Let's Go To Court! - 202: Death Penalty Cases

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Wanda Lopez was a little freaked out. She was working the evening shift, alone, at a gas station in a rough part of town, and a sketchy dude was outside the store with a knife. She called the police, but they brushed off her concerns. The guy hadn’t done anything! He wasn’t even inside the store! But the man’s presence set off Wanda’s alarm bells. So she called 911 again. The dispatcher didn’t like Wanda’s tone (!!) but sent officers to the scene when he overheard the man attack her. It was too late. Wanda didn’t make it, but at least there were eyewitnesses who could tell the police who’d done it. The murderer was a thin, 5’9” Hispanic man with curly, ear-length hair. He was wearing a flannel jacket. Or was it a white button up? Tomayto, tomahto!  After a 45-minute manhunt, they arrested Carlos DeLuna. Carlos claimed he was innocent. He’d seen another man commit the crime – a man who was also named Carlos. Carlos Hernandez. But Carlos DeLuna was full of shit. Right? Then Brandi keeps the bummers coming with another family annihilator. On a weekend in July of 2003, Joanie Harper, her children Marques, Lyndsey, baby Marshall and mother Earnestine Harper were all murdered in their home. The killer made a lame attempt at staging a break-in, but because they’d seen Dateline, investigators immediately turned their suspicion on Joanie’s husband, Vincent Brothers. But Vincent had been out of town during the murders, and he had the receipts to prove it.  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: “The Phantom” documentary “The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution,” by James S. LIebman  and the Columbia DeLuna Project  “The wrong Carlos: How Texas sent an innocent man to his death,” by Ed Pilkington for The Guardian “Carlos DeLuna” entry on Wikipedia “Yes, America, we have executed an innocent man,” by Andrew Cohen for The Atlantic In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Harper Family” episode Family Massacre “The Mystery of the Lost Weekend” episode Dateline “'That’s A Lot Of Hate’: Dead Insects Lead Detectives To Man Who Killed 5 Family Members” by Joe Dziemianowicz, oxygen.com “DEFINING CASES: Bugs and sex: Vincent Brothers’ 2007 multiple-murder conviction came down to insect parts and his smugness on the stand” by Jessica Logan, The Bakersfield Californian “Brothers attorneys blame woman for murders” by Jessica Logan, The Bakersfield Californian “Vincent E. Brothers” murderpedia.org “Vincent Brothers” wikipedia.org YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 30+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll be talking about some other dude named Carlos. And I'll be talking about bugs.

Really? Yeah. Is this like an exterminator case where someone exterminates someone's family? I mean, it's... Did I just guess it? Well, I shouldn't pretend that I'm a genius when I've studied you very closely over the years. Brandi, how you doing? I'm doing pretty good.

How are you doing? Feeling a lot better. I have a terrible case to tell today. Wonderful. But we had a two cocktail lunch. We did have a terrible case to tell today. Wonderful. But we had a two cocktail lunch. We did a two cocktail. It was a two cocktail day. Had a bad day.

Drank two cocktails. No, we're doing, we're feeling no pain now. That's right. We're ready to bring you this podcast. We had the grapes of wrath. Yeah, okay, you had the frozen grapes. this podcast. We have the grapes of wrath. Yeah. Okay. You had the frozen grapes. You didn't eat the frozen grapes? No. It kind of weirded me out.

Why? I have tooth sensitivity. Oh. They didn't feel cold. Maybe to you. Oh, okay. But I'm a sensitive soul with sensitive teeth. I liked.

I thought the – okay. So what these were were like little cocktails and they were garnished with three frozen grapes on a little skewer. And I ate my grapes. And I did not. This is riveting material. I thought that cocktail was delicious. Well, yeah, it was delicious. That's why we had two.

Fuck. Anyway, everyone, we're very excited. Hello. How you doing? Uh-oh. How do we start these? Yeah, we're starting off a little rocky. You know what?

Why don't we start with an ad? You know what else we have to plug? Your butt. Damn it. I was about to do this. Oh, well. Oh, well. Oh, well. Your butt remains unplugged.

And that's your fault. No, we should plug our Patreon, Brandi. Yes. On our Patreon, you could get hours upon hours of bonus content of us talking. Frozen grapes optional. That's right. We've got over 30 bonus episodes on there. Also, if you want to kick it up a notch, be a hey, big spander.

Like Emeril. You get, oh my God. How many times can we reference Emeril on this damn podcast? As many times as I want, Kristen. You can get ad-free episodes. You can get them a day early. Oh, no. I got to keep on talking about Emeril.

Also, you get a sticker. Oh. It's a nice sticker. You know what you can do with that? You can stick that on stuff. You can stick that so many places.

And you know what? We even signed the card for you. Woo! Oh my God. Woo. And you know, the danger is that

you will get robbed because people are going to find out that you... Don't tell people that! People are going to find out, oh my God, you've got a card that's

brandy-y. That's a priceless artifact! Yep. This is a terrible ad. It's very clear that nobody writes copy for us. No one has a don't say category for our copy.

Don't say people have to pay for more insurance once they sign up for your Patreon. But yeah, I mean... You probably should. You should probably be really afraid. That's a real story. Anyway, so... If that doesn't get us new patrons, I don't know

what will. Alright, you ready for this terrible story? Boy, am I. Brandy. Carlos. Brandy. This is the worst case you've ever covered? Oof.

It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. Oh, good. The worst case I've covered in quite some time. Great. You know the irony? What? The irony is last week I was like, you know what I want to do? I think I want covered in quite some time. Great. You know the irony? What? The irony is last week I was like, you know what I want to do?

I think I want to do a light one. It's been a really long time since I covered like an Elestra case or a Sketchers shape up or just some – And so then you just went the complete opposite direction? I stumbled upon a documentary. And I couldn't stop. What's the documentary? It's called The Phantom. It's on Netflix.

I've never even heard of this. Yeah. Yeah. What? Sorry. Also, shout out to a book by James S. Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project. You may be asking yourself, what's the title of that book? I'll never tell.

Until the end. Until the end of the story. Yeah, because it gives the whole thing away. Oh, okay. It's like, oh, this guy. I'm not even going to say stuff because I'm going to just. We could bleep it. You think this guy's really cool and hot and it turns out he's a murderer.

Then, oh, twist. He's actually a really nice guy. That's the name of the book. But you forgot the colons. Yeah. You thought this guy was really hot. Colon. Turns out he's a murderer.

Colon. Don't you think it should be a semi-colon? Yes, because there are two complete sentences on either side. Way to embarrass me. In front of all my friends. Yes, because there are two complete sentences on either side. Way to embarrass me in front of all my friends, Brandy. All my friends. Everyone, I tried to make Brandy jealous by saying that I took some other friend somewhere. It wasn't true.

Anyway, here we go. Picture it. Corpus Christi, Texas. Anyway, here we go. Picture it. Corpus Christi, Texas. Are you familiar? Yeah. Okay, I always forget about your weird Texas connections. Okay, here's my deal with Texas. When I was but a child, my mother and stepfather, Len and Steve, for all you listeners, would take us on a family vacation every year.

And most years it was to Texas because it was drivable. Yeah. And you could go to like a beach and – yeah. I've been a lot of places in Texas. Have you been to Corpus Christi? I've never stayed in Corpus Christi. I've been through Corpus Christi. Also, I always think of Selena when we talk about Corpus Christi because she was...

How dare you? What? I'm going to come at you with facts about that. Oh, okay. Here you bring it in like... I'm so sorry. Biddy biddy bum bum.

You know, ruining the surprise. Sorry. Anyway, Brady ruined it, but they have a Selena museum there. Uh-huh. Did you go to the Selena museum? No. They have...

Oh, my God. They have her stage outfits. Shut up. What the? Yeah. Okay, Brandy. You know exactly what I meant. I know, but the listeners don't because this is audio.

So I did this thing where I just kind of like jiggled my arms and put them out real big. That means giant roughly arms. Yep. Yeah. I knew exactly what you were saying. Yes, of course you did. And in my man. In my arms. Yep. Yeah. I knew exactly what you were going to say. That's the question too. And in my man, in my man, oh my God, in my mind flashed the outfit. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Boost VA. Yes. Giant arm ruffles. Yeah. Regrettably, Selena comes up very little in this case. One of us is just going to have to break down and cover Selena one day.

in this case. One of us is just going to have to break down and cover Selena one day. I felt a lot of shame because I realized Selena lived in Corpus Christi for a long time. So then I started watching a bunch of Selena music videos. Yes.

And I told myself it was preparing for this case. Obviously it wasn't. But you know, all those fashions are coming back. I know. And then I thought if i had any kind of nuts i would cover her murder yes and i felt ashamed because you had the nuts to cover the jodi arias yeah that's right i did it really scares me to cover selena i know yeah I know. Yeah. Anyway, okay, I guess I should move on to this case that I did prepare. The case you actually prepared for today.

All right. Corpus Christi, Texas, 1983. Corpus Christi is right on the coastline of southern Texas. And when this story took place, it was home to a couple hundred thousand people. Corpus Christi could be pretty rough. There was a fair amount of violence and poverty. So there's that

aspect of the city, but it also has a lot of Mexican-American civil rights history, and you already ruined this horribly, but they have a Selena museum. Oh my god, they have a Selena museum? Oh my god, Selena, Selena museum! Oh my god! This is the first time I'm hearing about this!

Oh, fuck. And I had a great little bitty bitty bum bum joke. Cute. But you ruined it with your Selena knowledge. Are you looking at my tummy? No, I was looking at your boobs, actually. Really?

The way your jacket is tailored, it like perfectly comes in a little bit. It makes you look very busty. I am very busty, Brandi. It is not an illusion. 31, 35. Everyone told Norm that was for Kristen's parents. And because he knows nothing about ladies' measurements, he was like, oh, really? My waistline is even smaller than that.

Corpus Christi was where a woman named Wanda Lopez lived and worked. And funny thing, worked is one word, even though I didn't say it as one word, just work. Wanda was 24 and she was fun and friendly and she was gorgeous. In fact, she was so pretty that she looked good with 1980s hair. Oh, shit. You know, you know that means something. Yes, because no one looked good with that hair. Wanda worked as the assistant manager at the Diamond Shamrock gas station in an area of town with a very high crime rate.

And unlike most other gas stations in this area of town, there was no kind of barrier separating Wanda from the customers. There was no kind of barrier separating Wanda from the customers. And that was too bad because she definitely needed a glass or plexiglass barrier between her and some of these customers. The gas station was super close to a strip club called Wolfie's. And I know, weird name for a strip club. Anyway, a lot of dudes would like come over to the gas station and be kind of gross. And Wanda tried to deal with them as best she could. But people worried about her.

In fact, her dad sometimes just stayed in the parking lot while Wanda worked her shift. He wanted to be there in case she needed him. A local police officer was also worried about Wanda. So he dropped by pretty frequently to make sure she was okay. They had like hand signals worked out and everything. What kind? Well, I don't know. Like you ever watch baseball? Yeah.

You ever seen a league of their own? That's the extent of my baseball knowledge. Yeah. Hat tip, a little dust of the shoulder. Yeah. That's code for this guy's a creep. Okay. Part of the reason people were so worried about her was the fact that Wanda often worked alone.

Yeah. And that made her pretty vulnerable. Yeah. This obviously wasn't her dream job, but she needed money and she didn't have a lot of other options. She dropped out of high school. She'd gotten married young. And when she was four months pregnant, her husband just took the fuck off. Great.

Yeah. Super cool. So at this point in time, she was on her own with a five-year-old daughter to support. So, you know, she was taking what work she could get. And that's why on February 3rd, 1983, she found herself working the 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift at the gas station alone. For most of the shift, things were uneventful. But at around 8 o'clock that evening, a guy named George Aguirre

pulled up to the gas station and filled his van with gas. And George noticed this sketchy-looking guy. The guy was hanging around outside the gas station, drinking beer, holding a knife. He didn't seem to be drunk or on drugs. He just seemed scary. Yeah. The guy came up to George and was like, hey, hey, can you give me a ride to the

casino club? While he's holding a knife? Yeah. Real casual though. You know the kind where you like kind of throw it over your shoulder. And George was like, yeah, no. No, man.

No, I sure can't. You're giving me the fucking creeps. So the guy backed off. But George had a bad feeling. So he went inside the gas station, and he quietly told Wanda, hey, I think you need to call the police on that guy. He's got a knife. Something's up with him. Yeah. I think you need to call the police on that guy. He's got a knife. Something's up with him.

And Wanda must have been pretty creeped out already because by the time she called police, she sounded terrified. Her 911 call was answered by an untrained 22-year-old. That's not great. Your spidey senses are excellent, Brandi. Right away, Wanda asked the dispatcher to send an officer to 2602 South Padre Island Drive. Does that give me stuff? You know, I don't know that it really does. I mean, it seems to pull up in a used car lot now. So maybe things have changed since, I mean, this was a million years ago.

South Padre Island Drive. car lot now so maybe things have changed since i mean this was a million years ago south padre island drive and this is located in corpus christi where selena once lived that's true and they have a museum that's right okay with her outfits excellent yeah i'm looking at a mazda dealership uh-huh do they have any good deals brandy what do I have to do today to get you into a car? I'm here to tell you, folks, they sell both Mazdas and Mitsubishis. There's a Mazda sign, but there's a Mitsubishi banner. Well, I'm already confused. So, you know, she tells him, I'm sorry, are you done looking at the Mazda dealership?

Well, see, I'm looking and there's Mazda's lineup over here. Mitsubishi's over here. And never the two-shot. Here I am. So, anyway, she tells him to come to this location yeah and she's like I know it's confusing it looks like a car lot it's actually

and he's like does that place sell Mazdas and she's like yes Mazdas and Mitsubishis but don't worry we don't just mix them up all willy nilly no certainly not the dispatcher didn't like Wanda's tone he thought she had a little bit of an attitude well she might have brandy women should not have attitudes okay that's a man's game there's a creepy dude first of all watch your tone with me i probably will have a bit of an attitude as well. Yeah, you wouldn't think a dispatcher would be so fucking sensitive, right?

So before he sent officers to the gas station, he asked her some questions. Did she say please? You know, weirdly, I don't think she was smiling as she answered these questions. Yes, exactly! What the fuck? Here's part of the 911 call.

Oh, no. Wanda, can you have an officer come? I have a suspect with a knife. Dispatcher, what's he doing with the knife? Fucking holding it, man. Wanda, I don't know. He's outside. Dispatcher. Has he threatened you in any way?

