SERIALously - 161: Chad Daybell GUILTY on All Counts + Is Karen Read Really Guilty?

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

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in the Karen Reed trial. We're also talking about what's going on in Chad Daybell. As a reminder, I'm coming to you live from CrimeCon. So my mic might sound a little bit different than it usually does. I'm recording in the hotel room, but you know I had to get these recaps too because holy shit, guys.

The Karen Reed one blew my mind. I mean, the testimony is wild and I've been saying this all along. I don't know if she's guilty or not guilty. Truly I'm on the fence, but I've been saying since day one, there certainly is enough reasonable doubt in my opinion. But now after the new testimony and evidence that has come out,

it makes me feel like even more, not that this was necessarily a conspiracy, but like there is just so much shady shit going down and I apologize for cussing but honestly truly Also kind of like dovetailing into the chat at Daybell recap Which we're gonna go through Lindsay's giving us the whole breakdown of what's been going down this week We now know the jury is deliberating. There's been a couple questions. John Pryor has done the closing statements. I'm kind of beyond floored with how well Pryor has done. I mean, the defense is defensing and I hate to say that because I think Chad is so guilty. I still think he will definitely be found guilty.

But we have so much to talk about because it really has been a roller coaster of a week. So let's start with Karen Reed. So last Friday was day 17 of the Karen Reed trial and only one person took the stand and that was Brian Higgins. Now Brian is a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and he's also a friend of the Albert family. Now the night that this whole thing occurred back in January of 2022, Brian was at the Waterfall Bar with everybody who was drinking and he also went to that after party at the Albert

Home on 34 Fairview Road. Well, Brian's testimony started off by talking about this flirty, and I'm saying that in quotes if you could see me I'm doing my air quotes, he started talking about this flirty relationship that he had with Karen Reed, which goes back to 2022. He said that Karen was the one who started flirting with him during this relationship. And she had texted him that she thought that he was hot. He returned the sentiment. And honestly, the whole thing was kind of cringe.

And I remember watching this in the office guys as it was going down and all of the screenshots of the text messages were shown in court on the screen. I mean broadcast everywhere and I remember being like I don't know what I would do if all of my text messages were made public like this and especially ones like this I think I would die of secondhand embarrassment and I would just plead guilty right then and there but he was airing all the dirty laundry. But as we keep talking, there's kind of something shady with that and we'll get to that. But anyway, so he starts

talking about this flirty relationship, how she said he was hot, he returned the sentiment. And then from there, Karen started telling Brian about all the issues that she and John were having, everything that they were experiencing in their relationship. She told Brian that she wasn't happy with John. She said that the relationship wasn't what she thought that it was going to be. He felt a little suffocated by him. And she had said that she wasn't somebody who ever wanted to get married, who didn't want to settle down or have kids. But now with John, she found herself raising kids that weren't even her own. And kids that she said, quote, were spoiled. Now, she specifically said that their relationship had kind of been deteriorating ever since their trip to Aruba,

and she texted Brian that John had been all over another woman throughout their trip. And if you remember, Karen and John had gone on that trip with friends to Aruba, and on that trip, Karen accused John of making out with one of the women who was also on the trip, Marietta. John of making out with one of the women who was also on the trip Marietta. Marietta previously did testify, which we spoke about, that Karen made this huge scene during the trip that she was accusing John and Marietta of like hooking up, of having the secret thing, even though according to her nothing ever happened, and she said it kind of just had put a really bad taste in her mouth. So we already had this trip referenced at one point. But in one of these messages, Karen even texted

Brian, I'm with him all the time. He never seems to want to go anywhere without me. But honestly, the issues with the kids, those bother me more than him actually cheating. They are constant. And it feels like a lose lose, which I just need to say, not saying she's right, wrong, whatever it is, but when you enter a relationship with somebody who has children from a previous relationship, that is what you're signing on for. If you're trying to expect that they're going to ditch their kids for you, you are not the right person. And that is a PSA for anybody out there. And if you're in a relationship

where somebody's trying to make you feel like you need to ditch your kids or put them before your kids, they are not the right person for you. If it's somebody who truly loves you, they will love all of you. But to Karen, she was complaining, and about the kids specifically, and this kind of put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth. And a lot of people have even suggested that they don't think that Karen would take the stand because she kind of already has the public against her. People aren't on her side. They feel like she's this jealous, selfish woman. But anyways, let me continue with what went down with Brian. So Brian testified that one day John had invited him over to watch a Patriots football game. When he left, apparently Karen walked him out to his car and he and she kissed him.

