True Crime All The Time - Billy Justin Charles

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

On August 7th, 1996 18-year-old Jamie Weiss was found dead in a bathtub in her home in Magna, Utah. Jamie didn’t drown. She died from asphyxiation and blunt force trauma. Eleven years later, her former fiancee Billy Justin Charles was arrested and convicted of her murder. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the case of Billy Charles. On appeal, his conviction was overturned, but he took a plea deal instead of going to trial a second time. Jamie’s case is officially closed and a killer was charged, but Billy insists he didn’t murder his fiancee. So many questions remain in this case. Did Billy Charles really murder Jamie and did he take a plea deal just to take out the uncertainties of another murder trial? Or, was Billy Charles a murderer who beat the system using its own rules?You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 277 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, give me what is going on with you? Hey man, I'm doing good. How about yourself? I'm doing pretty well. Good. You and I just got done taping our weekly Patreon video. We did.

We talked about the Will Smith Oscar controversy. It'll make me slap you. That's kind of dominating the news cycle right now. Let's go ahead and give our. Patreon shoutouts. We had Melissa Beasley. What's going on, Melissa? Daryl Seerite. Hey, C. Right. Nicole Wittren. Well, thank you, Nicole. Michelle Gunter. What's up, Gunter? Nancy Jones. Hey, Nancy. Alexa Anderson. Well, thank you, Alexa. My Alexa just went off. I know. Desiree Niles. Hey, Desiree. Margaret Carleton. What's up, Margaret? Shannon Heckman. Appreciate that, Shannon. Brian Berg. That's awesome, Brian. Sarah W. W.W. V. Oh, okay. So that's an actual name?

Yeah. I got you. Lisa Nelson. Hey, Lisa. Brittany flipping jumped out of our highest level. Well, that's flipping awesome. Lance uppercut. Well, thanks, boxer, Lance.

The best boxing name I've heard in a long time. Lindsay Fleming jumped out of our highest level. Man, thanks, Lindsay. So we appreciate all that new support. And then if we go back into the vault, this week we selected Astra Berry. Man, thank you, Astra. Yeah. Appreciate the new support, to continued support.

We had some great PayPal donations. We had one for a huge birthday shout out to Jessica Wade. Well, happy birthday, Jessica. Who I know happens to also be a Patreon member. We had Andrea Young gave a sizable donation. Thanks, Andrea. And we also had Jimmy Rice. So thanks to all of you.

Gibbs right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved. We have a pretty big case out. We're talking about the disappearance of Johnny Gosh. think a lot of people are familiar with this case. It's a big one in the world of unsolved true crime. Sure is. But make sure you check that out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We are talking about a man named Billy Justin Charles. On August 7th, 1996, 18 year old Jamie Weiss was found dead in a bathtub in her home in Magna, Utah. Jamie didn't drown. She died. She died.

from asphyxiation and blunt force trauma. And then 11 years later, her former fiance, Billy Justin Charles, was arrested and convicted of her murder. But on appeal, his conviction was overturned. And so he ended up taking a plea deal

instead of going to trial for a second time. So this is kind of a different case for us, but I found it extremely fascinating. Jamie's case is officially closed. A killer was charged. Right. But Billy insists to this day that he didn't murder his fiance. But we'll get into all the details of what is maybe not as buttoned up of a case as we normally do on TCAT.

Yeah. There might be a little room for doubt here in this one and people can make up their own minds. Jamie Ellen Weiss was born on April 23rd, 1978. her parents divorced at a young age, but she had a close relationship with her father and her stepfather. By all accounts, Jamie had a happy and normal childhood.

But none of the sources Gibbs that, you know, I found for this episode really provided any information at all on the childhood of Billy Charles. It's not unusual in a case like this. You know, when we talk about cereal, killers. You know, when you think of Gacy and Bundy and Domer and people like that, sure,

there are journalists, there are authors who go into, you know, deep dives of people's backgrounds, their childhoods. I think anytime you're talking about a serial killer, well, there's a fascination to want to know how that person got to the point that, that he or she, did, you know, and being able to murder a great number of people. You don't find that always with what I would call kind of one-off murder cases. Yeah, you're going to find things in the reporting, but there's really, you know, not all that often where somebody's going to do a deep dive on the person's childhood because I think for a lot of people, they just don't really think that that childhood experience, maybe plays in as much.

We're not thinking that this person, this monster was created by this, this, this and this. A lot of times what you have is people snapping, love triangle, you know, romance gone wrong,

greed, those types of situations. It wasn't because they were upset with their mother. And then they started, you know, dressing in her skivies and, and then things, kind of devolved from there.

Yeah, Skivis nice. You like that? Yeah. But you will have some people, too, like neighbors and friends when it's a serial killer, right, that will come out and want to tell what they know about that individual, too. Well, once that person is safely behind bars. Exactly. Yeah, people feel free to come forward and say, and not even just feel free, kind of they want to.

Sure. I knew this killer. You know, you think about a guy like Gacy, the things that were under. covered underneath his house. The press that descended on that neighborhood, okay, if you're living on that street, what are the chances that you're going to mosey down and say, yeah, I know some things. And you're going to get on camera. You're going to get your 15 minutes.

Jamie and her 20 year old fiance, Billy Justin Charles, lived together in a trailer in Magna, Utah. They had a two-year-old son named Jesse. Jamie's obituary stated, No baby could have had a better mother. He was the sparkle in her eye. And we can see her sparkle in his eyes. It's pretty touching.

It is touching. I couldn't find any sources that really talked about whether Jamie had a job outside the home or whether she stayed at home to take care of little Jesse. But Billy worked as a bricklayer, along with the fact that he was also known, as a drug dealer. Working two jobs.

One legitimate and one not so legitimate. According to Jamie's family, she and Billy were not actually engaged. They have claimed that this was a journalism error that has followed the case for years. But even when you look at court documents and even testimony that comes later on in the trial, many, many people said that Jamie and Billy were engaged in planning to get married at the time when Jamie died. Also, according to an August 10th, 1996 Salt Lake Tribune article, Jamie was pregnant at the time of her death. But it's the only source I could find that mentioned her pregnancy. So again, when you and I talk about cases that we decide to do, we talk about sources and resources and

research. We've often said it's all over the map, can be. Can be. I think this is, you know, a similar one. And again, the smaller the case, the less reporting that you're going to see on it or at the very least, the more that the reporting is going to be very, very localized and not make its way, you know, to the mainstream media and hit, let's say, the Los Angeles papers, the New York papers, things like that, the Chicago papers. So I mentioned it, right? Jamie Weiss was murdered on August 7th, 1996, just a day before she and Billy were supposed to get married. This came from several news sources. Jamie was found dead in a bathtub full of cold water inside her home. So if they were going to get married, it probably lends to the fact that maybe they were engaged.