Wanda. Not yet. He just came inside the store. Dispatcher. All right, we'll get someone over there. Is he a white male? Wanda. No. Dispatcher. Black. Wanda. No. Dispatcher.

Black. Wanda. No. Dispatcher. Hispanic. Wanda. Yes. Can't talk.

Yeah, exactly. Uh-huh. Like, it's very clear she doesn't want him to know that she's calling the police. Yeah. So maybe you should have... Yeah. Dispatcher. Don't hang up, okay?

Wanda. Okay? Dispatcher. Does he have the knife pulled out? Wanda. Not yet. Dispatcher. Where is he at now?

Wanda. Right here? Mm-hmm. Dispatcher. Where is he at now? Wanda. Right here? Mm-hmm. Dispatcher. Ma'am? Give me just a minute, ma'am. By this point, the call had been going on for over a minute. Oh, my gosh.

And you can hear Wanda steadily lose her composure and begin talking to the man with the knife. She tells him, if you want it, I'll give it to you. I'm not going to do nothing to you, please. And the dispatcher says, ma'am. And then Wanda screams, and there are sounds of a struggle, and the man with the knife hung up the phone. Oh, my gosh. The man stabbed Wanda twice. He cut one of her arteries.

He wrestled with her. A man named Kevin Baker was outside the gas station and saw the whole thing. And he remembers thinking, well, fuck, I've got to go after him. So he charged after the guy and got a pretty good look at him. The attacker was about, like, five foot nine, thin, Hispanic. He wore a flannel jacket over like a gray sweatshirt. But when Kevin approached him, the guy turned around and said, don't fuck with me.

I've got a gun and took off running. Wanda was still alive at this point, but barely. She staggered to the front door of the gas station and Kevin met her there and she collapsed into him. And she said, help me, help me. He sank down to the ground with her and tried to keep her calm. Oh, my gosh. Kevin was a military veteran, so he did have some training and that kind of kicked in. He stayed with Wanda and pretty soon police arrived on the scene.

But she didn't make it. She died later that night of kicked in. He stayed with Wanda and pretty soon police arrived on the scene. But she didn't make it. She died later that night at the hospital. This was just like an awful, senseless crime. The only silver lining was that at least there were witnesses. George came back and gave a description of the man he saw. Kevin gave a description. Also, John and gave a description of the man he saw. Kevin gave a description.

Also, John and Julie Arsuaga had been in their car with their lights on when this whole thing went down, and they saw the guy run off toward a field. They got a pretty good look at him. He was about five foot nine, thin, Hispanic. He had kind of curly ear-length hair, and he was wearing a white button-down shirt shirt and it was flapping in the wind. I thought he was wearing a flannel jacket with a gray sweatshirt underneath. Well, you know how flannel can so easily be confused for just a white button-down? No. Those are very different outfit descriptions.

Hmm. So police knew who they were looking for. It was a five foot nine thin Hispanic male with curly ear length hair wearing a shirt.

So they drove all over the area looking for this guy and police officer Mark Shower was going for his fitness merit badge.

He was hopping every fence in sight trying to catch Wanda's murderer. Officer Tom Milet was also trying to track the murderer down. He was running and running and searching and searching. Officer spotted the guy and lost him, spotted him, lost him. This manhunt went on for like 45 minutes. And all of a sudden, holy shit, they spotted the fucking guy hiding under a parked truck. Officer

Tom yelled, freeze! Don't move! City police! Officer surrounded the truck. Oh my god, I just hit him! I'm so sorry! All the wires. Full Forrest Gump on those. All the wires? What are you talking about? You know wires. Full Forrest Gump on those. I mean, all the wires. You know the scene in Forrest Gump when he's talking at the rally in Washington, D.C.

And the anti-war person comes up and pulls all the wires out. Jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them as much. Disagree. Officer Tom yelled, freeze, don't move city police and this was just there was just a guy like working under his truck right this is not he wasn't working on the truck okay is this really him can you keep your pants on i'm sorry officers surrounded the truck. They pulled the guy out from under it and got a good look at this 5'9", thin Hispanic man with curly ear-length hair who wasn't wearing a shirt or shoes.

So he just ditched his shirt and shoes during the chase? That's pretty common. Okay. That's pretty common. Okay. That is pretty common. Yeah, I mean, people take stuff off so that you don't recognize the clothing. Yeah. All right. Also, you ever get hot?

Yeah. So Officer Tom looked at him and he was like, oh, this bitch. Okay. I'm sorry. I've watched a lot of RuPaul's Drag Race lately. He had just arrested this dude for public intoxication like a week ago. Oh. The guy was Carlos De Luna.

And even though he was only 20, he had quite the arrest record. I will now give you a sampling of it. Oh, please do. Okay. Are you ready? This is going to take a minute. it. Oh, please do. Okay. Are you ready? This is going to take a minute. Yeah. Attempted burglary.

Case dismissed. Burglary. No charges filed. Burglary. Burglary again. Grand Theft Auto. Sniffing paint. Grand Theft Auto.

Mmm, that paint smells good. I think I'll sniff it again. Drunk driving. Parole violation. Drunkenness. Drunken again. Drunk driving. Parole violation. Drunkenness. Drunkenness. Drunkenness. Attempted rape.

Plead no contest. Assault. Public intoxication. And now this. Sniffing paint? Is this illegal? I don't know. It seems kind of like a victimless crime.

Victimless crime. I was kind of surprised by that, too. I mean, I know you shouldn't, but... Yeah, but... I mean... Okay. You gotta be really balls out about sniffing paint for somebody to, like, spot you and arrest you, right?

And arrest you for it? What are you doing, in the store? Mayhaps. So, yeah, he'd been arrested for all kinds of shit. Now this, armed robbery and the murder of Wanda Lopez. But Carlos DeLuna was defiant. According to Officer Tom, Carlos said, you ain't got nothing on me. I'm going to beat this one like I beat the last one.

Officers handcuffed Carlos and put him in the back of a police car. They brought some of the witnesses over to the car and had them look through the back window, and the witnesses, including Kevin Baker, were like, yeah, that's him. Would you like to know a fun fact about Kevin? Yeah. He has trouble telling Hispanic people apart from one another. Great. Yeah, he admitted that years later.

Wonderful. I am going to pause now because when I was – when I first heard that, I was like, this piece of shit. Yeah. Now, upon further reflection, I think it's really shitty the way the cops did this. Yeah. This is why you do lineups. Yeah. You put someone in the back of a cop car handcuffed and say

is this the guilty person? Yeah. Probably most people are going to say yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeesh. So eyewitnesses ID'd Carlos as the man who'd attacked and killed Wanda. And investigators discovered a wallet in Carlos' back pocket with $2 in it, and a roll of bills in his front pocket.

It was about $150, which was about what had been stolen from the gas station. Officers drove Carlos back to the station, and the whole time, Carlos was in the backseat just talking, talking, talking. He was like, let me go, let me go, let me go. I didn't do it, but I know who did it. I know who did it. I definitely know who did it. It wasn't me. And they were like, yeah, sure, Jan. But when they got to the station investigators put carlos in an interrogation room and they were like okay okay you say you know who did this who did it yeah what do you got and all of a sudden carlos didn't have much to say he didn't want to talk anymore. And investigators were like, yeah, didn't think so.

All right. Meanwhile, back at the gas station, crime scene investigators were doing an exceptional job. This had been a very violent murder. There was blood everywhere, but they didn't take any blood samples from the crime scene because it probably all belonged to Wanda. So when you said they were doing an exceptional job. Exceptionally shitty, I'm sorry. Also, they did try to get some fingerprints

from the scene, but that's not as easy as it looks on TV. And Pobity's nerfect, so all those fingerprints that they tried to get were unusable, Brandi. You just say Pobity's nerfic and act like that's a normal thing that people say every day. It's part of my everyday vocabulary. Also, there were a few items at the crime scene. Also, there were a few items at the crime scene. Chewed up gum, a cigarette butt, a comb, empty beer cans.

Lots of stuff they could have taken DNA samples from. Well, this was 83. Okay, but... But yeah, they could have taken fingerprints. They could have taken saliva samples. They could have done some stuff. They could have even just collected these items. Yeah, as evidence. But they just throw those in the trash.

And I don't blame them because collecting trash is gross. Also, they neglected to scrape under Wanda's fingernails to see if she might have scratched her killer. But please wipe that look off your face because

it didn't matter. They'd already caught Wanda's killer. This is a wrongful conviction case. And so less than two hours after the murder. Oh, no. They turned the gas station back over to the owner. Two hours? Less than two hours.

Holy shit. And the owner was like, well, we got to get this thing back open. So the manager was kind of stunned. He was like, this seems really fast. But he went in and cleaned it up. And he was also kind of stunned to find money still in the store. And he was like, I thought this was a robbery. Okay, well, you know, whatever. They're the detectives. the money wasn't taken i mean it seemed like some was but you know not all of it

seemed kind of weird meanwhile wanda's family was devastated they wanted answers they wanted to know exactly what had happened to wanda. But officers were vague with them. When her brother asked, they said it was a tragedy. Like the Bee Gees. What? It's a Bee Gees song. Tragedy. I'm so glad you brought that up. There's never been a more perfect moment to bring up that Bee Gees song. You know what?

If bringing up the Bee Gees is wrong, I don't want to be right. The family found out more a few days later when they were watching the news, and the local TV station played Wanda's terrifying 911 tape. Oh, jeez. That's how they found out what happened to her. Oh, my gosh. They found out at the same time as everyone else. That's terrible.

Yeah, it was incredibly traumatizing. But there was no trauma in the 80s. Trauma's new. Trauma was invented by these Gen Z, gender bending. I don't know what other insults can we use? Because gender bending is an insult. Jesus. But at least investigators had caught the murderer.

I don't like how you keep saying that. They caught him. I think they have the wrong Carlos. Well done. Boom, boom, boom. I don't know why you keep saying that. They caught him. I think they have the wrong Carlos. Well done. Boom, boom, boom. I don't know why I did that sound, but that's the sound that all detectives make when they've done a good job. Boom, boom, boom. It's like their reward at the end of a hard day's work.

What's wrong, Brandy? I don't like it. Carlos was maintaining his innocence, but he was clearly full of shit. I mentioned when they arrested Carlos that he didn't have any shoes on, he didn't have a shirt on, but they found his white button-down shirt and shoes in a yard near where he was arrested. He'd obviously taken those off after the murder. Were they his? Could they prove they were his? Investigators sent the items off to a lab to be tested.

And it was the damnedest thing. Even though the crime scene had been very bloody. No blood on the shirt. Yeah, and the victim and perpetrator had kind of wrestled back and forth. So there would have been blood all over him. Right. Bad day to wear a white shirt, one might say.

The lab report didn't show any blood on Carlos' body or his clothing or his shoes or the wad of cash in his front pocket. That's not good. Well, hold on. You haven't heard the whole story. All right. What's the whole story? It had been a little drizzly that day. That's stupid.

So, obviously, the rain had kind of washed the blood, well, definitely washed the blood away, just completely washed it clean. That's when I, you know, take my period panties and just set them outside. Okay, I'm going to have to ask you to never say that again on this podcast. That's the worst thing you ever said!

By this point, the local DA's office decided that they were going to seek the death penalty. Carlos. Great, because it looks like such a solid case. Brandi, did you miss the part where the eyewitnesses ID'd him? Except that some eyewitnesses said he had a flannel shirt on and some said he had a white shirt on. Listen, they had like four out of five facts down pat.

Thin, Hispanic, man, 5'9". What more do you think? Curly, curling hair. That's right. Even better than the case I was building. He had blood all over his shirt. Because of the drizzles. No!

Those drizzles will takeles are easy, Snoop. Carlos didn't have... That was really good. I leaned into the mic when I did it. You wanted people to really hear that. I didn't, though, is the thing. By this point, the local DA's office... Oh, I already said that.

Did you get the memo? Yeah, they were great. They're going to seek the death penalty because they're sure they have the right Carlos. Yeah. Did he have a windbreaker on? What? What does that have to do with anything? Carlos from Dream Phone had a windbreaker on.

Is that the only Carlos you've ever known? No. Was he really good at playing guitar? I have no idea. Okay, because Carlos Santana. Excellent at playing guitar. Was he an amazing baseball player? I don't know.

Carlos Beltran. Excellent. Former royal. And now we have named all the Carloses that Brandi has known. And now we have named all the Carloses that Brandi has known. Also, second, Carlos Santana was an amazing designated hitter for the Royals. Oh, okay. I know two Carlos Santanas.

I thought you were trying to tell me that Carlos Santana had like another secondary talent, like a hidden talent. He does. He designs women's shoes. What? You've never seen Carlos Santana's shoe line? No. Are you making that up? No, it's real. Are you for real?

Carlos Santana, the guitar guy. Yeah. You don't have to mime playing a guitar. Also, designs women's shoes. Are they good shoes? Yeah, they're cute. Let me look them up. Well, I'll be damned. Yeah! Hey, he also does shoes for men.

Yeah. I didn't know that. I knew about the women's shoes. They're inspired by the heart and soul of Carlos Santana's albums and songs. That sounds like a joke. It really does. I am only seeing his men's shoes. What? You don't see all these heels?

Oh, I see those now. Now that you're showing them to me. I actually really like these little numbers here. Oh, shit see those now. Now that you're showing them to me. I actually really like these little numbers here. Oh, shit. Fuck. Son of a bitch. That's not the one I wanted to show you. Anyway, it seems that DSW carries Carlos by Carlos Santana shoes.

That's what they're called. Carlos by Carlos Santana. Why not just Carloslos santana like why no carlos by carlos look these are the ones i wanted to show you okay i don't like those you don't no i don't i like them well you are allowed to have them. The little bit of red makes me feel spicy. You know, some people don't like the number of tangents we go on

on this podcast, and I don't understand that. Oh, look at these ones! Oh, fuck. Why do I keep hitting buttons? Oh, man, I'm seeing a lot that I like. Okay, everyone, this is not an ad for Carlos Santana's shoe line. But it could be.

Could be. Carlos, are you listening? You're one of Brandi's all-time favorite Carloses. Those are cute. Yeah. Everybody, she showed me a very strappy red sandal. Bit of an espadrille situation. All right.

Are we ready to get back to this case? Yes, I'm sorry. Okay. So he did. Let me get this straight. He was not wearing a wig breaker. No. He was, again, shirtless.

No shirt, no shoes. Yes. Service. Arrested. Carlos didn't have the money for an attorney. So a judge appointed him an attorney named Hector de Pena. And everyone in town was like, really? Because Hector de Pena was a pretty good guy.

