Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Cup Of Justice Bonus 4: A Surprise Recording and The Sacrificial Loser

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Before the wedding this weekend, Mandy Matney, Liz Farrell and Eric Bland took a moment to discuss the big surprise that Russell Laffitte dropped on Palmetto State Bank last week — that he has recordings proving the bank’s board was aware of what he was doing. Does this mean Russell secretly suspected he was being set up as the fall guy? How many more recordings does he have? Could Russell Laffitte bring down his family’s bank in an effort to avoid prison time? In other BIG NEWS! since publishing this episode, Cup of Justice launched on its own feed and hit #1 on Apple on the first day!!! Please consider giving our newly launched Cup of Justice a 5 star review on Apple & Spotify to help us in our mission to expose the truth wherever it leads!! COJ on Apple: https://apple.co/3HHT9av COJ on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3WMKkAI We all want to drink from the same Cup Of Justice — and it starts with learning about our legal system. What questions do y’all have for us? Email [e-mail] and we'll do our best to answer your questions in these bonus episodes. Consider joining our MMP Premium Membership community to help us SHINE THE SUNLIGHT! CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3BdUtOE What questions do y’all have for us? Email [e-mail] and we'll do our best to answer your questions in these bonus episodes. SUNscribe to our free email list to get alerts on bonus episodes, calls to action, new shows and updates. AND by sharing your email, we'll send details on exclusive content only available from our SUNScription email list - CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3KBMJcP And a special thank you to our sponsors: Microdose.com, VOURI, and others. Use promo code "MANDY" for a special offer! Find us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ https://www.instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ Twitter.com/mandymatney YouTube Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 *The views expressed on the Cup of Justice bonus episodes do not constitute legal advice. Listeners desiring legal advice for any particular legal matter are urged to consult an attorney of their choosing who can provide legal advice based upon a full understanding of the facts and circumstances of their claim. The views expressed on the Cup of Justice episodes also do not express the views or opinions of Bland Richter, LLP, or its attorneys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy Wednesday MMP fans, and yes, it is wedding week for us, finally. We are so excited and thankful for all of the kind words we've been getting from fans. Because y'all have been on this journey with us for the past 15 months, and several of you asked, we will be sending out a link to all sunscribers if you want to watch the ceremony. And seriously, if you want to give us a wedding gift, please subscribe to our newsletter by going to Murdoch Murder's podcast. com. Because we're taking it easy for the next couple weeks, Liz, Eric, and I got together to chat about the latest updates in this never-ending story that we've committed ourselves to covering. So here it goes. Russell Lafitte's criminal trial. The first criminal trial in all of the

Murdoch cases is just weeks away. And as we get closer to the November 7th date, things are getting really heated and surprisingly cutthroat, even for this case. So this week, Liz Eric and I talked about what went down last week in federal court when Palmetto State Bank made the very unusual move of intervening in the case in an effort to prevent Russell from using a secret recording that he says will prove that the board knew what he was doing. This is a big deal. Up until now, Palmetto State Bank has maintained that Russell acted alone. particularly when he used the bank's money to pay PMPED back for half of the $1.3 million that Ehrlich allegedly stole from Arthur Badger. So just when you think these cases couldn't get any more dramatic, here we are.

So if you're Russell, let's just put ourselves in his brain space for a second here. A bank is an institution that takes money from other people and then lends it to... Other people. No, they don't take money. They take custody and deposits. And they're supposed to preserve it and watch it. Okay, but then they loan it out to other people. At reasonable rates. Okay. So if you're Russell, if you're thinking, well, how is this different? We're taking in money from Hannah Plyler and I'm just loaning it out. That's what backers do. We loan out money that we take in. Oh, really? Well, it doesn't go through underwriting. It didn't go through a loan committee. Somebody has to determine whether the person who's borrowing the money is a credit risk, whether there should be

adequate collateral. I don't care that he's some high-fluton lawyer and he's well-respected and his end-of-the-year income shows he's a million dollars. There isn't a loan committee that would have approved the loan to Alex Murdoch under those terms. Why don't you talk just a little bit about the bank? Because we were talking about that at one point. So the executive committee at Palmetto State Bank, I think it consists of five people. And so that is Charlie Lafitte, who is Russell Lafitte's father. Gray Lafitte, who is his sister. I think her last name's Henderson now.