Well, most people do get engaged before they get married. I don't think it's a prerequisite, but I think that's the normal course of action. Right. So I don't know if the family is disputing the fact that they were engaged or they're disputing the whole thing. Not only were they not engaged, they weren't planning on getting married. Couldn't really see that in the research. So let's travel back to August 6th, the day before. Jamie was found, it was described as a pretty normal day, except for the fact that Jamie

experienced some car trouble. At 4 p.m. on August 6th, Billy arrived home from work. He had been borrowing his sister Lisa's car to drive to work because he was having trouble with the gear shift linkage on his 1972 Ford truck. And he couldn't use Lisa's car on the 7th. Billy, Jamie and their son walked to Jamie's grandmother, Dora's house, to ask to borrow her car. But Dora couldn't loan Billy her car. She drove them home around 11 p.m. And it was reported that the family went to sleep shortly after that. Billy got ready for work on the 7th, so the next morning, and he woke up Jamie at 6 a.m. to help him with his truck. Basically, Gibbs, he needed her to push the brake from the inside while he manually shifted the transmission gears underneath the truck from park to reverse, right?

Sounds a little dangerous. It does sound a little dangerous, but, you know, I remember popping my clutch on my truck before to get it started. So it's a little bit different, but similar, right? You kind of get it going and hope that. You can get out from underneath the truck in time. I get doing stuff from inside the truck. Right. I've never been in a little bit.

a situation where I had to be underneath a vehicle to get it started. I think it probably also let you in a little bit on their financial situation, right? He's driving a 24-year-old truck. He probably could not just go out and get a new one. They weren't in, you know, that kind of financial situation where they could make that happen. Or maybe he just really loved that truck. He just really love that truck. You just really love that truck. could look at it a couple different ways. A lot of guys love their trucks. Well, you and I both love our trucks. I mean, I think that's pretty safe to say. But if I had a truck where I had to get underneath to get it started, I'm looking for a new truck. That's just me. That's true. So he got it started.

And then after backing out, he had to shift from reverse to drive. So there's a lot of work, right? to make this happen because he could only change the gears on the truck if he was underneath it. So back out, he's got to get up, follow the truck, get back underneath it, get it into drive. That was if it was on any type of slope. And I think their driveway had a little bit of a slope to it. That didn't have to happen if they could get it on or a flat slope. surface or the truck was parked on a flat surface, like his workplace parking lot. According to Billy, Jamie helped him start the truck and he left for work sometime before 6.30

a.m. And as he would later say, Jamie was still alive and well when he left home. That's obviously going to be a big part of this case. It will be. Yeah. At 10.30 a.m. Billy's sister Lisa arrived at the house to pick up Jamie for a nail appointment. She immediately noticed that Jesse was playing in the front yard unsupervised. He wasn't hurt. And she said that he didn't really seem upset. But obviously, this was concerning to Lisa. I think it would be concerning to any relative. Right. This is a very young child who is out basically playing in the yard with no adult inside. Yeah. Scary. My daughter and I came home the other day. And when we got out of my truck in the driveway, we heard a child wail. And that's the only word I can use to describe it.

It sounded Gibbs as though this child was being severely hurt. I mean, murder went through my mind. Wow. And so we're running around looking for this child. We don't see anybody. We go down the street and it was my neighbor. And it was one of their small children kind of sitting in the front of yard in a arms crossed kind of a mat at you pose okay um but he was all by himself but he was wailing like something was so like he was being hurt right but he wasn't he was pitching a fit basically is what it turned out but it scared the you know what out of my daughter and i kind of like i did two years ago during that one face yeah but that was you know when you flopped on the floor and started beating your hands and feet on the ground i just

just got too, it got very bizarre. Yeah, too much, wasn't it? It was. Lisa found the front door locked and she said that she heard a strange noise, that she later realized was water running through the trailers venting. She went inside through the unlocked back door. And that's where she found Jamie fully submerged in a bathtub overflowing with cold water. Lisa later said she could clearly see.

see injuries on Jamie's body. Gibbs, she lifted her out of the tub and called the police immediately. Paramedics got on the scene, but they were unable to revive Jamie. So here again, this is something that you and I talked about in an episode very recently. When you, you know, come upon a loved one who's been murdered, what's your first instinct? Oh, you just want to cradle them. Right. So this is what happened, you know, in this situation.

I go back to what I said before. I don't think that the first thing that runs through your mind, and I can't remember if we talked about it on TCAT or TCAT Unsolved, but I don't think the first thing that runs through your mind is I have to be careful not to contaminate what may be a crime scene. You know, I just don't think in the heat of the moment that everybody's going to think like that or that really many people would.

I think your emotion is going to kick in and you're going to do what you have to do. When police got there, they noticed a few strange details about the scene. Number one, they saw Jamie's son playing unsupervised in the yard. Jamie and Billy owned a pit bull that was very protective and said to have been very aggressive towards strangers. But the dog was calm when Lisa arrived at the scene. The HVAC system was running inside the home. A pair of Jamie shorts were found soaking wet.

underneath a pile of clothes and the hamper, Billy later told the police that she was wearing those shorts when he left in the morning. Billy's safe was found open and empty, but besides that, nothing else was stolen from the home. So what do you think they thought, Gibbs, right off the bat? Robbery gone wrong, perhaps. Perhaps. You know, I always wonder what investigators think right off the bat. Well, when you have an empty safe, you're going to have to gravitate at some point towards robbery as a possible motive and then wonder, you know, did Jamie put up a fight? Did she get in the way? And a robber or robbers end up killing her.

No one was able to contact Billy at work. And it was said that he arrived home at 3.30 p.m. on foot. He was confronted by a crime scene. A lot of people were at his house, a lot of his family, along with almost a dozen police officers. Now, one of Billy's appeals states, upon learning of Jamie's death, Billy turned pale, and he tried to rush through the police tape and enter his trailer. And that's when a melee between Billy's family and the police officers ensued. several family members, including 16-year-old Lisa, who had found Jamie that morning, were placed under arrest.