But he wasn't even a defense attorney. Well, fuck it, this is a death penalty case. Well, you know, he was more of a speeding tickets and bankruptcies kind of guy. He had never in his entire career represented anyone for any serious charge, let alone capital murder. Great. So how the hell did he get assigned to this case? Well, there is a theory, and it involves the fact that Hector's dad was a local judge. And Hector was having money trouble, and you could make a lot of money if you got assigned to defend someone for capital murder.

So maybe this was a favor. Great. For what it's worth, I think he did believe Carlos, but he was just in way over his head. And it seems like he got overwhelmed and did a really cool thing that I do when I get overwhelmed, which is sit on my ass and do nothing. Yeah, that's common. I also do that. But really dangerous when you're representing someone in a murder trial. Yeah, a death penalty murder.

Their life is literally on the line. The kind of thing that makes you freeze up like a grape, am I right? Ooh, that's not a thing people say, Kristen. In their initial meeting, Carlos told Hector that he knew who really killed Wanda. And Hector was like, okay, who was it? What's the guy's name? But Carlos wouldn't say. Yeah, he's no snitch. He was too afraid. He was like, I'll be dead either way. I can't tell you. Oh, no, poor Carlos. So that kind of sucked.

Hector was also struck by the fact that Carlos seemed to have cognitive difficulties. And that made it difficult for him to assist in his own defense. He used the R word, which – he said this in – oh, God. It sounds like I'm defending. He said that a long time ago and I don't think he was saying it in a – He was using it maybe as more of a diagnosis yes not not as a yeah a derogatory

yeah description yeah yeah he seemed genuinely concerned we come a long long way baby through the hard times and the good and we don't use the r-word ever hopefully it's time to celebrate you baby I'm gonna praise you like you should.

Carlos had dropped it. I think there's people who listen and don't know that those are song lyrics that we're quoting and they're like, what the fuck are they talking about? I feel like their spidey senses go up. I feel like they're on something right now. Methamphetamines. You know what? Every now and then people are like,

oh, you guys were high in this episode it's like we've never been high but i wonder if it's just some hot young person who doesn't know the song we're quoting probably and they're like well they're obviously high so we're high on life i mean that's for sure yeah i for one have three beverages in front of me. You do. An embarrassment of riches. That is right. I only have one, but I brought my whole cup holder in. Why did you do that?

Well, it got stuck to the thing. When I took it out, I didn't realize it. And so here it sits. I'm going to keep that. That's valuable, I'm sure. No, you are absolutely not. It's going back in my car. We'll see. Anyway, Carlos had dropped out of school in, I believe, the eighth grade, and he'd been in special education classes, and almost all of his teachers had noted that he had

learning difficulties. This would have been a tough case for even an experienced defense attorney, and to Ektar's credit, he knew he didn't know what he was doing. So he filed for another attorney to be assigned to the case with him, someone with actual experience. And he got one. James Lawrence was assigned to the defense team. But if Hector was suffering from a lack of work, James might have been suffering from the opposite team. But if Hector was suffering from a lack of work, James might have been suffering

from the opposite problem. He prided himself on taking all the cases all the time. Oh, that sounds like a bad commercial. Yeah, it sure does. But he'll sleep when he's dead, Brandy. So James took the lead on this case. What's wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with you? What on earth are you looking at? I'm sorry. Okay. I have my email open. Yeah.

I can tell you're very. No, listen. I have my email open so that I can have the ad copy, right? Well, I saw this little green bubble down in the corner. I've never seen this little green bubble before. So you had to click it. I clicked the little green bubble. And it's a message from you.

It's an invite for Google Hangouts. What? for. So you had to click it. Clicked the little green bubble. And it's a message from you. It's an invite for Google Hangouts. What? From January 12, 2020. I don't think I'm going to make it. You interrupted me with a notification from myself from two years ago. Here I am bringing you the goods. I've got a real meaty boy case for you.

I'm just coming in hot. And I see you. You're just like glued to the screen. How have I never seen that before? I don't know. Have you just been anxiously awaiting my reply for two years now? Yeah, I've been in that Google Hangout for years now. So lonely.

The loneliness has been crushing Brandi. Don't say that, poor Vincent Zhu. That was rude of me to say that. How dare you bring up poor Vincent Zhu. Everyone, Brandi's... Devastated. She's balls deep in the Olympics. I am, and poor Vincent Zhu. Everyone, Brandi's devastated. She's balls deep in the Olympics. I am.

And poor Vincent Zhu, one of our male figure skaters, he tested positive for COVID. And so he cannot compete in the individual men's skating competition. And he released a statement about how upset he was that this happened and how he has worked so hard during the entire pandemic to make sure that he wasn't exposed. And so he said, the loneliness I have experienced over the last two years has been crushing at times. Poor Vincent. Poor Vincent. Anyway, he did win a silver medal because he participated in the team program. For more Olympic Games coverage, let's go to court.com. Anyway, so James took the lead on this case, but they were kind of screwed.

The trial was right around the corner and Hector had done like next to nothing on this case. Yeah, because he was overwhelmed. And so he did the thing. He was like, I'm just going to pretend it's not happening. I guess the judge asked him about this. And he was like, well, I was busy with my cases and stuff. And the judge was like, this was one of your cases. Were you busy with this case?

Oops. Fudge strength. So 11 days before the trial, the defense got permission to spend $500 on an investigator. And on that same day, they also began selecting the jury. They were so far behind. But the prosecution wasn't. They'd been building their case for months. They couldn't get a continuation?

I think they did. Oh, gosh. I wish I could remember. I feel like they – I know they asked for a lot of delays. Oh, gosh, I wish I could remember. I feel like they – I know they asked for a lot of delays. I feel like they got one, but, I mean, you kind of need more than one. Yeah.

As the trial date neared, prosecutors offered Carlos a deal. Plead guilty and we'll take the death penalty off the table. We'll give you life with the possibility of parole. But Carlos said no because he was innocent. But with the death penalty looming, Carlos worked up the courage to give his lawyers the name of the man who he said really committed the murder. You ready for this? Yeah. He claimed that the murderer was Carlos Hernandez.

So different Carlos. He was like, this guy looks just like me and we have the same name. What are the chances? I mean, I think Carlos is a pretty common name. Yeah, but I mean, to have the same first name and you look the same. Okay. Yeah. Can you be a little impressed, please?

I'm sorry. What? They have the same name shut up carlos and i met a while back when we were both locked up in the county jail and so the prosecution heard this news story and they were like great beautiful we love it so they went and pulled every carlos hernandez that had been arrested in Corpus Christi in the last 10 years. They had all of them come in for a lineup or they showed pictures. You know, it kind of depends on the source. And they were like, OK, Carlos DeLuna, which one is he?

And Carlos said that none of them were the Carlos Hernandez. So he had obviously made the whole thing up. Well, that's not necessarily true. Yeah, he said they met when they were locked up. So they pull everyone that's been locked up for the past 10 years. And he's like, nope, nope, nope, nope. Okay. Obviously bullshit, Brandy.

Creamy, steamy, bullshit. I don't like when you say that. Cold, hardened bullshit. That's better. Less fragrant. Watery cold. Okay, I'll stop because it is getting gross. Carlos de Luna's trial began on July 15th, 1983.

Don't feel great about that. Why? Well, because he has no defense. They've just like picked this guy who kind of meets the physical description. What's his defense? Well, you're about to hear it. Okay physical description. He has a defense. What's his defense? Well, you're about to hear it. Okay. Well, he has a... He's underrepresented. He's got two

attorneys. And one of them's dad is a judge. Oh, great. He's underrepresented. And this is a death penalty trial in fucking Texas. They love putting people to death in Texas. Yeah, big fans. Yeah.

Prosecutor Steve Schwetz. S-C-H-I-W-E-T-Z Is it Schwetz? Yeah, it's probably Schwetz. Prosecutor Steve Schwetz told the jury he looks like a guy who sweats. At least he didn't wear sweats.

It's true. In a court of law! That would be outrageous. Yes, it would. Okay. He told the jury that as soon as Wanda screamed on that 911 call, police tore off toward the gas station. They found Carlos De Luna hiding under a car tore off toward the gas station. They found Carlos De Luna hiding under a car three blocks from the gas station. Four eyewitnesses said that he was the man they'd

seen at or near the gas station. He said that his final witness would be Wanda Lopez on that 911 call. He told the jury, you will hear her final words to this defendant, telling him, I'll give you what you want. And then you will hear her screaming as he knifed her. I mean, that's pretty good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The prosecution called forth eyewitnesses and detectives testified about how they tried to give Carlos the benefit of the doubt. They pulled up every Carlos Hernandez in sight.

Clearly, Carlos was full of shit. And, of course, a big part of the prosecution's case was that 911 call. When they played it, the courtroom was completely silent. That call showed that Wanda had been killed for absolutely no reason. You could hear her complying with him and he'd murdered her anyway. Then came time for the defense and you said he didn't have a defense. So get ready to eat those words. Okay, you ready? Yeah. Carlos's boss testified that at the time of the murder he had recently paid Carlos so it would make sense that he could have $150 cash on him.

All right. Okay, what else we got? Well, pretty, you know, whoa! Okay. Also. You sound like your dad. I did, I did, I know. Oh, how dare you.

Also, Carlos's stepfather, who suffered from alcoholism, testified. The defense had really hoped that Carlos's mom would be the one to testify, but she was very sick. And so she couldn't. So they had to have his stepfather there who had been like too drunk to drive on the night of this murder. But he had, I guess, talked on the phone to Carlos or something. And that was it. That's the whole defense? Well, hold on.

So at this point, Carlos told his attorneys that he wanted to testify in his own defense. And they were like, no, no, no, no. And OK, this drives me nuts because like in the documentary, I watch it and I'm like, oh, my gosh, Carlos. No, what a stupid thing to do. And we always talk about, oh, oh, my gosh, don't testify in your own defense. Oh, my gosh. Don't testify in your own defense. But after reading more about what his actual defense was, his boss who said, yeah, he had some money and his stepfather who was not very reliable.

I mean at that point I feel like I would be like, you know what? I'm going to try. Yeah, see what happens. Yeah. Yeah. See what happens. Yeah. Yeah. So Carlos got on the stand and he talked about everything he did on the day of Wanda's murder. And it's a lot of stuff. But he specifically mentioned that he ran into a woman named Mary Ann Perales that evening.

He supposedly ran into Carlos Hernandez, his imaginary friend. And then, you know, his imaginary friend went and killed Wanda. Mm-hmm. And Carlos DeLuna was standing a good distance away, saw it happen, and got scared and ran. Is Carlos Hernandez's first name not legally Carlos? Is that why when they pulled all the people who have been arrested, he didn't come up? I don't know. It sounds like a phantom to me.

I mean, it just sounds like a bunch of bullshit, right? Sounds like he's trying to get out of something and he's telling some ridiculous story. I don't think so. Carlos also testified that the white button-down shirt and shoes, they weren't his. He was just a totally normal guy who walked around in cold days in February with no shirts and no shoes. It is weird that he had no shirt or shoes on. Yeah. Does he offer an explanation for that?

If he does, I didn't see it. Okay. But he claims those aren't his. So the prosecutor was listening to all this and he grabbed one of the detectives and he was like, hey, I need you to find this Marianne Perales lady. He says he was with her. Let's find her. And the detective found her. And so Marianne Perales ended up testifying, and it wasn't great for Carlos.

She was like, no, I definitely wasn't hanging out with him that night. In fact, I was seven months pregnant at the time, and my friends and family held a baby shower for me that evening. Oh, shit. So I was definitely at my own baby shower. And there are pictures of me at my own baby shower. Shit. Yeah. Oh, no.

Okay. This trial only lasted three days. And in closing arguments, the prosecution replayed the 911 call and focused on that testimony from Marianne Perales. Carlos's alibi was a lie. And this Carlos Hernandez person was made up. He was a phantom. In the defense's closing arguments, they argued that Marianne had a vendetta against Carlos. What was the... You know, she was just like real bitchy, you know.

Okay. She just had something against him. Also, the prosecution only played that 911 call for dramatic effect, so let's all calm down okay it's not looking good for carlos hector i guess he also did a closing argument and he tried to be like point out that like there's no evidence yeah but he was so lacking in confidence that like he wasn't speaking loud enough and so the judge had to tell him to speak up. Oh, no. And then he got kind of embarrassed.

And, you know, he's talking about the lack of physical evidence. And he's like, he said something like, well, these are all minor points. Well, shit. I know. That is not good. So now you're going to tell us that Carlos was found guilty. He was sentenced to death and then the real – the phantom Carlos came forward? When the jury went into deliberation, the prosecution offered Carlos another plea deal.

They'd take the death penalty off the table if he pled guilty. But he refused because he was innocent. And a few hours later, the jury returned their verdict. They found him guilty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Then came the sentencing phase and the defense didn't do much, you know. Yeah. But the prosecution had plenty of ammo. They brought in this very frail, sick, 54-year-old woman who was the mother of a friend of Carlos de Luna. And she told the jury that one night after a party, he attempted to rape her. Holy shit. Yeah.

She said that he told her he would kill her if she screamed. He broke, like, three of her ribs. So the defense knew about a previous attempted rape charge, but they didn't know about this story. And when Hector de Pena heard this woman testify, he said, oh, shit, so loudly that the court stenographer had no choice but to include it in the official record. Wonderful. The prosecution argued that Carlos de Luna was a predator. He would never stop being a predator. He would kill again.

The jury gave him the death penalty. Yeah. And he went on death row. And, you know, a lot of people thought this trial was kind of funny. It was a stupid criminal story. The guy tried to say he saw some dude with his same name who looked just like him commit the crime. How ridiculous. By this point, Carlos got a new defense attorney to help with appeals.

I took out a part, a little detail that I had in earlier. What was the detail? Well, it seemed silly this morning, but now it seems important. His new defense attorney had the exact same shirt that my dad used to wear to work all the time. I believe it was from JCPenney's. It was a blue and white striped number. All right. You're welcome, everyone. I'm glad you included that.

Yeah. It would have been incomplete if I had omitted it. Yeah. I think we can all agree. That's right. We need to know how DP dressed for work. That's enough. So they got to work on his appeals, but none of his appeals were successful.

He continued to maintain that Carlos Hernandez had killed Wanda Lopez, but nobody listened. So with all of his appeals exhausted, it came time for Carlos to be moved to the death house in Huntsville, Texas. That's what they call it. His execution date was set for midnight on December 7ville, Texas. That's what they call it. His execution date was set for midnight on December 7th, 1989. Dang, that's fast. I know. Shit, okay.

