me very well just then. That was a slap to all your other puns. Okay, so Amy Weirich said, I've been told that this is...

Jesus. You threw me off. I now have a stutter. I like to think that you just, like, said her quote very accurately. She's just a really sloppy prosecutor. The jury's like, what? She's like, she's like the lawyer for my cousin Vinny. You see, that's speaking talk fine when he's like dealing with just his client.

But as soon as he gets up in court to say something, he has a horrible stutter. Oh, no. And he can't even get one word out. So she's the real life version. Yes. so she's the real life version yes so she said i have been told that this is very rare in fact it couldn't be rarer less than two percent of all murders in america are matricide a child killing their mother and of those just a fraction of them are committed by daughters. I was gonna

say, yeah, that seems more like a dude crime. It's super rare, yeah. Weirich had to convince jurors that this is one of those all but unheard of cases. But if the jury was looking for forensic evidence against Dora, Weirich was in a lot of trouble.

A DNA expert called by the prosecution, which i think is a weird i mean they're the ones that called the dna expert but i feel like maybe this is that same thing from west memphis when you're like okay we're just gonna get it out of the way we're gonna talk about what we don't have yep and then move on here's my weaknesses yes but also i've got a heart of gold yes okay yeah so prosecution calls a dna expert and they testified that nora's blood and dna were not found at the crime scene um nora's defense lawyer valerie quarter questioned the um dna expert thoroughly on cross this is part of their exchange okay

why does your face look like that what What do you mean like that? This is my face! Okay. No, but the reason my face looked like that... I know! It looks like something! Because you were slowing down so much between words and I was like... I was struggling. I was trying not to stutter! I was like leaned in and squinty

eyed like what is she gonna say next you had me intrigued okay so this is the exchange between or part of the exchange between defense lawyer um Valerie and the TNA expert Kadia Debman Q-A-D-I-A-Y-y-a-h it's the double y it throws me it's like they're begging you to say it right like this is your challenge yes okay i'm quarter dna evidence is essential to solving crimes yes dna expert yes it is quarter within all of the items you tested, the pillows, the pillowcases, the sheets, the light switch, on none of those items did you find Nora Jackson's blood or DNA of any kind. DNA expert. No, I did not.

When interviewed later, Quarter said, The state's theory was never, let's draw conclusions from the unalterable scientific facts. It was, let's construct a case based upon a teenager's behavior. Which is pretty accurate. Yeah. As the state presented its case, Nora sat quietly alone in court. Not one member of her family stood by her side.

Well, that's why she stayed in jail all those years, right? I mean, no one wanted to bail her out. Yeah. Oh. Yep. In fact, Cindy Eidson, Jennifer Jackson's sister and one of Nora's aunts, was a witness for the prosecution. Oh, wow. I had a lot of conversations with Jennifer and the problems that she was having, Eidson told the court.

She testified that Jennifer and Nora had a heated argument about Nora's drug use and party lifestyle just one week before the murder. Jennifer said, you can either go to boarding school or move out. I'm sick of it. You're 18 years old and you're still in the 11th grade and partying all the time and i've just had it nora's uncle testified that right before the murder nora seemed unusually interested in what she might inherit if jennifer died oh jennifer got on the subject about having nora well taken care of as something happened to her that nora was on the life insurance policy, Eric Sherwood told the court. Told the court.

When asked by the prosecution how the conversation came up, Sherwood said, Nora asked Jennifer how it all worked. So the timing is odd. Yeah. But I don't know. Asking what would happen if something happened to you, I don't, as being that you only have one parent. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Being curious about what would happen to you if that person, if something happened to them. I don't think that's all that crazy.

No. I'm trying to think, though, about that age. But you're right, though. I think having just one parent, that does change things. That does impact how secure you feel. So here's a little tidbit that I'll add in that might give you a little bit more background on that 15 months before jennifer jackson was murdered norah's father was also murdered yes no yes he owned a convenience store in a bad part of memphis oh and he was uh killed assassination style inside of his convenience store, and the murder's never been solved. Oh, my God.

Yeah. So I think knowing that... Yeah, now it makes total sense. It makes that question make even more sense. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Oh, what if she didn't do it, and then... Yeah. Oh, then she's just got the most tragic life. Yeah, what if she didn't do it? And then. Yeah. Oh, then she's just got the most tragic life. Yeah, it's pretty rough. Holy crap. Okay. Okay. So her friends weren't doing Nora much good either.