Getting kind of crazy, though. It's a tough scene. Yeah. You know, thinking about you as, let's just call him a fiancé. We don't know exactly what the relationship was, but there was a lot of reporting that they were engaged to find out that your soon-to-be wife is dead. Okay. I could see where a guy would stop at nothing to want to get in there.

You know, that would be the first instinct. I can also see where the police would have to say, no, it's a crime scene, right? We have to protect the crime scene. And there's going to be a little bit of a melee. But obviously, this was pretty big for a number of people to actually be arrested. And no doubt it had to be a very chaotic scene. The police canvassed the neighborhood for clues. neighbors did not report seeing Jamie from 6 to 6.30 a.m.

this time when Billy said he left for work. Okay, you can look at that a couple of different ways. Either she wasn't out there doing what Billy said she was doing or neighbors just didn't see it. Because I can tell you right now, if my neighbors across the street are trying to get a 1972 truck started at 6 o'clock in the morning, I am not going to see it. Either am I. Because I will still be in bed dreaming the dream of champions. Well, even if I was up, I'm not going to be peering out the window.

And that's a great point, right? You know, I'm making the point that I wouldn't be up. A lot of people are up at that time. But what are they doing? They're taking a shower. Yeah. They're shaving. They're making their coffee.

they're getting breakfast. They're not in tune with maybe what's going on outside their window and it might still be dark out. I mean, there's a lot going on. Now, if my grandfather was still alive, he would definitely see it because as I've said before, he was a neighborhood watch hawk. He was probably up early too. Well, yeah, he was up very early. But that guy knew everything that was going on because he loved to look at.

out the window and see what everybody was doing. Neighbor Stephen Hight saw Billy at 6 a.m. He said he saw the truck back out of the driveway, but he never saw Jamie. Height was outside because he was loading up his station wagon to take his family on a trip. He later testified that it was absolutely correct that Jamie could have been out there and he just didn't see her because he was in the house. So now this one's a little different. Now you have a guy who is actually outside the house,

witnesses Billy, but says he never saw Jamie. So that gets you into the area of, okay, was it because Jamie wasn't out there? Right. Or did he just not see her? So it really leaves it up for interpretation.

Well, it does. And I guess that's the point that I'm getting at. I don't think you can look at it as, ooh, you know, that's damning evidence. Now, it doesn't look great, right? If you're the police and you hear that, it's not going to make you think better about Billy's story, right? Jamie's autopsy was completed by the end of the day. So pretty quickly. And the medical examiner determined that Jamie had no water in her lungs. She died from asphyxiation and blunt force trauma. Sergeant Jim Potter of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office told the Salt Lake Tribune. It's more likely that other types of assaults were committed on her before she was held underwater.

Now, there was a 1996 Salt Lake Tribune article that stated that Jamie's death was ruled as a drowning. But that was the only source I saw that presented that information. And again, that's where you and I get into, you know, articles and things written that may or may not be correct. I think you kind of have to go with the medical examiner for sure on that one and just think that, okay, maybe a reporter or a journalist got it wrong or, you know, was told by somebody that was a drowning and ran with it. Utah medical examiner Todd Gregg estimated Jamie's time of death to be between. between 11 p.m. and 6.30 a.m. with the most likely time of death being between 2 and 4 a.m. That's not good for Billy. It's not good for Billy because he already said, right? He left for work at 6. He said she was out there with him at that time. So, you know, really, I think after this information came out,

Billy was suspect number one and maybe the only real suspect in the case. I mean, no matter what, he was going to be a suspect. Well, for sure. He's the last one that most likely saw her and, you know, the police are going to want to talk to him. Yeah, just from the fact that he lived there. Yeah. It was reported that he was her fiancé.

Yeah, they're going to want to talk to him. And he's going to be at the very least a person of interest. Billy spoke to the police on the afternoon of August 6th and then later on the 8th. He told them that he last saw Jamie at 6 a.m. when she helped him start his truck. The police asked Billy why he parked his truck, a mile down the road and walked to the trailer. And that's when Billy kind of explained that he'd been having some car trouble and how Jamie had to help him start his truck that morning. he also told them that on his way home, the truck broke down and he had to walk the rest of the way to the trailer.

About a week later, on August 15th, Sergeant Jim Potter confirmed with the Magnetimes that the Sheriff's Department had interviewed several persons of interest, but the police didn't have enough evidence to arrest any suspects at the time. In 1997, the police put a recording device on Jamie's grave, hoping to catch Billy confessing to the crime. Oh, that's interesting. That's a new one on me. I have heard of police surveilling a person's funeral at the gravesite to see who shows up, but actually micing, you know, a headstone or a grave site. later on in the hopes that the killer would come back,

talk to the person. Yeah. And confess. That is a new one on me. It's not a bad tactic. No, actually, it's a really good one if it works. It didn't.

They never got any evidence from it, but you can't say that they didn't try some type of, you know, unique things to get some more evidence on billing. And then really from here, Gibbs, Jamie's case went cold for 11 years. In 1998, Jamie's mother, Deborah Nelson, appeared on eyewitness news to plead with the public for help with Jamie's case. The police sent evidence gathered in 1997 for DNA testing in 2002 and then also later in 2007. In 2007, DNA technology and information from individuals who had come forward led to an arrest.

But police have never really revealed who came forward or what information was revealed. But whatever it was, it led to the arrest of Billy Charles. He was arrested on November 28, 2007 in West Valley, Utah. they charged him with first degree felony murder things are heating up yeah they're heating up in a big way and this happens right in many cases it often takes years and years and years to solve a case and i always wonder gibbs you know about that person probably suspect number one okay if they did it they got to be shaking in their boots or maybe that feeling goes away a little bit after, you know, so many years, if they didn't do it.

I still think if you believe your suspect number one, you got to be shaking a little bit. You have to be thinking they're still trying to put this on me. They're still trying to gather enough to arrest me. I just wonder for some of these people, you know, is it a constant nagging at the back of their minds that it's just a matter of time? You know, yeah, two years have gone by, four years, five years, but someday there's going to be a knock at the door. And it's going to be the police. You have to answer for what you did.