A man named Carol Pickett was the death house chaplain and he stayed with Carlos that day and he showed him kindness. Carlos told him he wanted to write letters but didn't want them to be censored by the guards. And so Carol told him, okay, you write them and give them to me and I'll mail them for you. At one point, Carlos told him, I never had a father. You know, my father died. I had a

stepfather who was a drunk and he was horrible to all of us. We are getting along so well. Can I call you dad? Oh, shit. And Carol said yes. That evening. They are going to put this guy to death and then they are going to find out that they've put an innocent man to death. This is the story you're telling us?

No. Okay. That evening, Carlos was allowed to make a few phone calls. He called a journalist he trusted. She'd covered his trial and interviewed him when he was on death row, and he'd written her letters, and although she thought he was probably guilty, she had come to see that he wasn't a monster. She had started thinking that if he had been born into different circumstances, his life might have turned out differently. So at 10.50 that night, with his execution like an hour away, Carlos told her, Karen, they're going to execute me, Karen. And she said, Carlos, is there anything you need to tell me?

Is there anything you need to get off your chest? And he said, Karen, I didn't do what they say I did. They're going to execute an innocent man. I'm scared, but I know I'm going to go to heaven. Karen later said he needed somebody to believe in him and somebody to be kind of a friend to him. And I think I wasn't a very good friend to him because for the longest time I didn't believe in him. I didn't believe him. Oh.

Carlos also called his brother Manuel. By the way, that's the way he pronounces his name. And Manuel said, can I ask you a question? And Carlos said yes. And Manuel said, did you do it? And he said, no, Manuel. Carlos Hernandez. And Manuel said, who is Carlos Hernandez?

Carlos said, you know who Carlos Hernandez is. And Manuel said, I don't know who Carlos Hernandez is. Then an official came on the phone and told the brothers to wrap it up. It was time for Carlos to be executed. Oh my gosh. His sister Mary didn't want to be there. She didn't want to see her brother die. But worse than that was the thought of him dying alone. She went there that night to witness his death. The chaplain, Carol, said that the lethal injection goes in three phases. The first injection is supposed to put you to sleep, but it didn't work for Carlos.

Carlos tried to say something to Carol, but he's to this day not sure what he was trying to say. The second injection started. It was supposed to paralyze his lungs, but Carlos rose up again. The last injection was supposed to paralyze his heart, and that one finally worked. Carlos De Luna had been killed by the state of Texas. He was 27 years old. he was 27 years old. But as this was all happening, Wanda Lopez's family struggled.

They had had a lot of time to think about the way she died and how senseless it had been and how it might have been prevented. So they hired an incredible attorney named Rene Rodriguez for their civil case. And the thing about him is he actually gave a shit. In his investigation for their civil case. And the thing about him is he actually gave a shit.

Yeah. In his investigation for the civil case, Rene uncovered a lot of wrongdoing. First of all, he discovered that Wanda hadn't just made one 911 call that night. She'd made two phone calls about the man who would eventually murder her. Oh, my gosh. In the first call, the dispatcher brushed off Wanda's concerns and told her to call back when the guy did something. Yes.

So Wanda had called when he was outside. And they're like, yeah, but has he done anything? Keep in mind, she's working in a very high crime area. By herself. Yes. Holy shit. And I've got to say, if you're working the late shift at a gas station, you're probably not the type to just call the police over every little thing. No, I'm sure you are not.

So. Yeah. Yeah, I would think that maybe you could send somebody out. Yeah. So, yeah, she called the first time she got brushed off. She called the second time. And yeah, she did probably have a bit of an attitude because she had to re-explain everything. And this time, try to actually convince them to send someone over. But the only call that was ever made public was the second phone call. For this investigation,

Rene spent a ton of time in the courthouse and he made friends with like everyone there. And someone told him, hey, I think there are a few crime scene photos that the prosecution didn't show anyone. You might want to look at those. Oh my gosh. So Rene was like, bam, subpoena.

And he got the crime scene photos, all of the crime scene photos, and they were shocking. They showed police officers contaminating the crime scene. They showed what were clearly the murderer's footprints in the blood. Great. But investigators had made no efforts to examine the size of those footprints or anything. And, I mean, this fucking goes without saying, but obviously that shows that the

guy's shoes should have had blood on them. Yeah, the shoes they recovered from the field that they said were Carlos's should have blood all over them. Oh, no, no, no. We forgot about the drizzles. Yeah.

It had drizzled earlier that day. Yeah. Rene took these photos to Carlos de Luna's former defense team, and he showed them to them, and he says there was no reaction because they didn't care he later said if you're poor and you have no money and you can't get yourself a lawyer who really gives a shit about your case you're gonna die yep the lead defense attorney was also interviewed for this documentary and he was super defensive defensive defensive he mounted a better defense of himself than he did for carlos in an actual murder trial i'm sure admirable anyway this civil case was settled for an undisclosed amount and i

know you hate that but let's just hope it was just like $11 billion. So let's fast forward several years. We're in New York City. Ooh, where they make salsa. Salsa. At Columbia Law School. Jim Liebman was a professor at Columbia Law School, and in the late 90s, he did a bunch of studies on capital cases.

And his research uncovered a lot of errors within the justice system. He basically found out that, you know, it is incredibly difficult to get a successful appeal. Once the system has you, they don't let you go. And also, if you're poor, you're fucked. Yeah. Or if you're a person of color, you're fucked. Yeah.

I was about to say not if you're OJ, but eventually, yeah. Yeah. System got OJ. Yeah. Or if you're a person of color, you're fucked. Yeah. I was about to say not if you're OJ, but eventually, yeah. Yeah. System got OJ. Yeah. All right. Around this time, Texas was executing people left, right, and center. And the governor at the time was a man by the name of George W. Bush. He is better known now as a painter.

At the time, George W. Bush was questioned about the death penalty, and he went on record saying that no innocent people had died while he was in office. That's a bold fucking claim, W. Sure is. But that is actually a pretty popular mindset, that our system is so good and when we're talking at that level, if you get put to death, you've had all these chances with these appeals and there's so much scrutiny. Yes, Brandy. No.

This is wrong. If we put you to death, then you for sure did it. That's not true. The thing I love about it is that when you look at who's on death row, it's like very representative of the population of the United States. It's not accurate. Several years later, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in one of his opinions, it should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case, not one, in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.

If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it. The innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby. No, it fucking wouldn't because the system would do everything to cover that up. No. Yeah. The system's always right. We're fucking dealing with that right

this minute with the West Memphis three case. You know my big announcement I made that like, whoa, they're going to test the stuff for they finally secured the evidence is getting tested for DNA. No, it's fucking not because the prosecutor's office is fighting it. Mm hmm. For what reason? So they don't have to say they were fucking wrong. Yeah.

Say you're fucking wrong. These are people's lives. Yeah, but these are other people's reputations. I don't fucking care. Yeah, me neither. Holy shit. Yeah. I think Antonin Scalia's statement is factually wrong.

Mm-hmm. Since Scalia's statement is factually wrong. Mm-hmm. So Professor Jim was like, hmm, hot take. Let's see if it's true. So he decided to start looking into cases where people had been put to death when they were perhaps innocent. And one of his students wrote up a little memo about the Carlos de Luna case. And he was like, hey, I think maybe this might be a good one for you to look at.

But, I mean, that was clearly a dumb idea. I mean, what were the chances that Carlos de Luna had been telling the truth the whole time? We have fun. So Jim decided not to do the Carlos de Luna case. But then he found another sketchy death penalty case in Corpus Christi. So he hired an investigator to go look into that case. And he was like, hey, you know, while you're there, if you've got a free hour, if you're super bored, go look and see if you can find this Carlos Hernandez guy. And the investigator was like, yeah, all right. And he went to Corpus Christi, started poking around, asking questions.

And in one day, he found the Carlos Hernandez who Carlos de Luna had been talking about all along. Oh, my gosh. The investigator called Professor Jim and was like, ah, this guy looks just like the guy who was executed. And Jim was like, holy shit, we need to go balls out on this case. And that's a direct quote. Uh-huh. He's very unprofessional. Extremely.

Mm-hmm. Carlos Hernandez and Carlos De Luna looked so much alike that when shown pictures of the two men from that same time period, some of their own family members couldn't tell them apart. Holy shit. Yes. But it wasn't just that these two guys looked alike. Carlos Hernandez had a long criminal history of, you ready for this, robbing gas stations.

For fuck's sake. Carrying knives. Okay. And assaulting women. Jesus. Mm-hmm. So this professor and a team of students at Columbia started a six-year investigation into this case.

They interviewed more than a hundred witnesses and discovered that at the time of Wanda's murder, Carlos Hernandez had bragged about how he was the one who did it, but his look-alike was taking the fall. Oh, my gosh. Apparently they have a word for this in Spanish, tocallo. It's where someone has your same first name

and they look like you. Never heard of that. I know. Wow. Now you have. Yeah. Ba-da-da-da. The team looked at crime scene photos,

which showed that the knife used to kill Wanda was a lock blade buck knife. Oh, yeah. We can all picture it. Yep, I know exactly what that looks like. It's got a blade and then a handle. That's right. And gold trim and a brown handle. And it's a knife.

Get a load of this, Brandy. And a brown handle. And it's a knife. Get a load of this, Brandy. Carlos Hernandez was arrested like 20 or 30 times because once you pop, you can't stop. And in the majority of those cases, he had a knife on him. It was a lock blade buck knife with gold trim and a brown handle. Great. Investigators also discovered that a few years before Wanda's murder, another woman

in Corpus Christi was murdered. Her name was Dalia Sauceda. Her body had been discovered in her van with a giant X carved in her back. Jesus. She had been strangled and sliced open in front of her two-year-old. Oh, my gosh. Carlos Hernandez had been a suspect in that crime. In fact, he was arrested and charged. A pair of his underwear were found next to her body. His fingerprints were found on a can of beer in the van. Initially, he told police that he hadn't seen her in months. But he later changed his story.

He said he'd had sex with her the day she was killed and that afterwards she drove him home. So that's super believable. Yes. So they ended up charging a guy named Jesse Garza for Dahlia's murder. Great. Jesse went on trial and his defense was basically like, are you fucking serious? Carlos Hernandez obviously did this.

Carlos was brought in to testify at this trial, which we've talked about this before, where obviously the murderer is testifying. This is so trippy to me. Anyway, thank God Jesse was acquitted. But here's a fun fact. The prosecutor in that case was the same prosecutor in Carlos De Luna's case. In other words, not long after Jesse's trial wrapped up, Carlos De Luna went on trial for murder saying that Carlos Hernandez did it. And they were like, we haven't found any Carlos Hernandez's.

Yeah. Those same investigators in the same courtroom all claim to not know who Carlos Hernandez was in a case about a woman being murdered with a knife. Holy shit. I've got goose. I'm so mad. I hate this case so much. So Steve fucking Schwetz, who was the assistant district attorney at the time, he worked the Carlos de Luna case.

And Ken Beaudry was the one who worked both of these cases. Somehow these idiots agreed to be interviewed for this documentary. I don't know how this happens. These two, it was kind of fun to watch their progression because in the start of the documentary, they're like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then they get to this part and they become sweaty Bettys when they talk about this. Steve claimed to know nothing about this Carlos Hernandez stuff. That's what he told Professor Jim when Professor Jim asked him about it. He's like, I don't know her. And Professor Jim

was like, well, Ken Baudry sure as shit knew. And Steve was like, really? So he claims he called Ken and Ken was like, oh, I don't remember much. But when Ken was interviewed, he was like, well, you know, at the time when Carlos

DeLuna brought up Carlos Hernandez, I turned to Steve and I said, it's not a phantom. This is a real person. This person came up during a trial of mine. OK. Yeah. Ken claims, as best he can recall, Brandy, that he and Steve talked about it, but Steve wasn't too concerned about it. Wonderful. It's sure hard to know which asshole to believe, isn't it?

They both seem so credible. Yeah. It can't be that they're entirely foolish. Yes, exactly. Also, Ken looks like Colonel Sanders. And it's weird to see Colonel Sanders with a neck down. Yeah. I was like, what? Because I was about to say he looks just like him, but, you know, and then describe his body.

But it's like, we don't know what Colonel Sanders really looks like from the neck down. We have only our imaginations. Important things. Well, we don't know. I always envisioned him as kind of trim what about you no um no i always thought he'd be you know a little squishy yeah see this is why yeah you know i couldn't make any claims because you know clearly here we're just two people and we've got different opinions on this very important issue. Okay.

Should we keep talking about this? I don't think so. Anyway, so ultimately, Carlos Hernandez wasn't held accountable for anything. So what do you think he did? He killed somebody else. Kept stabbing women. Yeah. I mean.

Lots of women. Well, why not, Brandi? Yeah. I'm leaving a lot of stuff out. Obviously, when a guy gets caught doing something horrible to a woman, I'm going to guess there's like 10 other women who he's not been caught with. Anyway. So, you know, he kept stabbing women, bragging not been caught with. Anyway. So, you know, he kept stabbing women, bragging about the women he'd killed.

Dina Ibanez was his landlord. And she was coming home from work one day and he attacked her with a knife and stabbed her in the stomach. He threatened to carve an X in her back and rape her. She was terrified. And thank God her son, just like, I don't know if he was in the house or like he came out, bottom line, he scared off Carlos, and Carlos, you know, took off like a bitch.

Sorry. You gotta stop watching track race. I can't stop watching. I called my dad a bitch. You did? We were out and Norman said something just like mildly sassy to my dad. And my dad was like, what'd you say? And I was like, he said, I don't know, bitch.

Because, you know, I just had to add that. Yeah. So, yeah. RuPaul's Drag Race has really corrupted. DP was like, Nora, I can't believe you'd say that to me. I think he enjoyed being called a bitch. Got a real kick out of it. As a result of this incident, in 1989, Carlos pled guilty to stabbing Dina Ibanez and was sentenced to 10 years.

And this all sounds pretty awful. and was sentenced to 10 years. And this all sounds pretty awful. You know, you predicted earlier that, like, they were going to put the wrong man to death and then figure out who really did it. They're never going to admit that they put the wrong man to death, right? Well, Brandi, that's not what happened. No, it is what happened.

Because the old prosecutors are super sure that Carlos Hernandez didn't kill Wanda Lopez. And here's the facts, OK? No, the facts are that fucking Carlos DeLuna told you from the beginning. And you have a guy out there who's been arrested 30 fucking times with a—I almost said gun because I don't know weapons—with a knife that matched exactly the weapon that was used to murder. This is ridiculous. But of course, you know, the prosecution would be like, no, we did everything right.