game. When he left, apparently Karen walked him out to his car and he and she kissed him. Now ring camera footage shows John confronting Karen about this kiss and asking her if they were hooking up. Because of that a fight ensued and then Brian later texted Karen that he didn't want to deal with all this drama. He didn't want to be involved in this. He just kind of wanted to like steer clear of all of the drama. However, the night of January 28th, slash early mornings of the 29th, when they all went to Water Bar, uh, went to Waterfall Bar Grill and whatever that place was, Brian had texted Karen, but she never replied to his text message. So clearly it wasn't like he wanted to steer clear if he was texting her, but anyways, when Karen arrived at the bar with John,

she made a point to completely ignore Brian altogether. All the while, she was being very, very affectionate with John, maybe flaunting it in Brian's face, we don't know, but she was ignoring him and like kind of all over John. Then when Brian went to the Albert home later that night, he ended up texting John and he said, hey, where are you? However, that text went unanswered, we can assume why,

and then he never ended up seeing John. However, when the defense was questioning Brian, and here's where things get interesting, they brought up the fact that Brian previously testified that he saw a tall man with dark hair at the party. But Brian refuted this. Brian then testified that he left the party around 12 30 a.m. And he said he didn't see anything weird when he was leaving the house. He didn't see Karen, he didn't see John, he didn't see Karen's car, he didn't see a body.

But what's interesting is then he said that he went to the Canton Police Department. He went there around 1 30 AM before going home. He says that he went there to move some cars around before the incoming storm. Now, some people have said that this is very suspicious because who would move cars around at 1.30 a.m. after a night of heavy drinking, right?

I'll let you be the judge on whether you think that is suspicious or not, but a lot of people were kind of like, this makes no sense, why would you go there after a party? And it just doesn't make any sense. But then the defense ended up bringing up a call that Brian Higgins made to Brian Albert at 2 22 a.m. Now if 2 22 a.m. sounds familiar, sounds like a familiar time, it's because that is almost

the exact same time that Jennifer McCabe made that infamous Google search of how long to die in the cold. Brian said that he didn't remember calling Brian Albert, that it must have just been a butt dial, which remember we went back and forth about all those butt dials. And I've also seen some people jokingly calling this trial the butt dial trial because of the amount of butt dials going on between him and Jennifer McCabe and everybody else. And it is a little bit crazy if you ask me. I don't think butt dials are as common as they were trying to make it out to be, but again, you be the judge. So then we know that the morning of January 29th, when John was found dead, Brian Higgins

went to the Albert home around 730 AM. He was there for a short while before going back to the Cannes Police Department. And remember, he had been there moving cars early morning hours, you know, the same day, but early morning hours. And Brian made it sound like he wasn't there too long. However, the defense brought up scan logs, which showed that he was there until 6 p.m. Now, you know those jobs where you have to scan your ID badge

to get in and out of buildings? That's what they were talking about here. That was the scan log. They had all of the logs of who was going in and out of various rooms all throughout the day. And these logs indicated that Brian spent quite a bit of time in the quote, Sally port of the garage That's the same place that Karen Reed's car was taken to for evidence collection

Now Brian tried to say that he didn't go in and out of that area But that sometimes his ID will get scanned from inside his back pocket as he walks past But it sounded a little weird and you can decide whether or not you think that is a plausible explanation I certainly have my own thoughts, but the defense was insinuating that Brian It sounded a little weird, and you can decide whether or not you think that is a plausible explanation. I certainly have my own thoughts. But the defense was insinuating that Brian was actually purposefully spending so much time in that sally port because he was actually tampering with Karen's car. And get this, coincidentally, the footage from the sally port on the day of all of this

going down, it's missing. And they asked Brian if he knew what happened to it, but unfortunately that line of questioning was objected, sustained, and then Brian never got a chance to answer. So then the defense started asking Brian about his missing cell phone and his SIM card because as if there were enough red flags here and shady behavior, in just my opinion, his cell phone and SIM card is also destroyed and missing. Because coincidentally, Brian's phone number changed and he got a new cell phone on September 29, 2022. This was the day before he was served a preservation order for his old phone.

Brian said that he provided the investigators with information from his old phone, and his best friend works at the FBI forensic lab that he used one of their machines to extract the data from his phone and then Give that to law enforcement However, the information that he gave law enforcement was just a bunch of screenshots It wasn't information that was extracted using one of these machines So the defense was inferring like hey if you didn't give law enforcement the information extracted from your phone Then what did you do with it, right? And I also think that it's interesting to note

that the only screenshots that he did give law enforcement were those flirty messages that Karen had sent him, the ones I was talking about earlier. He didn't provide them with any screenshots of messages between him, the lead investigator, the Alberts, or anyone else involved in the case for that matter. So after changing his phone number, Brian actually ended up throwing his old phone away. Not just