Oh, great. Kirby McDonald was the teen who said she had heard Nora curse her mother at the party just hours before the murder. Nora said, my mom's a bitch and she needs to go to hell, McDonald testified. Nora told the police that she drove around after the party and didn't get home until 5 a.m. But prosecutors said phone records showed Nora at her home around the time of the murder. Nora's friend, Clark Schiffany? Sure. Testified that just before 1 a.m., he got a call from the Jackson's house phone.

Seconds later, he got another phone call, this time from Nora's cell phone. This is what they said about that. I think she accidentally picked up the house phone and realized, hey, I'm not supposed to be here. Let's hang this up. And then turned right back around and called him from her cell phone yeah yeah yeah yeah so she's saying that she hasn't been home all night until 5 a.m but somebody called this person and phone records

show it that somebody at the house called nora's just before 1 a.m. And why would that have been her mom? Right. Yeah. Unless she was trying to figure out where her daughter was. Where her daughter was. Okay. There we go. But.

But I don't buy it. But the call from the house never fully connected. Yeah. It was hung up immediately. Yeah. And immediately following it yeah nora called him from her cell phone yeah i don't think that looks great it does not look great agreed most of the prosecution's case is based on what nora did after the murder like that early

morning trip to walgreens why is she at Walgreens buying liquid bandages and hydrogen peroxide at 10 after four in the morning? And why is she not telling anybody about it? Weirich said. Joe Cock. Joe, if that's not how you pronounce your last name, I'm very sorry. It's either Cock or Cocky. I can't imagine it's pronounced any other way.

It's C-O-C-K-E. Coke? It would be great if it was Coke. And he's like, damn it! Anyway, Joe Cock lived across the street. He said Nora woke him at 5 a.m. after the murder. She said, my mom, my mom, somebody's breaking into my house. I reached up in my closet and, my mom, my mom, somebody's breaking into my house. I reached up

in my closet and grabbed my pistol, he testified. Cox said he ran with Nora back to the house, and Nora went in in front of me. She went in right in front of me, and I found that odd because somebody was breaking into the house. And he's the one with the gun. Mm-hmm. Sergeant Tim Heldorfer thought that was odd, too. If someone's in the house. And he's the one with the gun. Sergeant Tim Heldorfer thought that was odd too. If someone's in the house, why would you run back in? Let the man with the gun go in first. She led the way. I think that doesn't look great for her. But it also kind of sounds like you. I mean, you're right. You're absolutely right. Because I do not react well. We have learned from incidents where people are in my house that are not supposed to be there or people are

possibly in my house. Yeah. You're like, let's not bother the police with this. I'll go confront this strange man on my own. The guy that's in my garage. I'll just hey what's up what's going on yeah yeah no problem why get the police involved so i agree with investigators this does not look good yeah it doesn't um in the early hours of the investigation jennifer's friend genevieve dicks noticed that nora was acting strangely um she testified i wrapped my arms around her and hugged her, and she just stood there. She had her sweatshirt pulled down to her knuckles. So that's what I mentioned earlier with her hands kind of tucked in. But I think the fact that she just stood there and didn't hug back, that could just be the way she reacts in a crisis.

I don't think that's that odd. No. And some people don't want to hug you back maybe you don't need to testify to that like that might just be a you thing you know yeah yep um so prosecutors argue that nora was trying to cover up that cut on her hand okay and every time anybody was around her for days later she's wearing long sleeves it's 600 degrees outside and she's hiding it why why rick asked the court i kind of love that she said it's 600 degrees outside defense attorney quarter challenged almost every detail of the state's

case including how investigators handled the hair found in jenn hands. So in both of Jennifer's hands, there were strands of hair that she had grabbed from whoever was attacking her. The state never had the hair analyzed. Oh, come on. Mm-hmm. So quarter-hammered crime scene investigator David Payment for almost two days on the stand. Yeah. And she asked him you know

several questions about this about the how the whole crime scene was conducted here's just a little snippet of their um their interaction quarter showing she's showing him a picture i believe at this point uh what is this in the entry hall is it's a cat isn't it david payment oh yes it is quarter so a cat walked around the crime scene while you were in charge of it payment uh yes ma'am quarter so the cat may have digested evidence are you what yes yes he's like let me do you one better unreal yes yeah yeah as nora jackson's murder trial wound down hold on hold on yes there was hair there was hair in there were strands of hair in both of her hands and the state never tested it

okay is it that it didn't look like it belonged to Nora and so they didn't want to know I have not heard the hair described so I don't know how long it was. I don't know how much there was. Yeah. Because Nora had long dark hair and she had very thick hair. Okay. And so like if they're long dark strands maybe they didn't test them because they're like we don't want our case to be any better. I mean why? I just don't know why they wouldn't have tested those. That seems like the most idiotic move. Unless. Unless they thought there's no way these are hers.