Good thing we got Carlos DeLuna off the streets. Chuck one up for Texas. Yeehaw! You know, your ignorance is astounding. You know, your ignorance is astounding. Because Prosecutor Steve can explain this whole thing. All right, you ready? All those times that Carlos bragged about killing Dahlia and Wanda, he wasn't really confessing.

He was just bragging, just trying to seem like a badass. Yeah, I often am like, yeah, I took out two bitches last week. Like, no. And I think you're a badass, Brandi, so it's working. Oh, my gosh. This is infuriating. But wait, there's more. If you look at Carlos Hernandez, sure, he has a history of violence, but it was always against people he had a grudge against. He didn't have a grudge against Wanda.

In fact, he didn't know her at all. So do you feel better now? No. By the way, according to statements from witnesses in the neighborhood, Carlos absolutely did know Wanda. He always talked about going down to the store to see his friend Wanda. Also, it's not that big a place and they all lived kind of, I mean, give me a fucking break. Yeah. And he didn't have to like know her. If he was like a regular at the store, he probably. Yeah. Yeah. They don't have to hang out on the weekends for him to know her. This was all pretty damning, but the team at Columbia Law School uncovered even more evidence that Carlos DeLuna had been wrongfully executed.

Great. OK. So at Carlos' trial, the prosecution had loved playing that 911 call. Yeah. And that was the only call that the prosecution handed over to the defense. What about the first one? Right. So Wanda had made more than one call.

And it had taken police like 40 minutes to track down Carlos DeLuna. What about the first one? But the Columbia people knew the name of the dispatcher who'd taken that second call. So they tracked him down in L.A. And that dispatcher was like, oh, funny story. I actually pirated a copy of that entire manhunt and you can hear it. Audio from that manhunt clearly shows that they were chasing down two different men running two different directions. But none of that audio was made available to Carlos De Luna's defense team. Why do you think this happened? Do you take the easy one? Specifically what happened?

That they hid this call or the whole thing in general? Well, like Carlos Hernandez clearly did this stuff and they hid a bunch of stuff. Yeah. Why not go after the guy who clearly did it? I think they thought that Carlos DeLuna would be the easier person to convict. Okay. He didn't... And I don't know anything about Carlos Hernandez,

but it was obviously easy to convict Carlos De Luna. He didn't have any money. He had, you know... Yeah. He had a record. Essentially no defense. Yeah. I don't know.

Well, he had his boss and his stepdad, so... Yeah, exactly defense. Yeah. I don't know. Well, he had his boss and his stepdad. Yeah, exactly. Maybe some, I don't know, maybe he pissed somebody off along the way. Professor Jim has a theory. What's his theory? And he says that other criminal defense attorneys in town and police officers confirmed this theory. That Carlos Hernandez was a small-time police informant. Oh, my gosh.

And that's why, for decades, he was always getting in trouble and always escaping any consequences. Jim said he liked to have something on everybody. He had something on his lawyer. He had something on lots of people. He was somebody who was known to the police, did favors for the police, and clearly they did some favors for him. That sounds super believable to me.

Absolutely. Also, it's like you've already fucked up the crime scene. Yeah. So if you complicate things by being like, oops, we arrested the wrong guy, I mean, what are you going to do? You didn't get a single fingerprint. They even – I guess in these situations with the knife specifically, they should have just bagged that and taken it into a lab because it was covered in blood and I guess it's hard to get fingerprints on that. But instead, the crime scene tech just covered it in graphite and just ruined it. I can tell you're concerned.

But don't worry. Carlos Hernandez didn't end up serving his full 10 years in prison. I was not worried about Carlos Hernandez, just for the record. He was paroled after 19 months. Cool. But he was arrested again multiple times. Shocking, I know. Finally, he got his parole revoked when he got into a fight with his neighbors.

Get a load of this. He threatened them with a knife. Weird. Yeah. He went back to prison and died there in 1999. So the wrong man was put to death and the real killer got away with just about everything. So I'm going to end with a quote from the chaplain who was with Carlos De Luna when he was killed by the state of Texas. He said that after Carlos died, he thought, here is one of the biggest

mistakes that Texas has ever made. He'd done some things before this. He admitted to them, has ever made. He'd done some things before this. He admitted to them. But he didn't do this one. And they killed him anyway. Texas likes to kill people to show people that killing people is wrong. Well, sometimes they killed innocent people.

And that's the story of Carlos de Luna. Fuck, that was terrible. I cried so many times. Yeah. So, it's funny because like you think about credibility. And like if I was on this jury and he's trying to say, oh, that wasn't my shirt. Those weren't my shoes. Bullshit.

I mean they were. They absolutely were his shirt and shoes. But he was lying because he was fucking terrified. Yeah. And the Marianne Perales thing is interesting. So he had done so much stuff that day. And he said he'd ran into these two sisters who he didn't know very well. And so I'm wondering like –

If he just accidentally misidentified them. And the other thing is like it's not like he tried to use her as an alibi. No. It was just – this is someone I ran into earlier in the night. Yeah. But when you hear that, well, no, she was at a baby shower held in her honor, it sounds like he is just completely full of shit. Yeah. That's why I was so anxious about this case today.

It was terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. Sorry. Thank you for that. You told it wonderfully. Really? Yeah. I was very nervous.

No, you did great. But it was terrible. Yeah. Okay, I'm getting water. I was very nervous. No, you did great. But it was terrible. Yeah. Okay, I'm getting water. Yes, get water. Oh, jeez. You know what, Brandy? I think we desperately need a change of subject.

All right. I'm not going to lie to you, Kristen. Do you have a terrible one, too? Is it bad? Jeez. Oh, boy. It you have a terrible one, too? Is it bad? Jeez. Oh, boy. It's bad? It's real bad.

It comes from my new favorite oxygen show. Oh, no. Family Massacre. Oh, Brandy. Oh, my God. This is going to be the worst episode we've ever done. I also watched an episode of Dateline. I bet you did.

I did. It's not true. I lied to you just now. I bet you did. I did. It's not true. I lied to you just now. Oh, you just read the transcript? I read an episode of Dateline. But you know what? Okay. It was a Keith Morrison episode, so I for

sure read it in his voice. So it was as if I was watching it. Alright, alright. It's entitled What? The Mystery of the Lost Weekend. That is such a Dateline title. All right. All right. It's entitled. What? The mystery of the last weekend. That is such a Dateline title. I swear. I swear they have one person who does their titles. You don't think Keith Morrison wrote that himself? No, I do not. Are you crazy? No. And I think I think Dateline has like those little word magnets and they don't have very many words.

It's like dark and night and lone and, you know, and you just reach into a hat and you pull out three of them. Yeah. And boom, there's your title for the episode. Bang, bang, boom, dinner on the table! That is our gift to HelloFresh, Brandi. episode. Bang, bang, boom, dinner on the table! That is our gift to HelloFresh, Brandi.

Also, if you're listening to the ad-free version of this episode, that'll sound really weird and out of place. Also, thank you for paying more for these episodes. We appreciate you greatly. Sunday, July 6, 2003 was an exciting day for Joni Harper. Was it? Because it sounds like her family died. Well, isn't that what you're about to tell me? Not yet. Can you keep your pants on?

Oh, it's not so fun when I do it to you, is it? Sorry, I'm coming in hot. I'm really glad my case is over. I'm coming in hot. I'm really glad my case is over. It was the day she would be debuting her six-week-old baby, Marshall, at church. Church was a huge part of Joni's life, and on that July day, she attended the Sunday morning service with her mother, Ernestine, and her three children. Ernestine?

Ernestine, yes. I've never heard that name. Yeah, that's a name. Well, I'm not saying it's not a name. I didn't make it up. I'm not saying it's not a name. Anyway, continue. Anyway, she went to church with her mom, Ernestine.

Which is not a made-up name. Yes, and her three children, four-year-old Marquise, two-year-old Lindsay, and six-week-old Marshall. At church, everyone oohed and aahed over baby Marshall. And following the service, Joni, Ernestine, and the kids headed to lunch. They dined. Where'd they go? At Black Angus Steakhouse. Ooh.

Okay. I've never had the pleasure, but it sounds. I haven't either, but I always made fun of the name. Why? Black anus. Oh, come on. You've never seen, like, there's like a picture of like the sign with the G burnt out. And so it just says, you've never seen this picture. Hang on.

Surely they don't do that. Don't Google black anus. Well, nobody did it on purpose. Like the sign didn't do that. Don't Google black anus. Well, nobody did it on purpose. Like, the sign didn't light up properly. Kristen. Okay. I'm sorry. Like, the G was burnt out.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the second image that comes up on Google. Okay. The reviews say this place is shitty. Oh, no, I hit the table. Stop doing this.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was so excited I had a poop joke. Following their lunch at the Black Angus Steakhouse, they returned home to the house they all shared in Bakersfield, California, located at... Yes, hang on. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. My computer, it froze.

Oh, hang on. I was just misusing it. System operator error. 901. Are you ready? What are you typing? operator error. 901. Are you ready? What are you typing? I'm typing 901. You did it before I said anything.

No, I didn't. I was doing it at the same time. Third Street, Bakersfield, California. Okay. Okay. And you can pull up. This house was recently listed for sale. It looks like it was taken off the market without a sale.

It's a nice little ranch home. Sits on a corner. It looks like it sits on a real busy street. I believe it does. And also it's just – I know this is a California thing. So pardon my judgment. Just tile as far as the eye can see. That's fine.

They've got palm trees in their front yard. That's the rule? Yes, to me it is. I actually like the living room tile. I don't like the popcorn ceilings. Oh, God, this gym is terrible. Curtains are too short. Okay.

There's a gym? Well, I mean, gym is my generous term, my gift to them, calling that a gym. Isn't that what that black room is? No, I thought that was somebody's bedroom. Well, poor somebody. Are you kidding? Oh, that is somebody's bedroom. Look at all those. That's like somebody's, you know, Oh, that is somebody's bedroom. Look at all those.

Yeah, it's somebody's bedroom. That's like somebody's, you know, got a sneaker head in there. You know, that's kind of an interesting combination of stuff. There's a lot of really nice shoes and then an Elmo doll. An Elmo doll. Up on top there. Not a combination you see often. So this house is a four bedroom ranch and the layout worked out really well for Joni and her mother, Ernestine, not a made up name, to live in the same house together but have their own space. Joni and the children had bedrooms on one end of the house while Ernestine's room was on the other end.

Now I am worried that I have called her the wrong thing. You called her Ernestine. Well, yeah, and you're like, that's not a name I've ever heard of. First of all, I sound way sexier than that. Yeah, Ernestine. Also, I kind of like the, I'm sorry, I'm still talking about it. Talk about the house. What do you got?

What are you liking about it? Okay, here's what I don't like. This bathroom, they tried to update the floor tile, not update the wall tile. But I love the wall tile. I love the wall tile, too. If you've got the 1950s stuff, just stick with it. Stick with it. Exactly.

That's our advice. All right. You may continue with your horrible story. Anyway, so you get it. Joni and the kids on one end of the house. Ernestine on the other. And there were like two living spaces in between. So everybody could just kind of have their own space.

The family all planned to lay down for a nice little afternoon nap following their lunch at Black Angus and then head to church for the evening service. I thought they already went to church. They went to morning. Did you miss the part where I said church was a very big part of their lives? Well, I mean a lot of people – They went to the Sunday morning service and they planned to also attend the Sunday evening service. Wow. What was their religion?

That I don't know. OK. But they never made it to that evening service. What was the date again? July 6th. Okay, never mind. Well, I wondered if it was like around a holiday. I think this is really common for people to go to multiple services.

Okay. And also she's showing off that new baby. Yeah, I mean we only went once a week and we thought we were doing great. Actually, that's not true. We had a bible study okay nevermind Wednesdays yeah yeah yep youth group yeah all right nevermind what did I just say I don't know they were gonna take a nap and then they were gonna

they didn't make it in fact they were never seen alive again. It was Tuesday morning, July 8th, around 7 a.m., when Kelsey Spahn found herself standing in front of Joni's house. No one had seen or heard from any of them since that Sunday at church. And Kelsey was worried she couldn't get a hold of Joni. And so she'd gone to her house that morning she walked around the house and went to a side door and she used her key that Joanie had given her to unlock the door but something was blocking it she couldn't open it so she walked around the back of the house and she found a sliding glass door and it was unlocked, which was very unusual. Like you said, this house was kind of on a busy corner.

Yeah, you wouldn't have doors unlocked. I mean, they have like a very serious fence around the house. Right. Yeah. And so she slid the door open and walked inside. And she walked to Joni's bedroom where she was met with a horrible scene. Joni was face down on her bed, dead. Kelsey called 911 and, you know, the call was pretty frantic. I heard a clip of it and she's like, she's on the bed. She's dead. I need somebody here now. So police, you know, came to the scene and it was horrible.

Joni was laying on her bed. She'd been shot three times in the head, twice in the arm. And she'd also been stabbed seven times. Oh, my God. Her son Marquis lay next to her in the bed. He'd also been shot. His eyes were open. No, no, no.

It was clear to investigators that he had seen his killer. Yeah. Because he had inserted his hand into his mouth. Oh. And bit down so hard. Oh, gosh. Oh. That he'd bitten to the bone in fear. Oh, gosh. Oh. That he'd bitten to the bone in fear.

Oh, God. Her two-year-old daughter, Lindsay, was also found in the bedroom at the foot of the bed. She'd been shot in the back. Ernestine was found in the hallway holding a gun. It was clear that she had responded. Oh, Ernestine was found in the hallway holding a gun. It was clear that she had responded to whatever had happened, the intrusion, whatever. The children's father. And had. Would you calm down?

I can't. And she had come, but she had also been shot and killed before she'd ever gotten a chance to confront her intruder with the weapon. At first, no one could locate the baby, six-week-old Marshall. They searched the home. There was no sign of him. Finally, they were like moving the bedding when they were processing the scene. He was so little. He was so little. And he was found under a pillow on the bed.

Oh, my God. He'd been shot in the back. Oh, my God. No wonder we were both so tense today. No fucking kidding. These are terrible stories. Terrible, terrible cases. So this was a whole family, multiple generations just wiped out in one home invasion?

No, Brandi. We're not stupid. Don't talk to us like that. The home had been ransacked. Yeah, fake ransacked yeah fake there was a tv laying on the ground that's what they do like they tip it over ernestine's purse had been shaken out of course it had but her cash and yeah it was all there because yeah no you don't just like murder a whole family for fun no not for fun i don't think that murder a whole family for fun.

