Case Study Pt 1; What Happened That Night

you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio, this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. I don't even want to you see me. You know, I feel

very guarded about the whole situation. First of all, you have to remember, for so many years, like I couldn't even talk about it and not even have my child, you know, I had to just kind of keep everything so internalized that to some degree it's really hard to

talk about it. She feels like I should because I don't think people realize that this could happen to them, you know, because if you talk to people, they're just you know, like, oh, well they must have done something, you know, because that doesn't happen to normal people, Like that would never happen to me. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like it happened to us. It's like in another dimension or something like you can't even like retreat it

as an actual like thing. And it's like I don't know about for her, but for me after that night, my whole life before then, it feels like a dream, Like I can't even access the person that I was, feelings, I had, the thoughts I have about really anything. It's like it walked behind like do you know what I mean. I don't know how to describe it anymore than that, you know, something horrible happening and I'm a phone call

for help and I didn't receive help. Hi everyone, my name is Christina and I'm the lead producer on this season of Sworn. This episode is the first in a three part series, a sort of culminating case study for the topics we've covered so far this season of Sworn. We divided most of the episodes into topics instead of cases, and looked at some of the problems and technicalities and the legal system, many of which come into play in

this case. I really encourage you to take a listen through the first part of this season to learn more about the factors that we'll get into in these next three episodes. The reason you're hearing my voice right now instead of Phil's is that Phil is actually one of our subjects in this case. In two thousand and nine, Phil took on a case that would turn into one of the biggest and most impactful in his career as

a defense attorney. When we were planning this season, talking about problems with the justice system, he recommended we covered this case right away. But since he was so close to it being her defense attorney, we decided I would take the lead and see what I could find out about how the case impacted her, her family, and Phil himself. So for the next three episodes, we're going to dive into the details of that case, showing you what happened

from start to finish. The woman feel defended graciously agreed to share her story with us, but for the sake of her privacy and her children's privacy, we've changed her voice and removed any identifying information that was her at the beginning of the episode, and she talked about making a call to get help the night of the incident. She called one and things started to spiral from there. I'd like to play you some of that nine one one call now. We've edited it for clarity and privacy,

but I want to warn you it's pretty graphic. I'm kind of hard to listen to. I haven't argue with my husband. We were in my stepson's room and he was listening to me. He was like, we're doing there, and we were arguing, how are you coining his gun at me? I tried to push it away from him, and he said, you don't want to do that. And the next thing I know, then did you hear it go off? What did you hear the gun go off? Husband? He's making wise, he's making noise. Yes, I think it's

been more off this flood everywhere. He was trained to shoot me and I was fighting with the gun and he said, you didn't want to do that, and then the gun went off and the next thing I know, my husband has covered its blood. So hurry, Okay. Do you think this was accidentally? Do you think he essentially shot himself? I don't know. I note that she was angry trump the door. Oh my kissing. We were both drinking and we were talking, and I was talking on the phone with my friend and he was in this

room and he was listening. Did YouTube puns it? And I can't he planing from his head, which is sleep. Hurry, and they're on the way. I just need to let them know what's going on. Okay. The important thing is just to keep perfect. It's everywhere. And my my eleven year old daughter came to the door and she said, as everything okay, and I closed the door unfured with sleep. Hurry, okay's on the scene right now, okay, okay. Oh do you hear the ambulance coming. The ambulance is coming, bye,

good bye, to bye. Class. I sat down with Phil's client and two of her children in Phil's office to hear about this horrific experience. You might hear some people walking around in the background. One last note on privacy. We've beaped out her husband's name, the man who died. Is there something from the night of the incident that stands out the most? Yes, was I don't know the word. I don't want to say. Calm but he was very agreeable.