So we're just going to pretend those don't exist. That's me being cynical. But that's that's honestly what I'm thinking is if you've got who you want to get. Yeah. You don't want to think this is going to draw attention away from that. Then we'll just pretend this doesn't exist. I have a question. Yeah. Are defense attorneys, I guess maybe depending on how much money they have, but are defense attorneys able to hire their own experts to then go test that stuff? Or is it like

crime scene investigator does all that? And you know, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. Damn it. It's interesting. I don't know the answer to that it's an interesting question damn it it's interesting i don't know the answer because yeah you would think why wouldn't the defense just take that evidence and get it tested then if the state wasn't doing it unless you you know unless either they can't or they're they don't have the funds which nor jackson didn't have any money this attorney was was it was not a public defender but she she was representing Nora for pro bono. Wow. Yeah.

She just felt like, okay. Yeah, she felt drawn to the case. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So, as Nora Jackson's murder trial wound down, Jennifer's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Pastor Mark Irvin, took the stand. And this is what, this was a little interaction that he had with Prosecutor Amy Weirich. Weirich. Weirich.

During this point, were you broken up? Irvin. We were. Weirich. Had it been a violent breakup? Irvin. Not in any way. And that's the truth.

Who fucking says that? We are not the gestapo weird thing to say uh yeah that's super weird super weird right yes it's like anytime anyone says i'm gonna be honest with you you're like hold on. Here we go. Irvin admitted that on the night of the murder, he called Jennifer, but he claimed he was at home 90 minutes away. Before I even possibly heard it ring, I just said, it's too late to call. So he testified that he hung up the phone and went to sleep.

I think that's weird yeah i don't like that one bit near the end of the trial wyrick introduced the only witness who placed nora at the scene of the crime in the crucial time before her mother's body was found andrew hammock a friend of Nora's, testified that she had called him between about 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. and asked him to meet her at her house. Weirich asked Hammock if Nora had ever done this before and if he considered the request normal. He said no. Stephen Jones, the assistant prosecutor, said in his closing argument, she needed a cover up. She needed someone to go inside with her so that they could say, yeah, I was with her when she found her mother's body. Wait, I thought it was the neighbor with the gun who went in with her. It was. Oh, OK.

But they're saying that they called that she called this friend and the friend didn't end up coming. Oh, OK. But that was her that they called, that she called this friend to help. And the friend didn't end up coming. Oh, okay. But that was her attempt to get, to draw somebody else in. She called this friend and said, hey, come to my house. Yeah. Before she'd found, according to her version, before she'd found her mother. Yeah. I don't like any of this.

I know. Yeah. After nine days, the prosecution rested. Nora never testified. And Valerie Corder believed the state's case so weak, she decided to rest without calling any witnesses. Ooh, bold move. It is a bold move. It is.

Ooh. In her closing argument, Corder told the jury, the brutal, ugly truth is that this was a brutal, ugly crime and a brutal, ugly, incompetent investigation. Let's put everything on this side of the courtroom that does not indicate Nora Jackson killed her mother. And she's like physically moving the evidence at this time. Basket, pillow, comforter, none of Nora Jackson's blood. Stepstool, bag, another pillow, bottom sheet, hoodie, none of Nora Jackson's blood.

Ladies and gentlemen, we ask you to return the only verdict, the real evidence, the forensic scientific evidence justifies. And that's not guilty of any charge. But Amy Weirich had the last word, and she reminded the jury of the one burning question from the night of the murder that remains unanswered. Just tell us where you were, Weirich yelled. That's all we're asking, Nora. And she's like in the courtroom staring right at Nora yelling this. I feel like that shouldn't be allowed. She's not allowed to respond to that.

It's interesting that you say that. Oh, did the judge agree? More on that later. Okay. Weirich tried to convince the jury one last time, despite the lack of forensic evidence, this was one of the rarest murders, that a daughter stabbed her mother to death. And there's one picture that keeps playing over and over and over in your head. You know the picture we're talking about, Weirich told jurors.