No, not for fun. I don't think that's anybody's idea of fun. Well, I'm sure it's some people. But I mean, you don't do it with no connection. So they started looking into who may have done this. It turns out that Ernestine was actually like a civil rights advocate in the area. She did a lot of work with. That ain't it. It's not.

It's Kristen. It's not. She was actually currently like helping on a case of a of a accused murderer. Yeah. But yeah, no, it wasn't. Of course it's not. It was not her. Yeah.

But yeah, no, it wasn't. Of course it's not. It was not her. So they're like, well, that's not it. And they're like, what about the kid's dad? Yes. And they're like, that should have been the first thing. It couldn't possibly be. The man's name was Vincent Brothers, and he was a well-respected member of the community.

A pillar, some might say. Mm-hmm. He was a high school vice principal. Oh, really? Uh-huh. He had, at that point, he was a high school vice principal. He had actually been in school administration in different schools in the area for several years. He was, there was a news piece done on him just a couple years prior about how he was known as the vice principal who walked the kids home after school.

They'd actually done a fundraiser and bought him a bicycle so that he could ride the bike and make sure the kids got home safely. Wow. Yeah. Super well-respected member of the community. Yeah. And he had an airtight alibi. It couldn't have possibly been him. For real?

For real. On this weekend that this happened. So, you know, the murder happens sometime after they get home from church on Sunday and they are found. The bodies are discovered on Tuesday. During that time, Vincent Brothers was in Ohio. He'd flown to Ohio to visit his brother, Melvin, and the rest of his family. And then he'd rented a car in Ohio and driven to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Shut up.

Yes. Shut up. Are you serious? I'm 100% serious. Brady, for real? For real, to visit his mother. Okay, everyone, I am losing my shit because Elizabeth City, North Carolina is not a big place. It's where I met my fine husband.

Holy shit. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yep. So when did he arrive in elizabeth city um i don't know well you probably should know is it what maybe monday probably monday so he'd spent some time in ohio you, with his one brother and then his other brother and him had driven to Elizabeth City. But the point is, is that he was in Ohio and North Carolina and nowhere near Bakersfield, California. I'm going to need more information so on July 8th

the evening of July 8th Vincent Brothers was brought into I don't really know the logistics of how this happened anyway at some point they let him know that his entire family has been murdered and that like they need to just get like a statement from him and so he's at the Elizabeth City Police Department

yeah I'm so excited they sit down with him and he's like, hey. And they're like, hey, you know, we hate to be the one to tell you this. Your three children, your wife and your mother-in-law were all found murdered in your home today. And he was extremely emotional. He couldn't believe it. He was a mess.

They talked him through it. They just asked him, you know, tell us about this weekend. Tell us, you know, just give us kind of a timeline of what's been going on. And he did. He said, you know, I flew in to Ohio to visit my brother on July 2nd. Okay. Okay. Spent a couple days with my brother Melvin.

Spent a couple days with my brother Troy. Had a family dinner on Thursday. I think it was Thursday. You know what? I've got receipts for all of this. And he starts handing them receipts for places that he's been all around Ohio. And he's like, and then we, yeah, we drove here to Elizabeth City, got here late Monday night, early this morning, you know, whatever. And then just been here visiting my mom.

And his reaction seemed extremely genuine he was shocked he did do one thing that the investigators thought was odd he never asked how his family died oh lord so that sat kind of weird with them but well he was doing his best acting so you know pobity's nerfic as they say don't say that twice in one episode so they let him go you know he made plans to get back to Bakersfield to make arrangements for whatever. In the meantime, those investigators – because at this point, investigators from Bakersfield had flown to Elizabeth City. Well, I mean I don't think there's an airport in Elizabeth City.

Well, there's a really small one, but it's not for just anybody. I mean you've got to go into Virginia. Yeah. So anyway, they'd flown across the country to sit down with Vincent Brothers. And so Is that how that works? That's exactly how that works, Kristen. You dick! Ha!

And so they found him credible. And so they're like, all right, we'll just verify this alibi. They couldn't have found him too credible if they flew out for this. Well, I mean, it's always the husband. So that's the first suspect. So I think that makes sense. Yeah.

So they start, you know, looking into his credit card activity when he was in Ohio. And yeah, I mean, he made several purchases on Sunday, July 6th, the day that they narrowed down for the murder to take place. His cell phone had been in Ohio pinging all over the place, which is interesting that they had his cell phone because he gave it to them. It was like, here, I swear it wasn't me. Take my cell phone. Check out my cell phone history. Oh, wow. I thought of everything. I've seen true crime shows. Here's my receipts. Here's my cell phone. I wasn't anywhere near Bakersfield, you'll see, because cell phones go bing and towers go pong, and I know you'll know my location all the day long.

Or, you know, whatever they say. He was a fan of the podcast. And so, you know, they're like, oh, this is looking pretty tight. Looking pretty airtight. But then they kind of dug into the relationship between Vincent and Joanie. And it turns out that they were married at the time of the murders. But they were estranged. Things were not good.

Okay. So here's like a little bit of their history. Joni and Vincent had met through the school system. She'd been some kind of employee with the school system. He'd been in administration. They'd met. They dated for a while. They'd gotten pregnant. Had employee with the school system. He'd been in administration. They'd met. They'd dated for a while. They'd gotten pregnant.

Had not married at that time. Don't say they'd gotten pregnant. Okay. Sorry. Joni got pregnant. People were kind of shocked by that. It was a bit like scandalous that she got pregnant out of wedlock. Boy, I was shocked as shit when it happened to you.

I was like as shit when it happened to you. Yeah, you know. I was like, good heavens. Yeah. So they actually had married, but they had not stayed married long. They had actually, Joni had had the marriage annulled. Oh, wow. Yeah. And she'd claimed fraud.

She'd said that Vincent was not the person that she thought he was and that he was an adulterer and that he would disappear for days at a time. And then when he came back, she was not allowed to ask him about his whereabouts. That's great. Yeah. So they'd separated. They'd gotten the marriage annulled. She'd had another baby. All of her children were with Vincent. And at some point, actually just a few months before the murders, they had secretly gotten remarried, like right before she gave birth to Marshall.

Wow. But they had separated. She had kicked him out essentially very shortly before the murders. And no one knew that they had even really reconciled or separated again. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then it turned out that one of the reasons that Joni had filed for the annulment was because Vincent had been married twice before and never told her about it. It turned out that there were abuse claims in those

previous divorces. Yeah, I bet there were. So it's just like a real bad situation. But Vincent was a pillar of the community! Yeah, I'm so sure. So Investigator sat down with one of his ex-wives and she said that she had actually made a domestic violence claim

against Vincent. That he did the similar thing when they were married. He disappeared for three days. He'd come back home. She'd asked him where he was and he beat the hell out of her and told her, you're not allowed to ask me that. And so he had actually been charged with some domestic violence charge and he'd been sentenced to six days in jail and probation. Fix that right up.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. infidelity going on and some estrangement. None of this seemed like motive for someone who would murder their own children. And also, he was thousands of miles away. How could he have done it? Obviously, he wasn't, Brandy.

Kristen, his credit cards were his cell phone. Yeah. It were in Ohio the whole time. I don't know if his brothers were helping him out or a friend. Yeah, maybe. So they start looking into his ironclad alibi, right? Yeah. Okay. They start looking at surveillance tapes from each place his credit card was used in Ohio on the days surrounding the murder.

It's really weird. The person using Vincent Brothers' credit card didn't look like Vincent Brothers. Turned out it was Melvin Brothers. Shocking. Vincent's brother. Did they look similar at all? No! Because I was going to say, those surveillance footage is so grainy.

If he just popped a hat on and been like, I don't know. If they're roughly the same build, they could probably get away with it. Yeah. And so they sit Melvin down and they're like, what do you want to tell us about this predicament? Yeah, are you really going to go down for this, you dumbass? And he's like, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. And they're like, well, we've got surveillance footage and it shows that you're clearly the one that made these purchases. And so finally he was like, OK, the truth is I don't know where Vincent was on Sunday and like late Saturday night, Sunday and then into Monday.

He gave me his credit cards. He gave me his cell phone. He told me to go make some purchases. He told me where to go, what to purchase. And I thought he was with my brother Troy during that time. What did he think they were up to? Because he had to have known they were up to something. He didn't ask maybe.

He didn't offer up any. He just said he was with my other brother. I don't know what they were up to. And so the investigators were like, great. Now we know that this alibi is a lie. investigators were like, great, now we know that this alibi is a lie. But we still can't put Vincent in Bakersfield at the time of the murders. The medical examiner had placed the time of death just like sometime after 1 p.m. on Sunday and then like before a certain time on Monday. They couldn't, that was like as much

as they could narrow it down. And they really did go to Elizabeth City? Oh yeah. And okay, what time did they arrive in Elizabeth City? So they didn't arrive in Elizabeth City until Tuesday. So that's the day the bodies were discovered. Okay. So basically They had to have really hauled ass.

Oh yeah. So basically Vincent Brothers is unaccounted for from like early – like late Thursday night, early Friday morning all the way until late Monday night. Mm-hmm. So they start looking at his rental car records because he had rented a car when he flew into Columbus. car records because he had rented a car when he flew into Columbus. And it turns out that he'd put 5,400 miles on his rental car in the time that he had been in Ohio and driven to Elizabeth City. So Elizabeth City was about a 600-mile drive. Did he get really, really, really lost?

Mm-mm. Fun fact, Bakersfield, 2,300 miles from Columbus, Ohio. How did he put so much thought into this with the credit cards and the phone, but he didn't think, oh, I'm renting a car in my own name? A shitload of miles on it. Yeah. Yeah. And so they reviewed, you know, that this looks good. This looks good that they can say, OK, he put a crazy amount of miles.

If you add that all up, 2,300 miles to Bakersfield, 2,300 back. And then the additional miles to Elizabeth City, it adds up. It's the right amount of mileage. But that's like all the amount of mileage. Yeah. But that's like all the evidence they have. Right. There's no real physical evidence at the scene. They do find at one point, they found the tip of a rubber glove. Hmm.

And it had Vincent's DNA inside the glove, but he had lived in the house. Yeah. It's not great evidence, but there was no sign of forced entry or anything in the house. So someone had to know how to get in. Well, and also you might open the door up to, I mean, that's someone you know. Yeah. Maybe you're not on great terms with them, but it's the father of the to – Yeah. I mean that's someone you know. Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe you're not on great terms with them but it's the father of the children.

Yeah. So they confront him with this evidence about all of these miles driven on a car and he's like, yeah, I drove to St. Louis one day. I drove here. I drove there. Yeah. But never was in Bakersfield. Never drove to california so the fbi was brought in oh hell yeah and they were like how'd they get involved we're gonna uh they called the mayor i thought so of elizabeth city actually. And the mayor called up the FBI and was like, we've got a hot one for you.

So the FBI comes in and they're like, we've got to get creative with this one. We're going to nail this guy down. Yeah. So they go back to that rental car. And they take it to the crime lab. They pull it apart. They take the air filter out of it. They take the radiator out of it.

They take the grill off the front of it. And they examine all of the microscopic bug fragments. Oh, my God. that are in that car and in the air intake system, all of it. They send it off to UC Davis to this entomologist named Dr. Lynn Kimsey. And they're like, tell us what you can about these bugs. And so she goes through it. She separates out all the different bug fragments. And she identifies two types of bugs.

A wasp and a grasshopper that are in this car that are only indigenous to areas west of the Rocky Mountains. Oh, my gosh. Wow. And she notes that there were no butterflies in the car, but several moths, which meant that this car was likely driven at night. Oh. Given the time of year and the route he would have had to drive from Ohio to Bakersfield, he would have encountered butterflies along the way. But he only encountered moths.

And he encountered several bugs that could only be found west of the Rocky Mountains. So with this information, they're like, great. Like, this is good. This is forensic evidence. It's still pretty circumstantial, but. Well, yeah. It's forensic evidence. And it's fun.

Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. It's forensic evidence. And it's fun. Mm-hmm. With this, they reached out to people living in the neighborhood where Joni and Ernestine and the children lived to ask if anybody could have possibly seen Vincent in the area around the time of the murders. Yeah. And they had a couple people who were like, yeah, we're pretty sure we saw him like park down the street and like walk up to the house, but they couldn't nail down like the exact time and stuff. So again, not great evidence, but they finally decide that they're good. They're going to stake their case on the weird alibi that they

can disprove with the credit card usage and everything and those bugs. The bugs are going to be the thing to seal the deal on Vincent Brothers. And so in April of 2004, almost a full year after the murders, Vincent was arrested and charged with five counts of first-degree murder. He also received a special charge because there were multiple murders and that made this case eligible for the death penalty. And prosecutors

announced that they would seek the death penalty in this case. His trial began in January of 2007. And of course, he pled not guilty. He was sticking to his story that he'd been in Ohio and North Carolina and nowhere near Bakersfield. So the prosecution set up their case.

They said, you know, Vincent was an admitted adulterer. He was having, you know, the dude was never not banging women. He bragged about it to everybody. He was a womanizer. And those days when he'd disappear, every woman he'd ever been with could tell that same story. And that on those days he was banging other women. and that on those days he was banging other women and that he had recently become estranged from Joni and he was looking at some pretty serious consequences if she was going to take him to court. He was going to have to pay a lot of child support for three children.

And their claim was that he was looking to free himself of that financial burden. Oh, my God. So they claimed that on July 2nd, he flew to Ohio to visit his brother and establish an alibi. But then as soon as he arrived there, he'd rented that car. He'd driven like the fucking Dickens back. They said that was in court. That's an official quote. The fucking Dickens. The fucking Dickens. Back. They said that was in court. That's an official quote. The fucking Dickens.

The fucking Dickens. Driven secretly, surreptitiously back to Bakersfield. Gone in. Murdered his six-week-old baby. This is horrible. His four-year-old son, his two-year-old daughter, his wife and his mother-in-law. Ugh. And then he'd driven back and driven on to Elizabeth City and acted as if none of it had happened.

And then when he got that death notification, he put on the show of his life. He'd cried. He even told them he needed a trash can to throw up in. They put Dr. Lynn Kimsey on the stand and she talked about all of that bug evidence. She talked about how when those air filters were taken out, she'd taken all of the stuff to the Bohart Museum of Entomology for testing. And she'd identified these different species of bugs. And that several of them were only found in the West.