Russell, obviously, I think there's a civilian. He does not get a vote. And then I think there's Lars Lafitte, Jan Monakowski and Rebecca Lefitte, who is a wonderful, principled, highly respected attorney from Columbia, South Carolina. She is gold. So according to our sources, I think we can say that U.S. sources too, Eric. But according to our sources, the bank board is rather split. And I think it was before the murders. It sounded like it anyway, that there was sort of Charlie Gray and Russell,

their side, and then maybe Becky. The reason you have a bank board is because a corporation is a separate individual under the law, and you have to operate that board and that company in accordance with corporate formalities. You have to have meetings, full disclosure, and voting. You have to be free from conflict of interest. And so if you have a board and Russ and Charlie and his sister control, they still have to go through the motions to have a meeting and go through a vote, then if you ever go to court, the court will say,

under the business judgment rule, I will defer to the board. The courts don't want to become part of a board room. A judge doesn't want to have to go sit at the board table. As long as there's been full disclosure to a board, as long as there's been a vote and people voted in good faith, you can have a voting block. So Russ and Charlie and his sister always could outvote the other people. And this is kind of Russell, one of Russell's defenses, right?

No. We have a voting block and that's why we didn't go to the board. Wrong. That's what he says, though. You're right. Yeah. But that's wrong. No, I know it's wrong.

But that's his defense. That's not a defense. So what does a defense mean? Does it mean that you, it's... He lost the defense of having a fully functioning board. One of his excuses then, what I'm saying. Right. So one of his excuses is that my sister and father and I represent a majority on the executive committee.

So why do we have to go to the board? So why do we have to meet? Why would I have to tell them anything? we're going to win that vote no matter what. And your response to that is what? Now you're no longer a self-existing corporation. You're operating as your own individuality and you lose the benefit of a corporate shield

and a bank's veil get pierced. What you always want is separation from an owner and the company. And you do that by following corporate formalities. Well, Russell just busted the wall and said, we don't even need to meet. Right. So he's not running these little. loans by the executive committee. He has said that, you know, he didn't, nobody at the bank knew that he

was taking out these loans or giving them to Elek. And he then says later that, you know, he had the commission of a judge. What do you think Jamantakowski would have said if they, if he brought this loan before the board? I'm going to borrow $250,000 from Hannah Plyler and I'm going to charge myself an interest rate at 2.5%. Jam Montecas is going to say, hey, that's really not fair because I got a mortgage that we have from this bank and I'm paying 6.5%. Right. So where the hell do you get off charging yourself to an 1%? Right, right.

It's not going to pass. Do you think that's why he didn't say anything? Of course, of course. And we'll be right back. So obviously the September 6th hearing gave us a little bit of insight into Russ's position, which was that the board was there. And that report. Russ walked both sides of the street at that hearing, Liz.

what he said was the board was always aware. However, all I needed was Big Charlie's vote and my sister and couple that with my vote, then I could do anything I want at the bank, which is a really that is not true, not at all true. You can't just have like a kitchen meeting with your, like a Sunday dinner meeting with your dad and your sister. No, you have to have an independent board, a fully functioning independent board, you have to have notices of meeting. You have to have minutes typed up minutes written up. And then when you vote, you have to have what's known as resolutions. And they become in writing. And there's a notebook that you can go to where you would get all that. Like the feds, when they come in to do spot checks on your bank, they say, give me all your resolutions,

give me all your minutes. And you should be able to go to a drawer and just pull them out. Who has a right to what goes on in those meetings? Like, I can't just walk in as a customer of Palmetto State Bank and say, show me your resolutions. No, you do not. You do not have that right. Now, we would have that right if you were a customer and they did something and cost you money and you sued. Then through discovery, we would get all of that information. Now, speaking of discovery, so according to, so this came out last week through Fitz News, which Mandy and I used to work for. And what was said was that there was going to be an emergency hearing in the federal court.

and it involved, and I can't remember exactly what the report said, but that hearing involved Palmetto State Bank, which this is a criminal case. Russell's, you know, charged with six counts federally and why would Palmetto State Bank be intervening? And as we found out in the posting Carrier, the day after the hearing, so the hearing was held. Thursday. That was Thursday.