And they're going to say, we finally got you. Now, I think if you're truly innocent, you might worry about it, but not to the same degree. My thinking is a truly innocent person would think, well, there's no way that they're going to ever be able to get what they need because I didn't do it. Yeah, I never did it. So what are they going to get? Nothing. Here's the problem. Police over the years have gotten enough evidence to convict a lot of people who later then turned out to be completely innocent. So, I mean, you can look at it a couple of different ways. That's where it gets scary. Some of the detectives who had been working Jamie's case from the very beginning helped make the arrest. Sheriff's Sergeant Chris Ownby was one of the first officers at the first officers at the first.

crime scene, he eventually came back to the unit after being transferred. He was pretty eager to get back into Jamie's case. Detective Mark Chidester worked Jamie's case for over five years. Before he retired, he told the press that he was glad to finally see the case solved after so many years. Now, that's something that you and I have touched on from time to time. You know, these detectives put in a lot of work. Yeah, many hours.

Especially when a case drags on and goes unsolved for years and years, many detectives retire thinking, I wish I could have helped solve this one. So I kind of get this guy, you know, he's been retired, but then he sees, you know, on the news that Billy was finally arrested that had to have been a good feeling for him. detectives reported that Billy seemed surprised, but he didn't resist arrest. Family members spoke to the press on December 2nd, 2007. Jamie's family said they always suspected that Billy killed Jamie, but never believed that he'd be charged with a crime. That's an interesting thing. Well, I think it's two separate things for me.

Number one, they suspected him from the very beginning. I get that. And then number two, they never thought that police would ever be able to put it on him. And I get that too, right? As years and years go by, as a family member of a murdered victim, I don't want to say you lose hope, but it has to creep in that year after year, the chances are getting slimmer and slimmer that the police are going to solve this. So they had to have been elated, right, when he was finally arrested.

The trial of Billy Charles began in late March 2009. Lisa Charles testified that she found Jamie completely submerged in the bathtub when she entered the house. She also testified that Billy sounded normal when she spoke to him on the phone that morning. So he didn't sound like he was upset about anything. No, and I think if you put on your juror hat. and kind of analyze that and think, well, what does that mean? Does it mean that he sounded normal because he didn't know anything about it? Right.

Or is he a murderer who was able to, you know, kind of put on a mask and sound as though nothing was wrong? Billy's brother testified that he had to help Billy with this truck the weekend before Jamie's death. Billy apparently couldn't get the truck into gear while at the grocery store. So his brother put his foot on the brake while Billy went under the truck to shift gears. This was like a regular thing. But I think what that does is at the very least it backs up the I had this specific problem with my truck statement.

Exactly. Yeah. Although police I think would have pretty easily been able to figure out if that part was true or not. Stephen Hight testified that he saw Billy leave the house at 6 a.m. Again, he said he didn't see Jamie, but he admitted in court that she could have been there and he could have just possibly missed her. Because you know that is something a defense attorney is going to hammer off. Well, of course.

The fact that you don't see somebody doesn't necessarily mean that they're not there. They're not around. She didn't go back into the house. You can think of all the tactics that a defense attorney would use. Just means you didn't see her. That's all it means. Yeah. Several neighbors testified about unusual activity in the neighborhood in the weeks

leading up to and including the day that Jamie was murdered. One neighbor testified that they saw a strange man wearing a disguise looking into the trailer's windows just a few weeks before. before Jamie was murdered. Two neighbors said that they saw suspicious men walking towards the trailer on August the 7th. Four neighbors reported this to the police after Jamie's death. But they also said that police never followed up with them.

So I think that's a problem. There's a lot going on there, isn't there? Well, there is. And again, thinking about it in the setting of the courtroom, it would be hard not to to ask the question. Well, why would police not follow up? Why would they not want to check into this? Was it because at that point, they already had tunnel vision regarding Billy Charles? You could easily ask that question. Doesn't mean it's true, but you can ask the question. Of course. The medical examiner testified on Jamie's cause of death. In his opinion, Jamie died before 6.30 a.m.

He also conceded that by his 1996 calculations, she could have died as late as 8 a.m. So he's changed it up a little bit, right, from his original kind of time of death determination. And basically, this was based on the temperature of the water in the bathtub that he said could have possibly affected his calculations. We mentioned it. It was cold water. Right. He testified that Jamie should have had what he termed washerwoman hands. And we've heard that term before.

We have. In a number of cases if she was put in the water before 6 a.m. But she didn't. The defense's medical expert agreed that Jamie could have died after Billy left for work. He also agreed that the temperature of the water could have affected the time of death calculations. in his opinion, the range of 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. was accurate, but he said Jamie could have died as late as 9 a.m. And these are big determinations. Yeah, by going out to 9 o'clock, it potentially could mean that Billy didn't have anything to do with it. Yeah, I mean, even 8,

8 or not could mean that someone could account for him being at work at that time. It's a pretty big swing from the time of death range that the medical examiner came out with in the beginning. Shereen Martinez, Billy's former girlfriend, testified at trial. She testified that Billy said he accidentally hurt Jamie, but he never said he killed her or that her death was related to his drug dealing. And this drug dealing, we mentioned it, right? He was a known drug dealer. It's going to factor in greatly in this case. When Billy said he accidentally hurt Jamie, he was referring to a time when Jamie jumped on his car, fell off, and hurt herself. And apparently this was an incident that was said to have occurred during one of their arguments. A police officer testified that on August

7, 1996, Billy had scrapes and scratches on his neck. Billy explained that these scratches occurred during the altercation with law enforcement. And this was backed up by Billy's father and brother. His coworkers also said that they didn't notice any scratches on his neck earlier that day. So obviously, you know what they're trying to get at there, right? Did he sustain these scrapes and scratches as part of an altercation with Jamie, which then, you know, led to her murder?

Well, he's got a lot of people on. on his side saying, no, they didn't. Yeah, he does. The prosecution presented evidence that they felt indicated Billy killed Jamie. First, they said there was no evidence of robbery. Jamie's purse, cash, and a Rolex watch were all left inside the trailer. But the prosecution didn't bring up Billy Save, where he kept drugs and money that was found open and empty.

