Small Town Murder - #403 - Three Suspects & A Moron - Silver City, New Mexico

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

This week, in Silver City, New Mexico, a young woman is found, brutally killed, floating in her own bathtub. The suspects include her police officer/soon to be ex-husband, her too good to be true new boyfriend, and the weirdo who lives with her landlord. It's a true mystery, especially since the police quickly bungle just about every aspect of the case, including what would seem the most obvious things. This leads to demotions, firings, and a very weak murder case, that may not hold up in court!Along the way, we find out that hummingbirds don't need their own festival, that cops can't just "get away with anything", and that DNA should be more convincing!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Silver City, New Mexico, when a young woman is found killed in a pretty strange way, suspects immediately include her abusive soon-to-be ex-husband, her new seemingly too-good-to-be-true boyfriend, and the weirdo who lives with her landlord.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another wild, crazy day. We're going back to a state we haven't been in a long time. Yeah. Jimmy is one of his least favorite states.

I fucking hate it. As a matter of fact, always very, very dirty, nasty crimes going on whenever we do the New Mexico murders. They're always a little extra stank on them. So it'll be a good time today. And before we get into that, though, definitely want to say thanks for all that you do for us. Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com, number one. Get your tickets August the 12th, Chicago. Come on out, everybody, from all around.

Come to Chicago because it will be a Chicago-only live show. It's a live show we're only going to do in Chicago this year. So I don't care if you've seen us other places. Come to this one. You're going to see a new show. It's going to be a good time. We cannot wait. Come in the summer.

It's going to be beautiful. August the 12th, we can't wait. A lot of sold-out shows, other shows that are still available for purchase. DC just sold out, I think, so not that one anymore. But Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Ph philly everything else is sold out so thank you guys for doing that for us we really do appreciate that head over to patreon.com slash crime in sports and that is where you're going to find all the bonus material that your heart could possibly desire anybody five dollars a month or above you get everything the whole back

catalog it's over 200 episodes of bonus material, plus new ones every other week. They keep coming, and this week is no different. And they're fun this week, too. For crime and sports, we're going to talk about, and you get access to this, of course. By the way, listen to Crime and Sports, not only on the regular show. Crazy over there. Lots of murder lately, lots of wild stuff. And if you think this show's funny, I guarantee you'll think that show's funny.

So give it a shot. I'm telling you. Anyway, for the crime and sports bonus, you're going to get theme park disasters. We are going to talk about some nasty things that happen at theme parks, which is perfect because they just had that one with the broken roller coaster with the broken support thing. Did I miss it? Probably. It just happened a couple days ago. It was a big deal.

And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about some of the craziest prison riots of all time for that one. All right. We have a wild week ahead of us here. A lot of messiness. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports.

There it is. And you get a shout out at the end of the show as well where Jimmy will absolutely just brutalize your name. He's going to mess it all up. But he wants to get it right and that's really the important thing smack it around that said let's get to the disclaimer this is a comedy show we are comedians that doesn't mean that the show

isn't real and everything isn't true unfortunately every single one of these facts is real and true and it's meticulous research and then we we jump in with some jokes. And that's the other thing. You might think, who makes jokes at a murder story? Who would do it? Fair. You know what? Very fair. But we do it tastefully. That's the thing.

There's nothing. This isn't like murder porn. There's nothing funny about an actual murder. There's nothing funny about a beheading. That's not funny. What's funny is someone going, huh, I think I can get away with this as long as I can get that head off that body. That's crazy. You can't. I mean, you got to look at that and go, wow,

what kind of an alien from another planet thinks that's a good idea? So that's the kind of thing we make jokes about. A bumbling police force that screws up an investigation, lets a murderer go free, stuff like that. Making fun of the murderer. What we don't do, what we never do. Go out of our way not to make fun of the victim or the victim's family. Why is that, James?

Because we're assholes. Yeah, but? But we're not scumbags. There you have it. That sounds good. So if that sounds good to you, we got a wild story. If you think true crime and comedy

should never, ever, ever cross paths, maybe we're not for you. Who knows? Maybe it'll be a bad first date. Maybe it'll be a first date where you'll go, I never thought I would like him, but there he is. So who knows? Either way, I think it I would like him, but there he is. So who knows?

Either way, I think it's time to sit back, clear the lungs. Where are you right now? On a first date? Are you maybe? Well, first of all, you shouldn't have these earphones in while you're on a date. That's really pretty rude. What a boring person that is. But if this person's boring enough where you've chosen that you're going down like that, I

think it's time to sit back. This will really freak them out over appetizers. Arms to the sky, stand up on the table, kick the calamari off the center, and shout, Going down like that. I think it's time to sit back. This will really freak them out over appetizers. Arms to the sky. Stand up on the table. Kick the calamari off the center and shout, Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy.

What do you say? Let's go on a trip, shall we? Not a trip you like to go on here. No, it's not. we're going to new mexico oh baby silver city new mexico yeah any clue where that is do you know um i do i do know where that is i think i've been there is it it's uh north northeast nope south southwest it is the exact opposite it's all maybe i've been through when we went to south by southwest possibly i don't know if it's along the 10 but it's it's southwestern new mexico it's near the arizona like we definitely went within within a you know a little while of the arizona border it's

four hours and 10 minutes to albuquerque so all the way up there you gotta go all the way up that mountain uh about three and a half hours to our last episode of from new mexico which was bernardo new mexico a pact of evil was the name and that was i think in november so it's been a long time since we've done any new mexico cases and that was an express to a shorty so this is in grant county area code 575 motto here yeah okay i gotta have a motto for a small town in the middle of nowhere quote a gem in a gem in Southwest New Mexico. I don't believe you. I don't believe it at all.

And the other thing is, that's pretty boring. You gave your location, said a gem. That's real catchy, guys. It's going to stick. I don't think there's any gems down there. I don't think there's much of anything down there. There used to be, though. We'll talk about it here.

No? The history here. After the Civil War, the American Civil War, if you're not from here you're going which civil war the yeah french revolution what are we talking about no american civil war this became kind of a settlement known as la la cienega de vincente which means the oasis of saint vincent apparently so a bunch of prospectors came oh and silver city is founded right after that in 1870 what do you think they had there jimmy oh shit loads of coal opal they founded the town after the discovery of silver ore deposits at chloride flat which sounds lovely gross on the hill just west of a farm of a guy named John Bullard.

And following the silver strike when they found it here, this Captain John Bullard laid out the streets of Silver City. He said, oh, there's silver here. We should make a town. And they make a boom town. All of a sudden, tents pop up, and it's like Deadwood, basically. This is how a lot of these towns started. And it kind of, this guy basically, he, the Captain Bullard said he didn't think it would ever be a permanent town. Sure, sure.

It was just going to be this thing. He ended up being killed in a confrontation with the Apache tribe less uh the apache tribe less than a year after this so he was out of it the town's violent crime rate during the 70s was off the charts the 1870s 1870 off the charts like watching the deadwood show man it's just murder it's just minors in a tent town of lawlessness, and there's nothing. It's crazy. So the Grant County Sheriff, a guy named Harvey Whitehall, was elected in 1874, and he ran on the whole thing of, I'll make this place less crazy. Less crazy. So in 75, this Whitehill became the first lawman to arrest Billy the Kid, actually, here. Yes, he was known under the alias of Henry Antrim at the time, Billy.

And Whitehill arrested him twice, both times for theft in Silver City. So he spent quite a bit of time here, apparently. And the second time, though, he, the sheriff, testified that he did not believe that Henry Antrim, AKA Billy, the kid here did. Uh, he said he believed that he didn't do the actual stealing, but he was assisting and hiding in the property. So he actually got him less of a sentence for there. Now,

uh, this, uh, he Whitehill said that Billy was a likable kid. He said, who's stealing was a result of just necessity. He said he wasn't a criminal. He just needed the money.

That's the way he, man, society creates us. Absolutely. I think Billy, the kid's mother is buried in the cemetery here in town as well yeah i guess he would have a mother that's somewhere about her someone had to spit him out yeah somewhere so everyone comes from somebody's yeah something so in 1878 the town hired its first town marshal. Old school. Who is he? Old West town marshal, Dangerous Dan Tucker.

Oh, he got a dangerous logo on him. Hell yeah. That's fucking awesome. That's sweet, man. Dangerous Dan. Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch were also reported to frequent these Silver City saloons in the 1800s as well. This town was built with high sidewalks in the downtown area to accommodate constant flooding.

Okay, and also to trip the drunks in the middle of the night. Well, yeah, it's more fun to watch them fall. When someone falls off a curb, it's much funnier if it's an 18-inch high curb than if it's three. So they said uncontrolled grazing from cattle and

the fact that the deforestation over the time meant that there would be more and more floodwaters over time and finally by 1895 what's called a heavy wall of water rushed through the downtown business district leaving just a shithole behind just destroyed the place a flood tsunami yeah a ditch 55 feet lower than the original street level was created to you know accommodate it yeah i guess so yeah businesses on main street had to begin using their back doors as main entrances because it was so fucked up and eventually they were permanently used as the new front entrances so flip the road flipped them so to this day they said the incorrect odd and even addressing conventions of the east side of the street

are because of this they're not everything's all fucked up the addresses because they had to do that well we used to be the east side of the road now we're the west side yep and the ditch they call it big ditch park wow that's real again a gem in southwest new mexico big ditch park they're very creative here little thing the 2001 movie rat race silver city was the finish line for that really apparently yes that was basically the knockoff of cannonball run kind of the remake of it yeah mad mad bad world or whatever yeah same shit race from vegas to here and it was supposed to be a locker in the train station in silver city containing two million dollars there hasn't been a train station there for a long time so but sounded good uh reviews of this town there's a few here this

guy is wordy okay yeah five stars just in love with this place it's but then he says this quote it's not a bad place to live if you want to get away from the large, overcrowded cities that are full of violence and crime. Five stars. Not a bad place. Okay. Silver City is a quiet little place to meet nice people and get away from the stress. You have great scenery and lots of places to go hiking and or camping. I've lived here on and off the past few years, and I'm so happy to have been here during the pandemic.

There are not many places to shop, so if you love to go out for a night on the town, then Silver City is not the place for you. The largest store here is the local Walmart. Oh, no. They have a very small movie theater downtown, one screen and 156 seats. Did he count or ask? Well, that's a very specific number. 156. He found out definitely.

He works there. Maybe he works there. They usually play older movies, which is nice if you like that sort of thing. The shops and restaurants are locally owned and operated which is good with good food and company since silver city is not far from the famous hatch new mexico where you can enjoy their delicious green or red chili with any meal if you need a gym the local no excuses gym is open 24 7 and is great 24 7 so you have no excuses no fucking fucking excuses, pussy. Get in there. Anytime. Anytime.

Four stars. The next one. Hometown pride is required for me. What the fuck does that mean? I have to say I like it because I'm from here? That's stupid. That's why things don't get better, because people go, it's perfect here because I'm from here. Well, good.

And wallow in it, shitbag. Yeah. What do you want from me? Because my mom's water broke here what what does that matter all right good mix of people not fancy but good if you're down to earth okay ain't fancy though looking for fancy shit ain't for you it feels like you're forcing me to like it and i don't like that i don't like that at all three stars well it's one sentence i think there could be more of a option around here of a option a option i don't know why what's up with that um it's it's interesting here

three stars visited silver side to spray or visited silver just silver doesn't even say city i started to say city and i'm like, I'm fucking their review up. Visited Silver six times with plans on moving there, but I don't think that will happen. Great. Talk about the town. We don't care about your personal life. All six times, something happened. Yeah. Also, I'm allergic to peanuts.

Who cares? Fuck you. Six times, though, James. Six times. They're really into it. It's a lovely place to visit, but also lonely as well. People are very friendly, but there's also standoffishness that I can't fully articulate. It's called a small town.

Maybe it's you. Too much too soon. That's the other thing. Maybe you're being a little too pushy. Also, I notice a lot of outward laughter among residents. I don't know if that's – oh, also I notice not a lot of outward laughter among residents. I don't know if that's a regional thing, but there's this underlying melancholy. Perhaps it has something to do with the lower population and vast landscape.

Yeah. It's depressing. You mean people just be hysterically giggling all day? Oh, shit. All right. Two stars. Last one. Beautiful countryside, but a much higher number of cranky humorless jerks living here oh that's the

second time somebody mentioned the no laughter cranky yeah people is not a good send not a good place for a comedy show we will not be coming to silver city i've lived all over and these are the strangest slash slash worst folks i've encountered some good people of course but many here are walking around with bad attitudes i planned my move move here for five years, and after one week, I knew I had made a huge mistake. Adios, baby. That's the last one. Adios, baby. Huge mistake.

Made a huge mistake. Five years of their life wasted planning this. Adios, baby. Fuck. People in this town, population 9,694. Okay. So, yeah, there you go. Male, female,

way more females. It's kind of big, right? I guess. It's spread out, though. It's in the middle of a fucking desert. I mean, it's over there. It's less than 10,000.

That's not really that many. It still seems like a lot. For this town or in general? That's a small town, 10,000 people. But it seems like a lot. For this town or in general? That's a small town. But it seems like a lot of people congregating in a general area. I don't know why you'd be here. Yeah, right. Exactly. I don't know what would draw 10,000.

A lot of people would be in that area. Man, that just shows they get here and they go, well, I guess I'm never leaving. This is it. Not enough adios babies here. So more female than male. Median age is right around. It's a little lower.

There's a college nearby. I think that's a lot of the population also. And the ages skew young, too, because there's young adults that are a lot. Those are the college students here. 44% married here. 24% single with children. Hey! Some party time.

Race of this town, 42.1% white, 0.6% black. You don't get a lot of black people in rural southwestern New Mexico, really, generally. Very few. 0.2% Asian,

1.7% Native American, and 53.1% Hispanic. Wow. I mean, it's southern New Mexico. You are within a half hour of the Mexican border. Of old Mexico. Yeah, of old Mexico. So that's definitely happening there.

Religion, 49. It's about 50%. It's about normal on religious here. And they're spread out pretty good, I would say, except for Catholic, of course, which dominates the rest of it because of the Hispanic population. 32.3% of the people here are Catholic, of course, which dominates the rest of it because of the Hispanic population. 32.3% of the people here are Catholic, which apparently Catholics are the Baptists of the

Southwest. I don't know. The Baptists of the Mesa. Of the Mesa. Oh, Jesus Christ. In this county, Grant County, last election, 52.6% of the people voted Democratic, 45.4% voted Republican, and 2% voted Independent. The economy here, it's got a little bit of a high unemployment rate, I guess, because what is out there besides there's a Walmart?

I don't know what's out there, and the college. The median household income here also low. It's $38,258 a year for household income. Walmart salary. Yeah, which is almost $20,0008 a year for a household income. Walmart salary. Yeah, which is almost $20,000 under the national average here. Cost of living, which $100,000 is regular average. Here it is $77,000. Housing is cheap.

Median home, not cheap, but cheaper. Median home costs $217,000. Holy shit, that's too much. If you want to find out exactly what you're getting for that money, we'll help you out there with the Silver City, New Mexico real estate report. Average two-bedroom rental here is $810 a month, which is actually much lower than the national average. Yeah. If here's a two bedroom, one bath, 772 square foot little house on a patch of dirt, man. It's just you have two bedrooms in there. I don't know.

It's like that's almost a tiny house because 700 and lower is a tiny house. I have had one bedroom apartments that were that size. But it's this little house and inside it is tiny. Like the kitchen doesn't look like they made a kitchen on purpose. Looks like they were like, well, we'll make this room into half kitchen I guess. We'll put a stove there. You gotta have RV-sized

appliances in there. Yeah, it's built in 1940, so it's old and small too, but it's also pretty inexpensive. $135,000 for that. That's not bad. That's something. Here's a four-bedroom, two-bath, 3,685-square-foot house. That's pretty big.

That's spacious. Built in 1888. What? Built during the boom here. Likely added on to over the years then. There's no way they built 3,000-square-foot houses in the 1880s. Or maybe that was like the guy who ran the mine there. We don't know. Mr. Bullard's place.

It's the weirdest house I've ever seen in my life. It's two-tone green. That's the whole house. It is a mint green, the body of the house. I mean minty mint green. And then the roof is dark green. Roof is green. You can see this shit from space, dude. It's so green.

It's so fucking... It's like a piece of gum. It's the only thing It's so fucking... It's like a piece of gum. It's the only thing green in New Mexico. It's a spearmint house. It's the weirdest fucking house. And inside, it's all shitty, too. It looks like it needs a lot of work. Outside, it looks like clean, but green.

Clean and green, babe. But inside, it is a wreck. So, not that great. $349,000 for that. For almost 4,000 square square feet that's pretty decent and there's a small piano in one room for some reason totally cleaned out except it's just a small piano it's in the middle of the room too i don't know why next up three bedroom two bath 2267 square feet okay you get some acreage with this one, a few acres. This is like the classic Adobe.