Okay. So the hearing was held late on Thursday, and it wasn't posted publicly. it was, I guess, you know, what Judge Gergel, who, Judge Richard Gergel, who's the federal judge, that's going to be overseen the case. Great judge. He really is. No, no, no, no. I practiced against him early in my career before he became a judge. So he is as serious as it gets. Well, that's good. So he was not going to have this hearing listed publicly, I guess, which again is problematic because the federal court doesn't allow recording. And so even though it's a public sphere, it's sort of, already, you know, sort of shrouded. But he wasn't going to hold public hearing because he said that there was some attorney-client privilege that might be violated there. Yeah, this, this, this takes more twists and turns than a Game of Thrones episode. How does the bank all of a sudden interject themselves

in a criminal case involving Russ Lafitte? The reason, the reason is because somebody claimed that there was a discovery violation. Remember in a criminal case, the discovery is more voluntary and it's proactive. So if the government has to turn over incriminating information under the Jenks Act and exculpatory, which means exonerating information to Russ automatically under the Brady Act, and so they turned over information. Russ as lawyers must have, found out through obviously Russ that there were recordings of these board meetings. So the issue here is that Russ is maintaining that he had the board's permission to do a couple of the things that he's now facing charges for. One of those would be he is accused of walking over a

$680,000 check to PMPD to pay the bank's half of the 1.3.6.5.5. $6 million that were stolen from Arthur Badger. From Don Badger's death. Yeah. So, okay, so that's a problem, right? Like, so basically it's not his money to spend. You don't just write a check out to PMPED. But it's not clear if that's what the issue is because the poster card kind of hints

at that because they talk about P&PED's involvement. And that would be the one where there was. So the other bank and wire fraud and misapplication of bank fund charges involve, you know, the loans, but the one that involves PMPED quite explicitly would be the $680,000. Yeah, because everybody, PMPEDD realized that, oh, my goodness, this money that is set aside for the Badgers is gone. How are we going to replenish this? And somebody must have gone to the bank and said, we're not going to spend 100% of our money replenishing that account. You guys have culpability. Rush, you have culpability for letting Alex do what he did. And so

Russ, who probably doesn't have $680,000 liquid in his right-hit pocket, went to his dad and said, look, I negotiated that we're going to have to put up 50% of this. So the issue then becomes, well, is the bank aware of this? And Russ claims that he did. Now, this is just a small charge of the many charges against Russ. just because the bag may have been aware, according to Russ, that they were going to give $680,000 to the law firm to make this account whole. That's not going to get him off.

No, but I think we're talking about two issues, right? We're talking about Russ's criminal case. And then there's also now the civil case. Oh, sure. The bank intervening. The Blyler girls in their civil case. Helps Mark Tinsley immensely in his badger. case. Explain that. Well, Markinsley has a case that he's suing over this money and the law firm,

the badger money, the law firm has indicated they don't want to pay him and the bank responded in their answer to Mark's lawsuit that they don't have any responsibility because they were unaware that this took place. If you want to get your money, look at... Russ is a lone gunman and that's right. Yeah, he's a lone wolf. He went rogue. That's the term that corporate boards used that he went rogue. Now, Russ, Russ is smarter than I thought because he brought a little handheld tape recorder

into these. Oh, is that what happened? I heard on the street that this was not a sanctioned recording because boards don't like to record. That's why people take minutes. Listen to me, listen to me. The reason that people have secretaries of a board are because you don't want to have too much information.

TMI is no good because that shows that you knew more than you really should have. You just want to have a secretary that uses kind of buzzwords like talked about Alex Murdoch. That's a general term. You don't want to say, well, we talked about Alex Murdoch because he was a deadbeat. Why would Russell have done that? Because Russell smelled a rat. Russell smelled that he was being pushed out in front of a bus that was going about 100 miles an hour by the bank. He said, they're going to sacrifice me to save the bank.

Even Big Charlie is sacrificing me to save the bank. So Russell... Mandy and I were talking about this earlier, and he's not really a sack. Maybe you tell you should say what it is. I said he's not a sacrificial lamb. He's a sacrificial loser. He may be a sack. He may be a sack. It's a sack of what? I don't know. I can call him. I can fill up that sack with a lot of...