Okay, the first thing that jumps out to me right there, is that one of these two young individuals, and it was said to have been Jamie's, at 18 years old, has a Rolex watch. Well, that drug business can be kind of profitable. Well,

so if you think about somebody bought that for her, maybe Billy, I couldn't find out where she got it, but we know they're not cheap. But also, I think what you can see is kind of a tactic by the prosecution to focus in on what they want to focus in on and maybe not talk about what they don't want

the jury to hear about. The defense is going to do that part. So why bring it up yourself? And I'm not saying they did anything wrong. I just think that's a normal kind of everyday tactic, right? You emphasize what benefits your case. You don't want to bring up things that kind of go against what you're trying to say. Mechanic expert, Wayne Smith.

testified for the state. In August 1996, he tested Billy's truck to check for mechanical issues, but he didn't drive the truck or tested on a slope similar to the driveway slope at the trailer. He testified that he could shift the gears without assistance. His witness affidavit, the paperwork from the testing, didn't say this, though. The affidavit stated that the gears could only be shifted from underneath the vehicle or hood. The big problem was that Smith's full report from 1996 was lost in the years before Billy's arrest. A different investigator testified to confirm the slope of Billy and Jamie's driveway. Jailhouse informant Troy Miller testified for the prosecution.

Miller had seven felonies involving dishonesty. He was convicted of theft by. deception, making a false report, giving a false report to a police officer, and giving false information to a peace officer. He was actually awaiting sentencing on a 2008 burglary charge when Billy confessed, or at least when he said Billy confessed. He said that Billy confessed to him sometime between January 5th and March 2nd of 2009. Miller claimed that Billy told him, Jamie didn't have water and her.

along. According to the BYU legal comments, Billy allegedly said, that's what is going to get me. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. She was gone when we put her there. Okay. So obviously, this is a big statement. If true, it would be very damaging to Billy Charles. But you know me, Gibbs. I'm always leery of the jailhouse informant. Oh, big time. I'm not saying that they all are liars. No. What I'm saying, and I think what I have always said, and I maintain, is that these individuals have an incentive to tell something that is beneficial to the state because they could get time off, they could get extra privileges, whatever it is. They're not doing it because they're nice guys. I doubt very many of them. them come forward because they feel as though it's the right thing to do, right? Like it's a moral

obligation. I don't believe that. No, I don't either. I think they do it because they are trying to get something out of it. But when you boil it down, that's fine if you get something out of it. But is it true or not? And that's what you really have to get to the heart of. I just think it's dangerous anytime someone has a real incentive to want to say something that is geared towards one side or the other. But let's face it, a lot of times in a trial, there's a large number of people that have an incentive to say something geared towards one side or the other. Oh, for sure. Yeah. You think about a victim's family who firmly believes that the person on trial is guilty. You think about legal experts that are paid by one side or the other. It's not a

coincidence that their findings usually come out almost always on the side of the group that is paying them. Shocker, huh? Yeah. shocking that it works that way. So you've got this whole trial, everybody testifying. In the end, Billy was convicted of first degree murder on April 2nd. 2009 and on October 1st of that year, he was sentenced to five years to life. That seems like a strange sentence to me for first degree murders. Really strange. The life part I get, the five years to life is a little strange. Typically, see something like 25 to life.

Yeah, 25 to life or something like that. I mean, my thought is at five years, you're going to come up for parole. Now, what are the chances that a parole board are going to let you out after five years on a first degree murder charge? Okay, probably not pretty good at all. Billy filed an appeal to the Utah Court of Appeals on June 16, 2010. Basically, what he argued was that his trial attorney didn't present enough evidence validating his statement that Jamie was alive when he went to work. He said his counsel also failed to provide adequate notices of witnesses, which prevented him from presenting evidence corroborating Billy's story that Jamie helped him with his truck when he left for work.

And he argued that all of this allowed the prosecutor to convince the jury that he was lying about his alibi. And it really comes down to this, right Gibbs? When you think about this trial. Okay, he's the prime suspect. He's arrested. His alibi is that Jamie was alive when he left. It was also argued that his trial counsel failed to present evidence that a car was parked in the driveway after Billy left for work. And this is important because we talked about it earlier, right? He was a drug dealer. That part was known. It came out. We said his safe was found open and empty. And I said,

that the prosecution left that out on purpose, which I'm sure they did. But it also sounds like his defense didn't make get known to the jury. Which I think is a mistake. I think it was a big mistake. The jury never heard about this car that was allegedly parked in the driveway after he left. And they didn't hear about his safe being found open and empty. Billy claimed that the police only focused on him as a suspect and they ignored all other Leeds, favorable evidence for the defense was lost.

Like Wayne Smith's report, we talked about that. Jamie's grandmother, a possible defense witness, died in 2002. According to Billy, her testimony would have corroborated his story because she heard Billy and Jamie discussing how Jamie had helped Billy start the truck on August 6th. So obviously, Gibbs, she died, you know, years before. his trial started. But apparently she had made written statements. But the statements were not allowed at trial because Billy's defense didn't give proper notice. So, you know, we talk about it a lot, right? It's a very common theme when people appeal. My counsel messed up. They didn't do this. They didn't do that.

A lot of times it comes out that, you know, just grasping at straws. It does seem like there's some real stuff here. Seems like there's several items here of concern. And there was even more that came out. Apparently, there was a potential witness named Brian Make who spoke to Jamie at 3 a.m. on August 7th. This guy was related to Jamie. And he had evidence that another individual was at the trailer at 8 a.m. on the 7th. What he said was that he saw a brown car parked in Jamie's driveway on the morning of August 7th. And apparently he spoke to the police about it two different times. So this is where, you know, this brown car comes into play. But apparently he received a threatening phone call on the day of Jamie's funeral. An unknown individual called him and said in a threatening tone,

you did not see a brown car. Okay. You get one of those calls. Pretty ominous. Yeah. It's not what is said. it's what's implied. Exactly. Okay, you didn't see a brown car. And if you say you did, something bad is going to happen. That part's not said, but the implication is certainly there, right?

And amazingly, Gibbs, this guy didn't end up testifying at trial because the defense never secured him as a witness. So, you know, a lot of times, I do say convicted felons grasping at straws again i have to say billy had a lot of claims that seemed to be valid where his trial counsel should have done this but they didn't and if they had would it have changed the outcome of the trial possibly because that's the other thing you got to look at right

it's not just that the defense didn't do this this or this sometimes appeals courts were look, we'll look at it as, okay, even if they had done it, would it have possibly changed the outcome of the trial? You would have to say that if some of this stuff is true, if it was testified to under oath in a court of law, it could have potentially changed a jury member, some jury members' minds. Yeah, I mean, I think these are some important facts or information that the jury should have heard. Now, whether it's all true or not, we don't know. But you don't always know what's true in a trial.