Like it has the Adobe thing in front of the house with the two doors and you open and then the house is behind it. It's the classic Adobe New Mexico. You know, a gunfighter is going to come up and kill the whole family type of thing. Yeah, the Mission Bell kind of house. It's exactly what it looks like. $799,000 for that thing. Holy shit. So, I mean,000 for that thing. Holy shit. So, I mean, I don't know.

You get some desert. I don't think I want that. Things to do here. Jesus. Besides go to Walmart, the Hummingbird Festival, baby. Oh, I can get down with this. Yeah, it's just, quote, watch the banding of the Hummers, which, by the way, is a great. What?

What? quote watch the banding of the hummers which by the way is a great you can go to any like downtown area in major any major city and during the middle of the night and go watch the banding of the hummers as blowjobs are doled out yeah that is crazy um that happens in the early morning so you got to show up early for this there's also children's activities people speaking about hummingbirds and they keep calling them hummers repeatedly on this, which just makes me laugh. I don't like that at all. It's 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., so I'd stroll in just as it was ending. That's no fun.

Don't like that. Doesn't look like it costs anything. You just wander in there and look at hummingbirds, so that's nice. Then there's the Grant County Fair. and look at hummingbirds, so that's nice. Then there's the Grant County Fair. Grant County Fair, and this seems like a lot of livestock and animal things involved in this. That's what these places love.

The first day of it is a general livestock meeting. Oh, you get to go say hello to them? Then, quote, weighing and sifting of all animals. How do you sift an animal? I don't know how you sift an animal. Poultry and rabbit entries accepted. Okay. Then it goes on to, they talk about the exhibits closed for judging.

The pig show is coming up on Thursday. Yeah. The pig show, and it says the show, there's another show immediately after the pig show. There's a Valley Electric showmanship contest after the pig show there's a Valley Electric showmanship contest after the pig show so I think the showmanship of the pigs will be judged he might be handsome and weigh a lot but is he a good showman

what kind of personality does he have they have a junior goat show they're going to have poultry judging which sounds great a sheep show a steer show. We're getting a pattern here. A junior rodeo on Saturday.

That's when the shit goes down now, junior rodeo there. Junior livestocking. I don't know what the fuck that is. I guess kids with their livestock. And then Sunday, wrap it all up with Cowboy Church. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah you gotta bring him in and praise the good man if I commit a crime you can sentence me to this

and it would be worse than jail 8 years Cowboy Church no no the whole thing not just Cowboy Church the whole fucking event 8 years of county fairs 8 years of county fairs. Eight years of smelling bullshit and also hearing bullshit for eight years. Crime rate in this town.

What we're interested in. Property crime here. Remember, this is a great place if you want to get away from all the crime in the city. More than twice the national average. More than twice. Above twice. Your shit is not safe. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault.

Twice the national average. Very safe. They're so mad. Very safe. Their violent crime rate's higher than New York City's. It's a lot. Unbelievable. Which is not that high, actually. I think they're like 40th in the country and violent crime rate new york city so it's still it's dangerous it seems like i would say

so that said let's talk about some murder that had i don't that happens all the time here apparently very common goings on here so let's talk about a young lady named cassie okay cassie marie brooks is how she's born she's born december 22nd 1990 oh young in here yeah um she is born in safford arizona okay we know where that is we're i didn't know people lived in safford to be honest with you did you no no right that's a place you just drive by it on the highway and you go, oh, Jesus. Yeah, there it is. There are people that live in Douglas. That's fucking crazy to me.

I guess so. There's people that live in Kingman. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess someone has to run the gas stations. These places, though, when you drive by them, you're just like, there's two cities. There's three, really, but two that are affordable. Yeah. And one of them's almost not.

Kingman fucking exists to pee, though. The only reason it exists is so people from Phoenix can pee. Before they get to Vegas, right? Yeah, exactly. It's halfway. So that's a pretty sad existence. Yeah. I think people have to pee right about now, right? Or somebody goes, I'm hungry.

And they're like, well, there is a McDonald's right there. All right, we'll i'm hungry and they're like well there is a mcdonald's right there all right we'll stop there and they do and that place is always full you pee i'll get a gas station sandwich and we're ready all right go all right so yeah now it's over so we can lose all our money yeah and then we'll get to vegas and then drive back and sadly pee again and eat with the last of our money we'll save a couple of bucks for a gas station sandwich mcdonald's on the way up gas station sandwich on the way back so her parents are chuck and darlene brooks and she's the second oldest of four children so she's the second born of four kids so nice family um she cassie is good at everything one of these kids good at

everything she tries she won the the mini miss graham county title oh arizona miss graham i gotta assume they have a miss graham county and then a mini miss graham graham county so she won that i don't know what age that was, but who knows? She also took dance classes for five years. She did ballet. She did all that in high school. Straight A's. Yeah. Member of the National Honor Society.

Member of the Future Business Leaders of America. You know, the organization that you were president of in high school, right? I think we both had stints as the leader of the future business leaders of america right didn't we you did i know i did nope i had no fucking idea i have heard of it but didn't know like kids actually went there wow who goes there i never knew a kid who went there do they have drugs there probably not i didn't know any kids that went there then i have super high priced cocaine but that's about it that's that that's later they will for now they're gonna be dorks and then later they go oh cocaine is how business gets done okay i was wondering

how people always get up at 6 a.m and keep doing that it's cocaine all this shit in safford in safford also maybe that's also why because she also is involved in she letters in five sports her senior year what i didn't even think you could do that seems like there'd be games going on at the same time right how the fuck do you do that but how do you manage that time i don't know this she was in volleyball basketball softball track and palms i don't know what the fuck that is is that cheerleading p-o-m-s p-o-m-s yeah that's that cheers yeah pomegranate oh you know what there's the cheer team and then the palmies right is that how and they're the dancers right palms are the dancers maybe she

did dance for those years so maybe i'll bet that's the dance team this is how little we participated in anything in high school it's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people.

With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a little bit of cursing. This motherfucker lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal,

or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I could not wait

to leave the school. They'd have cheerleaders come out and do their thing, but then the Pommies would come out and it was mad sexual. How much encouragement do these fucking kids need to play football? Let's be realistic. How much encouragement do you need?

Fucking play. How many girls dancing? Every week they make every one of us attend some fucking rally. None of us are going to the game. I don't care about this. I don't care. No. No.

The football games in high school were a place where you get nice and high and then you go there and try to talk to girls. That's what that was for. Where might girls be? I don't care what's happening on the field. High school football?

No. I know that kid. He's a dildo. He's no good at this. Who cares? I know all of those dicks. Yeah. They're all dipshits.

I don't care about that. So she letters in all of these things. That's a lot of letters all over your jacket. Yeah. Her jacket's covered. Bus busy yeah straight a's societies business leading sports all this type of shit her father actually said she never quit i would have to make her take down time you have to tell her okay you're relaxing today you know no doing anything you're gonna burn yourself out which you never know kids burn themselves out like that and yeah who knows and they they end up thinking that they're they

have to be doing something all the time and yeah who knows they feel guilty for sitting still because they could be doing something else sure and life will never be satisfying for that kid you got to take it down a notch you know what what I mean? You're never going to be happy. Sorry. You know. So she wants to be a doctor one day, though. Of course. So she started. She's doing college courses already in high school. She's on course to graduate early from high school with college courses under her belt already. Awesome.

She's all future, future, future, all these things, setting herself up to have the life that she wants. future all these things setting herself up to have the life that she wants uh but then when she's 16 she's a senior because she graduates early she gets knocked up oh fuck finds out she's pregnant and um yeah and is gonna have the baby which she seems yeah she's capable if anybody's capable she's capable here. So this is a bit of a speed bump in the plans of medical school anyway. It's not easy, yeah. So who is the culprit here who knocked up young 16-year-old Cassie here? Well, it is Bradley Scott Farrington is his name. And when they started going out she was 15 he was 20 oh bradley don't

like that at all that is why were you not at work bradley that dude when i was 20 15 year olds was not what i was after at all not even close to that so there is something wrong with you if you're 20 and you're looking at 15 year olds-olds as long-term. I'm going to hook up with this chick, man. No, you're 20. She's a sophomore. What the fuck is wrong with you? You're allowed to leave it in also. That's crazy.

I get that she's obviously mature. She's obviously smart and mature. And he's a 20-year-old dipshit from Safford. So to be honest with you, she's probably way more mature than him. Probably. You know what I mean? In terms of that but he's 20 his dick is 20 right and i don't want it anywhere near her it should be not near her he when she got pregnant she could like celebrate by getting her learner's permit he could celebrate by going to the bar and getting shit face because he was 21 so those are different celebrations you shouldn't be together at that point yeah if your id can get you into things

it also should keep you out of other things like 15 year olds pants first and foremost yeah that's one right there so within a month of things she's pregnant and she's finishing her senior year while she's pregnant and everything so within a month she had a baby graduated from high school got married to brad and moved out of her house in the same month oh my this is all at you know 17 flying at her yep a year ago she's a happy-go-lucky kid thinking about medical. She's Doogie Howser a year ago, and now she is literally in a trailer park in southeastern Arizona or whatever, fucking with a baby and some dipshit who's 22 or whatever. Yikes.

Life has changed a lot here. She does start college, though, right away. Really? She goes to college. She changed her plans for medical school, though, because she said that. She's got a mouth to feed, yeah. This is not going to be possible. So she ends up actually going to school, and we'll talk about that,

and she becomes a nurse, an RN instead. Okay. Because there's just less. If you have children, you can't do residency as a doctor. You're 18 hours a day and sleeping there and all that. If you have kids, it's kind of impossible to do that. I don't think they have a nursery there that you can drop the kid off at. And even then, you'll never see the kid anyway.

No. What's the point? You might as well just give it away at that point. So over the course of the next couple years, she becomes a nurse, gets a job, and also has another child they have, her and Brad. Really? Yeah, it's a boy and a girl. The first one's a boy, then they have a girl. Fascinating.

I'll leave their names out of it. They don't get condoms down there to Southeastern Arizona, huh? No, they get lost usually, I feel like, once you get outside of the... They melt, yeah. It's very hot there. It's very hot. They don't get to saffron. Liquid in the packet.

They're taken by the banditos behind the... With the big truck. Bandanas on. They're on horseback. They're very old-timey. It's very old-timey. They come out and they're like, give it all up.

You know? All the Trojans. With your six shooters going. So she does all of this. March 24, 2008, Brad becomes officially a Silver City, New Mexico, police officer. Well, hey, he's got a little bit of direction. That's nice. Yeah.

They move to Silver City. He becomes a police officer. becomes a police officer. She goes on to complete her associate's degree and receives her RN degree from WMNU, Western Mexico New University. I have no idea. WMN? WMNU.

It's the school here, but who knows what it is. So she worked at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City. Okay. So she's working there. She's an RN, and she is also completing her education, and she wants to get her BSN while raising her kids and working as an RN. So she's got a lot going on. As we know, she must be very good at scheduling and keeping to schedules

because to have all this shit going on, and she's always had all this shit going on, she must have a planner back in the day. In 2008, she's got it on her BlackBerry. Things are pinging all the time telling her where to be i'm overwhelmed when my kid has two practices in a week and i'm like oh my god which day what time and i'm panicking oh yeah i don't know what to do i we have a show today and i was like i don't know dinner last night who and i got a show tomorrow i don't know what i'm doing that's that's how i have no clue it's got five sports she's got five sports and this and that and kids and everything else

there are the seed not as domestically blissful as one might imagine though between her and brad sure odd that people who meet when they're 15 or and 20 as their lives develop they might not be the greatest thing for each other it's strange but the main reason is because brad is a bit of a controller he likes to control a little bit which is probably why when he's 20 he wanted to fuck a 15 year old because they're much easier to control a child than it is an adult woman who can do what she wants if the kids that can't even allow isn't allowed to go to bars she's probably not going to go out to bars and meet people if she has to be home and she has a curfew you know where she

is at night shit Shit like that. That's a controlling asshole would love that. In the 15, she's also got two adults that tell her what to do under the roof that she lives. Exactly. She's used to it. She's used to it. Yeah. She's used to it.

So this includes a lot of problems with them. What's described as physical and mental abuse. There's been times where Brad beat her, would beat her. Other times he would prevent her from speaking with her family at times, try to keep her isolated away from her family like a lot of abusers do. Other times, this is very nice, he took his police-issued service weapon, held it to her head, and dry fired it. Why? Which, if you don't know anything, that means

the gun's empty, but he's pulling the trigger and clicking it anyway, which is... You don't do that to people. That's crazy. And he would do this on more than one occasion. This was a common thing. Just to show the control. Look how scared you are. Because she didn't know if it's loaded or not.

Don't worry, it's empty. Look, trust you are. Yeah. Because she didn't know if it's loaded or not. Don't worry. It's empty. Look, trust me. Keep pulling it. What the fuck? That's wild. A lot of different incidents and forms of abuse, a few of which we'll talk about. It all stems from control, though.

He's very controlling. He needs control over every aspect of everything. Which, again, and then if you're that kind of person, too, you'd be attracted. You'd be attracted you'd be more attracted to some a job in law enforcement and authority yeah in authority where you tell people what to do when they do it right and if you they don't then you pull a gun out you know that's you know some people are doing it for the right reasons and then there's some people like this that it just fits their personality types too so another thing that she didn't like is apparently he liked to

choke her during sex she wasn't into it which a lot of people are super exactly a lot of people super into that but they kind of have to be otherwise it's not fun for it shouldn't be fun for anybody at that point right yeah some both have to and that's the one that might be the one thing you know i mean pretty much everything that you do you both got to be into it it's usually yeah it helps yeah it definitely i guess the person delivering the choke doesn't necessarily have to be into it but no but it's not they kind of do though because otherwise if you don't want to choke someone and you're choking someone that's not really good for you either you know what i mean yeah and then you're worried

about you know airways and shit like that rather than what you're supposed to be concentrating on so gonna need you to tap when you come because i don't want to kill you yeah that's what i mean blink fucking twice for just came please because this is scary no that's that's what i mean but right this is it shouldn't be good for someone who this is his thing though he likes to choke and have the other person not want to be choked apparently that's yeah that's frightening that that like the it's control when the person doing it is the one that likes it that's yes that's what i mean that's scary and the other person doesn't like it at all i don't know why do you need this yeah you're not even feeling anything because the choker might be getting off on the chokie getting off on it

right you know what i'm saying so that might be the cyclical thing even if you don't want to choke if they're getting into it you might be able to get into it but if you if someone doesn't want to be choked and you're like i can only come if i choke you that's fucking weird that's crazy that's a little strange see a psychiatrist please please see us before you see a 15 year old see his psychiatrist i beg you so this goes on for a lot of their relationship um he would intimidate her a lot and then she was convinced that it was pretty pointless to go to law enforcement because he's a cop yeah you live in a small town and the police force your husband's one of them so there's only four others that's i mean if you call the cops one of his friends is going to come over that's what's going to happen if you

call 9-1-1 that's what will happen. So at one point, apparently Brad told her, because she told her mom and several other people this, quote, you can tell the police all you want. Who are they going to believe? They're going to believe me over you every time. Yeah. Because he's a cop. He said that he could kill her and get away with it, he told her.

Oh, God, Jesus. He said, quote, if you don't stop fucking with me i'll make it look like an accident and i know how to do it because i'm a cop but that was his go-to apparently but control control that way you do what i want you to do yeah meanwhile she's an adult woman now has been for quite some time yeah yeah she's an adult woman with a job and a degree and two kids and responsibilities and you can't you can't do that now you have to have a like an equal footing adult relationship with her but he said no i liked it so much better when you had math class at 11 o'clock in the morning and i knew where you were good fuck man he told her at one point quote i can do anything

and not get caught oh well i mean that's i'm above the, I'm King Kong and this motherfucker. That's what he did. Like a full Denzel. Full Denzel, man. He went crazy. So all kinds of training day about this. He's seen training day way too many times. He's the type of guy who's watched it a lot.

Yeah. I feel like. So he said that his status, you know know as a police officer would uh you know allow him to get away with everything and she was obviously terrified about that and didn't think she told several people there really wasn't any point in going to the cops just like he said they're gonna believe him they're his friends and you know who? So that's what he thinks. But he would control her in other ways as well. He would withhold money from her. She didn't have any money to buy food or buy things for the kids, do anything just to show he had control.

It's another way that the guys will do that or anybody really. So women will do that. Guys will do that. do that also that um uh he would like take her personal things and not give them back just because he wanted to show where he could take things like a scrunchie or some shit anything yeah anything a planner like a day planner things like that he'd just take it and be like well i'm keeping that now you can't have it because you want in this relationship man what to abuse her jimmy it's clear he's a controlling asshole and he's in this relationship man what to abuse her jimmy it's clear he's a controlling asshole and he's in this relationship because he picked out a 15 year old and he's trying to keep

her in the cage and she wants to fly away it's amazing that people need this it's weird man there's definitely a psychological component to this obviously i don't know what the hell he what the fuck his childhood was like but something went on here with this asshole so he would monitor her computer use of course check up on her you know he'd go back in and see what the website she went to and shit like that restrict her cell phone use as well we're talking in 2011 here like that's ridiculous everyone's got an iphone and shit you can't be restricting people's cell phone use it's not like you know back in the day like oh i'm restricting it because calls are 40 cents a minute so you we're over our minutes you're gonna bankrupt this house we're gonna be

in debt for the rest of our lives if you don't stop talking to your sister after dinner i swear to god it's never gonna stop remember that house you wanted to buy would you rather talk to your sister or buy the house? You're constantly talking to her. We're supporting voice stream every day. It's too much, man. He would track her whereabouts as well based on her phone and her computer and all that sort of thing. She told people that he was stalking her and that at times, too, she felt like she was being followed around by other cops where cops would just follow her, follow her all around.