And lambs are innocent and Russ isn't innocent in this. Is he the scapegoat? No, he is not the scapegoat. Nobody is putting all the sins on Russ. Remember, you got the ODC that is looking hard at PMPED and all the lawyers involved. And they're not telling us what they're doing. We also have the FD and the B.DIC and the banking. We don't know what the backing department in Washington, D.C. is looking into this back. There's so many different things that are taking place. It does appear, at least for the last month, that Russ is the guy in the spotlight. You haven't heard from Dick. You haven't heard anything on Alex. Nothing in that way. It's all on Russ. So, okay, he brings, I did not know that he brought a

recorder. How good your source on that? Real good. When was that meeting? So I guess it would have been maybe around then or like last fall anyway. So after all the stuff starts coming out. Yeah, it's kind of like when it's kind of like when Russ decided he would pay his taxes. Like yeah, of course I paid my taxes. Suddenly. I amended my tax return suddenly in 2020. Listen, it hit the fan for the bank, the law firm, bankers, everybody in that area of the state after September 3rd of 2021.

And everybody said, hey man, I better get my house in order. But I think everybody got the message, oh my goodness, we better start looking at our files. Once Alex went down after Labor Day and then Mandy and I got on the horn and really started talking about the financial crimes, that's when people like the law firm said, we better look into every single escrow account. That's when people like Chris Wilson said, hey, wait, I had some cases with Alex. I better be checking on that. And that's when Russ said, hey, you know what? I better amend my tax returns because you know what, I don't think I reported all that income that I got.

Okay. So going back, because I wasn't sure when you said discovery violation, if you were talking about, like, if Russell was in possession of a recording that sort of shows that the board was aware of something, I was going to ask, like, how did the prosecution not have that, like, to give. Well, he doesn't have an obligation to turn over information. That's not Russ's job. Okay. So it's not something that Emily Limehouse could have gotten through subpoena or... Well, she could have gotten it through subpoena to the bank. If the bank had it, if this was a legitimate recording, if this, you know, if for some stupid reason they had a lawyer that would tell them the record board meetings, which no lawyer would do. But if they did, and there was a drawer full of recordings, those would have to be turned over either in a grand jury subpoena.

or a subpoena, door, and a pending case. So is Russell going to be, I mean, is that another thing he's going to be in trouble for? I know in South Carolina, it's a one-party state, but, you know, you guys as lawyers aren't allowed to secretly record people, right? You're not allowed to one-party consent. No, no, lawyers aren't going to do it. So the question is, did he have a lawyer to tie them that? They told him to do that. That would be a bad thing.

A lawyer can't use deputize somebody else to go record something that a lawyer. that a lawyer couldn't do themselves. The problem is, do they have the whole tape? Does it give context to the situation? For instance, he may have discussed that we're paying $680,000 of our money to PMPED, but did he give all the background information so that they really understood it? Or did he kind of shade the reason why? So the question for Richard Gergel is, well, the bank's going to say,

we had lawyers in that meeting and we talked and so we have an attorney-client privilege with that board. However, the attorney-client privilege is not inviolate. It can be pierced and it's pierced through fraud. So if a fraud was committed, then the attorney-client privilege can be invaded, but it would take a court order. The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client. The privilege belongs to the client. So the client is whom? The back. And they have to agree to waive that privilege and they are asserting their privilege with all arms around that tape saying that's our privilege can't be disclosed. Now, why would they want to do that maybe? Because they're scared. They're scared. They're not so much concerned. They're scared of board members actually now being complicit.

and is Emily Limehouse going to bring them before a grand jury? And are they going to be potential targets just like Russ? Does this make Big Charlie now a real target? More importantly, I am going to name individual board members. Mark Tinsley's going to name individual board members in his badger suit if we get that tape. Now I'm going to be Russ's lawyer. I'll sit where Barton Matter sitting. And I'm going to say, hey, look, you're bringing criminal charges against this guy.

you're saying he was rogue. His defense is, I was authorized to do what I did. Remember, officers act on behalf of a board. They can't act unless they're in power. The other charges could be affected too? Like, I mean, could we be seeing more than one charge being affected by whatever's on this recording? You raise a really interesting thing because somebody doesn't wake up one morning and say, I'm going to become a taper.

They're usually a serial taper. Listen, I've had taper cases in front of juries and they're icky. They look at them like, oh yeah, they look at them like the person, really, you tape every conversation? Russ may be a serial taper. We don't know that. So maybe he does have tapes where he discussed. That's one letter away from being very dangerous, a serial taper. Yeah.