It's the picture of an 18-year- year old enraged, out of control. Nora Jackson snapping. It's the perfect storm that is brewed. It is the volcano that has erupted. It is the spring that has sprung. OK. The jury deliberated for nine hours before returning a verdict i feel like that's a pretty pretty quick deliberation i'm always surprised by how quick these are i feel like people are like

i'm ready to go home yeah yeah this was not a long trial that was like two weeks still no still i mean we're talking about somebody's life i mean yeah i'd like to think i'd be like hey guys let's get to know one another for a while here yeah okay they found nora guilty of second degree murder and she was sentenced to 20 years and nine months in prison. I thought the nine months was maybe like a little like jab about your mother carried you for nine months. Yeah, that's why I thought maybe it was like they'd reduced some for time served because that is so weird. I think it's like specifically nine months because she killed her mother.

Damn, that is dramatic. That is bringing the drama. That's how I read it i mean i don't know that that would make sense yeah i mean why why else would you have in nine months yeah five days after the jury found nora guilty in 2009 stephen jones the assistant prosecutor on the case filed a motion to submit an omitted statement. What is that? What's an omitted statement? So this is something that the prosecution had that they never turned over to the defense. Not okay. Nope.

So this was a handwritten note that Andrew Hammack, Nora's friend, the one that testified that she called him between 4 and 5 a.m. and said, come to my house. So this is a handwritten note that he gave to the police in the early days of the murder investigation. Jones said that he received Hammock's note from the police in the middle of the trial, tucked it in the flap of his notebook intending to give it to Corder, and then just forgot about it until he was putting all the stuff away from the trial so in this note that the prosecution have and they never turned over to the defense hammock says that on the night of the murder he had left his cell phone with a friend and that he was rolling on ecstasy um quarter who had asked wyrick and jones repeatedly before and during the trial if they had given her all of the state's information related to Hammock, believed that the note raised questions about Hammock's credibility that she would have raised during trial. Yes.

She, of course, would have brought those up. Based in large part on this newly disclosed evidence, Corder appealed Nora's conviction to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Mm-hmm. So, years go by-hmm. So, years go by, though. Oh, my gosh. She submitted this appeal. Finally,

on August 22nd, 2014, the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously overturned Nora's conviction. Whoa. This is what they said. It is difficult to overstate

the importance of this portion of mr hammock's testimony the justices wrote pointing out that no dna evidence linked nor to the crime scene and that the blood of unknown individuals was present in the victim's bed hammock's notes suggested that he might not have told the truth when he testified that norah called and asking to meet her at the house the justices said the The court also explained how Nora's lawyer could have used that note to argue that Mr. Hammock himself was a plausible suspect. Yeah.

This is interesting. Okay. The note contradicted Hammock's alibi, opening a line of inquiry about his whereabouts when Jackson was killed, and it cast in a new light a visit hammock's friends made to the Memphis police station a week after Jackson's murder which quarter attempted to explore at the trial the friends reported that they didn't know where hammock was that night and that he had been acting strangely since then the police never pursued this lead. So he has three friends that go to the police and are like, hey, this dude's acting fucking weird.

And we have no idea where he was that night. Yeah. And the police are like, we got this. We've already got our person. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Oh, my God. The Supreme Court called Jones and Weirich's failure to disclose Hammock's note before trial a flagrant violation of Nora's constitutional rights. Yeah. The justices also overturned the verdict against Nora for another reason. Weirich's closing exclamation in front of the jury demanding, just tell us where you were. That's all we're asking, Nora. The Constitution's protection of the right to remain silent means that the defendant's decision not to testify should be considered off limits to any conscientious prosecutor, the Tennessee justices wrote, so that the jury doesn't view it as an implicit admission of guilt. Weirich was doubtless well aware of the rule, the justices added, citing three previous cases in which appellate judges criticized her

and her office for making prejudicial statements to the jury. Wow. Yes. Yeah. Nora learned that the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed her conviction in August of 2014 while she was watching her cellmate's TV in prison.

What? She didn't get a phone call. She saw it on TV like everybody else. What? Yes. Yeah. Oh, my God. Isn't that nuts?

Yeah, that's insane. Insane. She had been locked up for nine years by then. Oh, my gosh. And she had said she'd just given up on her appeal. Yeah. In the last 50 years, the Tennessee Supreme Court had reversed only one conviction because the prosecution had failed to turn over evidence. Whoa.

So she was like, it's not going to happen. I'm just going to serve my time. She actually was, she had adapted to prison life pretty well. She'd made friends in there and, you know, she was getting by. And so she had just kind of resigned herself to, this is my life. You know, I have to do my time. I'm going to get out in less than 20 years because of good behavior. And she was working in prison and whatever. And so she was just like, I'm just going to do my time and then I'll get out of here. Wow. And then she finds out that they've overturned her conviction. Oh, my gosh. So Weirich immediately announces that they're going to retry her.