So she said she was being stalked. She thought she was being stalked by the police on his behalf. Like, do me a favor. Follow my wife around and see if because if you don't if you don't know any better, you're just his cop buddy. And he goes, I think my wife's fucking doing something on me. Do me a favor. Would you see her? She's going to be here. Just follow her around.

See if she goes to like the motel with that guy or you know what I mean? Your friend would do that. Sure. Absolutely they would do that. They don't know that this is part of an ongoing fucking abuse mountain. They don't realize that. Oh, my. So, you know, he would track her and all that sort of shit also

he would engage in a lot of isolating behavior with with her um he didn't want her to go to work sometimes i mean i don't know to tell you man they need me there you're calling in sick today what yeah that's what he would say you're not going to work today i don't want you to go to work today sorry because there's other people at work and you talk to them and stuff like dude oh god wow how fucking i mean just how little is your dick is the fucking bottom line honest to christ like how unsure of yourself are you significant do you feel that you need to do this to another person? It's very weird. So he didn't want her to go to the gym either because there's people at the gym.

And then also you work out at the gym and then you look better and you can go do whatever you want. And you wear skimpy shit to the gym. Oh, God. Oh, God. And there's guys there that look way better than me. This is terrible. He wouldn't allow her access to things such as clothes and pictures sometimes. He would just take her clothes from her and say,

you can't have that now. What the? Where's my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt? I took it. Just because you want it, you can't have it. I threw it away. You look too hot in that. Too hot in that, with your tits all popping his ears out.

I don't like it. He also would, like, take her pictures, like I said, away from her, too. Like, she'd have pictures, and he would, like, take them. He didn't like it, yeah. Didn't like pictures that I guess he wasn't involved in. Also, like I said, withhold money, keeping close tabs on her whereabouts, especially if she left the city limits there. Oh, yeah.

She went outside Silver City. He was way concerned of what the hell was going on. She's on house arrest. Yeah. She's on house arrest with no record. Yeah, he does a better job of keeping track of her than many people on house arrest can keep track of. Most police forces keep track of their house arrest.

There's not a parole officer that knows where his parolees are more than this guy knows where she is. Right. Not at all. So also, wow, he would take her laptop and do full examinations on the laptop, go through it all. Go forensic, yeah. Take her phone, go through everything, erase people, shit like that. Didn't want her. Then sometimes he would just take her phone and keep it.

Just say, I'm just keeping your phone. So she couldn't communicate with her family. At what point do you walk? Yeah, that's the thing. Well, she said she was scared, too, because she thought he would do something to her. The kids are involved. She's also been in this relationship since she was 15 so there's a scary for her i guess because you know she feels like the the cops are who you're supposed to feel

like in that situation you can go to sure if you feel like i can't and they'll they'll make it worse like they'll she probably feels like they'll all kill me and hide me in the desert you know what i mean she doesn't know and they're all on idea all on team keep track of cassie which isn't that's not okay yeah uh she said she was just you know scared about it she told several people another thing once they once it gets going here they're gonna start to they break up here obviously okay around 2013 they break up brad will end up filing for divorce actually oh because he wants to get remarried very quickly so he wants to get that over with but custody of the children becomes a big huge fighting point i mean that's oh man because i mean that's something that i'm sure she you know loves and cares about these

kids a great deal which makes him want to have them yeah because then he can control her they're her new mickey sweater that he won't let her wear exactly so that's how it goes um there's a bunch of people that she talks to that here you know all about the continuing issues and constant things with this he would threaten to take the children away completely i'll tell i'm going to take the kids away from you. He once took the children away and indicated to her that she couldn't know where the children were until she decided if she was leaving the house or not. Are you going to leave me or not? She's like, I need some time to think. And he's like, well, you can do it alone because I'm keeping the kids till you think about it. And now you don't even know where they are. I'm just keeping them. So that's a definite, you know, want to control you. I'm just keeping them so that's a definite you know want

to control you i'm going to make you make a decision by holding your kids hostage that's crazy when the marriage is dysfunctional the divorce is certainly going to be the same worse yeah because now they can now they can put it out in the open their hostilities so one night when cassie's mom was right in the house so this is how brazen he becomes he'll do things in front of her mother oh which is i would think if you were an abusive person the people you would not there'd be several people you would not want to abuse your spouse in front of it'd be like you know the chief of police probably that wouldn't look good on your record and her parents would be right you know probably right there one and one a would be those willing to

testify in court about this behavior never mind testify in court if someone starts beating up my daughter i'm gonna kill him right there he is for sure they're fucking in a puddle with him you know there's that element like it's just not safe and they witness it at the same time. It's just a terrible idea. But, I mean, like, in a custody hearing in battle, if you're trying, if your aim is to take those kids away from her and cost her time with them, you don't want to do that in front of the parents. Because the parents are going to be able to testify and judge away that shit, for sure. More what he thinks. It's no one's, it's never going to come to that. So I guess with mom there, he had her against the wall on her side in a headlock. He had her like pushed up against the wall in a headlock.

And she the mom wanted to call the police. The mom says this on. There's a dateline here on this. And the mom's talking on dateline here. And she says, quote, Yeah, but I felt like if I did anything, he would hurt her worse. So she didn't want to have the cops come, do nothing, leave, and then she goes home, and then now he's – Brad and Cassie are there, and now he's really pissed off. So that's scary. The mother said, quote, she would wake up during the night, and he'd be in the dark standing over her watching her.

That's fucking weird. Yeah, that's like the most frightening thing. That's terrifying. Yeah. That's like just wake up. What are you doing? Just because you sent something and he's just standing looking at you. I picture him just breathing real hard.

Right out of his nose. Yeah. Yeah. Hard nose breathing. because in his mind that's controlling it um so that's what's going on weird shit like that the first time that happened cassie told her mom he's going to kill me he's gonna kill me he's standing over me in the night like contemplating how to do it you know why else would you stand over someone in the night unless you're gonna hurt them here's a position where they're vulnerable let me yeah it's just weird so they said yeah she really the mother said she really believed that he would kill her uh the mother said that cassie told her at least three

times that i think he's gonna kill me and then here's something what he did to the kids that was interesting here. Oh, this abuse. If we think this abuse is just for her and then he's a fucking model dad. He's Ward Cleaver after that. Come on, son. Sit on my lap. Let's read a book. I don't think so.

Target abuse and then sit on down to the baseball field today. Come on, son. It's time to play catch. I don't see that. So instead, what he did one time is he bound their hands and feet together with duct tape. Okay. The children. Yeah.

Okay. Even taped the baby's mouth. He put tape over a baby's mouth. The mouth. He put tape over a baby's mouth. The mouth. I have no words for that. I'm quiet or frightened. There's all kinds of reasons, I guess. But a baby, though, you don't need to do that.

No, the baby doesn't understand it's a game. And you don't tie the – the also while the baby's hands and feet are bound also there's no reason to bind a baby that's just weird and a toddler on top of that she cassie told her mom about it and he said oh it's just a game you know that game where you're it's called hostage where you're fucking it's called cia black site where they're gonna fucking just they you know throw you in a van and tape your hands and ankles together and put duct tape over your mouth and take you to turkmenistan to anally probe you with a fucking shock thing they passed they didn't say shit they didn't crack. A game worked. They won.

Who could be quiet longer and they win? So, yeah, she's very scared. She told her fellow nurses, a woman named Sonia Sanchez and a woman named Mary Flores, and a nursing student named Robert Scott, she expressed to all three of them that she feared her husband would kill her. So it's to the point where she's them that she feared her husband would kill her. Yeah. So it's to the point where she's even going to tell her work people about it. Yeah. But they say you need to go to the police. And Sanchez said,

quote, she was afraid to call the police because he was an officer and no one would help her. So it was the same rap with everybody. Hate it. She, I guess he had told our Cassie told Robert Scott that Cassie had to lock herself in the bedroom with the kids several times. And one time she actually did call the police and she was escorted to a shelter, basically. Their quote, to hide out, is what she told her friend.

Jesus. She did call once and they took her to a shelter. It shows that they're willing to a shelter so that that's it shows that they're willing to help but they didn't say go fuck yourself yeah i guess she said i need to get out of here and they were like i mean okay we'll take you where you need to go and she's like where to go yeah so she was so concerned that brad's fellow officers were following her that she didn't even want to live in silver City once her and Brad moved out from each other. She wanted to be gone.

There's this woman here that works with her who said, quote, I had a three bedroom house and she could stay in it for free. But she didn't want to because it was inside the city limits and she didn't want to have to call 911. She said one night at work that there was a possibility that if something did happen to her that brad could be the one responsible for it awful so another one here she walked into an insurance agent named ralph jimenez one day barged into his insurance office doesn't know this man not a friend just an insurance guy sitting there barges into the office and said quote my husband tried to run me off the road okay not don't know i don't know zero zero insurance questions that's he's like so you want like

life insurance i take it like you want full coverage what are you looking for here yeah we we better you know i better work that paperwork up quick it seems like you need it fast probably so she said that and he said well should i call the police he grabbed the phone oh you won't need the police called and she said quote that won't do us any good my husband's a cop i'm just i'm just here i just want to be safe in here i'm just hanging in here so ralph jimenez is like i mean you could hang for a while water coolers over there i suppose i don't know so when they're broken up here in 2013 like i said brad files for divorce cassie's 23 at this point and she's a kid that's i mean said that she what

we've described is the life of like a 38 year old person yeah who's been through it she is 23 like there's there's kids who've never even been out of their parents house at all at this point in time don't have any jobs kind of went to college and fucked around and sitting around playing video games and she's fucking nursing and two kids and cops following her and it's a full stressful life he really turned it on hard too there uh once they i'll bet when they moved out of uh arizona they he really started oh yeah turn it up and fuck you went all the way up too because for him it was perfect now we're outside of you know who where she has her roots and her comfort zone and her people and now i can really isolate her this is great and i'm i'm the boss i'm in charge of a lot of shit oh yeah i come

home that gun and a badge and i come home my chest come home, my chest out far and my chin held up high and ready to make sure those kids don't cry. Big tough guy. He's fucking, wow. So he files for divorce, and by the time he files for divorce, they had been living separately and all that sort of thing. He apparently has a new relationship because he's going to want to get married pretty quickly here in the next couple months he wants to get married and she also finds somebody else as well right she finds a real nice guy from what everybody says and from what's the outside what it seems like so cassie moves into a trailer yeah for her own place, a trailer that she rents from a

Sharnell Williams, who is a fellow nurse of hers at work and a former instructor of hers as well. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again. Leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers

notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church

for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran,

Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you The Official Jinx Podcast.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. She's got a husband named Billy Lee or a boyfriend named Billy Lee who lives with her as well. He also works at the hospital and, you know, all that sort of thing. So they said that she was a great tenant, you know, kept it clean all the time. Real nice and everything like that. Billy Lee lives with Cassie? Is that what you're saying? No, Billy Lee lives with the landlord. Yeah, with the landlord.

Right around this time, though, I guess Billy's also a nurse, Billy Lee. And he's kind of a mentor to Cassie because they're both older. And she's very young. And everybody said he seemed to be very fond of her, saw her a lot at work and also around the house and, you know, that sort of thing. And, you know, he seemed to be very very they said it wasn't weird he wasn't like being weird with her but hands on help yeah hands on help and kind of talks to her a lot and shit like that but she finds a boyfriend and it becomes very serious very quick uh his name his name is david berry like a raspberry um david berry goes by dave and apparently he moves into the trailer with her, but everybody

says he has like a good job and everything, a real good job. And it's like, why would you move into your girlfriend's rented trailer? If you had a really good job, why wouldn't you say, I'll buy a, you know, I'll buy a place with her. I'll get a place with a foundation and you move the kids in there, you know, or I've already got a place cause I'm doing great. I have my own, I have a great job moving. Some guys don don't care they'll have a one-bedroom apartment save up money but at that point you go let's rent a little house you know that's attached to the ground what do you say

why not and sometimes people love their space and they're just like well let's just have two different places that happens too but nope she moves he moves right in apparently a friend of hers mary flores said that they were just building a life together. The kids love Dave. He's real nice to them and, you know, loves them and everything's going great. Terrific. September 25th, 2013, Brad resigns from the police force. Oh, he's had enough already.

He's had enough. Later on, he'll be decertified as well, which means... Sounds like there was a problem. That means, yeah, that means, well, for conduct unbecoming of an officer later on. So he can't ever, like, reapply is what that means. He's out. So September 25, 2013, though, he resigns. January 27, 2014.

Now, this is in the middle of the divorce. So there's a lot of paperwork flying around. They both filed motions through their attorneys for custody of their children. Everybody wants the kids. Got to have them. So the last was on January 27, 2014, a temporary immediate custody of their children file thing was filed by Cassie for whatever reason. They were going through this long divorce and all this shit. And this was obviously the only thing he can try to fuck with her about now is the kids.

Right. He doesn't have her under his thumb anymore. He doesn't have control of anything. Yeah. No, but if he can make her not have the kids when she wants them, that'll really piss her off and make her sad. The worst people she said that she filed this particular action because there was a lot of times where he would take the kids away and not allow her to know where they were just not call her for two days just have the kids and not check in exactly that's the thing well a lot of times

though it would be like his two days but she, but he wouldn't tell her where they are, where they're going, if they're okay. Okay. That sort of shit, too. So March 18, 2014 here. Cassie drives with her mother to Las Cruces and tells her mom that Brad asked for the kids in a few days on March 23rd, which is in five days. He wants to take the kids to arizona with him but she told her mom she said no she didn't want him to do that and he she was saying brad is fucking pissed about it roy he had plans he wanted to do something she said no

so cassie told her mother that the next day after that they were arguing about this, then the next day she said that he called and said, listen, my lawyer dropped me. Probably owed him money, I assume, or something. Normally lawyers, if you keep paying them, they'll work. They're going to stick around, yeah. If you pay their bills, they'll just keep working. You could kill 30 people. New ones will pop up. If their bills are paid, they'll keep.

Well, let's check this one out. Fine. Fuck fuck it we'll figure out that argument later just send the check yeah or the amount of a huge pain in the ass you have to be to get dropped by a lawyer who you're paying wow you got to be a huge asshole then fuck so she said that brad said lawyer dropped him so she you could just have the kids because I don't have a lawyer anymore, so I can't keep fighting this. So you can have them. They're yours. I guess they're yours.

Yeah, I guess they're yours. Screw it. He said, all I want them for is I get them for the summers. That's it. I get not weekends, just the summer.

You keep them the whole time, even though I'll be right here. Don't want to take, you know, come check them out or anything. Just the summers. I'm close by, but just give me to come check them out or anything. Just the summers. I'm close by, but just give me them for three months a year. Two sometimes.

Two, yeah. That's two. And he said, but you want them for the summers, and I just want to get everything going because I want to get married because I want to have a June wedding this year. So it's March already, so we got to push through. They're not even divorced yet. I already got a venue, and I need you to figure this shit out. Listen, I got to put a deposit down on the DJ, so is this going to work or not? Like, what the fuck?

We have a dessert tasting this weekend. File this shit. It's to that extent. Yeah. Are we going with the chicken or the fucking fish here? This is crazy. You're still married. Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's right. Well, yeah, her mom, Darlene, said, quote, she said, how is he planning a June wedding if we aren't even divorced yet unless he knows I'm not going to be here? So she's starting to get paranoid. Like, is he saying that because now he's going to get me out of the way or something? Is that what that means? Which I don't blame her. Since she's a teenager, her whole life has been kind of, what's he thinking? What's he going to do?

Is he going to do this to me? That would last for years, the trauma of that. You know, it's fucking PTSD of that sort of thing. So, yeah, unless I'm not there. So Darlene said, quote, then she asked me for my gun. And I said no because I didn't want to see her in prison because she thinks that her daughter might shoot

him and then get blamed for it anyway so she then said well what do you think about or Cassie asked her what Darlene thought about Cassie getting weapons training maybe I should get weapons training maybe that'll help and she told her daughter that she thought it was a good idea.

You got a guy stalking you. You should probably, you know, get yourself protected. And she said, quote, at that point, Cassie just said, quote, he's going to kill me. So over the course of the afternoon, several of Cassie's friends and coworkers here, she had told a bunch of people on this one day about this kind of the afternoon several of cassie's friends and co-workers here she had told a bunch of people on this one day about this kind of the same thing i think he's going to kill me because the june wedding deal and she tells several people on that day if anything ever happens to me definitely look at brad that's your guy right there march 23rd 2014 this is the night that he wanted to david or brad wanted to take the kids to Arizona, and she said no.