And several of them were insects that could only be found if he'd driven at night. Mm-hmm. and several of them were insects that could only be found if he'd driven at night. Next, the prosecution introduced that video surveillance footage of Melvin completing the purchases at the different stores using Vincent's credit card. It told a very compelling story. Like, yeah, this guy had his brother set up an alibi for him when he's off murdering his family. I'm really interested in the defense. Mm-hmm. So,

the defense, they tried to tear down the bug expert. Well, sure. Mm-hmm. They asked her, like, what was in it for her? How much did you get paid to do this and she was like well i get paid 150 an hour to testify here in court yeah but as far as yeah but as far as the actual investigation me identifying the bugs and all that i didn't get paid a dime for that oh shit i did it because it it furthers my knowledge in the field i did it because it's an

amazing puzzle that i wanted to piece together that kind of backfired on them didn't it i mean and they're like okay well what kind of an expert on you are on this specific wasp that you identified have you been published on this wasp and she's like no i have not been published but i do actually have a paper in the works that i've been working on for years now and i'm working towards it getting published so i have some knowledge on this particular wasp like okay great so then okay, great. So then, because that didn't work out well, they put their own bug expert on the stand.

And they were like, tell us about these bugs that the prosecution claims only to exist west of the Rocky Mountains. And this expert was like, well, I mean, it's possible that they could be dispersed in some kind of unusual fashion and that then you would find them in a different area than what they would be indigenous to.

And so the defense is like, okay, what do you mean? Do you mean like a bug could hitch a ride on a truck and accidentally end up in an area it wouldn't normally be found? And their bug expert was like, yeah, that's possible. But highly unlikely. Highly unlikely. And what is the likelihood that then he would come in contact with that exact bug? Yeah.

And didn't he come in contact with two types of bugs? Yes, multiple types of bugs that are found only on the west of the Rockies. So he was just like supremely unlucky? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He met the traveling bug parade? That's right. Mm-hmm.

The defense presented evidence that had not yet been presented. So this was a story that Vincent Brothers claimed bolstered his story that he'd always been in Ohio. He said that he'd been involved in a car accident. It was a car accident that hadn't been reported to anyone. A boy had hit him on a bicycle. So the defense puts this out as part of their thing. Like only, you know, there's a boy out there who was involved in this accident. And there's testimony from his brother that will prove that, you know, they were involved in this accident.

It was on Monday when he, you know, he couldn't have possibly been in Bakersfield. That boy's name, Carlos Hernandez. He's a phantom. He's a phantom. So there was this big story about this car accident, right? Yeah. And so the prosecution, like, they get the word of this and they're like, somebody get out there and see if you can prove this.

Well, and he's claiming he was hit by a car on a bike. No, no. The kid hit the car with his bike. Oh. Yes. No, no, no. Okay. Vincent was driving the car.

The kid hit the bike. Okay. The kid hit it with his bike. Sorry. Sorry. Clear as glass. It's super clear. So the prosecution to contest this story puts a guy on the stand who was like, yeah, that accident happened, but I'm the fucking guy that was driving the car.

I'm the guy that was hit by the kid on the bike. Not Vincent Brothers. How did he even hear about that? So that's the thing that they talk about on the show. It's like nobody really knows how Vincent Brothers even knew about this car accident. Or maybe he was just making a guess. Maybe. And so the prosecution like hunted this guy down and was like, and they were.

They were able to bring this guy forward. And he's like, yeah, I was in an accident on this day where a kid hit my car with his bike. But it was me. Vincent Brothers was involved in no way. And I drive a teal car because they had been able to bring forward a witness who was like, yeah, I witnessed an accident where a kid hit a teal neon, which is the rental car. Oh, shit. Yeah. And it was the guy that was driving. It looks like Vincent Brothers. No way.

Yeah. And so the prosecution's like, we've got the real guy right here they bring him out and he's like yeah it was me i was the one who was driving a teal car did this guy know vincent brothers no get out no i think somebody had to have overseen this or heard it one of the brothers maybe and been like this is how we prove it was you i don't know yeah it, one of the brothers maybe, and been like, this is how we prove it was you. I don't know. Yeah. That's one of the big mysteries.

It's like, how did they even know this accident took place? Because it seems it did actually take place. No police report was made or anything, though. And it probably wasn't written up in the news or anything. No, nothing. Because why would it be? Wow. Yeah.

So the defense puts Vincent Brothers' brother, Melvin, on the stand, and he talks about what he told the investigators about how Vincent had told him to go make these purchases with his credit card. And he'd given him his cell phone and all of that. And then he told them that it was all a lie. He'd made it up. Vincent hadn't told them to do that. He had been lying. What? He'd just done it.

Vincent didn't make him do it. He just did it. And the only reason that he had said that because he didn't know where Vincent went because Vincent was with his brother Troy and Troy was going to sort this whole thing out. That makes no sense. And so, OK, if we're going to believe that, then you stole his credit card. Right. Right.

Exactly. Because if someone doesn't give you permission and tell you, hey, go do this, then you stole them. So the defense gets all ready to call Troy Brothers to the stand. But they break for lunch before they call him. Troy Brothers is there at the courthouse, ready to

testify. He disappears on the lunch break. He never came back. Weird. They actually issued a warrant for his arrest. I'm sure they did. I couldn't find what happened with it, but he disappeared and did not testify.

Yeah. And so the defense called somebody better. Who? Vincent Brothers. Oh no. brothers oh no so this definitely seems like a last ditch effort when they couldn't call the the witness that they wanted to because he disappeared but they tried to sell it like this was the plan all along vincent's a fucking con man so he thinks he can do this is a con man and he did horribly of course on the stand he's not used to this kind of scrutiny he got on the

stand and he like i I don't even know. He just like recited the names of his wife and his children and like made some big play about how upset he was about their deaths. And then the rest of the time he sat there smirking. Oh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And at one point he was asked to talk about the best day of his life with Joanie, which could be like the day he was married, they got married, or the birth of one of their children. Well, this is the defense asking this. So they're giving him a softball.

So what's he say? He said the day Joanie and I got married. Okay. And he said, actually, you know what? It was the night before we got married because we had sex. Ew. Yeah. And then he talked, like, in detail about their sex life.

Oh. Yeah. Come on. And then they asked him if he had been cheating on Joanie. And he was like, well, you know, what is cheating? And he claimed that, like, well, yeah, you know, he'd been with some women in his life and he got around but they weren't even technically together anymore at this point and then um in the as a rebuttal the prosecution called the his principal uh-huh and she testified that they were in a sexual relationship. Oh, shit. And had been for years.

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. This guy was smug as fuck on the stand and it was terrible. So the defense's final attempt. I'm sorry. I'm just like. To prove Vincent Brothers' innocence, they put an expert on the stand.

An expert in speed. Speed? Yeah, driving speed. Who said it wasn't possible for Vincent to have driven to Bakersfield and back in the amount of time that the prosecution wanted to say it would happen because he would have had to have averaged 70 miles per hour. And that is physically impossible. Although it's not. I know.

I mean, you're taking highways, right? Right. Yeah, he said. I will say, though, it would be tight and you wouldn't want to go too fast because you get pulled over by the cops and bing, bang, boom, dinner's on the table or whatever. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, he said, I wouldn't expect 70 to be something you can average across the country. I mean, that does seem really high. It would be difficult. But if you were fleeing a massive murder, maybe you haul ass. The defense said, you can't change the physical impossibility of the drives as testified to by engineers. You can't change the mechanical composition of the car that was rented. This is a Dodge Neon. This is not a car that can go speeds of 100 miles an

hour for 2,200 miles. And the people at Dodge were like, hey, don't be so mean. Neons are really cool. Well, is this true? Yeah, it would have been difficult. He would have had to average 70 miles an hour. But the timeline isn't great. There's a bigger – they're not real clear on exactly what the window is because his family is lying about the last time they saw him. Right. Right. They also put somebody on the stand from the rental car company who said the mileage could have been inaccurate. They didn't do a great job of keeping the log.

So maybe he didn't really put 5,400 miles on the car. Maybe it had been less. Wow. That's pretty good. It is good. I think it's good to punch a hole in it for sure. And that's kind of what they left the jury with. Like this guy's telling you it can't be done. It's physically impossible to drive that many miles in that amount of time at that speed. You know, we don't ask people to check it against what the computer says when they rent the car. And we don't always check it.

Like, it's not always real accurate when it gets checked back in. Yeah. I think that's pretty good. Yeah. And all the trial lasted about four months. Oh, wow. A pretty long trial. Yeah.

Yeah. And the jury deliberated for three days. Mm-hmm. They found Vincent Brothers guilty on all counts. At his sentencing in September of 2007, a bunch of family members made victim impact statements, including his only surviving daughter. So he had a daughter by one of his former wives. Oh. And she testified. Her name was Margaret Kern Brothers.

And she said that she was resigning from the Brothers family. She said after she walked out of that courtroom that day, she would be known as Margaret Kern. She went on to state, I'm leaving my name with him. I don't have a father now. He's just a man handcuffed to a chair, looking straight ahead. He will never see me again until it's time for him to die wow and vincent brothers was sentenced to death he currently sits on san quentin's death row um following his conviction, this is a little bit, the timeline here is a little bit unsure for me because a couple sources mention it different ways. Sometime after he was convicted, but before he was sentenced to death, he was like being taken out of court and back to holding. And they found that he'd manipulated his shackles in some way.

He had two shackles on one leg, no shackle on the other. And he had a handmade handcuff key hidden in his hair. Shut up. And so they upped his security level. He obviously has appealed his sentence, but I couldn't really find much about what's going on with that. It seems – I mean he's definitely still on death row in San Quentin. The Harper family filed a wrongful death suit against him to try and recoup, I think, like funeral costs. Yeah.

And there was some kind of settlement there. But really I think – I'm sure there wasn't much. There's not much money I'm sure. Yeah. God, that's awful. And that's the story of some bugs. It's funny.

They didn't have as much on him as I would like. They really didn't. I am very uncomfortable with the fact that he's on death row. Yeah. It is a very circumstantial case. Yeah. I mean, clearly this guy had, you know, he's the clear suspect here, but. Sure.

There's questions. There's, I think there's doubt here. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. That makes. I mean, I hate that he's on death row. So do I. That makes me extremely uncomfortable.

This is why we just should not have the death penalty. Yeah, because you can't unkill somebody. No, you cannot unkill somebody. Good Lord Almighty. Yeah, because you can't un-kill somebody. No, you cannot un-kill somebody. Good lord almighty. Yeah. Man, we had a theme today. We did. Also, I had a theme

with my last case. Rental cars. Oh. Here's what I've learned about rental cars is that those rental car companies should really be taking clearer records and they should be asking more questions no because then people would be less likely to rent cars

to commit murders and that's like 25% of the rental car business man look at this guy of the rental car business. Man, look at this guy. Six-week-old baby murdered. So, yeah.

So, I don't know. I also have questions about all, like, his ex-wife said that he would, like, go into these rages if she would question him about where he'd been and yeah on account for time she said it was like somebody that was like somebody completely different was inhabiting his body that makes me wonder like could this guy have been like a serial killer and he's off like killing people in these unexplained absences i I mean, honestly, that would be a big escalation to go from kind of standard domestic violence. I hate that.

Yeah, to then murdering five people. Including children? His own children. I don't know. Just for the record, no sources mention that as a theory. That's just my own personal theory. Well, Brandi, you are an expert. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going.

Are you doing some image searching? Well, of course, I had to see what he looked like. Now I want to know all about the connections to Elizabeth. Elizabeth City. When I read my first article, it mentioned Elizabeth. None of the articles mention, like only one of them mention Elizabeth City. All the rest of them just say North Carolina. Yeah.

Because who the fuck's ever heard of Elizabeth City? Yeah, no, that's fair. Oh my gosh. And I want to know what happened with the brother who just like peaced out and was like, yeah, no, I'm not testifying. Look at these little babies. I know. Look at this guy's smug ass in court.

I know. Here's the deal. I'm very confident saying that he's a dirtbag and that he's very smug. I'm not confident enough in his conviction to – Yeah. Yeah. It is a very circumstantial case. And aside from saying like he was trying to free himself of the burden of child support, like they were never able to offer any more of a motive than that.

Yeah, I mean that's not much, is it? It's not. It's not. OK. I'm sorry. I just was looking at pictures of his smug ass and I just came across this article that I had not come across before. I feel like this information needs to be shared. OK.

Part of the defense. I did not come across this until now that the that Vincent Brothers attorneys tried to argue was that Vincent Brothers was not the one who murdered his family. It was the friend who found the bodies and called the police. Come on. Are you kidding? the bodies and called the police. Come on. Are you kidding? They said that they believed that she and

Joni may have been having a secret lesbian relationship. Oh, give me a break. How did no other source mention this? I watched two fucking shows about this and nobody mentions this? That is ridiculous. Ridiculous!

Ridiculous! that is ridiculous ridiculous oh oh my gosh okay this is enough i know we're that's amazing holy shit well i mean clearly the secret lesbian did this whole thing. Secret lesbians. You know a Subaru can go pretty fast across the country. That was a stupid joke. Should we take some questions from our Discord? We absolutely should. And if you're curious, these are the people who support us on Patreon.

And you're like, oh my gosh, I wish I could be me. It can be you. For just $5 a month, you get all the monthly bonus episodes. And you get into the Discord to chitty chat the day away. And we get in here. We ask you for the hot questions. And several of you answer. several of you answered okay I'm going to read this aloud

because someone got me real good here oh no Dictator says did you know there's going to be football at the Eminem Dr. Dre Snoop and Mary J. Blige concert this weekend and I was like wow that's cool what you're talking about the Super Bowl halftime show yes I am familiar And I was like, wow, that's cool. What?

You're talking about the Super Bowl halftime show. Yes. Yes, I am familiar. Oh, my goodness. Remember that time everybody got really upset because Shakira and J-Lo were too sexy? People are so lame. People are. How am I supposed to explain sexiness?

My husband was in the room and he's never seen anything like that before. Oh, my. What do you got? Well, Potentkin says, how do you think y'all would do as roommates? I love my best friend with the force of a thousand suns but would never live with her under any circumstances. I just know we would end up murdering each other over the dishes. She takes them to her room and they cease to exist. Oh, also it's pronounced Potemkin.

Hmm, I wonder how I pronounced it. Probably not that way. I feel like we would be terrible roommates. Yeah, I don't think we'd be good roommates. Yeah, because you're so awful. I'm pretty terrible. No, I can't really think of why. No, I just don't think that's for us. I think you and I are both like, we like our alone time a little, like our time to decompress.