He was very just whatever, just kind of agreeable. Like, for instance, I had to go to the library to get their summer reading because I hadn't finished getting them their summer reading and school wasn't getting ready to start, and I had to go to the grocery store. So I had all this stuff I had to do, and I had to go and pick up my paycheck, and so I was leaving the house with the kids to

go pick up her and stuff. And I was sitting on the living room floor with the Monopoly board game out, and he was making the kids complain monopoly with them, which wasn't unusual except for the fact that he was adamant that night one of the kids won, or more likely her husband let them win. Nobody ever beat Monopoly, like it was like unheard of because he cheated terribly, Like he just he didn't beat your dad of Monopoly,

like he'd find a way to win. And so I was laughing, and it was like everything was kind of cool, you know, But he was just there was like a just like an okay, nous, like he wasn't agitated. There was like nothing weird, which was almost a little bit abnormal, you know, not that he was you know, it wasn't a jerk or anything, but he just wasn't very chill. And then um, he came to the back door and he said, can you drive me to the quick trip?

And I said, well, I had a glass of wine, I'm not going to drive, and he's said, oh, okay, and he closed the door. So then I saw the headlights moving out of the driveway, which made me mad because I used to repeatedly hide car keys from him so that he wouldn't drink and drive because he went

did tend to be somewhat self destructive. And then he was in the room and the door was locked because it locked him in there, and I knocked on the door and I said, do you want to come and sit with me because I'm gonna go to bed soon and he was like yeah, I'll be right out, and I was like okay, and I went and I checked

my email, knocked on the door again. He unlocked the door and I walked in and he was listening to music and I saw the gun on the on the desk and it wasn't supposed to be in the house. I was like, what is that doing in the house. I think I even made a joke because the reason I went over to the computer was that if he didn't hurry up and come outside, that I was going to post songs on his YouTube that he hate it,

like joking around, you know. I saw the gun and then he picked it up and he did point it at me. I tried to get it away from him, and he said, you don't want to do that now. I think the police tried to turn that into like a threatening thing, but it was more like a you don't want to piss me off kind of a tone

to it, and I let go. I sat down on what I remember to be a table like, and I remember sitting down and I remember covering my face because I was like, oh God, he's going to kill me, because I thought I had set him off to that point. I heard a clicking noise and I moved my hands and he had the gun pointed to his head. So I jumped up and I tried to pull it away from him, and I heard a pop. I didn't even

realize what had happened at first. I tried to pick him up and he didn't move, and then I was pulling on his arm and there was blood, and apparently my screaming is what woke up some if not all of them, I don't really know. And I remember running around the house trying to find a phone and I called nine one. She she came in at some point and I told her to go away and everybody to stay out because they didn't want them to see their father. They told me they were going to take me to

the hospital. They took him. Finally they came. I felt like an eternity, and they told me that they were going to take me to the hospital. Then they took me in a police car and they took me to

the station, which I didn't understand that. They told me they would take me the hospital after and then they wanted to talk to me, and um It had some issues with the law throughout his life, and he always told me never to talk to the police, and so honestly, I was afraid that he was going to get in trouble. So when they asked me what happened, I was like, well, it's not gonna want me to talk to them, you know. Do you remember what kind of questions the police ask you.

I don't remember a lot of questions. I remember asking them questions more. I remember asking them where was when they were going to take me, but I don't really remember a lot of questions. But I also told them I didn't want to answer any questions because in that light of that situation, what could I tell the police that could harm my husband? Because for all I knew he was coming home in a wheelchair. I have no idea at this point the extent of how my husband is.

I know nothing, And so I was like, I really feel like I shouldn't talk to you, and I think I may have said without a lawyer or something like that, and really what I wanted to talk to was my

father in law. That made them angry. And then they left, and then they came back and they told me that it was gone, and then they told me that they were going to arrest me, and they well, they took a bunch of naked pictures of me first, which was bizarre, which I can't even remember if that was first or after, but they did take pictures of me, and I didn't understand. I didn't understand like I thought I was supposed to

go to the hospital. Everything just kind of happened, and then they took me into this room, and I just don't even like the whole thing feels like a dream state. I don't even know what time of day it was, Like the whole day is just like bizarre fog. I just feel like I was in shock, Like I don't even feel like like you don't feel your legs. You're walking and you're just like in sounds feel like they're in another world, like it's not real, Like you can't

even wrap your brain around what's happening. I think they said something like you're under arrest, and I think I said for what, and they said murder. I mean, when they came and said that they were charging me like that was so shocking to me because I had been trying to save him for the minute. I tried to take the gun from him. From years before, I have hit the gun from him, I hit car keys from him. I poured five dollars worth of pharmaceuticals down my garbage disposal.