You only know what people testify to under oath. Yeah, but you got to put it out there and allow the jury to vet it out. Could the prosecution have countered some of this? Maybe, but we don't know because they didn't have to. Billy argued that the police's DNA testing excluded him as a suspect, but they still arrested him anyway without any forensic evidence. And police did conduct some DNA tests on evidence from the crime scene. They tested a letter written by an individual who confessed to the crime.

The contents of this letter have not been made public. Now, I think Billy argued that the testing of this letter excluded him as a suspect. The handwriting on the letter was not his. and it was argued that the police ignored the crime lab suggestion to enter the results into the national database to see if a match came up. Now, I get that. You got some DNA. Let's run it through the database and see what comes up. But I don't know Gibbs how this can conclusively exclude Billy as a suspect in the murder. We don't know who this individual was who confessed to the crime. We don't even know if it was a real confession. Now, the DNA doesn't match Billy. The handwriting doesn't match billies, but what does that

mean? It just means that he didn't write the letter. It doesn't mean that whoever wrote the letter actually killed Jamie. I guess that's the part that I'm struggling with. Now, he's arguing this, and I get that. Sure. In an appeal, you're going to bring up everything. You have to. The police also didn't test three hairs found in Jamie's hand. They later said that, visual testing confirmed the hairs weren't billies, so they didn't test them. The state did conduct a non-DNA microscopic comparison test on the hairs in 1996. One of the three hairs was consistent with Jamie's hair, but none of the hairs belonged to Billy. Okay, now you're getting into an area that is a little more exculpatory.

Sure it is. First of all, why were these hairs found in Jamie's hand? You can make the argument that it was because there was a struggle. And they got ripped out during that struggle. So the state doesn't run DNA. They do the microscopic comparison test, which I think was pretty common in 1996. The problem gives is that it's also proven to be highly inaccurate, I think, in a lot of cases. Yeah.

I think there have been a number of cases where people were convicted on more. microscopic hair evidence. And now it's really thought of as not valid. You basically have people looking at hairs under a microscope and saying, yep, I think this one looks just like this one. So you definitely could have errors there. I mean, if it's subject to humans doing it. I know there was one case.

I don't know if it was a case we did or not where it was ultimately determined that they were comparing a human hair to a dog hair. And they said that they were microscopically similar. So, you know, take it for what it's worth. I get it. Technology changes over time. The problem I have, Gibbs, is that in 1996, DNA testing was available. So why not do it?

Exactly. We don't utilize that. The police tested bodily fluids and fingernails both in 2002 and 2007. They did not find any Y chromosome DNA. meaning the DNA on Jamie's nails did not come from a male. And the unidentified DNA did not match with Billy's. Billy's appeal specifically stated. Meanwhile, the police failed to send other physical evidence,

hair in Jamie's hand when she died for DNA testing because they did not believe it contained Billy's DNA. And as for the DNA testing, they did do, once the testing excluded Billy, the police failed to have the samples compared with the national database to find out whose DNA it was, even though the crime lab suggested they do so. So I think anyone listening would take some of these things and say,

wow, it's not good. Some of these things should have been done and they weren't. It's pretty shocking, actually. It is, but I also think it's a good approach. appeal, right, really is bringing up some valid points. And I don't often say that. You know, you and I read a lot of appeals. Many of them are, for the lack of a better term, just throwing darts at the wall. This is some very specific stuff that, you know, really kind of points in the direction that police were all in on Billy to the exclusion of all.

others. Yeah. Meaning if it made Billy look like the killer, they're all in. If it could have possibly indicated that another person could have been involved, they stayed away. They were out. And that's just not how things should work. Billy's appeal questioned inmate Troy Miller's testimony at trial.

Miller had four prisoners allegedly make confessions to him in the weeks before his sentencing. The appeal said, curiously, Mr. Miller was in jail for 14 months without anyone confessing to him. And then just prior to his sentencing, he was the confidon of four separate murderers. So, you know, it's good writing and it makes a really good point. How is it that an inmate is able to cozy up to four different individuals and get them to share their secrets to him.

Just around the time he's going to be sentenced. Yeah. Magical. According to the BYU legal commons, in early 2009, Miller made a call to the police saying, I have a, um, then it's, it's an inaudible word to a murder case. And I want to work with you guys to get some issues resolved on the case that I have. In a second call, he said, I have a confession to a murder in an ongoing. going case. It's going on right now. And the person that confessed to me is right here in jail too.

I need to talk to detectives as soon as I can. I want to try to work out. I've got a little zero to five case. I should get credit for time served, but I want to do the right thing. And I want to get a little bit of help with my case. So I mean, you can kind of read between the lines there, right? he's definitely selling his uh i have some information for you yeah he's also saying you know what i should just get credit for time served but i want to do the right thing but i also want to get a little bit of help with my case so those you know kind of tells you everything you need to know right there i'm not saying this guy was making things up what i'm saying is these are some really strange facts if they are coincidences the prosecutor said miller

did not receive a deal for his testimony, but after he testified at Billy's trial, he received a sentence lighter than the recommendation for his charges. Seems like a deal. Yeah, I think you can make a distinction there that there was no deal in place, written deal in place before he testified. Was there a verbal deal? That if you cooperate with us, we'll make sure that, you know, you get a lighter sentence, but we can't put it in writing because we don't want the jury to know about it. It could affect how they feel about your testimony and most likely would, right? I think a lot of juries believe that there's a big difference in an informant, a jailhouse informant who tells a story because he has a deal versus somebody who tells a story.

who has no deal. Okay. If you have no deal, then what's your incentive to make something up? That's a really good point. But it goes back to the word deal and the definition and, you know, was this written or more of a verbal, hey, you work with us and we'll make sure that this happens for you. And again, we don't know how much of any of this is true. What we know was what was presented in Billy's appeal. Now, police did admit to some of it. We talked about. The DNA testing, they didn't do some of it that you could say, well, they should have. But I think to Utah Court of Appeals found it pretty convincing. They overturned Billy's conviction in 2011, citing circumstantial evidence.

On September 8th, 2012, the court ordered a new trial, which was set to begin in 2015. That's a long time if you're sitting in prison. It's a long time, especially if you didn't do it. That's a long time if you did do it, but you think you got a fast track to maybe getting out. That's true too. Or a second trial. Yeah. Salt Lake County DA Simgill said to papers, there were some issues about a particular piece of evidence not being brought into the case and that was the basis.