And the defense quarter continues to work on the case. And then they bring in another lawyer as well to work on this new case. And they argue for months that there needs to be a new prosecutor on the case. They're like, this is a conflict of interest. She can't try this again. And finally, in May of 2015, they are successful and a new prosecutor is assigned to the case. Hold on. Double jeopardy. I mean, not if it's been vacated. Okay. If it's been overturned, they can try him again. Okay, I guess I didn't realize that.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, because essentially that conviction never happened. Even though she spent nine years of her life in prison. Yeah, it's like that trial never happened. Okay. Yeah.

So. I guess I'm looking at that like the same way I look at annulments. Right. Okay. Okay. Sure. Yeah. So in May of 2015, a new prosecutor is assigned to the case and the new prosecutor offers a deal.

Instead of going to through trial again, they offer a reduced sentence if she pleads guilty to manslaughter. again they offer a reduced sentence if she pleads guilty to manslaughter her lawyers nor's lawyers checked with the tennessee department of corrections which they say told them that she had enough credits for good behavior and for working in prison to be released the same day that she signs that deal okay so she's like okay i can take this deal and i can get out on time served yep but there's just like this part of her that's like, this is pleading guilty. Yeah. It's the same thing with the West Memphis.

Yeah. Where they're like, we didn't do this, but we know if this goes to trial again, they've convicted me once. Who's to say that they can't convict me again? And then I'm done. Yeah. I'm out of appeals.

And so Nora's lawyers continue to negotiate with the prosecutors. And they get it lowered from a guilty plea to an Alford plea. Uh-huh. So on May 20th, 2015, she enters an Alford plea, which for everybody who maybe who doesn't remember or didn't listen to that episode. Why didn't you guys memorize that episode? An Alford plea is where the defendant pleads guilty but maintains their innocence. They basically say, I am maintaining my innocence, but I am recognizing that the state may have enough evidence to convict me. And the deal is you can't like go back and sue the state. You can't go back and sue the state may have enough evidence to convict me. And the deal is you can't, like, go back and sue the state.

You can't go back and sue the state. Yes. So she signs this Alford plea, and she's expecting, you know, I'm going to get out in a couple days, I'm time served. I don't like your tone right now. A few days after signing her plea agreement, Nora learned, in fact, that she did not have enough credits for release. She had more than a year left to serve. Yes. So, the Department of Corrections basically chalked this up to like a...

Oops. Yeah, a housekeeping error. Like, well, we miscalculated it. Or, we never told them that for sure she had enough, you know. Nobody takes responsibility for this. Oh god this error um she said that her regret was unrelenting she had to go back to prison to face friends that she felt like she had disappointed by taking the deal um and she had traded vindication for her freedom and now she had neither oh my gosh so this she said i didn't i don't even

know if i cried i remember feeling sick and embarrassed and ashamed and she said she kept feeling that now for what felt like nothing it was her fault that her mother's murder file was closed on paper i'm the killer even though i maintain my, that's what the cops look at. So somebody's just getting away and I helped make it happen. Oh. Yeah, that's pretty. That's horrible. That would be a devastating feeling. Finally, in August of 2016, Nora Jackson walked out of prison still proclaiming her innocence.

This is what she said upon her release. The prosecutors in this case deceived the judge, my lawyers, and the jury by hiding very important evidence. It shouldn't have been allowed. Just one month later, disciplinary hearings began against the two prosecutors in her case. The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility recommended that Amy Weirich and Stephen Jones accept a public censure for failing to disclose Andrew Hammack's note in Nora's trial. So public censure is basically a public admonition like you admonishment admonishment. That's the proper word. So basically a public slap on the wrist.

Yeah. And the prosecutor said, no, we want a hearing. We don't believe we did anything wrong. So we want a trial. We want you to, we want this argued in front of a panel of lawyers, and we want them to determine if we did something wrong. we did something wrong so jones went first um and in january of 2017 at a two-day hearing he denied remember remembering hammock's note at critical points in the trial that might have jogged his memory including hammock's testimony and jones's use of that testimony in his closing argument but a panel of three memphis lawyers one of whom was a former prosecutor, called Jones's account entirely credible and found him not guilty.