Instead, he does get to see the kids, but he can't take them out of town. But that night, he found out that the couple's son, the firstborn, refers to David Berry as Daddy David. Brad is not cool with this at all and cassie several people have heard the kids been calling david this for a while yeah and cassie tells him don't call your don't call him that because your dad's gonna get upset don't like she's afraid of that she knows that that's gonna cause some problems so she tells him not to but he does does anyway. Daddy David, there you go. So she just got some good news, though. So if she can just get his tentacles off of her.

Yeah. She likes her new boyfriend. She just got some good news that she is going to the ER in the medical center, which is where she's been trying to get a job in the ER rather than where she was. So she's very excited. She's working the graveyard shift, by the way. Oh, shit. Yeah. She's a fucking Jimmy Quentin Tarantino's wife in Pulp Fiction. She's Bonnie.

Bonnie. Graveyard shift at the hospital. She's going to be home soon. So she works there uh this is the silver city hospital and she called her mother to tell her the news i got this job and her mother's like is that the one you've been wanting this whole time she's like yes i got it i'm so happy so she's gonna work graveyard in the er in the i don't know if she's working graveyard in the er but her current job is graveyard shift so maybe i mean that's probably i assume when you get working graveyard in the ER, but her current job is graveyard shift. So maybe. I mean, that's probably. I assume when you get a job in the ER, you're probably low man.

So you're probably the worst shift. Yeah. Eventually, once you're 60, you can work during the day. I assume. It's probably how it works, you know? Yeah. Just like everywhere else. Yeah.

So March 24th, 2014. By the way, if this date sounds familiar, March 24th, that's the anniversary of him becoming a cop. Remember that? That's March 24th, 2008 was his day he became a cop. So March 24th, 2014, six years later to the day. Now Cassie is living in the trailer. She rents from one of her nursing professors, Sharnell Lee, like we said. She rents from one of her nursing professors, Sharnell Lee. Like we said, things are going very well for her.

Dave's living there. Everything's good. She finishes up her graveyard shift at the silver city hospital and tells her mom on the phone that she planned to get her kids to school, then take a nap before she had to pick them up from school, give them dinner and then go to another graveyard shift. Oh, God. Yeah.

That's a tough cycle, man. So her parents then, though, later on in the afternoon, I guess because they must have been emergency contact for the kids, they get a call that she never arrived to pick the kids up from school. Oh, so the school still has the kids? They still have them sitting there, and they looked on the emergency contact list and said they called the grandparents. So as you might imagine from what we've said before, this is highly out of character for Cassie because she can juggle five sports and the Honor Society and everything else. So it's a lot. The school says that, you know, or I'm sorry, the parents here, Darlene, calls Sharnell, the landlord, and says, will you go check on Cassie at the house?

I'm sure she just overslept because she's been working at graveyards. And, you know, she probably slept through her alarm. It happens. To the best of us here. We're heading from Safford to pick up the kids. Yeah, this is, we got to come from Safford. So she said that she had her, her mom had heard that she had, or I'm sorry, her friend Mary had heard that her shift that night was particularly difficult. So her, at work they had said, you know, go home, get some rest and all that sort of thing. So, you know, whatever.

Maybe she's just sleeping, yeah. She told her, listen, why don't you drop the kids off? She's just sleeping. Yeah. She told her, listen, why don't you drop the kids off? And when you drop the kids off, maybe, you know, maybe we'll get it. I'll come by and we'll eat some ice cream in the morning and you can take a nap after that. She's trying to say, let's unwind. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, the kids and things happen. Who knows? Maybe she overslept, but probably not. You never know here. So they said, please go check on Cassie. So Sharnell said, I drove down from my house up the hill, down this way, up here, to go check in on her. She arrives at the back door, Sharnell does, of the trailer. And what she notices from the back door is that kitchen, she can see the kitchen there. There is water pouring into the kitchen from down the hallway.

There's like a flood in the trailer, which is water pouring into the kitchen from down the hallway there's like a flood in the in the trailer yeah which is not normal and she said it was very strange so she's like what the fuck so she got it she found the key for it she didn't think she'd need the key so she had to search through her purse and find the key she found the key and uh she walked in the house and saw the water and went oh my god and walked to the source of where the water would be, which is the bathroom down there. She walks into the bathroom and right away she finds something terrible here. She finds Cassie in the bathtub floating face down in an overflowing bathtub with the water still running. Good Lord. Still wearing her nursing scrubs.

Huh. Fully dressed. That's not how you take a bath. That's usually, I mean, yeah, it's been a long day. You're like, whew, boy. I've had one of those days, though. Yeah, I don't even have the energy to take these clothes off. I'll get in the shower in these jeans.

I don't give a shit. I don't care. The water will get through eventually. They could probably use a wash too same time they could use a wash too i'm gonna be honest here so this is obviously horrible uh still water on full blast pouring out of the faucet and she's floating on top and it's just pouring out of the tub and into the house so she calls chanel obviously immediately picks up the phone and calls 911 here, gets her phone, and she says, She's been in the bathtub, and I can't even do CPR.

She's really stiff. She's telling the whole what you do when you're actually like, Holy shit, I found somebody, and it's horrible. And I'm trying to help, but I can't, and I'm panicked. That's what I mean. Her quote was later on about the whole thing. I looked to the door and there was water. You could see through the door there was water rolling out.

I knocked, you know, there. I knocked. And she said, as soon as I saw the water and I knocked, I called for Cassie and nothing happened. So I had to get up and go to the other house to get the key. So she had to go drive home and come back. Wow. It's close by, but still, she had to go and come back. She didn't even bring her key with her at all.

I thought she had it in her purse. I was totally mistaken. And she said then she came back. She said she unlocked the door. And she said so she ran to the master bathroom because she thought that's where the water was on. By the way, this is a trailer that has a master bathroom with a bathtub in it. Pretty impressive. It's a pretty nice trailer.

It's a good trailer. So she said, quote, then there she was. I saw her in the bathtub. It was like I've never seen anything like it. It was heaped up and the waves were just like that. And she was, it's a big, deep bathtub, she said. Like she's kind of, you know, trailing off and in and out. And she said she was upside down and it was, you know, face down.

And she said, I mean, you know, they said, and on Dateline they said, well, you're a nurse, so you've seen lots of things. She said, yeah, but at the time, you know, you're just like in emergency mode. You just, you don't even stop to think. And so I just went and grabbed her and pulled her over here and turned her over to see if there was something I could do to help her. So she didn't leave the thing alone. She tried to see if she could resuscitate her, which is what a normal person would do, especially a person with medical training. Right. Maybe I can help.

Multiply it. Totally. They're looking to help. That's why they're nurses. They want to help. person would do especially a person with medical training right maybe i can help multiply it yeah totally they're looking to help that's why they're nurses they want to help you know that's yeah that's the thing so she said um i mean it was kind of horrifying because she was still in her nursing scrubs it was like i had seen her at work like that now here she is a couple hours later she said i checked to see if she had a pulse but she didn't so she said she called 9-1-1 and she said quote she's been in the bathtub i can't even do cpr she's stiff she's unresponsive and um it turns out she was dead in there so she said she turned off the faucet and she said oh man why is there still water running i just turned the faucet off but there's

still water flowing down the hallway what's fucking going on and then she said i heard water running in the extra bathroom what the fuck is that was it danny devito and daniel stern over here doing this from home alone yeah is that what's happening here so they said that the other side of the house and she said yeah she had to go run all the way to the other side of the house and she said yeah she had to go run all the way to the other side of the house and she discovered there's water running in the other bathtub too huh it's a trailer with two full baths that's pretty awesome yeah not bad she said though it was still running but no flooding she said that drain was unplugged it was just running for some reason but what just in the drain so that why the fuck would you turn it on doesn't even make sense so then she said she uh looked over and she noticed that the towel rack was broken okay and she said their bathroom yeah she said it was just sort of like yanked off the wall is what

it looked like so very very strange there the whole thing. So obviously police arrive. Sure. There's a 23-year-old dead girl. They usually don't just drop dead and fall into the tub generally with the fully clothed. And they don't draw two baths. No, they don't. I can't decide which tub. I'm going to see which one gets warm first. How's that? And then I'll plug that one and wait.

And I'll wait. And I'll just leave the other one running though, obviously, because I don't want to have good water pressure. And I want to really waste all the hot water as quickly as possible yeah trailers are known for gigantic hot water heaters that just have hours of hot water yeah hours of it water tower that's what those are that's just all hot water it's all hot so the lead detective shows up his name is is Detective Jose Sanchez of the Grant County Sheriff's Office. Okay. He shows up here and, you know, processes the scene, you could say, begins investigating. He says right away, notices that there's no signs of forced entry and that Casey's bed is still made.

Or Casey, not Casey. Cassie's bed is still made. So she didn't get to lay down. She never went to take a nap. Obviously, she's still got her work clothes on. And that her backpack from work and lunchbox are still sitting undisturbed at the foot of her maid bed. So very strange here. Very, very strange.

I don't know. So Cassie's parents, they are notified, and they rush to the scene, obviously. And they're asked repeatedly by Jose Sanchez, Detective Sanchez, whether their daughter has been suicidal. Is she suicidal? Is she suicidal? Oh, Sanchez. Okay. I'm a layman here, obviously.

I'm not a homicide detective. We look into a lot of murders, probably more than any homicide detective ever has in history. But we're still going to have the training and we don't have the first world real experience to do that. But based on what I'm seeing, why the fuck would a person fully clothed, kill themselves, plug the tub up, fill it up with water and have another one running it none of it makes sense that doesn't make sense and it doesn't make sense for a murder either but even less sense for a suicide it'd be it'd have to be a gigantic swimming pool of of a tub to yeah to be found face down in it that's what it is it's a big thing again she's not a big lady either so but you'd have to be it'd have to be huge i mean if, if she like started, she plugged up the tub and turned the water on and she bent down to like see the temperature and had a stroke and fucking fell in head first and drowned. That would be one explanation. But why is the other tub on? Right.

No one takes two baths at once. So. Never. Ever, ever, ever. That doesn't make any fucking sense at all. So there's a lot of puzzle pieces here that we're going to talk about. So they said, no, she's not suicidal at all. All she's talking about is the future and her new job and tomorrow and her boyfriend and all this type of shit.

So this is ridiculous. She never lived for today. It's always tomorrow. Yeah. And they're getting upset. Like, stop asking that. So his lieutenant, the detective's lieutenant, Ray lieutenant ray tavison is also there at the time he's the supervisor so he's got to look over the scene and he's telling them no no he's just trying

to gather information it's all just standard procedure don't worry you know don't get upset so she he then says later on quote a young lady just doesn't die you know out of the blue we consider it a homicide until we're proven otherwise, is what he says later on. So the investigators spend about three, four hours in the home, you know, going through it, you know, just doing his thing here. Sanchez never dusts for fingerprints anywhere in the property. Three, four hours.

Three, four hours. Doesn't do anything because from what it looked like, he said it looked like it had been cleaned. So he said, I doubt I'd find fingerprints. He said it looked like it would have been, quote, too clean. Okay. So with the naked eye, you're going to go, eh, whoever did this obviously covered it up.

I'm sure they did a perfect job. I won't look for any clues or anything. That's what he did. I think it's a suicide. Looks too clean. Yeah. Wow, that is terrible police work. I doubt I'll find anything.

All right, so try. It's worth a look, right? Yeah. How many other homicides are you investigating today in Silver City, New Mexico? Probably none. Well, I don't know. It sounds dangerous. He might have six or seven more to go to.

We never know. That's true. It's pretty dangerous. So they bring in the forensic pathologist. They bring in Dr. Michael Hunter as the chief medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco. The guy they end up bringing in later because they needed somebody who knew better than who they had, basically, from what I understand. So he's going to testify later in court and everything to her injuries and manner of death. He's a forensic pathologist, 20 years in Florida,

as the chief to two different medical examination offices, and then he took the job out in San Francisco. So he tells the jury later on, and now the cops, about autopsy and crime scene shit and here's this and that this is what i did and what he finds is that that he said that this seems like a violent assault in which casey or cassie likely died as the result of a chokehold okay so he's saying it was like a show like a chin lock like a chokehold. Okay. So he's saying it was like a chin lock, like a chokehold, you know, like a wrestler type of move here.

He's pulling MMA. Somebody pulled an MMA move on her here. So they said homicide. He said homicide by an unspecified means. That doesn't fit with a case like this. She has injuries to her neck. To me, her cause of death is strangulation that's what he tells the cops he said the lack of ligature marks on her neck were due to the fact that cassie

had a hoodie on oh because it's yeah it was morning time so it was chilly out she had a hoodie on and that the hoodie being a thicker sweater yeah would definitely cushion for bruising and shit like that. The hoodie would be very good for that, he said. If there's a ligature placed around her neck, you would not see marks of that, he said, with that hoodie on. He said if you put someone in a neck hold, if you have someone's neck in the crux of your forearm, that can certainly cause someone to die. your forearm that can certainly cause someone to die.

And it also said he, this man said that the injuries to Cassie's chin would be consistent with her moving her head aggressively up and down while face down, trying to free herself from this hold. So basically being strangled while held underwater, it seems like is what it is. So this is fucking wild. In addition to the strangulation, he said that Cassie had a forceful injury to her back as well, which is like a knee while you strangle someone,

which he took a graphic photo is how they described it. It's a large area of black underneath her skin on her back. Just a big, giant spot there. underneath her skin on her back. Just a big, giant spot there. So the examiner says something forcefully happened in order for her to sustain that deep bruising in the muscles. So this was not something light. This is deep.

He said this is somebody was really fucking laid in or in the back. It's rage. It's rage or just really, yeah, it's all rage. He said the report does note signs of a struggle, scrapes and bruising to Cassie's face, neck, and other areas, ruptured blood vessels in her eyes, and bleeding in the muscle and soft tissue of her neck. She fought hard.

We talked about she's got a spirit. She's going to fight. I mean, you're not going to, she's not going to go, well, guess you're going to kill me now. You're in for a fucking fight with this with this one. So, wow. No fingerprints taken, like we said, because Jose Sanchez, the deputy here, said he believed the crime scene had been cleaned up. So I'm sure whoever did this did just a perfect job of it and didn't leave one fingerprint behind because criminals usually and murderers are perfect at their work yeah who does he think killed her a fucking you know like a government assassin like what is someone came in with gloves on and a fucking silencer and walked out like no

comic book fucking villain yeah this is a young lady was was strangled in a trailer it's probably someone whoever was in here fucked something up there's a clue i promise yeah there's nobody in so they don't have an arch master criminal in silver city i bet anywhere and this is 2013 it takes very little to catch somebody via dna of something that's the other thing too it's 2013 this isn't like the 30s where they're like i don't know we're out of scotch tape so who cares this is this is nuts here so now the other thing he said that yeah look he thought had been cleaned up but there's crime scene photos showing that cassie's glasses were on the floor of the second bathroom where the water was running that's where they were found uh and there

and also that's where the towel rack had been ripped off the wall and the shower curtain had been yanked down and replaced crooked you know when you pull it down and then there's a thing you screw and if you don't do it straight it's a little crooked nobody got up put back up again with fucking ammonia and wiped that down fingerprint that shit fingerprint that fingerprint all that shit also uh there was a shampoo bottle overturned in that tub with shampoo everywhere so everything shows that this is where this shit started yeah yeah i don't know what made maybe there was no plug in this tub yeah maybe it was just like a shower only tub and there was no plug in it so he dragged her into the other room where there was a plug in the tub yeah maybe it was just like a shower only tub and there was no plug in it so he

dragged her into the other room where there was a plug in the tub do it that way but this was a fucking struggle man for sure he said i just figured it was all cleaned up even though this room obviously was left in a state of disarray yeah no fingerprints so not only all of this okay here's something crazy not only do they do all of this, within a few hours, they just say, all right, you guys can come back in and turn her trailer back over to her family. All finished now. That's it. We got it all. So her parents were like, huh?

What the fuck are you talking about? That's ridiculous. Her parents were a little also surprised because they were the ones that found the broken glasses and hair ribbon in the guest bathroom. The cops didn't even find that shit. The parents did. They did a great job. That's how piss poor of a fucking job of processing this crime scene. They didn't even notice a pair of

broken glasses on the floor and they were real quick to trying to turn it into a suicide too yeah that's what i mean this is broken glasses shower curtain crooked towel rack down on the ground in an otherwise very clean and put together house right this isn't a place if someone ripped a towel rack down they wouldn't just leave it on the floor and walk away they would pick it up and try to fix it in this house so very weird um these were never collected by investigators okay the glasses the ribbon none of the shit the towel rack nothing nothing was investigated nothing was taken from the house they just left and the family walked in and looked

around and they were looking around and went in the first bathroom and saw the towel rack her glasses on the floor a ribbon of hers that she put in her hair the shit put up crooked and they're like um did nobody else take this they're like thanks we'll jot it down did you miss a room what the fuck the parents said quote they when they said you can go into the house we went in they said they were hoping to find some clue or sign or some shit what happened to cassie but they never thought they would find like actual evidence yeah um when they walked in there they there was still water in the tub oh my, my God. The faucet was turned off, but the tub was still, you know, they never pulled the plug. So they said they pulled the plug, and they said when we pulled the drain, pulled the plug, that's when we saw black scuff marks, like from shoes, rubber, black rubber shoes.