throwing it away at a trash can at your house, no no no, he threw it away at a dumpster on a military base. And this was a few months later. So the defense asked Brian if he purposefully broke his old phone and his SIM card before then throwing them away. But before Brian could answer, court was officially ended. So court was off for a few days, but then it started back up against this week and Brian Higgins once again took the stand for about an hour. The defense continued their questioning about his cell phone, about everything that was going down, and they asked him why Brian suddenly just changed his cell phone and cell phone number. Brian said that it was

because somebody was currently investigating for a separate crime and had changed his cell phone and cell phone number. Brian said that it was because somebody was currently investigating for a separate crime and had gotten his personal phone number and contacted him and that's why. He then found out that his number was posted online, which is why he apparently had to get a new one in all of this. So then the defense asked him if he cut up his SIM card

and threw it away, in a trash bag, in a dumpster, on a military base. Brian said that he did, but that this wasn't uncommon for him to do, because apparently, according to him, he frequently stopped by the base to go to the duty-free shop, and he often used these dumpsters to just dispose of his own trash. He said he was just quote, cutting through the area, and it was convenient for him. You again, guys, be the judge. But then they asked him, why would you do this?

Don't you have pictures and contact information on your phone that you would want to transfer to your new phone like most people do? Why just throw everything away? But Brian said, no, he was divorced. He had no kids. He didn't have anything important on his phone. So he didn't need to transfer anything over, which I don't know that I know a single person in my life that has not transferred at least contact information over from a phone when getting a new one. Maybe that's just me, maybe this is a common thing that I don't know about, but I just feel like there's so many red flags along the way with him. Like the butt dialing, the phone, the text message, him going to the police department and

moving the cars and being in the carport, then that footage being deleted, like it is the biggest coincidence of all time if that is all true, right? I mean, I'm not one to like lean into conspiracies super heavily, but like there are so many coincidences here. So that ended Brian's testimony and then the next people to take the stand were John O'Keefe's niece and nephew. Now because they're minors this part was not filmed but we do have some information about their testimony. Specifically, they testified that John and Karen were arguing a lot before the end of their relationship or towards the end of their relationship I should say.

The niece said that she heard John even tell Karen at one point that their relationship had run its course, that it just wasn't healthy. So the niece said that she was woken up at 4 30 a.m. on January 29th and what woke her up was Karen screaming and telling her to call Jennifer McCabe. The niece said that Karen's story about the night before changed multiple times while Karen was on the phone with Jen too. She was saying that she first left John at the Waterfall bar, but then she drove him to the Albert home, just kind of changing throughout the conversation. They were then asked if Karen had access to the Ring camera at John's home, because footage from the morning of January 29th is missing from that camera. However, they testified that Karen didn't have access to that Ring camera footage. The niece actually specifically said that she knew that John offered to give Karen access, but Karen said no.

So the next people to testify were various city officials and also medical professionals who really treated Karen and John when they had first arrived at the hospital the morning of January 29th. The testimony from the city official was fairly brief, but law enforcement had asked for footage from January 29th from various cameras around the city. The city official said that they extracted the footage and that they gave it to the law enforcement agency. They didn't delete anything. They didn't tamper with the footage, nothing like that. But then the defense asked if the city official watched all the footage, you know, to ensure that nothing had been deleted by other people. But the city official said no. had been deleted by other people. But the city official said no. They only watched the beginning and the end of the footage to ensure that the times lined up

with the times that law enforcement had asked for. The medical professionals then testified, and they said that they tested Karen's blood alcohol content the morning that she arrived at the hospital. They then used retrograde analysis to determine what her blood alcohol content would have been around at 1230 a.m. hours earlier from that point and they determined that her levels could have been anywhere from

0.135 percent to 0.292 percent. Now the latter number is almost four times over the legal limit and we can assume that the prosecution is using this line of questioning to really strengthen their argument that Karen ran John over in this drunken rage. However, as some have pointed out, we don't know if Karen went home and maybe drank more after she dropped John off at the Albert home for that house party. So the medical professionals then testified

that John's body temperature was 80.1 degrees when he arrived at the hospital. He was unconscious, unresponsive, and his heart was not pumping. They tried to raise his body temperature, but they failed. So John was officially pronounced dead at 7.50 a.m. They also testified that John had a cut above his right eye along with some swelling and bruising. He had superficial abrasions along his right forearm, but they didn't log any broken bones or any fractures from the neck down. The defense also brought up the fact that nobody, whether it be the medical professionals or the responding officers,

nobody mentioned anything in their reports about John being hit by a car. So again, not a smoking gun one direction or another, but I do think Karen was drunk. I think we know that, especially given the testimony about her blood alcohol content the night before and what that retrograde analysis would be. Was it an accident? Possibly. And did she not remember if she was blacked out? Maybe. But there again are just so, so many red flags

with not just Brian Higgins, but with so many people involved in this. So many people who were at that house party. Like, and at what point do you have to recognize all of these quote coincidences and say like, no, there's too many coincidences here. This has to be something shady. Again, I'm not saying that it is shady,

but it definitely makes me wonder. And it just kind of further strengthens my opinion that there is enough reasonable doubt here. Maybe they'll cut a deal last minute and the charges will downgrade to manslaughter or something like that or maybe Karen will be found not guilty. I don't know. Let me know what you think. But now we're going to go into the Chad Daybell trial. Everything that's going on there. Lindsay, our correspondent who has been there from day one, is going to give us the full breakdown because like I mentioned in the beginning of this, John Pryor's closing arguments were actually really good.