We'll present our case, which we thought was strong in the first place. We'll go forward with the same evidence. So Billy was held in the Salt Lake County Jail to await trial, but just before he was set to go to trial. On August 24, 2015, Billy Charles pleaded guilty to manslaughter. This was a second degree felony charge instead of a first degree. Basically, he entered an offered plea, which means he maintains that he did not commit the crime, but believes he would be convicted by a jury if he went to trial. We've talked about Alford pleas from time to time.

We talked about them a lot in the West Memphis three case. I think all three of them took Alford pleas. Prosecutor Tyson Hamilton told the desert news. Jamie's family wanted the defendant to accept responsibility in some form all along. Jamie's mother said, my biggest concern is that he'll harm another girl. Jamie was just 18 years old. Billy's sentencing hearing took place on November 30th, 2015. But Gibbs prosecutors didn't recommend a prison sentence for Billy.

Instead, they recommended he serve one additional year in jail and three years of probation. Wonder why they did that. Yeah, I really couldn't find anything, you know, conclusively saying, why they did that. I can speculate. You know, number one, he had been incarcerated for four years, right? He had a five year to life sentence, but that was on first degree murder. Now, he only has second degree murder. I say only, but obviously that's that's still a nasty charge, but it is second degree. My other thought gives, and this is just speculation, is that given everything that came out in the appeal. The prosecution maybe thought, regardless of what the prosecutor told the news,

hey, maybe our case isn't quite as strong as we thought it was. It's always harder to try someone for a second time, right? So if you're going to run out the same thing you did the first time, now the defense counsel, which I assume would be a different defense counsel, is going to combat you. They're going to know what you're going to bring. they're also going to introduce everything that was written up in that appeal. And the prosecution might have thought, this guy could walk altogether. This guy could walk. Oh, you do it?

You go an airplane on me? Yeah. Okay. I know you love that show. Well, it works better if there's more than one other person in the room. But I get it. Deborah Nelson said in court, somehow I know my daughter, Jamie, is behind this opportunity he has been given today. she urged Billy to make the most of his second chance.

Please become the man Jamie believes you are. And I found this statement from Jamie's mother to be very interesting. This is a man who was convicted of murdering your daughter. Now, she might have changed her mind on Jamie over the years. I don't know. I couldn't find anything, you know, around that. Right. Or maybe she was just resigned to the,

fact that, okay, this is how it's going to play out. And please, be a good man. I don't know. Billy made his own statement. He said, we all lost Jamie. If I could give my life for Jamie's, I would. At the very least, I hope this will relieve some of Jamie's family's suffering. All I want to do is get home to my children. Jamie's family told the desert news that they believe Jamie was a victim of domestic violence, despite Billy's claims that he is innocent. They noted that he was abusive to women in two relationships after Jamie's death, and they claimed that he had an explosive temper and hated women. Deborah Nelson said, I feel like something happened to Charles to cause him to treat women the way he treats them like possessions. Billy, I hope you take advantage of this opportunity.

I hope you get to the bottom of why you have this total horrible hate for women. Again, I'm perplexed by these statements that Jamie's mom made to the press. It's a pretty strong statements. It is, but not strong in the way that I would have thought they would be. You got the family coming out and saying they believe that he was abusive to Jamie. but her mother is taking this very, what's the word Gibbs, um, hopeful stance that he can become a better man. I don't think that that's the way that I would be able to handle the situation. I really don't. So I'm not down on her for, for what she said.

No. If anything, I'm saying maybe she's a, a better, stronger person than I probably. would be in that very same situation. She seems to be holding her own. But it also seems like the family still believes that he murdered Jamie. So I guess that's why I'm struggling with with how she's able to, you know, make some of these statements and, you know, not completely go off on him. Maybe she just thought there was just no reason.

It wasn't going to do any good. Jamie's mom told the desert news that Jamie, and Billy's son is now an adult and he joined the Navy. Understandably, his mother's murder and his father's arrest has been very difficult for him and he stayed completely out of the media. Billy Charles served a one-year sentence in jail and completed domestic violence counseling as part of his release program. He finished his parole and he's now a free man.

Jamie Weiss's murder is officially solved. Billy acknowledged that while he maintains his innocence, he knows a jury would have convicted him if he had gone to trial. And we talked about some of the reasons, right? He was a drug dealer. That was known. He admitted to that. He was the last known person to have been with Jamie before her death. But I think a lot of questions were raped during the appeal process.

they should have been raised at the first trial. They weren't, but they were raised during the appeal process. You know, the fact that he was a drug dealer, Gibbs, could that have meant that he had some enemies? Of course. Maybe he owed money to people who got their revenge through murdering Jamie. Easily could have happened that way or could have been his suppliers not liking how he did business? Well, and for me, it kind of goes back to, you know, some of these neighbors who reported suspicious activity around Jamie and Billy's home leading

up to her death, you know, these individuals walking up to the trailer, this brown car that was reportedly parked in the driveway after Billy had left to go to work. Okay. If some of this stuff is true, it could take you down a path of, well, maybe somebody else was responsible. But again, you go back to Jamie's family. They've talked repeatedly about his anger issues, his violence towards women. Unfortunately, there's just not much documented about their relationship to know for sure whether or not he was violent towards Jamie. But that's why I thought this case was so interesting. It's, you know, there's a lot of facets to it. I think it's probably a case where some people will be really divided. Was this guy a murderer who kind of got off easier than he should have? He did do time.

He didn't do the type of time that we would expect someone to do for first degree murder, but he did do some time. And then, you know, if you're in the other camp and you believe that a jury would have acquitted him in his first trial, if all of these things had come to and they were not able to be contested by the prosecution, would that have been enough to sway the jury the other way? And I think you can make that argument, Gibbs. He can make a strong argument for it. But it's got to be one of the other. There's really only two scenarios here. He's either a murderer or was part of the murder or he left for work and was completely innocent. But it is a solved case. So I thought pretty interesting. We'll do it on

TCAT. We could have easily done this on unsolved. Could have. And it would have made some sense. We've done cases similar to this where even though technically it's a solved case, there are so many questions that you kind of can think of it as unsolved in a way. because there still are many, many questions that remain in this case. I don't believe the jailhouse snitch at all. I don't either. I don't really know about the neighbors. Could they have had a reason to lie for Billy as possible?