In the tub? In the tub. Oh, boy. tub oh boy and they said you know obviously that's from a struggle and then they went in the other room and found the glasses the hair ribbon right next to a broken towel rack they said no one ever bothered to collect them as evidence so they took them as evidence basically and they were like now what are we the csi fucking team now and like come on down to new Mexico investigate your own kid's death it's more fun that way like this is fucking ridiculous so they gathered up the hair and they had a bobby pin and a ribbon her glasses they're like what the fuck are we doing here so wow this is fucking crazy they later confirmed no fingerprints were taken and no DNA swabs taken at the scene at all.

Nothing. Nothing done at the scene. What are you going to do if you do? They walked around for like three hours and said, well, she certainly is dead. Yeah. And then like put their hands on their hips and went, that's about enough time for us to. We've done it. Yeah.

That seems like that's what people would process a crime scene in. Right. We're not. Obviously obviously are these fucking questions so many questions why did why do they do this job first of all dude it's like they've never seen a tv show it's 2014 how many fucking episodes of law and order and csi and criminal mind every goddamn show in the world. Do you care before you know, well, we should probably collect evidence and not just turn a crime scene over back to the family right afterwards. Why do they do this?

Why did they want this job? He seems very uninterested, doesn't he? This is an uninterested motherfucker. So I don't even know what to do. Now, the day after they the murder and the crime scene and all that the family goes home they don't stay in the trailer they come back the next day to i guess collect her stuff or whatever it is as they get back they discover that the carpet's all gone oh the carpet's gone it's been so they're well, maybe the cops came and took it for evidence.

So there's probably stuff on the carpet, you know, pieces of evidence, hair, you know, things they can find. No, no. Billy Lee, who is his landlord's boyfriend, he came in and tore the carpet out. Yeah, because it's all trash. We can't rent this place with this carpet in it. After the murder and disposed of it, threw it in a dumpster somewhere away. So they can't even get to it to find out if there's any evidence in it at all. This is great.

That's fucking nuts. So the family said, Billy Lee, the landlord, goes in and starts ripping the carpet up. They said, you've got this guy going in right after. And the first thing he does is rip out the carpet of the master bedroom, which is where this might be. It is soaking wet. So, you know know that's something but this action of immediately ripping out the carpet that gets detective sanchez's attention of okay there's only one person over there ripping possible evidence out of the crime scene so maybe this is the guy

we talked to you know he's it's been the guy said too he already had a few reservations about the guy an older guy hanging around this younger lady and all that kind of thing. So, like, why would he remove the carpet? It doesn't make any sense. And also, Lee, Billy Lee, said that he told the cop that he didn't really have any dealings with Cassie, which is not correct at all. He lied to the cops when he said that because he's he's been and he's been mentoring her at work too oh yeah yeah they found out that she had applied for the position in the emergency room it was billy lee that was the one that was helping her get the job he's the one who helped her get the job because he's been there a long time i don't know her much i don't barely

know her i mean shit this is killer barely know her. Why are you distancing yourself so hard, Billy? Yeah, what the fuck, man? And they said, well, either way, it's kind of the cop's fault for releasing the house back. Her dad, Cassie's dad, Chuck, said, how can you be done with your investigation that quick? Like, that's crazy. So the family, though. So you got the ex-husband who she said, look at him. He's going to kill me.

Then you have this landlord who's ripping out evidence out of the carpet then the family though cassie's family says fuck the other two never mind brad never mind you know the landlord you need to look at dave berry her current boyfriend that's who you need to look at that's what we think we're suspicious of anyway so and that's one of those things you listen to the family because they know they even if they didn't say anything to her they to themselves said i don't like that guy i don't like the way he looks at her i don't like the way he talks to those kids or you know people are sure so they said you know maybe it's him chuck said his behavior the first few days chuck her, by the way.

He said he just never, he didn't look real sad, basically. Not a lot of hallmark behavior of a grieving boyfriend, boyfriend but also i think everybody that's the other thing they all got together it seems like and like one choked her while the other one punched her and they were like we fucking hate cassie like we had a fuck cassie we hate her party let's eat her up and kill her it's insane so now they have no physical evidence they have really no evidence of anything and three dead ends as far as suspects go so case goes pretty cold pretty quick wow yeah they got nothing here so dave berry he said that you know wasn't me number one yeah a didn't do it he goes i think it was brad because he said that cassie was so scared of brad that they had a plan for if he came.

If he comes unexpectedly, she, quote, she was to lock herself in the bedroom. That's where we kept the guns. And she was to arm herself and be prepared. Wow. Unless someone comes at, you know, 7 o'clock in the morning when you're not expecting them and that sort of thing. By the way, Dave Barry left for work at 5 or got to work at 5 a.m. that morning, which is before she got home from the graveyard shift. So he wasn't there.

So that's that's why they don't think he did it at all. So now he lived with her in the trailer and he said that he last time he saw her was the night before she had no visible injuries. And he also told the cops this was another thing they were like, he was a little too helpful. He said, I saw her the night before, no visible injuries, and she would never take a bath. Cassie didn't take baths because she was susceptible to urinary tract infections. Don't cough that information up. Do women with urinary tract infections, suscept know, susceptibility not take baths? I've never heard of that before.

Never. I've heard pee after sex. That's about it. I've never heard. I can't take baths because I'll get a urinary tract infection. I don't know if that's true or not. It could be. I mean, I've heard women say I don't pee in bodies of water.

I like get out of the water. Yeah, that makes sense because the door doesn't close fast enough but i've never heard of this i've never heard of that either then again i'm also not a gynecologist or right you know an internist of any kind so i really have no idea if that's true i'm super i'm glad i don't have a vagina yeah all the parts that i know what to do with down there have nothing to do with that you know what i I mean? It's a different. I'm going for a totally different thing than what a doctor might. I'm aiming much lower. I know, but you know.

Yeah, yeah. So he said that the investigation goes on. They're awaiting the autopsy and toxicology reports from the medical examiner. And they said the autopsy is done, as we told about. But they're just waiting on a toxicology report and they said that we wanted quote we want to make sure we do things right the sheriff stated which you've already botched the whole fucking thing a little late we've interviewed about 40 people or 20 people who knew the victim and worked with her four of the interviews were conducted in the past week. We're actively working the case, everybody.

Okay. Actively. But they said that, you know, it's strangulation. They told you about all the other things, nothing in her system that would cause her to, she didn't have, like, drugs in her system that would cause her to keel over or anything. So anybody going to get arrested for this, possibly?

Anybody? Hello? Police? Anybody? Arrest? Her mother, Darlene, possibly hello police anybody arrest uh her mother darlene says that the detective sanchez told her the day after the murder that uh that brad was the primary suspect okay look he's the primary suspect her ex but we have to eliminate everybody else before we can arrest him obviously

yeah he said the other guy he's going to focus on at first he's going to try to eliminate billy lee if at all possible the landlord's boyfriend they said that they interviewed they investigated billy lee and ruled him out as a suspect because he had an alibi for from a co-worker and wasn't home at the time she was killed that's fair but for a while here they really want to set to sit down and question him because when they go to question him, this is the timeline. She dies. Next day, carpets get ripped out. Two days later, they try to talk to Billy Lee and he's gone. Oh, where'd you go, Bill? That's another way to tell who did it. Who leaves town immediately after someone's killed? Who

tears up evidence and then runs away that seems bad not only was he gone he didn't go to like you know albuquerque he went to alaska oh that's the furthest place in the united states that you can go that i can still drive to right and on top of that what do they always say about why people are in alaska because they're what because they're wanted they're running from something from something whether it be a life or job a relationship crime the law who knows the mob doesn't matter so they're like holy shit they find that out and without his wife too he's not he's going by himself just leaving and going to alaska without the landlord there so they're like that is he doing that's strange um so his the the lieutenant said quote

i was like wow he's going to alaska maybe sanchez is on to something because sanchez had told him that billy lee was his number one suspect so and then he said quote that's exactly what people do you know they get in trouble they take off for alaska or someplace like that or mexico or something but for whatever but for whatever reason no effort was made to bring Billy Lee back to Silver City for questioning. And investigators quickly turned their attention to Dave Barry, the boyfriend. They were like, well, he's not around anymore, so he couldn't have done it. Let's see if this guy did it. Which is the whole reason they run away.

Dude, this is the strangest police. Just reading, you know, books about homicide investigation, this is not how it's done. No. Just whoever's around. Terrible job. This is just awful. So they were like, you know, he's married to the landlord. Hours after the murder, he's ripping carpet out.

He's leaving for Alaska. Months later, though, he returns. And and finally they get a chance to question Billy Lee. And they said they have, it's like six months later, they finally get to talk to him. You know, when things cool down a little bit. Things, yeah, quiet. I think that's about how long Michael Corleone had to go to Sicily, right? It's godfather. So he said he's back there, and now he's admitting that he and Cassie were close as well.

Yeah. Saying, okay, fine, we were close. Because they were like, we know you're close. And he said, all right, fine, we were close. We were real good friends, you know? So they get him on a polygraph even. Oh? And they say, did you inflict any injuries to Cassie on March 24th?

And they say, did you inflict any injuries to Cassie on March 24th? They never ask him why he removed the carpet or why he took off for Alaska, which would be two very telling questions, especially the way he answers them. Yeah. Just his body language would tell you all you need to know, you know, and his answers together. It's incredibly important questions. Yeah. He's just like, no, just did you do this or not? Rather than the other things that could help build this whole thing. So they said that he it's so weird because like they said, he had told Sanchez at the day of the murder that he barely knew Cassie.

Now they were pretty close. So they're thinking, was he too close? You know, whatever. Billy Lee, though, tells the detective that he has an alibi. And, you know, that's what he was doing. He said he was out of the county. He wasn't even in the county. He was out working on his cabin with a friend of his from work.

He said, we were working on the roof when I got the call. We've been out there for a couple days. But, of course, you know, the police are like, well, we don't believe that. We have to check up on it. Now it's been months, so his friend might be confused of what day it was. You know, that's why you put time between everything like that. It muddies it. So they ask him again, did you inflict the injuries?

And he said no. So the results of the polygraph, inconclusive. Of course. Doesn't pass the polygraph? Inconclusive. Of course. Doesn't pass the polygraph, which is... No. It's not a failure, but it's also the worst kind of... It's tough. ...result, because you need... Now you know shit.

You need it conclusive one way or the other. Now you know nothing. But after, finally six months later after that, so it's been more than a year, they're finally able to, now a year later, who knows, they're finally able to confirm the alibi with his coworker there. They were out working on a roof. The guy says that, yeah, he got a call that something happened and he had to leave. So that's how I know it was then. So looks pretty solid, I would say, that he didn't do that.

And they said, well, finally afterwards, I think Dateline asked him, why did you take off to Alaska? That looked bad. Tell us. And he said, I had a lucrative job offer, so I took it, not even thinking that it would look bad. I just took it. Yeah. And he said he felt the same way about the carpet that he ripped up in the bedroom. He said there were some people that thought I was bad.

And he said, what kind of evidence could be in a carpet? Everything. All sorts of shit. Semen, whatever, anything. Everything. He said, you know, I didn't know, though. They said, why did you take the carpet? And he said, I said, because you released the place

and that we need to save the flooring underneath of it. He said, you released it, so I thought you were done. That's what happened. So at that point, I said, fuck, let's take up the wet carpet before it destroys the flooring and gets everything moldy. So they said, shit. And they said, well, why would it be an inconclusive polygraph result? They asked him that.

And he said, I can't tell you. They said, have you ever been to the house? And he said, yes. And, you know know it's my rental house it's our rental house of course i've been there so none of this makes any sense so yeah they they confirm his alibi though and also david's alibi as well they know he's at work so okay now this lieutenant said later on he heard detective sanchez tell cassie's mother that he would have farrington in jail by friday brad the ex-husband this is back on the day of the murder have him done by

friday and the lieutenant said that he actually yelled it at the at his detective for saying that he goes don't fucking promise people shit like that we have to complete an investigation we haven't completed shit you don't even fingerprint how are you gonna you don't fucking promise people shit like that. We have to complete an investigation. We haven't completed shit. You don't even fingerprint. You don't have any physical evidence at all, and you're going to put somebody to jail by Friday? Fucking insane. Yeah, that's absolutely wild. Are you challenging?

That's not how cops work. We don't work on dares and challenges. No. Just like, well, maybe. And Sanchez, dares and challenges. just like well maybe and sanchez tears and challenges challenges and bets that's not police work five to four says start putting fucking money on the line and i got 20 on that what's the over under i mean what do you think oh man um sanchez even this is how apparently piss poor of a copy is in my opinion he asked his supervisor he goes you think maybe

she could have had a medical issue and fell in the tub why do you do this job friend why are you here you're just not good well why are they letting him investigate murders? There's got to be people speeding somewhere. Fucking put him on that. Yeah. Have him pick up the lunch for us. For the real cops. Some typing that needs to be done. God, he's bad at this.

You're going to Jersey Mike's today. Let's go. That's your fucking, that's your police duty. Do you think she had a medical thing? What are you here for? Oh, my God. And this is apparently just par for the course behavior because the lieutenant, Tavazon, this is the guy, Sanchez's boss, was later demoted from lieutenant to sergeant due to

his failure to collect evidence in a completely separate case. Of course. So they're just terrible at this. They don't know how to fucking, they don't know how to work a murder scene, period. Like at all. They're just bad at it. So, holy fuck, man. Another Grant County Sheriff's Deputy, Jess Watkins, he said that then once Sanchez was kicked off the case, they brought him in and he immediately reviewed the case and immediately went after Bradad farrington he goes i mean out of everyone he's the guy here so they said the uh

they said what made you think that and he said quote the totality of evidence and the injuries i felt from the injuries that a police officer would know it oh so he thinks it was a cop choke hold he goes that's i know that chokehold because i learned it so he goes that's that's that that's how that goes there i've delivered that on meth heads before i get it yeah well and he talked to the medical examiner and the medical examiner said it would be like this and so the cop was like like this like the chokeholds they train us to use okay that's a problem i know that one very familiar they tell me to use that in these situations. I feel like most people, if you're going to strangle someone to death, if you're going to strangle someone to death, how are you doing it?

Straight up with the thumbs. Yeah. Thumbs on the trachea. I made the thing. Yeah. That's the best I got. That's my first. I will strangle you.

That's a strangle. And I'll lose. Strangle, strangle. The old Homer Simpson is what you're giving them. That's it. The I will strangle you. That's a strangle. So strangle, strangle. The old Homer Simpson, which you're giving him. That's it. The most difficult one. Yeah. But the easiest is to grab him from the front.

The easiest to do. Right. Now, here's some other mind-boggling shit here. That, okay, DNA is found under Cassie's fingernails. Uh-oh. Okay. That's a big deal. All right.

Now, problem is Brad is eliminated as the donor. It's not him. He didn't, at least the DNA under the fingernails is not him. All right. That's a huge problem. Yeah. Now, also, DNA under fingernails, that could be from a night of nursing. You never know. She could have had to roll a patient and got a little scratch.

That kind of thing could happen. But, I mean, DNA like that, I mean, it's usually a struggle when it comes to that. So it's very strange. But if the chokehold was from behind, she's not getting claws on him. Well, she could. Yeah. You would reach back. Yeah, sure. Have her face, hair. that's the well she could yeah you would reach back yeah sure face hair but if he's wearing

the right kind of clothes you can't get to skin i mean something but i mean she obviously got to somebody's skin right yeah just maybe not him so we don't know so sanchez when talking to him he says that he focused on billy lee uh dude as a person of interest because none of his testimony matched up with what the other nurses said. They said they were close. He said he wasn't. This is all suspicious behavior. He pulled up evidence. He moved to Alaska.

It looks terrible. He said at no time was Brad Farrington ever a suspect in his investigation. None. Not once. None. Nope. Sanchez said they interviewed him at his house the night it occurred. Just to get a read on him.

He said two female and one male officer brought Brad in and interviewed him a later time. And he said that they, you know, the investigator said they had no probable cause. And he said, quote, I was already focused on everything was leading me to Mr. Lee, is what he said. That's all it was. So Sanchez said he was going to contact the Alaska State Police about talking to Billy, but eventually Billy returned. Six months later, when were you going to get around to talking to the cops? When six months went by. My kids got a soccer game tonight.

It's just real busy. Anniversary. She'll be so mad. Calls to Alaska are expensive still, right? At the department. I don't want to waste my. Dude, this is insane. He was in Alaska for six months and they didn't bother doing that here.

He said that he had to. Eventually, though, Sanchez has kicked off the case and he says it was because of a conflict because of him and cassie's family had disagreements over the case so that's why he got kicked off sanchez said they weren't happy with me for not releasing information i would say because you didn't have any. That's the problem. You had a dick. He said that Darlene Brooks, Cassie's mother, asked the D.A. to have another detective replace him. So they said that he hadn't taken fingerprints because he thought it was cleaned up. He said, quote, our belief was that the crime scene was overly clean.