Right. Listen. Yeah, I know. It could be serial. I got it. But the point is, I don't think he just. said, geez, I'm going to tape on this. I think if he's a taper, he taped a lot of different things. He's no, you know what? He's no dummy. I think he was dumb for testifying. I think he was dumb for

testifying. He had a bond hearing on the merits of his criminal charges, and no one really understands that. But people understand self-preservation. Even the dumbest of people understand self-preservation. And you start to feel like you're out on a branch. You start to protect C-YA. cover yourself. So do I think he's got a tape to exonerate him from every charge against them? No. And remember, there's no backstop here because he's got state criminal charges against him. Russell is not going to get off. It's just not going to happen. He just... So do you think we're still going to see a trial? Let me tell you how sausage is made. Before a case goes to trial, a judge just doesn't walk in and say,

hear ye, hear ye, the case is called. He meets with the attorneys and says, if it's a civil case, can this thing settle? You know, are you willing to pay money or are you willing to take less money? If it's a criminal case, he says, have you all talked a plea? He may bring these parties in and say, you know, I've read the briefs on this taping subject and, you know, I'm inclined to give a ruling that I think both of you are going to be dissatisfied with. and it's my strong recommendation that decisions be made about having discussions to resolve this through plea. Now, let me explain how it works. If a prosecutor offers a plea to a defendant and there's 20 charges and the prosecutor says, I'll let you plead guilty to three charges, the sentencing by the judge is usually a little lighter than what the

book would say and what the statutes would say because you get credit for cooperating as a cooperating witness to say I'm pleading guilty and you offer some information that may be helpful and it's called a downward departure so a sentence that ordinarily would be 15 years starts to go down to 10 years starts to go down to five years because he's risking a lot of years here by going to trial right right now if a defendant turns down that plea and he says, I'm going to go roll the dice, and he goes to trial and he's found guilty. The judge then looks at the sentencing a completely different way, and that you don't, he won't exercise his discretion in favor of the defendant.

It starts to be a real strong sentence. So a sentence for a crime that he pleads guilty to that he may get a judge-imposed sentence of three years on a plea, if he's found guilty by a jury, could get him 10. And we'll be right back. the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance. Searchlight Pictures presents

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Again, I don't think we're anywhere near the end of this. I do not believe that Alex, Russ, and Corey, the Holy Trinity, are going to be the only, they're not celery, they're not bell peppers, and they're not onion. They're not going to be the three, the only three that goes down, and everybody skates clear in the darkness. I think at the end of the day, at the end of the day, there's going to be lawyers, judges, everybody's going to have to be accountable. I believe it. I believe it. But, I mean, that brings us to the PMPAD question, which Mandy and I talk about a lot.

Well, first of all, it's just taking a while. I mean, the fact that Russell is still, he's the only federal defendant in this entire. Yeah, but we already talked about why Alex isn't a federal defendant. Alex isn't a federal defendant because Dick would plead him guilty and send him to go do his time up at the Goldsboro federal prison. One thing we should be clear about. I don't think anybody here is a key. accusing anybody of PMPED of crimes.

We do not for sure know that they, but all we want is clarity to ensure that they are investigating them thoroughly and to get answers as to. Because there's no sign. We don't know. We just don't know. Of course you want them investigated. Russ on September 6th said it wasn't only Alex who was getting these favorable

loans. There were other lawyers in the firm who got. these favorable loans that they didn't have to repay monthly like you, me and Mandy would do, Liz. They got to pay after they got their annual bonuses at their firm. So it benefits P&P and the bank to have Russell sort of absorb a lot of this right now, right? I think that's something that's going to be super interesting about this, though, because it's not a typical Russell is not a typical employee at a bank that's like, oh, screw my company. they can all, it's his family.

And then, yeah, he's turned into a whistleblower. He's the Aaron Brockovich of Palmetta State Bank. He's a whistleblower. He's a whistleblower. But like, but it's going to be, it's, yeah, and it's going to be interesting too when it comes down to,

if he points the finger at PMPED also. Right. We can't pretend, like all these people are intermingled and they're very tight-knit. in Hampton. And so this is not, this isn't a scenario where Russell could just be like, screw the corporation that I work for and all these other. Right.