But again, what I think this case illustrates is the absolute need for police not to develop tunnel vision, right? not to get locked in on one person and exclude kind of everyone else, even when some of the evidence starts to veer off. It's like, okay, they didn't follow some of that evidence. And I think that's just bad police work. Yeah, because who knows what would have happened if they would have followed that evidence. Sure. You run it through the database. You get a hit. You talk to that person. You find out this, this, this and this. And then I think the second thing that it really illustrates is that the way things should happen with our legal system is that everything should come out in trial, everything.

Now, each side is going to put their own spin on it. I get that. That's part of it. But for things just not to come out, for a defense attorney not to call, not to call, witnesses who have information that, you know, could make a jury think that their client is innocent, hmm, that's bad. That's bad. I mean, you definitely have to question that attorney, but maybe they had their reasons. Well, and attorneys will argue that. If you've ever seen, you know, as part of the appeals process, an attorney sometimes gets asked about things like that. And they say, well, I didn't call them for

this reason. Now, whether that reason is good enough, you know, you can always kind of analyze it. But my thought is put everything out there and then let the jury decide. I think Gibbs, it's hard to look at this case and think, as we often talk about, this was a slam dunk case. I don't feel that it was at all. It doesn't mean this guy is innocent. It just means to me that it was a pretty flimsy case in the way of evidence. Now, I don't blame the jury because I don't think they got to hear everything. So you really can't blame them if almost everything they heard was kind of going against Billy. They didn't hear the things that may have helped him or made them think, well, there's a, there's a shred of doubt there. Well, I definitely have doubts. So I have reasonable doubt.

I don't know. We're not jurors and we didn't hear everything. Exactly. I do think it's why cases like this can be fascinating because as a listener, you know, you start to put the pieces of the puzzle together in your mind. And you can think about, okay, if I was on that jury stand, just given the information that that we gave out, which is not all of it, obviously, we can only go by what was reported. Right. What would I have thought? In the first trial, trial. And then what would I have thought in the second trial, knowing that much more of what you would have to call maybe exculpatory evidence was going to be presented. And I think a lot of people can make the case that, well, maybe I would have voted to convict on the first jury, but on the second one, I would have had a lot of doubt. So. But interesting, nonetheless, that's it, Gibbs for our episode on Billy Charles. He's a free man. Yes. I don't know what the sentencing guidelines in Utah are for second degree felony murder. You know, maybe that extra year amounted to what he would have done because, you know, including time served, what he would have done if that was,

would have been his original sentence. Or like I said, I truly believe even though the prosecution said otherwise, they had to have been worried about taking this guy back to trial again. And Billy definitely had to be worried that a jury would possibly see it the exact same way. Yeah, I think both parties had concerns. And that's a lot of times how you end up with the Alford plea. Yeah, benefits everybody. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out?

I want to hear those. Hey, Mike and Gibby. I'm Tom from Georgia. I just wanted to let you go. guys know the Stephen McDaniel episode you had that rang true to me. I remember watching that on the news. It was crazy

stuff, especially watching that happen in real time. But I do want to say the Gertrude Banisheshefsky episode, that is probably the most disturbing thing I've ever heard.

And I listen to Jeffrey Dahmer, you know. But you guys you keep up the good work, you're doing a great job, and keep your own time taking. All right. Love the voicemail. Love the accent. Yeah, you do.

How you doing? He sounded like Joey right there. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you too. So we actually get a lot of emails about both of those cases. You know, the McDaniel case with the audio and him talking to the TV reporters and all of that and the things that he said were so kind of off the wall. And then when it comes to Gertrude Banishefsky, that woman was pure evil.

Now, Dahmer was evil. Sure. Gacy was evil. Is there something Gibbs about this woman being able to be as completely evil as any man that grabs people? And there may be something to that. There could be. But she was a. nasty, nasty evil woman.

The whole song was named after her. Evil woman. Is that the one you're talking about? Okay. Well, after a long time of binging several hours a day, I have caught up on everything. So I've resorted to listening to other podcasts, and I feel like I'm cheating on y'all.

So I just wanted to let you know, you will always be my favorite. Keep your own time ticket. Oh, stay safe and keep your own time ticket. I feel betrayed. Now, you know what I always tell people is there are a lot of good podcasts out there. There are. I'm so happy that people enjoy ours, the people that do. But there's a lot out there.

There sure is. And a lot of good ones, we know a lot of the podcasts. we know a lot of the podcasters. We're going to see them here when we go to Vegas. And a lot of them really do a great job. So don't feel bad at all. No. Enjoy those and wait for a new episode.

As long as you keep listening to ours. That's all we care about. Exactly. Hey, guys. It's out of Maine from Texas. I was just getting ready for work. Listen and see y'all's. I get to go back to work.

I'm so excited. Oh, and my time is amazing. I just cried the whole time down the river. It was pitiful. But it was beautiful. I love nature. Okay, so tell you how about this podcast I'm listening to. If y'all, first of all, you should know that.

And second of all, Mike just said something that rang so true to me. And I thought it was just a Texas state. But I'm listening to the giggling granny, I think, the giggling granny. And Mike said, you know, imagine your grandma's past mouth candy like grandmas are required to do. Or handing out of her purse like grandmas are required to do by law. And I just found that song. Oh, funny, because when we go to church, we used to find her grandma. And she always had peppermint in her purse for us.

Always had peppermint. So that was the good little memory. So, yes, we're fired by law. That just made me giggle so hard. All right, guys, I'm going to finish getting ready for work. Love y'all. Stay safe. Keep your own time ticking.

Bye from Ida Mae in Texas. Now, we love Ida Mae. We do. I have received quite a few emails, Gibbs, on that subject. I think it resonated with a lot of people. But that was real for me. I mean, I remember the same thing that she's describing. Yeah.

You know, my grandma, I call her Mammal. She's my only grandparent that's still alive. She was more of a butterscotch person. But I knew when I saw her that if I wanted a butterscotch, there was going to be one in that purse. And she was required by law to hand it to me. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Obligated. Obligated. No, she's an amazing woman. but that did seem to resonate with a lot of people. And I just think it's because, you know, that's how grandma's role. That's just how they got to be. So we only had one thing in the mailbag Gibbs, and it was a wedding invitation. Oh, really?

Yeah. So we may have to go full bore wedding crashers later this year. Okay. We'll have to see. I don't know. Do we know where we're going? I forget where it is. Okay.

Somewhere in the United States. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. I didn't know how much travel was involved. It's in Tokyo. Okay. It's a long trip, but I know you can make it. No, it's somewhere in the United States.

I just forget now where it is. All right, buddy, that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.