OK. Well, if someone cleaned up, wouldn't you clean up the glasses and the hair ribbon and the towel rack and fix the fucking thing? You know, he said that, you know, our belief was that it was overly clean. I believe this scene had been cleaned after the crime had been committed. That's why fingerprints weren't taken. Terrible excuse. Terrible fucking excuse. He said that his supervisor, Tavazon, who was on the scene there, said that maybe they talked about the medical issue. They also said his decision not to investigate Brad Farrington.

He said as far as Brad being a suspect, it isn't. They asked him, isn't it standard practice in, you know, homicide investigation to look at the husband of a murder victim? And he said, well, you know, he starts at the the inner circle the people closest to the victim and you know they weren't very close anymore that was her ex he said whether right or wrong i've always done it that way and it's always worked i've been doing my job terribly for a long time now right or wrong sanchez is a dickhead can we say it he's a fucking dildo this is he's not a good cop we've had several small town bad investigate and we always say these small towns they don't get a lot of homicides so right away if you don't have a lot of experience processing a crime scene and

doing all that that's why they're not good at it because they're fucking up. They're forgetting things because it's not a habit for them to do it. But you have to. How about practice, train? Take some classes. Yeah. Maybe you'll only have to do it once every 20 years, but God damn it, get it right the once every 20 fucking years when there's a 23-year-old woman floating in a tub.

Figure it out. Fly out to a conference or something. Figure it yeah yeah watch tv yeah watch fucking tv i'm not even asking you to go to college watch csi read david simon's homicide book they talk there's a whole chapter about processing the crime scene and how they do it and everything is better than what you did. So, holy fuck, man. I hope they call him Dirty Sanchez. Oh, you know the family does. I'll tell you that much. So, yeah, they said, quote, they asked him, well, why'd you release the house back to the family so quick?

This is fucking crazy. And he said, if it's a homicide and real dark outside, you wouldn't release it. What the fuck does dark have to do with anything? It's real dark. What the fuck? He said, but if you have a crime scene that is well lit, as long as the crime scene is fully processed, that's when you release it. What the fuck are you talking about? As long as you can see it real good.

What the fuck are you talking about as long as you can see it real good what the fuck are you talking about he said if it would have been outside we would not have been we would not have released it so if the crime scene happened outside they wouldn't have released it he just said whenever we're done we don't release it back to the family even if we're done at night if it's nighttime we just hang on to it for the rest of the night and then wait till what the fuck are you talking about until morning and then it's a new day yeah uh he was asked if there was any footprints or tire tracks found at the crime scene smart he said by the time he arrived the fire department and police had already been there so the front yard was not processed because there had been

fire trucks driving across the gravel so that shit shit's gone. They said the towel rack, he said, if the towel rack that had been torn from the bathroom wall, they said, wouldn't that have been picked up since, you know, he believed the crime scene was cleaned up. What Sanchez said in a court hearing later, quote, there was no towel rack on the floor. It was missing, completely missing. It wasn't there. Why did the family find it then? Well, more than that, the district attorney at that point pulled out crime scene photos showing the fucking towel rack on the floor.

You know who the crime scene photos were taken by? Sanchez. Fucking Sanchez. He fucking took the picture of it. Of it on the floor and doesn't remember. Yes. It was a long time ago you don't understand i forgot i forgot the only evidence that was there i totally forgot they

said weren't you the ones who took the pictures at the scene and he said quote i don't remember oh my god that's very well logged and cataloged who did what because it's a chain of evidence issue so you did take the fucking pictures. It's written down, stupid. So they said, are these not the same set of pictures taken by you or your supervisor? And he said, no, they are. You're just terrible at your job. That's all. You're sinking this ship.

Wow. Wow. Now, Sanchez had never spoken. He'd never spoken for him personally to Brad during this. Somebody else did officers that went over there to do the notification or whatever. So her family believed that Sanchez now was maybe possibly trying to protect a fellow law enforcement officer and decided to take their, you know, that's why they went to the DA and that's why he got kicked off the case, Sanchez, and they brought somebody else. The DA said people got a little hot under the collar. I don't blame them. That's their dead daughter. And they all agreed, the sheriff, the undersheriff, Tavazon, who Sanchez is a supervisor,

and the DA all agreed that Sanchez made some mistakes in this case. A few, yeah. A few. the da all agreed that uh sanchez made some mistakes in this case a few yeah a few tavazon the supervisor said i had no reason to doubt him but i should have i should have micromanaged him how many other murders do you have to worry about honestly you should have fucking this is the murder we have maybe overlook the most important case we're dealing with holy shit did they get that quote from tavazon while he was writing a parking ticket yeah he's like let me tell you again well one of his stripes is gone fuck poor bastard so he said that shit uh which is funny and then he attributed the lag in the event they said what the fuck took a year and he said probably laziness i would say

so sanchez is lazy he said Sanchez was removed from the case, and a veteran detective, Sergeant Jess Watkins, took over. He turned his attention to Brad, who obviously had been going through a custody battle and had a fight about the shit the day before about Daddy David and all that shit. They were like, huh. The family then, so they talked to the family, tell me all about Brad. Well, volatile relationship, steals her phone, gets her in a headlock, beats her up, tapes the kids, you know, all that kind of shit.

Woke up to find her standing over her in the night. Everything, right? Chuck said he had her convinced he was going to kill her. Okay, this is murder suspect stuff. This is good. So they said Cassie had told others that Brad had been abusive to their children with the binding and all that kind of shit. But just weeks before the murder, Cassie's five-year-old son came home from a visit with her father and told his mother, told Cassie that dad told this kid that he was going to kill Cassie and Dave Barry. Oh, my God. He's going to kill Cassie and Dave Barry. Oh, my God.

He's going to kill you and Daddy David. From the mouth of a five-year-old. Yeah, and Chuck said, I don't think a five-year-old makes that up. No. Probably not. Yeah, they also determined that Brad's the only person with any motive to kill Cassie, and they believed that the evidence showed that she might have been killed by a police officer based on the joke hold. So a little more on Brad here.

They said, wow, the Silver City police officer, Jason Woods, said that he was in the police academy with Brad here and said that they had been at his home shortly after finding out Cassie was killed. They knew each other. And they both testified later to Brad's demeanor, saying that he was mostly quiet but had been crying and they saw tears in his eyes. So he was having a quiet actual cry, though. A sullen cry. Those are good ones sometimes. Which is fair, I guess. I don't know. So they said that they ended up reviewing more than 3,000 pages of data collected off Cassie's phone as well.

Oh. They asked if any threatening messages had been found in these 3,000 pages of data collected from her phone and texts and emails and everything else. Any threatening message from Brad to Cassie. And they said, not in the data I received. So no. So he hasn't been threatening her over the phone or anything like that. All this must be in person, which is if he's a cop, he knows that's when you can get in trouble.

If it's my word against yours, it's fine. But if I go, bitch, I'm going to choke you and send that to her, then she can bring that to court and then I'm fucked. So they decide, you know what? Let's arrest Brad. Let's go ahead and arrest him. We have no evidence. The DNA doesn't match him, but fuck it.

Why not? He's the maddest adder. So cool. Problem is they can't find him. Oh, where'd he go? Well, this is October 2015, so it's been a while. It's been a year and a half, and he doesn't have to stick around. They finally hear he's in Tucson.

year and a half and he doesn't have to stick around they finally hear he's in tucson so the grant county to deputy dep to deputies the grant county to deputies they enlist the help of the u.s marshals uh and the the investigation fugitive task force in new mexico all these people to try to find him they find him where jimmy tucson at a truck stop or is he living there at a walgreens in tucson near grant and silver bell roads which i don't know where those are because i would never spend time in tucson i would never know intersections there nope if i did i'd actively try to forget them if i was learning them them, I'd be like, no, I can't learn this trash shithole. I know I-10. That's it.

That's it. And I don't get off of it in Tucson. So he's taken into and booked into the Pima County Jail pending extradition. They extradite him and all that shit. He sits in jail for two years. What? He sits in jail for two years on what murder they arrest him for first degree murder and he's sitting in jail for two years jesus seems a bit excessive right yeah

yeah so much for a speedy trial that's what i mean november 18th, he's arrested. November of 2017, he's still sitting in jail with no trial. They said that now this time, a hearing this day on November 21st is postponed. So that means they're postponing his trial again to give the state additional time it requested to hire an expert to examine new evidence in the case. So he says, listen yeah they've been gathering evidence for fucking three years now it's i'm sitting in here for two years i gotta get this so they give him bond actually they allow him to leave jail he is released to the custody of his father lloyd to live with lloyd and his mom in t while awaiting trial. Okay. Okay. So they said some of the delays were due to the case being tied up in the state Supreme Court,

a change in judges after some other shit happened and continuances. It was this big mess. No bracelet on him either. No anklet on this guy. Just let him go. Yeah. Letting him go. He's going to live with his dad.

It's all good. So five days after he's released from jail, he violates the conditions of his release. Sure. Yeah. Letting him go. He's going to live with his dad. It's all good. So five days after he's released from jail, he violates the conditions of his release. Sure. Yeah. Yes. He's supposed to not leave the house except for medical emergencies and shit like that. Well, it turns out he went to lunch at a restaurant in Tucson in clear violation of his order to remain under house arrest. They said the only exceptions were hearings medical

appointments and attorney appointments that's it not not going to the where the fuck were they the angry crab and barbecue restaurant that's not on the approved had to go to the angry crab yeah that's not on the approved court approved list of places to go here. So they, he, he was not, never ordered to wear the bracelet. So that's what happens. They, the,

the prosecution files a motion requesting to revoke his bail, obviously on these conditions as part of the motion, they provide a screenshot from, how do you think they found this out about this? You know, is there a witness did this man saw him check in at the angry crab on facebook there's a screenshot of a facebook post from 2 45 p.m on november 26th by brad's sister melanie showing a photo of brad hugging his

children inside the angry crabrab barbecue restaurant in Tucson with the words, quote, We earned a nice lunch. Not smart. We earned a nice lunch. Oh, man. So the prosecutor said that he even told the judge that the defense attorney has told his client, you know, that not to let this happen again and if this was the only issue the state would probably let it go but there's other issues here the other issue is the father who signed an agreement to be his custodian while awaiting trial never is never there he works 12-hour shifts at the mines in morenci i'll keep an eye on him between my shifts. He works 12-hour shifts, and it's a three-hour drive. He's home to sleep.

That's it. He's gone 18 hours a day. Literally, the most you could be gone. By the way, that's the strangest town that exists, Morenci. I played a show there, and wow. The whole town was literally the entire town came to the show we showed up at like two in the morning and they were like oh you're the comedians oh boy we're so excited everyone in town can't wait for tomorrow night and we're like it's just this tiny town sitting on top of a weird

hill yeah it's fucked man is it an elk's lodge right or something like that the the thing the lodge yeah whatever's the There's only one thing. The gathering place. Yeah. There's a pizza place and a little grocery store. And then in the next plaza, there's like a meeting thing and like some stores, you know, like a clothes store and the strip mall. And that's the whole fucking town.

There's nothing else. That's it. There's literally 100 people there. Yeah. That live there full time. It's just a mine and nothing else. So good crowd, though though because they were really fantastic place who they were dying for something like there's people here shit just laugh at them

and we'll never come back they've never been here before i feel like they were just nice to us so we so they we would come back someday there will be another night no one will ever come back yeah we don't even care if it's funny. We get to leave the house. So obviously that's a problem with the father being in a fucking mine and all this type of shit. He said that he has to work in the mine to afford to pay his son's attorney fees and support his son. Right. So he then says, quote, all of this is coming from disgruntled victims, family members looking for any reason to prevent my client from being an aide in his defense. Okay.

Okay. So they said that the mom's home all day. She can keep an eye. But the judge said that's not the situation I was told was going to be. I was told that this was going to happen. So they said if the mother wants to be a third-party custodian, she needs to fill out the paperwork to do so. But you know what? There's going to be no penalties.

You just go on home with your parents, big guy. You get out of here for now. He like scuffled Brad's hair up. Like, there you go, big Brad. Go on there. Now you know. Wow. And then the judge even said, quote,

he has law enforcement experience. He knows what conditions of release mean. Right. So they should have fucking put him back in then, I guess. But I guess not. I don't know. And that post, if he did do it, is absolutely out of line. You can't say that while holding the children of the woman who's dead.

Like, that's crazy. It's not great. So they said that the prosecutor said, I suspect he knows what he did was wrong. What he did not know was that his sister was going to post it on Facebook. He was probably pissed at her. So still, he's going to remain home to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family while he awaits trial. Now, pre-trial, there's these fucking fight over the files. They said that the defense attorney is trying to get some files.

There's a motion. He requests the personnel files of Tavazon, the lieutenant and Sergeant Jose Gonzalez Sanchez. There's of the sheriff's department. This can I said Gonzalez because that's the attorney's name. Gonzalez filed paperwork in district court stating during the course of interviews, it was discovered that two officers, the lead investigator and the lieutenant were both reprimanded in this case. Exactly. They need, they may, I gotta have that in court documents submitted. He requested that the court order, uh, the County to provide the internal investigation results and witnesses who did the internal investigation, including the actual documents in the personnel file regarding these write-ups and demotions

and ordered the county attorney to refrain from attending the witness interviews as she is not counsel for the officers and not party to the cause of action and lacks standing in this criminal matter, not a civil matter. So, very interesting. They found out, like I said, the lieutenant was demoted as a result of partially mishandling this case. The other guy got taken off the case. He's a fucking mess, and he's not a cop there anymore. He takes off by the time trial happens.

They can't even find him to testify. They have to issue a bench warrant for him, for Sanchez. He just disappears. So they're trying to get this. They're trying to find all this shit. They said a subpoena sent to one of the internal investigations officers for the sheriff's department there wasn't answered in the correct amount of time. So they have a big fight about timeliness, which is very boring. And I'm not going to bore anybody with that of how when's the time they have to give files over as according to it's stupid. So let's get to the trial here.

They pick a jury jury seated and the judge tells the courtroom on a Monday morning that even though we're ready to go, the jury seated, we're not going to be moving forward with the trial. Why? He said there's issues that were brought to light this weekend and declares a mistrial. Already. Already. Fucking crazy, which makes no sense. They said there was some evidentiary issues. I can't get into the details. That was that. That was that trial.

They said that the defense and the prosecution said the defense claims to have suddenly discovered they did not receive a disc containing the autopsy photos in the case. So it was discovery. The prosecution didn't fully disclose all the autopsy photos apparently. And the defense waited until the trial was supposed to start to say that. So then it's a mistrial. It's another delay and then Brad can be at home for a while longer. So it's strategically a better way. If you did it three months ago, they'd have just gone, oh, well, we'll send the discs

over tomorrow and we can continue. So, yeah, it's a little strange. The prosecution said the state is confused. Their expert prepared a report in which their expert stated he examined 229 photographs. Then at the hearing, their defense expert testifies by phone that he only had the photographs that were taken at the crime scene, but there were only approximately 100 crime scene photos. So it's unclear if he did not receive autopsy photos, what were the other 129 photos he was referring to.

Either way, they go to a stupid mistrial. So trial number two. Let's try this again. In the opening, the prosecutor tells the jury that this is a circumstantial case. Yeah. We're going to build it. There is no physical evidence.

So if you're looking for, you know, his semen was in her. That's none of that's going to happen. Doesn't exist. You have to tell them that upfront. So they know what they're in for. He said,

there's no evidence, you know, that's how that goes. The defense says there's no evidence to place Brad at the scene. No one saw him there. They don't have any evidence of it. It's ridiculous. So he says that the prosecutor says that the Cassie Brooks met Farrington when she was 15.

He was 20 when she was 17. It's actually 16. Brad got her pregnant, and then they got married and moved to Silver City, where he became a police officer and she a nurse. They had another child, a daughter this time. But as time went on, their relationship got worse. She says the family would notice bruises on her. And he's just building the whole story that we just said. So eventually they split.

Cassie moved out into the mobile home. She rented from Sharnell Williams, a fellow nurse. The custody battle was dragging on and on and on. And just days before her death, Cassie told her mother that she was afraid Brad was going to kill her. Cassie's mom, Darlene, testifies. She talked about watching her daughter grow fearful of her husband, Brad, seeing bruises and seeing Brad hold her in a chokehold in bed. Was she watching her fuck? Fuck her.

What happened there? So six days before she was killed, she talks about the trip and talks about arguing and all that kind of thing that we talked about, about him taking the kids to Arizona. So Sanchez, he's the big elephant in the room is this guy who fucked the whole case up here.

They said at this point they're trying to call him to testify. They can't, no one can find him. They have to issue a bench warrant for him to come get him. They bring in Ray Tavazon as well who was the supervisor at the time. He told the jury that he suggested at the time that Sanchez be medically

evaluated because he had been making false statements. He thought he was crazy he said. He thought Sanchez was crazy? Yeah he said he thought he knew. He told him go get medically evaluated because you're been making false statements he thought he was crazy he said he thought he was crazy yeah he said he thought he knew he told him go get medically evaluated because you're saying all sorts of lies because he would he lied about a bunch of shit um cassie's mother darlene also testified that sanchez told her the day after the death that brad was the suspect but that he just had to eliminate other people first so they're trying to say that you know look they picked him out ahead of time. So finally they find Sanchez. They bring him in.