Am I right? Yeah. Absolutely. And you'd be just like wanting to hang out with me all the time. All the time. Constantly. This is a thing. Jenny asks, Brandy, have you seen The Circle season two starring Lance Bass's personal assistant Catfishing as Lance Bass?

What is this? Yeah, I've seen it. What is it? Do you not know The Circle? No, I don't know what that is. Okay, it's a reality show, and people are put in basically this apartment building type thing, and they can't really meet each other in person. Basically like this apartment building type thing and they can't really meet each other in person. They just correspond through online personas and like the goal is kind of to figure out who's real, who's not and like you're kicking people out of the circle.

There's always these eliminations. And so Lance Bass's personal assistant went on and catfished everyone and it's him. But no one really believed that it was him. Because, you know. As much as I love Lance Bass, I don't think that shows for me. What I was considering watching. I don't think it's definitely not for you. Let me tell you right now. What I was considering watching was the new Celebrity Big Brother.

Oh, my God, Brandi. Because Chris Kirkpatrick is on it. And I was like, oh, they're like actually friends. So maybe there'll be like some Lance Bass mention. And also Shana Moakler's on it. And she's Travis Barker's like very salty ex-wife. Brandi, tell me something I don't know. Brandy tell me something

I don't know and also prepare to be jealous because for the premiere of Celebrity Big Brother you know we had our

we normally record on Wednesdays obviously but last week we recorded on Tuesday because the storms are brewing so I went over to Kyla's house

to watch the Celebrity Big Brother premiere we enjoyed it thoroughly Carson Presley is obviously my favorite duh he's is it Presley or Preston Watch the Celebrity Big Brother premiere. Yeah. We enjoyed it thoroughly. Carson Presley is obviously my favorite. Is it Presley or Preston?

Presley. All right. Yeah. He's clearly the best. Yeah. Some of the people on there, I mean, they don't have a fucking clue what they're doing. It's Cressley. Carson Cressley.

Whoops. All right. Anyway, love him to death. Yeah. So I'm keeping up. And I tried to have a conversation with Norman about it, and he looked at me like I was trying to talk to him about Celebrity Big Brother. Okay. I felt judged.

Yeah. Anyway, I'm – I am embarrassed that I'm into it, but I'm into it. How's Shana looking on it? What do you mean looking? What's her vibe? I already know how she physically looks because I looked at pictures. She's got extensions. She claims for the first time in her life.

I think her Instagram tells a different story. She's doing well on there. She has teamed up with Chris Kirkropatrick Kropatrick I've never been able to say it Thank you They are each other's final two Oh shit They're both adjacent to

Musical loves of my life Yeah no I think it's no Accident That they kind of teamed up Because they're kind of around the same age. Yeah. Like a lot of these people, I mean, they're not real celebrities. So a lot of them get in there and they don't know who these people are. But like they know who each other is.

Yeah. Also, I will say this is annoying, but there's only been a couple episodes. Right. But literally anytime someone disagrees with something Chris is doing, they always say. Bye, bye, bye. No. Oh. They always say in the confessional, I guess we're not in sync today.

Oh, no. Yes. Oh, okay. It's terrible. I think bye, bye,bye is too deep a cut. Oh, okay. Because, you know, some people don't even know who this man is. I thought they were like, that guy's

going to go bye-bye-bye. Yeah, that's more of a no. Okay. That's too niche. Yeah. Sorry to say. Oh, no. We are old and uncool. Mm-hmm. Sassarara.

What? Sassarara. I assume, I think it's like a play on Sarah. It looks like, you know, the first letter is repeated and then the second letter is repeated. Anyway, Sassarara wants to know, are you playing Wordle? Hell yeah, I am. Fuck yes, I'm playing Wordle. Fucking love Wordle. Do you have a favorite

starter word? I have thoughts on starter words. I don't do a favorite starter word because the other day someone was like, I have a great starter word. I don't want to know what's a great start. What is it? Well, I, okay. It's audio. And initially I was like, okay, you know, that could be good. You get a lot of vowels in there, but here's the thing. Vowels I feel aren't super helpful.

Nope. I agree. No, I mix it. I don't start with the same word ever. Yeah. I mix it up. My favorite day was when the word was mount. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. My first guess was thong. And then I had enough letters to figure out that the answer was mount. I got it on the second guess. You did? I screenshot it and I sent it to David.

And I was like, do you like my guesses? You are a genius. Okay, I've never gotten it on the second guess. Sometimes, like I will get first. The other day, when the word was skill. Oh, if there's a double letter, it fucks me up. Me too. Even if the same letter is twice in the word in different locations, it fucks me up.

The other day, I had an aneurysm while I was doing it, and I thought a yellow letter meant it was in the right place. And I was like, this isn't even a fucking word. Like, there was no possible way it was a word. And then, like, my senses returned to me, and I was like, oh, you fucker. And then like my senses returned to me and I was like, oh, you fucker. OK, but have you done the thing where like you're staring at it so long that words don't look like words? Because, OK, this is so embarrassing. But when the word was skill, I had the S in the right place, the I in the right place and both of the L's in the right place. And you're like, there's no word.

I just went through every single letter that was available. And I was like, well, it's not Skyle. I did eventually figure out, but I felt really fucking stupid. Oh, America's Bathing Suit Area wants to know, as a really hip person who is on top of the latest trends, I recently discovered this incredible new platform called TikTok. It's super fun are you guys on the tiktok oh my god so i mean i'm not uploading shit but i'm watching everything on there watch all kinds of tiktoks and like one time i commented on one post that

was a listener's post and then like i don know, the algorithm made like every listener who is on TikTok find me. And so I've got all these followers. But I mean, there's not that I have like 12 followers, but. How dare you brag to me? And I've never posted anything. I'm only there for the watches. I'm not there for the posts. My algorithm is so like like it's all cooking videos

and this one really cool tattooed lady who's like it's Saturday. Let's get dressed. And then she like goes through her outfit and then she's like I don't know should I take the Chanel bag or the blah blah blah. And I always try to guess ahead. At first

I was always wrong. Now I'm always right because you know she and I are good friends and you you know, we're both very stylish. My jacket's from Costco. Are you familiar with this lady? No, I've never seen this. Well, what's your algorithm? Oh, gosh. I see a lot of mom stuff.

Oh, okay. All kinds of mom videos. What? Lots of just fun dances and stuff. I don't know. My algorithm is kind of all over the place. Mine is not. I had to stop watching TikTok because I was getting so many food videos that I I got on it late at night the other night and then I got so hungry I had to go downstairs and eat.

Have you – do you know Taco Bell Queen on – I am unfamiliar. On TikTok. OK. So it's this young woman and her brother who has autism. And a lot of times they do dances. But other times he's a big sports fan and they have him talk about sports teams. He's just so wholesome and I just love him and love how he explains things.

It's one of my favorite things on TikTok. What does this have to do with Taco Bell? I think they go to Taco Bell sometimes. I don't give a shit about this wholesome content. I want to know how it relates to my favorite restaurant. So he got a sweatshirt for his birthday, and it has the Washington Nationals W on it. And as soon as he opened it, I was like, what is that, a Walgreens sweatshirt? Because the Washington Nationals W looks exactly like the Walgreens W.

It seems like you should own a Walgreens switcher. I literally went and shopped for one after this and haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I plan to purchase one. I'm going to tell people it's a Walgreens switcher. Anyway, he opened it up and he just loves all sports. Yeah. He gets all kinds of different sports teams. And so he's like, his family tells him it's the Washington Nationals.

He goes, oh, I thought it was Walgreens. And I was like, same! Do you ever miss working at Walgreens? No, but I love Walgreens. No, I don't miss working at Walgreens. I do have a dream a lot that I am forced to go back to work at Walgreens. And they just like throw me back in the photo lab and they're like, okay, you know what to do.

And I'm like, lucky for you, the photo lab doesn't exist. And I'm like, oh no, I have no idea what to do. That would be your nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. That was like my other dream that I told you about, remember? That was like my other dream that I told you about, remember? Where I was like with David and his friends and I was in charge of ordering everybody's dinner to get delivered through Grubhub.

And you fucked it all up. Everybody was giving me their orders and literally everything someone wanted was out of stock or they couldn't do it. And so I just had to keep telling people over and over again, sorry, you can't have that. Sorry, you can't have that. So I woke up from that dream and I told David, I was like, what a boring ass dream. Like I told him about the dream and he's like, no, that's your nightmare.

Yeah, that is your nightmare. You can't give people what they want. Like you can't deliver to them. And I was like, you're absolutely right. It's my nightmare. Reveals a lot about you. It's just. is my nightmare. Reveals a lot about you. She does. Okay. Hang on.

Dr. Cadizal says, Kristen, I've been meaning to bring this up ever since you mentioned your dogs enjoyed them. Do you know where bully slash pizzle sticks come from? No, I don't. I just buy bully sticks for my... What the hell are they? Oh, my God. You probably don't want to know. Well, now to know hey well now have you heard of what's in a hot dog like no don't look that up bully sticks made of here we go oh no way bully sticks are made from bull penises

well no they're expensive shut up you're giving your dogs bull penises i Well, no wonder they're expensive. Shut up. You're giving your dogs bull penises? I mean, that's very on brand. Oh my lord. Is that real life? Okay. This honestly makes so much sense because those

bull penises are expensive. And I've always been like, what are these made of? Made out of bowl penises. It's so on break that you would give your dogs bowl penises. Give the ladies the D. That's what I always say. Okay. You know I love the food questions and the disco. Here's a food question for us.

All panic, no disco. Wants to know, do you butter your rice? No. Okay. So immediately when I saw that, I was like, no, who the fuck butters their rice? But then I remembered when I was a kid, my mom used to make me breakfast rice. It had butter and sugar on it. It was delicious.

Oh, you know what? My mom would do sugar, a little milk, and it would be kind of – yeah, it was good. Yeah. You know what a lot of people do? They do kind of the savory oatmeal and stuff in the mornings. What's a savory oatmeal? Well, you know what a sweet oatmeal is, right? Yeah, but what are you putting in it?

You don't have to be so lucky. I mean, I don't know, like maybe meats, cheeses, vegetables. Oatmeal? Yeah, sure. Why not? Uh-oh. Everyone, I don't know, like maybe meats, cheeses, vegetables. Yeah, sure. Why not? Uh-oh. Everyone, I've broken brandy. I love oatmeal.

Uh-huh. But oatmeal is sweet. I will die on this hill. Booze Bowl wants to know, for 2022 no fuck bitches get money and now okay now for real i am working on letting myself just exist and part of that is for like the first time in my life not having a million goals yes i love that there was a time when i literally would wake up every day and write my goals yeah for life not just like a to-do list I'm talking about yeah

that's too much it was too much existing is great well not always but you know yeah okay should we read some names and favorite cookies

Brandy how do they become a part of this to get inducted on this podcast, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $7 level or higher. And then people have been asking this a lot lately. If you are a member of the Supreme Court, all you have to do, there's a pinned post on our Patreon page. It has the question, what's your favorite cookie? And then you there's a little box there. You just

write your name, whatever you want us to call you, and your favorite cookie and we'll get you in line to be inducted. The person fell asleep while I was explaining that. No, you know what I was honestly thinking? I was thinking about every now and then we have people who are like I thought you guys skipped me. But, like, they didn't put their name in.

And I'm always so perplexed. I'm like, were we supposed to guess? We're pretty good. We're not that good. All right. Ashley Hines. Wait, we're on that good. All right. Ashley Hines. Wait, we're on episode 202, right? Yeah.

What the hell are you reading? What are you reading? Oh, shit. There's two episodes. Oh, shit. Who puts these together? Some dumb hoe? I think so.

Okay. So are we on the first 202? I think so. I would like you to be less sassy when you ask me that question. Anna Leapy. Lemon cake cookies. Reagan. Plain old chocolate chip. Krista.

No-bake chocolate oatmeal before they cool. Oh my god, it's so good before they cool. Really? Yeah. It's like a delicious bowl of oatmeal. But wait, it's sweet. It's a no-bake, so they're not going to be hot. You cook them on the stove. You never made a no-bake before?

No, I don't think I have. Okay, it's milk, sugar, cocoa, butter. You mix that all up on the stove. You let it boil for 60 seconds. Then you immediately put in peanut butter, put in vanilla, mix that in real fast, and then you put your oats in. Sounds stressful. Yeah, because you've got to dollop them out before they set up.

So then you mix that in real fast, and then you dollop them out on the wax paper real fast. But then this deliciousness is left in the bowl that's still hot. Uh-huh. You eat the heck out of it. So good. How do you eat it? Do you just put it in your mouth?

Didn't know if there was a special way. You know, I think I've had these before. Jordan. Ginger crinkles. Bow. Decorated cutout cookies. Kate. Peppermint JoJo's.

Mallory. Oatmeal milk chocolate chip cookies. Melanie. Oh, sorry. I wasmeal milk chocolate chip cookies. Melanie. Oh, sorry. I was going to read Melanie Ginger. Just Melanie, no Melanie Ginger. Ginger's her middle name. Last name's molasses.

Ginger molasses. Kelsey. Chocolate chip cookie sandwich with frosting in the middle. Oh, good, because I thought you were putting bologna in the middle. That's gross. Max Duffy. Morgan Lowe. Kelsey. I don't really like cookies.

She says don't hate. You know us. Hate ya. No, I really don't. She says don't hate. Don't hate. You know us. Hate ya. No, I really don't. Court Collins. Chocolate chip. Taylor. Chocolate chip. Karen. Snickerdoodle. Amanda. Warm

chocolate chip. Jennifer Jackson. Oatmeal cream pie. Margaret Fender. Sweet Lauren's sugar cookies with rainbow sprinkles. Samantha. Cow. Samantha. Cowboy cookies. Lena Bean. Chocolate covered potato chips.

That's not a cookie, Lena. Lena, no. Stop it. Welcome to the Supreme Court. Oh my gosh, we've done another meeting! For fuck's sake, what are we doing? These episodes are too long. Oops, I did it again.

I talk too damn loud. Not too loud, too long. Too long, yeah. See, that's the problem is I'm not learning my lesson. Thank you for all of your support, as always. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit. I'm sorry.

Patreon. I shouldn't fan myself. It makes a noise. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five-star rating and review and then be sure to join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned! And now for a note

about our process. I read a bunch of stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web

and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the documentary The Phantom as well as the book The Wrong Carlos, Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution by James S. Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project. That would have given the whole damn thing away. Sorry, James.

Also, articles from The Guardian and The Atlantic. I got my info from an episode of Family Massacre, an episode of Dateline, The Bakersfield Californian, Murderpedia, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours. But please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.