Praising the result, Weirich announced that the Tennessee board had agreed to dismiss the charges against her in exchange for a private reprimand. So basically like, oh, don't you do that again. I hate that. I can't oh yeah yeah that makes me so angry and you said that people have been on her about stuff before it happened before what the fuck yeah yeah how do these people have it in them to keep going i have no idea you're fucking with people's lives yes yes yeah but clearly they don't think they did anything wrong i think that's how you do it you convince yourself that you're just doing what you need to do to get the bad people put away and you can't always follow the rules that's right yeah nora now lives in nashville

with a friend she met in prison the innocence project is working with her to use updated dna testing methods to identify the sources of the biological material found at the scene of jennifer jackson's murder and fully exonerate her yeah that is a crazy it is pretty crazy and i think what's so crazy about it is like i agree that there's some evidence that looks like she could have done it oh yeah i mean her behavior was wacky yeah her behavior was not good and i'm i totally understand why she would be the main suspect yeah but no dn there's dna at the scene and it's not hers. And not tested. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. So, the Innocence Project is working on this right now. I mean, she hasn't been out of jail that long. You know, this is still a pretty active thing for the Innocence. Actually, that's how I saw it. I saw this case initially through a post from the Innocence Project.

So they're actively working on this to try and get her exonerated. But, I mean, if it happens, it will take years. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And still, her father's murder has never been. This poor woman.

So Jennifer, just like a little end note, Jennifer Jackson had a one and a half million dollar life insurance policy and Nora was the beneficiary of that. Her family, Jennifer Jackson's family, is fighting her in court to get that. Okay. Very cynical thought. Yeah. You said they all stood against her through this whole thing. Do you think the money had something to do with it? I don't know.

I don't know. That's a really cynical thought yeah yeah so another another belief um is that so the people who were involved in her father's death could have been involved in her mother's murder because of the way his death his murder was like assassination style. It was done just off of surveillance video at his convenience store. And then Jennifer became like the executor of his estate after his death. And so if he was involved in something weird, which there was rumors that there was. Right. Somebody could have killed her because of something she knew or something they were afraid she knew or in order to get something so that's all speculation of course his murder's

never been solved yeah and i don't know that it's being actively investigated anymore yeah so yeah that was a crazy one. That was so good. It makes me even more ashamed to have done a landscaping case. No, I think it's good you did a landscaping case. We needed some balance. Oh, my gosh. I will try not to do a stabbing case next week. I mean, okay, so here's the thing I think why I'm drawn to them, because stabbing is so personal.

You have to be right there in somebody's space. It just is such a crazy way to murder someone to me. See, the thing I always like about yours is I always am like, mm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Oh, no way. You know, like, there's always, I'm like, like well this is kind of predictable oh shit it's not yeah so hey if you like to do the stabbing ones you do stabbings and i'll do whatever the fuck love it which is which has been our our way our theme yeah

oh my gosh yeah con. Con artists, insight, all pogan sex tape. That's right. Have I done murder? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you've done murder. Yeah. Yeah.

Everybody calm down. Everybody calm down. I've done murder. We've got plenty of murder around here. So just sit down. That's right. If you enjoyed this podcast, if you love stabbings,

I was like, how are we going to wrap this up? If you love stabbings. I was like, how are we going to wrap this up? If you love stabbings like I do or enjoy landscaping like Kristen does. Wow, I sound really lame. Go like us on our Facebook page. Subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Rate us. Leave us a review.

Follow us on Twitter at Let's go the number two court and we now have an instagram which is lgtc podcast find us on all the you know your social media platforms and uh tell tell one person can we let you listen to this podcast? Tell 500 people. Tell one or 500 people about this podcast. Whichever is more convenient for you. That's right. So this past weekend, I was out to dinner with my family and my dad was asking questions about the podcast. And he was like, and I can't remember what he was saying, but he was like, basically, have you guys thought about pulling your audience to discover blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

And I was like, well, yeah, we'd love to do some audience polls. I mean, the problem is that we'd basically be polling our family and friends. And let me tell you something. Norman laughed too hard he was slapping his knee my mom loves the podcast big fan big fan she thinks we're hilarious so if you're like my mom and weren't at all offended by the inside episode, then do all those things we mentioned. Find us on social media and then tell, let's start with five people. Tell five people. Tell five people about the podcast.

And then join us next week. When we will be experts. Oh, I didn't realize you were going to throw it back. On two whole new topics i was so proud of this because it seemed like just it wasn't flawless until i tried to molly it back three. 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 Kansas City Star articles by Judy L. Thomas. And I got my info from the 48 Hours episode, My Mother's Murder, and a New York Times article by Emily Bazelon. 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 and

watch that episode of 48 hours you've got work to do