He testified that he never considered Brad a suspect. He focused on Billy Lee. And they talked about the Billy Lee shit and the polygraphs and all that kind of thing. Inconclusive polygraphs with the creepy old guy, quote unquote, that was hanging around, ripping carpets up, running away to Alaska. You know, it's a to Alaska. Sounds plausible. Sounds plausible. But they ruled him out because he has an alibi from a co-worker, and he was not home.

He was out of the county, they said, and everything like that. Tavazon, the supervisor, said that he heard Sanchez tell Cassie's mother that he would have him in jail by Friday either. So they both went into that. They said during an investigation, internal investigation in the police department, Sanchez was reprimanded by the sheriff's department over the handling of the investigation, along with Tavazon, who said that he had been demoted to sergeant over his evidence handling. So Tavazon said, I was there as a supervisor.

I was not involved in the active investigation of the case. And that's why I was demoted. That's why, because I didn't do shit. The defense attorney tried to discredit Tavazon, saying he failed to write a report on the case in violation of policy, despite the fact that he was Sanchez's supervisor and was on the scene with him. Right. Saying he should have wrote a report about Sanchez, if nothing else. with him saying he should have wrote a report about sanchez if nothing else melinda hobbs she testifies she was in the police academy with brad and worked shifts with him as a police officer before he left the department she testified to seeing him shortly after he was informed of his

wife's murder and said that while he made sounds like he was sobbing when she saw his face there were no tears oh that's not good that's not good that's two guys now with fucking dry sobs yep that they're putting dry sobs out there to the world so who's got who's got a tear for this lady and then maybe you're not a suspect now next up dna analyst samantha ryan uh rhinus she testifies that DNA gathered from clippings of Casey's fingernails showed the presence of an unknown male. Yeah. Farrington excluded, though. Brad, not the guy.

Not under Casey's fingernails at all. No. So the jury wanted to know, the jury asked, can we ask you, the judge, to ask a question that the lawyers aren't asking that we need to know the answer to they said would the water uh the victim's body was found in would that erase or fuck up dna at all so she said quote water does break down dna and if you're scrubbing that would remove things sure yeah that that makes sense. The problem with that is water getting into DNA wouldn't make the DNA not bad anymore. Not DNA, right. That's the thing.

But if he scrubbed her nails, he could have gotten his DNA off of her nails. True, but then where was the other DNA? He just left behind another? Right, yeah. He said, all right, I got mine out. Now, I'll leave behind the other unknown male DNA. Nobody cleaned under her fingers or else they would have got it all. Right.

So I would imagine so. So the trial's a four-day trial altogether. There's the missing witness with Jose Sanchez and all this type of shit. False suspect with Billy Lee. Mystery DNA. This case kind of has it all in terms of a trial. It hangs in the balance a lot yeah a lot here the prosecution closing he says before she died cassie told us who her killer was

she told friends co-workers loved ones she even told a stranger the insurance guy these people saw cassie's fear they saw her fright they saw her. And when they told her to call the police, she told them it wouldn't help. Quote, my husband is the police. You heard that from multiple witnesses. What a place to be in in your life when you can't even call the police for help. No one else had any motive, any reason to do Cassie Farrington any harm. This was a planned violent attack. It's the kind of violence that's up close and personal. This is not someone getting shot from a distance. This shows anger, rage and violent intent. To strangle someone like that, you really gotta want it. It's tough. Especially when someone's struggling and wow. He said that Sanchez bringing up Billy

Lee as a suspect was nothing but a distraction. Yep. He said this is an attempt to throw shade somewhere other than Brad Farrington. There's shade or somewhere other than brad farrington there's no one else other than brad farrington who wanted to hurt cassie and commit such a violent attack on her now during the end of this here a juror falls asleep during a lot of this are you working in the mines in morenci why are you so sleepy motherfucker why are you so tired do you work at the graveyard shift at the hospital?

So the judge asked for a break and excused the jury. And he says, it's been brought to my attention that a juror was falling asleep. And so they do an in-camera, which is an in-chambers meeting with the juror, talk to him. They bring him in and privately meet with the judge and attorneys to see how much of the testimony he missed. What's the last thing you heard? Which is hilarious. How do you sleep through murder, man? What the fuck?

Wow, this is really interesting shit. So the jury gets reseated and they just plow on with it. Okay. Didn't miss that much. We'll tell you what you missed. So the defense here, they twice throughout the trial, the defense asked the judge for a directed verdict, meaning that the judge would take the case away from the jury and just dismiss the charges. Just do that, saying that the state's case rested entirely on statements that Cassie made, which is hearsay because she's dead. Now, they said it would be impossible for a reasonable jury to find that Mr.

Farrington killed the deceased and that there was any kind of motive there. But the judge said each time there was sufficient evidence to take it to the jury, wouldn't do the deal there. So they tried to discredit the investigation, which is not difficult to do. I mean, Jesus Christ, this was terrible. Sanchez has given them a field day. Wow. He said they presented no dna evidence why is that

they said based on the evidence that was presented with you they're lacking in their investigation he said they should have done more you have the ability to tell the da's office and the sheriff's department do your job right and don't be lazy about it you want to use a woman to do that a woman's death to do that you could just tell them that anyway yeah i could write that you know like you could write letters and yell and fucking talk shit to the press you could do all that shit so especially the jury they'll listen to you so the the district attorney he says that the state's you know dna person already explained why the state didn't bother to submit DNA.

He said the analyst gave you a very important clue. DNA evidence washes away. She was fully floating or found floating fully clothed. Found floating fully clothed is hard to say. That would really fuck me up. Hard to get like my brain to put those words in order. It's a real Dr. Seuss-y. Who would know that DNA evidence can be washed away but a DNA analyst and trained police officer?

In other words, this guy. So my problem is with that is that so his DNA washed away but someone else has stayed? For me, that's a stretch if I'm a jerk. He just took the chance that that was going to happen? Yeah, that should be good enough. I've been in a a pool a lot and my nails still have dirt underneath them sometimes you know what i'm saying yeah there's chlorine and everything else in there i just feel like that that is the d just his dna must have been washed away in the fucking it's taking a chance

i don't i'm not buying that here so that's a one. That's a tough one if I'm a juror. I'm going, shit, I don't know about that. So they said also the prosecutor said that the court wanted the jury to be able to consider the lesser charge of second-degree murder. So the jury was also provided with second-degree murder instructions. So they can do first or second. So they can do first or second during deliberations, by the way, which started at 3.30 p.m. and ended at 8.10 p.m. So about four and a half hours, four hours, 40 minutes of deliberations. They asked a whole bunch of questions. They asked for a transcript of Silver City police officer Melinda Hobbs's testimony and several other questions they kept asking.

All right. They finally send the verdict in four hours and 40 minutes later, and they find him. Any guesses here? Oh, I don't want to guess at all. I'm so scared. They find him guilty of first-degree murder. Oh, my.

Not even second, first. What did they hear? That's a tough one, man. What did they hear that pushed him? That's what I mean. Just he's the only person that hated her? Yes, that he had motive. That was it.

But I mean, it could be, at that point, it could be fucking anybody then. She could have left the door unlocked and had somebody come in and do this. But then they would have raped her or stole shit. So it's someone she knows. He ate out at a restaurant in Tucson. He's clearly a murderer. He's clearly a sick bastard. He's spending time in Tucson voluntarily.

So the reaction to this guilty verdict, Brad's family members, including his father, who had appeared with him at every hearing because he has to legally. He's a fucking custodian at this point. He said that he felt he was very sad. He left the courthouse quietly. Cassie's friends and family, who were a lot, they came in force there, they said that they were all, you know, quietly hugging and doing all that.

Outside in the parking lot, Lloyd, Brad's father, and several others stood in the far back of the parking lot next to his pickup truck and just kind of – listen to this, by the way. Yeah. Listen to the description of how this is. This is way too much for a court case reporting. This is – Christine Steele wrote this is the name of the person writing for this paper. And his daughter. She's trying to be.

Yeah. Outside in the parking lot behind the courthouse, Lloyd Farrington and several others stood in the far back of the lot next to his pickup truck. Underneath a darkening sky, a crescent moon and one bright star shining down from above. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Write a novel. Write a novel, Christine. All that shit belongs in there. That doesn't belong in court reporting. And it's not like she did it anywhere else in the article.

It was like, I can sneak this sentence in at the end and just show everybody what's up. I can really set the scene here and I'm going to. Write a novel. So during sentencing, because it's written well, I guess, during sentencing, the impact statements here, they said that there are four people who would like to speak. And Mark Brooks, the father of the victim, his real name is Mark. They call him Chuck, has a letter he would like to read to the court. He started with the letter.

There's a letter from John Archuleta, who's a childhood friend of Cassie's. And he wrote that him and Cassie had been best friends since grade school and lost touch in high school, but they found each other as friends again in 2012. And he said it was actually a critical time in his life. He was a combat medic and was dealing with a lot of mental issues related to that, and his wife had just left him. He said, I was an injured man, both physically and mentally, when a chance encounter led Cassie back into my life, and immediately I was 13 again. He said that how their children had become friends, and his son told him that he wanted Cassie's son to be his best friend. He said, we shared each other's dreams and goals, and Cassie shared his excitement about

reconnecting. He said, my drinking stopped, and I had stopped thinking about ending my life. Wow. When Brad took her life, I felt I had failed her. I became lost completely. I started drinking again and attempted to end my life on the year anniversary of her death. Brad created a huge ripple across many lives. What he did completely shattered my well-being.

I ask that you not go leniently on him. I mean, all of that has nothing to do with DNA. And that's the problem. But we're past that. Now it's over. Now it's just sentencing. So how much of a dick is this guy? That's all it is now.

That man made me drink again. Yeah, that man made me drink and try to kill myself. So Cassie's father, Mark slash shuck he speaks now he says there's so much that needs to be said but i'll respect you in your court so i i respect you in your court so i'll be brief he wants to swear at this man yeah he wants to go you cock sucking shit bag he said brad and he turns and looks at brad he's not even telling the judge or the jury this is how i feel this is my opportunity opportunity to finally tell Brad he's a cunt here. That's what that is. Brad,

do you remember 10 years ago we had a conversation about Cassie's dreams and goals in her career and you said you were on board with that? I would like you to sit back and think about how much differently life could be. Oh, I won't say the names. The two kids, he mentions their names, are going to want to

know, not that they hide them, but I just feel bad. Don't put their kids, man. The ones like 15, they don't fucking need their name out there. Yeah, like 15, I think in 2000. Yeah, so that's seven, probably 16. They don't need that shit. They said that they're going to want to know the truth about their mother. They said, I hope you are man enough to tell them.

Our family is extremely grateful for the court the district attorney's office notice they didn't mention the police at all he basically said we did this in spite of their bungling dipshittery we fucking figured it out we would like the maximum sentence so that our grandchildren are protected from him yes okay then darlene cassie's mother, comes up. She says, Brad, you tried to isolate Cassie from her own family. You held her prisoner in her own home. I like this so much better than telling the judge and the jury how you feel.

Going right, just level, laying into the fucking defendant. That's how you should do it. Hey, Brad, I've got some words for you. Hey, shitbag Brad. Yeah. You held her prisoner in her own home. You abused her physically and emotionally. You made her prisoner in her own home. You abused her physically and emotionally. You made her live in fear for herself and the kids.

You tracked, stalked, and choked her. You made her cry every day. You took your children's mother away from them. You showed no remorse or empathy at all at her funeral to the point where you had no tears and just covered your ears. Even just days before her funeral, you didn't want to let us see her children. Not only did you take our beautiful, loving Cassie from us, you took our grandchildren away as well. Because I think his parents are watching them now. You ripped her precious life from her in a most horrendous way.

She never had a chance for a new life. You brutally murdered her. Cassie was the sweetest, most loving and caring person you will ever meet. My family will have to endure emotional pain caused by the loss you have caused for the rest of our lives. You said you could do anything and not get caught. Well, Brad, you got caught.

You said if you're going to do anything to someone, make sure they're dead because a dead man don't talk. By the way, that's cops say that. That's standard. You go, why did they empty the whole clip into them? Because they literally say, if you're going to shoot someone, probably kill them. Because otherwise you're going to cost us millions of dollars. Make one story.

Yeah. It's literally, and that's not a shot at anything. Every cop will say, some older cop has told them that. If you shoot someone, fucking make sure. You're going to end it. Yeah. Otherwise, that's bad for you so they said you got caught um if you're gonna if you're gonna make sure they're dead because a

dead man don't talk well she talked you told her several times that anything she told the police they would not believe her over you well well brad they believed why why did you have to kill her in the manner you did i pray you never walk the streets again for murdering Cassie. This won't bring my daughter back, but at least you can't hurt the kids anymore or anybody else. I feel you are pure evil. Oh, boy. Wow. Damn. Her sister Elizabeth spoke as well, Cassie's sister.

She said, I'm Cassie's little sister. Losing Cassie's very hard for me. We were in a great place. She was helping me plan my wedding when you killed her. She missed the birth of my two children. I miss her so much. And every day I wish she was here. I hope her kids someday will find out the truth.

She was a wonderful mother. She was a best friend anyone could wish for. And then finally here, Cassie's friend from work, Sonia testifies. Sonia Sanchez. No relation to the dipshit detective, by the way. Oh, that's good. She said, I didn't come here with words written down. I will just speak from the heart.

Cassie was a beautiful person. I wish you could have known her or seen her, seen the love that she had for her children. Brad took that away. I feel he needs the maximum. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. So, the judge says, you, sir.

Well, I'll give you this. You, sir, may fuck off. The sentence for this crime is to spend the rest of your life in prison. You will be eligible for parole in 30 years, he says. I suggest you spend that time thinking about what you did and seeking forgiveness. And working hard to figure out what the parole board wants to hear in 30 years because otherwise you're never getting out you will never get out if this is guilt and guilt for guilt's sake here so reactions here one juror talked afterwards sleepy motherfucker asked not to be named he said he's very tired right now. Did he say, what happened?

He said this particular jury was very, very good. One guy fell asleep to the point where they had to stop the trial and talk to him in the fucking chambers. That's right away not very good. And the guy next to him couldn't have nudged him. Hey, asshole. Hey, wake up. Hey, dummy, you're going to get us in trouble. Listen to this.

We were all very engaged. No, we weren't. Except for the guy who was sleeping. Jesus. We were all asking a lot of questions. We weren't all in agreement at the beginning, but the process actually worked. The system worked in this case. We were able to have a very calm but intelligent conversation about all the evidence in this case. It was not an easy case.

I'm sure of that. Yeah, no shit, because i still don't have any fucking evidence at all so that's tough um he said that chuck brooks the father he said he has no animosity he said the support we got from the district attorney's office the sheriff's department this week they were there for us the whole time i love that that he put that in there they were all rooting for us. Lieutenant Anthony Bencomo was very excited for us. Ray Tavazon was very excited.

A big thanks to Detective Jess Watkins. No mention of Dipshit Sanchez. So he said the prosecutors, Matthew Bradburn, in his closing argument, went through all the details, the technical parts of it. And his statement, Cassie told us before the death who killed her, that was great. This is the dad. He killed it. And George Zoska, that's the other DA,

put the common sense of this whole thing into the juror's head and everybody in the room. He said this was a trained police officer that knew how the investigation would go and would know how to clean up the scene and cover his tracks, and he had the training to inflict the injuries on her. The two of them did great in their closing arguments.

So they said, we have had a couple of bright spots come along in the last couple years, actually four of them, which is their four newest grandchildren. They've come along. She said, though, that, you know, this does change a little bit. This changes things a little bit. My plan is when I get back to Arizona today, I'm going to see Cassie and tell her that we did it finally. Oh, that's nice. So the D.A. said this case demonstrates that no one is above the law.

This defendant used his position as a police officer to terrorize his victim. And I applaud the court for its thoughtful and comprehensive treatment of this important issue of law because it most often applies in cases of domestic violence. He appeals this. Of course he does. It is based on the fact that, well, number one, sufficiency of evidence. Right. But that's a hard one on appeal though because it has to be like, they said the guy was six

foot eight in black and you're five three in Chinese. It doesn't't make any sense that's the only way that works in an appeal but what he might be able to work is he is saying the statements that he was basically convicted on all of cassie saying he's going to kill her and all that that's hearsay no nobody else fucking heard that so how do you let that in that's's ridiculous. So the testimony, this is from the appeals court, testimony at trial established an abusive relationship where a victim repeatedly informed friends and family of her fear of the defendant and concern he would hurt or kill her. Testimony further established that defendant and victim were involved in a contentious divorce with much dispute. divorce with much dispute. Moreover, one medical expert at trial concluded that victim died of strangulation, while another concluded that strangulation was the likely cause of death. Two different examiners.