I mean, if he does, then it's, he has a lot of stake in the matter. He has family stake and personal between P&PED. And the bank and the law firm seems like it goes back a very long time of this relationship. So it's like mutual self-destruction or mutual. benefit to... I do want to say one thing. He's not Frank Pantangelo from the Godfather. Russell is supposed to take this like a man and go down and not rat out a family member. Take it for the organization so that the organization stands. When a mafioso gets pinched, they do not squeal on their capo regimee. They don't squeal on the organization. They say it was

all on me. Russell doesn't seem to be wearing the mafia hat. he's willing to take down the citadel of Palmetta State back. So Mandy, I want to talk a little bit about that September scramble where last year it seems like all these key players, like Eric had said earlier, suddenly are paying their taxes and, you know, cleaning up their houses. And you were saying something about the murder. So maybe June 7th should have been like the starting point for them

or like why did they wait until the fall? Yeah, I mean, I know through sources that Alex's law partners did not believe he was innocent when the murders happened. Let's just put it like that. Of the murderers. Several of them were very extremely skeptical immediately. Yeah, and I have the same experience. Yeah. They knew, but they didn't want to know.

Yeah, and if you look back on P&PED statements, like after the murders, they weren't. like calling for justice, they weren't saying, this is so horrible for Alex, they were just kind of... Holding their powder dry. Yeah. And you would think at that time, a light bulb would go off in a lot of these guys' heads of being like, there's going to be a big investigation into everything in Alex Murdoch's life. Yeah.

Which means there's going to be a big investigation in our lives. Yeah. The Murdoch law firm, literally. So that's what they're known as. You can't separate Alex from. You can't separate Alex from it. And so I'm just surprised that the scramble didn't happen earlier. So, Mandy, how do you think Judge Gergel should rule on the motion to, I guess it's not

really necessarily a motion, but the admission of this recording, not knowing exactly what it says, it could result in a charge getting dropped or it definitely changes the game. game. So how do you think he should rule? I think he should allow the recording. I think I mean, I think the thing that we're learning with all of this case is we need all of the pieces and the most amount of sunlight and transparency. You want to ask me? Yeah. Eric, what would you do? What would you do? Are you asking Eric, bland, or are you asking Eric the lawyer? Let's start with Eric, the lawyer, and then we'll ask Eric planned. Conditionally, yes.

And I only say conditionally yes is if that is the entire tape. If he only recorded what he wanted to record or he did what Nixon did and erased 19 minutes of the tape, and we don't know what's on that 19 minutes, then I'm not going to let it in because you need context for it. So assuming this is a start to finish tape, absolutely. But if it's just portions or, you know, I'm sure the government's going to get it and say, hey, this has been re-recorded or it's been splice, then it's a different story. So that's Eric, the lawyer. Eric Bland, let it in.

You know, where things stand right now, Judge Gergel has asked for a transcript to be put together so they can determine which parts of the recording are attorney-client privilege. And I think that that's, we haven't heard, but I think we're going to hear this week about that. So it's possible before we publish this on Wednesday that we've heard the answer. But I can't wait to hear it, honestly. And it seems like we're in for another couple weeks of high drama until that November 7th date. Trial going forward, yes or no? I think it is.

I think it's full steam ahead, it seems like. So you guys need to know that attorney-client privilege is, an issue that can be appealed for an interlocutory appeal, which means immediate appeal to the court of appeals. And the reason is because it's such a sacrosic privilege that once you let the cat it out of the bag, you can't put it back in. It's toothpaste out of the tube. Once it's squeezed out, you can't stuff it back in. So am I, I think there's now a less than 50% chance to the trial go forward. Well, that's encouraging. I mean, I think it would be nice for everybody. But I also think that to Mandy's point, a trial, a lot would be coming out in that trial. So there is a benefit

for a two-week trial. Oh, not only will a lot come out, but let's say there's a conviction. That will be a real bellwether event for Corey Fleming, for Alex, for some other. You know, we don't know who've received target letters, by the way. So there's tons of people out there that may have received target letters that we have no idea of receive those yet. They haven't been leaked. So that would be a bellwether event for them to say, I need to cooperate. I need to be the first in. Remember, at that point, it's whosoever first in gets the best deal.

The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my fiancé, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell. Produced by Luna Shark Productions.