He, I mean, it kind of, it worries me a little bit. I still think Chad will be found guilty, but it does give me a little bit of pause. So Lindsay, let us know what's been going down this entire week. Walk us through everything. Walk us through what John Pryor was saying and what's the skinny, where do we go from here? Closing arguments in Chad Daybell's trial were really powerful from the prosecution.

Lindsay Blake spoke for the prosecution. At the beginning, she opened playing that infamous 911 call where you can hear Chad saying, oh, they're searching the property and Lori's in jail and they sound worried. But she really carried all the points, all the timelines, everything. She definitely proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt of Chad's guilt, 100%. One thing she also said during the closing arguments was three dead bodies and for what? Money, power, and sex. That's what the defendant cared about. And she went in to read some of the James and Elena quotes about how Chad was just picturing someone with a perfect dimensions and that's what he'd been fantasizing about all of his life and pretty much that he would do anything

to have sex with Lori Vallow. As they dug JJ up, they noticed a round object covered in black. One of the investigators there cut the black plastic to reveal white plastic. They cut the white plastic and brown human hair came through. They'd finally found JJ. JJ had been buried with his arms duct taped together, the duct tape running around from elbow to elbow. He had duct tape over his mouth, he had a plastic bag over his head,

tape over that plastic bag, and then he was placed in black garbage bags and discarded. That's how JJ was found. Chad labeled him dark. Chad said his death percentage was at zero. Chad said the plan was for he and Lori to be together unencumbered by earthly relatives, earthly obstacles. Chad said those things.

And Alex believed Chad 100%. Now, honestly, the defense, John Pryor, he's a really good attorney. He's icky. He's gross. He says god awful things, but you have to give it to him just on that alone. Granted, his client, really tough case to do, but he really raised a lot of good points in his closing argument. I will say that for sure. Here's a few clips. The next victim. The next victim.

Husband number five. Number five. Just get insurance. Don't worry about saying there's any kids or any beneficiaries or anything like that. Honey, just say it's me and you. And while all of this is going on, all of this is happening. Chad's really good friend, Alex Cox, really close friend, is Googling how to put a bullet through the windshield in the side of a black Dodge Dakota

that Chad Daybell primarily drives. The target was not Tammy Daybell. It was not Tammy Daybell. You heard testimony about the insurance. The target was not Tammy Daybell. You heard testimony about the insurance. The target was not Tammy Daybell. Alex Cox murdered Tylee Ryan. Lori Vallow knew what was going on because her beloved little brother,

her beloved big brother could be tagged for the murder of Charles Vallow and those two kids saw it. And Alex Cox took the body after he murdered Tylee Ryan. He took it out somewhere and he burned the body. And while out in the middle of Fremont County or Madison County or wherever he went, where there are thousands and thousands of acres of open ground. Yellowstone Park is just a short way away, folks.

This is a wildlife heaven for hunters. Great place for hunters. The body was burned, it was subjected to a carnivore bite, and then it was put in the ground. And on September 9th, Alex Cox was on Chad Daybell's property, at least part of the time. Now after the closing arguments, the jury went straight into deliberation. They deliberated Wednesday night into Thursday morning and around two o'clock Mountain Time, they had a verdict.

Everyone came in the courtroom, Chad Daybell looked horrible like always, and he was found guilty on all counts. Right after the judge read the verdict, he said that the trial was going straight into the sentencing phase to see if he'll get the death penalty or not. All right guys, so that is it for today's trial recap episode. I will keep you posted as more happens, everything emerges, everything comes to the surface. We all know that, so that is it for today's trial recap episode. I will keep you posted as more happens, everything emerges, everything comes to the surface, we all know that, so I will definitely keep you posted as we continue. Other than that, if you're at CrimeCon, I will see you this weekend. Don't forget, I am doing a live episode recording tonight in the Creator Studio at CrimeCon.

It'll be featuring Dr. Leslie Dobson. We are going through how to spot a psychopath, so definitely attend if you are at CrimeCon. And other than that, I will be back on the mic with you first thing Monday morning. So thank you guys for tuning into another episode, and until the next one, please stay safe, please be kind, please don't kill people, and watch your back.

All right, guys, thanks so much. Talk with you soon. Bye.