The cause of death is significant because testimony outlined defendant's training as a police officer familiarized him with chokeholds, including the carotid constraint, which is sleeper hold, which you can put someone to sleep forever, which is sleeper hold, which you can put someone to sleep forever, which is a means of strangulation. They said at the time, the carotid restraint technique was described as inherently dangerous, as a weapon of opportunity reserved for only life and death situations for cops, but they taught them that in this department. Additionally, the jury heard testimony that the defendant has a history of choking victim during sex to the extent that the victim would pass out, which is terrible.

That's horrifying. Yeah, that's what he's into. He's fucking weird. So they said sufficient evidence supports that the victim was subjected to his repeated abuses, which culminated in the strangulation. They said the defendant also contends that evidence of another male's DNA found under the fingernails mitigates against his guilt. As the state points out, the jury has heard this evidence and rejected this argument, which is a pretty strong argument. That gets a lot of people out of prison. What was the DNA under the fingernails? We finally tested it.

Oh, it wasn't him. That's not good. No. So they clarified this is a forfeiture exception to hearsay. Just a quick little legalfully procured victims absence as a witness. OK, that's what it is. OK. The defendant wrongfully procured victims absence as a witness. In other words, she would be in court to testify to this if he hadn't killed her, which is a very chicken or the egg argument. It really is. That's really difficult. Well, she would be here. Well, we wouldn't be here if that happened. So then what's the what are we talking about then? So it's a very it's a. She would be here. Well, we wouldn't be here if, if that happened. So then what's the,

what are we talking about then? So it's a very, it's a hard argument to win here. So the said regarding the intent to procure victims absence, the district court concluded that an extensive history of domestic violence and threatened violence and death at the hands of victim's husband, a law enforcement officer supported the intent element of the forfeiture exception by a preponderance of the evidence to alleviate these rules thing.

I won't put the rules here. The district court limited the state to two witnesses from victims workplace and otherwise prevented all witnesses from giving cumulative testimony and testifying to domestic violence incidents prior to 2013. So it had to be specific things, specific quotes. That's what it was. There's precedence here. They find the case is called Giles, and it's preponderance of the evidence that he intentionally caused her unavailability as a witness, which, again, is a very – that'll melt your brain if you think about that.

It really will. Yeah, because then you start thinking about, should we tack on extra charges for uh murder of a witness that's yeah why not that's what i mean let's go farther let's go farther was he wasting water is there a city ordinance we can slap him with like they said acts of domestic violence are often intended to dissuade a victim from resorting to outside help and include conduct designed to prevent testimony to police officers or cooperation in criminal prosecutions. Whereas such an abusive relationship culminates in murder, the evidence may support a finding that the crime expressed the intent to isolate the victim and stop her from reporting the abuse to authorities.

Okay. They said he exploited his job and utilized abusive behavior to control her. And the district court attaches significance to the history of domestic violence. Here they said that, you know, there was all these different facts that were proven and whatever. So they said, basically, fuck off. Yeah. Hearsay is fine. We're going to hang on to this. Eat dicks.

Okay. So the only other person now in the, where is this? The Eastern Arizona Courier, which is apparently a publication of a newspaper of some kind that I didn't know existed. They put out words. I guess. I suppose so. It seems like it's just a lot of car wash ads probably in there. Right?

You know what I'm talking about. Those Arizona commercials, papers. So this is a letter to the editor. And they're like, joke's on you. in there right yeah you know what i'm talking about those arizona commercials papers so this is a letter to the editor and they're like jokes on you we don't have an editor this is the fucking eastern arizona courier i think we got an editor jobs accumulation of facebook posts yeah that one guy puts together while he does another job and it's not even involved in a newspaper he just works at like an office somewhere does like insurance shit so this is called it says quote here we go to the eastern arizona carrier innocent until proven guilty that's an interesting concept but what if the person proven guilty is actually innocent what if the person who was being held or convicted on

only a single statement told to more than one person, the only evidence that was being presented to convict this person of a crime he never committed. There was no physical evidence to tie this person to the crime whatsoever, so please tell me how we can convict someone who is indeed innocent with just a statement. The person I speak of is Bradley Farrington. He was a hardworking community protecting police officer. Calm down. He was an asshole.

Let's be realistic here. He was a piece of shit. Yeah. Police officer in Silver City, New Mexico. He was going through a long divorce and custody battles with his then wife, Cassie. They were separated, living in separate homes at the time of her death. Cassie was also living with and engaged to be married to another man, David Barry. On March 24, 2014, Cassie's life was taken from her.

It was an unfortunate and horrible event. Everyone has heard Cassie's side, but no one has ever heard Brad's side in its time. I am all ears. First of all, Cassie's dead. So the only side we've heard of her is shit that she's told people she knew before she died. So I think Brad had a full defense case that he could have told his side. He could have testified and told his entire side if she wanted to. Sure.

That's his absolute right to do that. That is right not to. But still, if he wanted to hear a side, there it is. And it's time, this guy says. At first, when this happened, the sheriff's department had nothing to go on. Then, because of a statement made by Cassie before she died, that was the only thing the sheriff's department had to go on. It was apparently enough to issue a warrant for Brad's arrest. Okay. It's been said that this case is based on domestic violence,

but there's no evidence of such. There were no police reports, no hospital or doctor statements. Cassie was employed as a nurse at the time of her death and told many co-workers, also nurses, that her husband was going to kill her. Well, wouldn't they be obligated to report it not only to a hospital administrator, but also the police if a woman

was being abused or thought someone would kill her? As if that was a patient who came in, but a co-worker is a different fucking story because you're not treating her. That's a different thing. How did. Don't blame them. How did Brad get the address to this newspaper? You know what I'm saying?

Fuck, man. There is no record of her abuse reported to the hospital administrator, much less the police by these, quote, witnesses, quotes around it, who testified in court. All they had was one statement that she told other people, but no one thought to report it or help her. Cassie also stated she couldn't call the cops because her husband's a cop. He was no longer a police officer

at the time of the suspected abuse and at the time of their divorce and custody battle. She was already staying in Las Cruces in the early stages of her relationship with David Berry, And another interesting fact. If they were worried about Brad's police history, why didn't they call in the state police to investigate the case? Well, they called in the county police. He was a town, silver city officer, not a county officer. The sheriff's department never did a thorough background investigation on the fiance, David Berry. The sheriff's department claimed domestic violence as an issue in this case because of the divorce and custody battle Brad and Cassie were going through. There was never a thorough investigation in this case at all. That's the first thing I'm going to agree with you on. The lead investigators were pulled from the case because Cassie's parents requested it be handled by new investigators. No, they were pulled because he fucked up. And that's why they requested it.

New DNA evidence was brought to light before the trial even started. A DNA analyst testified in court that the DNA evidence excluded Brad from this crime. So how was he still convicted? How did the judge not dismiss this case due to the DNA evidence? An innocent man now awaits sentencing for a crime he did not commit. David V. Mendel of Thatcher, Arizona wrote that, apparently. From Thatcher? Thatcher. Shut up.

You live in the middle of nowhere what do you care exactly what do you care uh cassie is buried in safford city cemetery in safford arizona so that's where she is her parents can see her there and uh there you go brad's still in prison and will remain there for let's see at least till 2045 ish yeah so i don't know if he did it if i'm on the jury i certainly don't convict yeah i can't convict on that i think he did it when we get outside i probably want to go punch him in the ear yeah yeah but i don't know that he committed murder enough to put somebody in jail for 30 years for it what if he didn't do it that's like that's terrifying yeah i mean we'll say now okay you got five years that's for being a dick

beforehand fine i mean but if he didn't kill her then now you get a little much eating at the angry crab yeah that's a little tough i don't know man like i said it's hard to a case like this the guy is obviously an asshole so it's hard to be like i am outraged he's convicted but at the same time i'm like i don't know if he did this or not can we have i mean fuck man maybe just live better lives and stop being rude to people and then when you're on trial for something people will root for you maybe maybe that's what i mean don't beat the shit out of your wife and tape your baby's mouth shut that helps like if they had no dna yeah I'd be fine with the conviction. I'd be better with it. If they had no DNA,

I'd be like, okay. The other two had alibis. They didn't do it. It's not a stranger. There's no forced entry and nothing stolen or she's not raped or anything like that. So it's probably not a stranger.

Just felt like strangling somebody today. You know what I mean? It's got to be someone she knows. We don't know if, obviously too, this could be some patient she pissed off. We have no idea. She meets a lot of people.

And the sheriff's office fucking it up so bad, too. Who's to say they didn't grab her hand and go, oh, look, I'm scratched? Any fucking thing. Who knows where that DNA came from? To have DNA under the fingernails that belongs to a man who's not the guy you convicted for the murder to me is you just can't do that you just can't yeah it's just it really it makes it really difficult for for me to do that so that's tough but either way there it is silver city new mexico everybody there that department wow yeah don't fucking don't get killed there because i don't

know if it'll be avenged properly right wow if you like that show or fuck at least the way we told it no one's gonna like that story what a terrible story yeah at least the way we told it get on whatever app you're listening on give us five stars it helps so much i can't tell you how much it helps drive us up the charts whatever app it is it really does help so do that go to multiple apps do it who cares just be nice it helps us do that head over to shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets for live shows august 12th chicago right come out come strong it'll be our biggest show ever be a part of it i'm telling you it's going to be so much fun the more people that are in the room the more great fucking energy that happens and it's just so much fun and everybody

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one thing you definitely want to be doing is patreon.com slash crime in sports that's where you want to be all the great bonus material and i And I'll be honest. We don't pat ourselves on the back much. Our bonus episodes are fucking killer. It is great shit. So they're so funny. Get in there. They're not like 20 minutes long or any bullshit like that. They're at least an hour.

They're fucking good shit. So get in there. At least the ones the last few years are. So get in there. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Every other week you're going to get two new episodes of bonus stuff. Huge back catalog. This week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, which, of course, you'll have access to, theme park disasters.

Hey! That's fun, right? Who doesn't want to hear about that? There's so many decapitations. It's just lots of... It's nuts. You have to sift through them to go, all right, no more heads coming off. Oh, yes, it landed in that guy's lap.

That happened in the other place, too. Happens crazy. Then, for small-town town murder we're going to talk about prison riots some of the craziest prison riots ever decapitation more decapitations based on an episode last week when we talked about a prison riot and a guy who was involved in one so check that all out we'll talk all about that patreon.com slash crime and sports. And, of course, you get a shout-out at the end of the show. When does that shout-out come? Right now. Right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with that list, but don't leave any DNA under your fingernails because God knows what will happen.

So hit me with it right now. This week's executive producers are Liz Vasquez, Peyton Meadows, Amelie Olsen, Sharon Jones, and her daughter, who, James, has scarlet fever. Did you know that still exists? It does. Is she going to get the rubella next? What year is this? I'm so sorry. Take care of your baby.

Jesus Christ. I don't even know how to treat that. The poor kid's got the cholera. Brandi Huntley, Carmen Brown, and Anna Marie, thank you all so much for being a part of this. You're fantastic. Other producers this week are Cassie Wade, Georgia Lipton, Janice Hill, Scott Atanasio. Thanks, Scott. That was very

nice of you. Trav with no last name. Daniel Kuchta. All right. Ben Cram. Sweet Trav. Sorry. K-L. Travis. Sweet Trav. Kayla.

Yeah, it's definitely Kayla. Maria. Maria Thompson. Jess Stevenson. JT. No last name. Henter Nashe Sowers. Sowers, maybe.

Alexander Ray. Marissa Goss. Not gross. Jenny Jean. Meg with no last name. Rachel O'Brien. Zoe Daverin. Daverin.

Daverine. Deanna Pitcher. KJ Beck. Spencer Howard. TK Turner, Caitlin Cook, Kelly Moriarty, John Wilkins, AMH, Brandy Padgham, Michelle Shaw, Lisa Hodgkin, Bob Johnson, Beth Buell, Buell, Buell, Buell, Buell. All right. Gregory Riffles. Any of those close? Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully, possibly. Kelly Davis.

TD, no last name. Maura Meck, Maury Meck, Maury Mech. Megan Robbins, Robbins, Robbins. It's one B, but it's still Robbins. Robert Huff, Deidre Heritage, Summer Foxy, Amara Sagala. Oh, boy. Elise. Nope.

Ilse. Ilse Manor. Brandy with no last name. Johanna with no last name. Ashley Mikamiski. Mick Kamiski. Lindsay with no last name. It's a McDonald's-owned Kamiski Park.

I was going to say, is that Irish-Polish? Super Irish-Polish. Are you Irish? I'm Irish and Polish. The fuck is that? I've never heard of a McSki before. McSki, really? Hayley Smith, Jennifer Russell, Alicia Woodworth, Edna Millay,

Joe Hartwell, Tony Hunt, Her Grace Kate, Fish Bowl, Carolyn with no last name, Johnny Joshua, Muscat, Katie Zoni, Kimberly with no last name, Christian with no last name, Lou Wentz, David Gaudette, I think. George Miller, Mike Morris, Rebecca Moore, Doug Craig, Jordan Hellman, Alyssa Rector. Killed her. Barely know her yeah cory smith don tomchick diana plunkett constantinos sacanana suck on this wow sacanonis some greek shit talk to mcskee and find out what's up with him journey and what is this journey this? Jernine? Jernine Cook. Lauren Forey. Charity Hebert. Hebert.

Derek Avery. Robin Fitzwater. Jada Potler. Steffidelics. Steffidelics. Eve Dixon. Sounds like psychedelics. You betcha.

Anthony Parks. Rebecca Herring. Linda N. Kate LaNute LaLuna. Boy, these are getting tougher and tougher. James Patine, Patini, Amon Parks, Amon, Amon like Bundy. John Tomasik, Tomachik, oh, that's not a C. Thomas Ick, Eric Anderson, Mackenzie S., Denise McAfee, Jessica Clark, Lisa Frere, Fariri, Fariri.

Fariri, I think, is probably what it is. I bet you it's Fariri. G. Skalka, Cassie O'Brien, Tony Legg, Carol Abbas, Aaron Geal, Gile maybe, Claude Cavallo, Chad Swith, Goldsmith, Kira Lynn. Chad Swith Goldsmith Kira Lynn Kayla Ridge Chuck With no last name Lindsey Weithrup

Eddie Drama Mama Melissa Gibson Robin Cook Peter Slater Joe Jacoby Christine Snyder Douglas Hilberger Mandy McKinney

Becky Lou Forbes, Brooke Wright, Brandon McLeed, Samantha Chandler, Rachel Adams, Sarah Toste, Scott Caveman, Hannah Potechik, H&M, Sarah Nielsen. uh hannah potato chick potato chick hnm sarah listen i'm sorry potato lady i don't know what he's talking about potato chick potato potato chip i don't know sean hilton dixie shaw carrie hines uh cara baker sarah more moran moran moron Sarah Moranville. Moranville? What? Moranville. I don't know. Might be Moranville. I don't know. Sabrina Newberg.

We're not going to judge. It's a great place. Aaron Taylor. Rachel with no last name. I'm the smartest man there. Birdie 13. Douglas Hare. We've already been to Tampa.

Sorry. Aaron Mastrogiacomo. Aaron Mastrantonio. sorry aaron master giacomo master g master uh aaron master antonio upshift 26 laurel payden uh megs with no last name kathy he slip uh sarah sutterfield sam odin odom kirk odom and k and Kirk, Odomankin, Odomankin, Odomakin. All right. Antonio Madrigal, Richard Sparks. That's a tough one. Chrissy Norton, Ricky B, Austin Schau, Sadie Mays, Justice with no last name, Amanda Desch,

Matthew Shields, SRT Brian, Zanna Roth, Stevie Boyleyle lonnie picard the second not a junior stacy stevens michael shanahan addison jackie jack uh julie fresh dunk danker danker sand okay garrett uh burton jimmy g oh jimmy effing up names is my favorite part well There's a whole other show happening. Austin Schrader. That's pretty sad, honestly. Kristen Gilliam. You don't like Master Antonio James? Come on, I'm digging deep. You know, I know you guys are comedians.

You tell a lot of jokes and everything like that, but I like it to hear when a grown man struggles to read. That's not insulting. Not your craft that you put together or anything like that yes yeah the most insulting compliment ever i hate that gilliam angie little oh liller lillaros liljeros em uh aaron dick adam kovnichovnicek, all right, Kovnicek, Juan Moorhead, Amanda Sacksmacker, Zachary Harrington, Samantha Maynard, Janine, Janine Malbeck, Kyle with no last name, Jordan Mosier,

Shaquille Richmond, Natasha Lynn, Anna Smock, Danon Jiskera, Caitlin Teague, Jessica Sylvia, Pam J Jess, Jess, Jaspers, Brie Thomas, Daniel Faux, Zach. Nope, that's Scott Stoudemire, Carter M. Tears Baker. Jeremy with no last name. Kimberly Cochran, Riley Jones, Sue Zinger and all of our patrons. Truly, you're amazing. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. So much. Thank you. Thank you. from the bottom of our hearts we cannot tell you how much we appreciate all that you do for us thank you if you

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