I poured bottles of jim Beam off my patio. I mean, I spent years keeping this man alive. For that and for me, that's what I did. And then calling with an ambulance, I thought they were going to come and help him. I just doubted that I was there. I was there, and I wasn't going to leave him, didn't. They took him from me, dine alone. We died without me and I wasn't there, and just everything from them from the day I met him un till the day I lost him, I was keeping him alive. Like it

was just like what, like are you insane? And like you can see in that situation when somebody says, what happened, like so many things happened, You're like, I can't really answer that question. I guess from what I understand from what Phil told me that I was giving conflicting answers and that I was standing and I was sitting where he was sitting or he was standing, and we were fighting, but we weren't fighting. Well, like all of those things

are true. And then it was like somehow, and I know this is sound weird, but it's almost like didn't matter any more. It was more like a witch hunt for me. They took me and I think they were laughing at me that if I remember correctly, because they had me in like paper suits and stuff because they had taken all my clothes. But I'm just talking about the police station, like I said, it's like pretty voggy.

I had no shoes, and I remember standing outside of the police car barefoot when they were bringing me to the jail. And then they took me in and then they, I guess what they called process me. They put me in a room and I think I called my father in law and I couldn't call my dad because he was a long distance. They took me to the infirmary and they put me in a room and it was flooded, because I guess that then, I'm guessing that the inmates

do it, but I don't know. But they stuffed the toilets until they overflow, and then they give you a pad to sleep on, and they put you in a sort of straight jacket sort of thing. It's like a padded thing that you can wear. I was told later at some point it was suicide watch. I mean there was a girl in there that was singing to her baby. I mean it was what I would imagine a psych word when would be like. Then they took me out of there, and then they took me and they put

me in the regular what they called general population. The girls were really nice to me in there. I was, you know, not never been to jail before. I didn't know what they were going to be like, and I pretty much just went in my cot They were just really they were really nice to me. They were I mean, I can't say anything. I guess I should say that the experience was horrifying. The experience of losing my family

was horrifying. Jail was were They were nice women. A lot of them were broken women that had been through some I'm sure difficult trials in their life, you know, but they were they were trained to me. My dad came and asked me what to do, and I said to make sure that they were safe. And then he sent me a couple of lawyers, and I chose Phil. I think I understand that it was over twenty one days that I was in jail. I think that's what they told me. I can't I can't remember. I'm sorry.

Like I mentioned, Phil was brought on as her defense attorney early on, while she was still in jail. In a series of interviews, I sat down with him and his staff to find out what her case looked like from the professionals point of view. We were all own problems and short on time, and we needed to go ahead and get her into court. We needed to get

a hearing, uh an evidentury hearing. We needed to find out why the police we're saying that she was guilty of murder, so we needed to test their evidence, if you will. We needed to get our heads wrapped around what the hell is going over their case? Why did they charge her with murder so quickly? We had to file motions to get her into court. We also were interested in trying to get her out on bail, and we knew going into this that was a long shot.

Quite frankly, I was not expecting to ever get her out, at least not on bond, but we did. In my opinion, they charged her so quickly because they misinterpreted the evidence that they found at the scene. You have two people and there's some type of an altercation and there's a gun involved. One person gets shot and dies. Police sometimes jump to conclusions and they get tunnel vision, and I think that's what they did here. They looked at this and they said, well, you know there was a gun,

somebody's dead, and you know she's alive. Well, she must have killed him. This happened in close quarters, right, and she's not who you might expect would prevail in a physical altercation against him, and they I think misinterpreted the crime scene a little bit and felt like they were not close enough together when this altercation took place, that maybe she had to be sort of across the room.

But there was an initial police and e m S response that came in pretty quickly and changed some things around. By the time investigators got there to really try to truly process the scene, the gun that was involved had been moved, of course, there was nobody. He had gone off to the hospital for emergency room treatment, and so the scene had been manipulated, not not in any malicious way, but it had been changed. It was not the way that it existed, you know, when it was just her there,

when she's on the phone with nine one one. It was changed. So I think they misinterpreted things. They jumped to some conclusions, I think, and then they built their case around their misperceptions. I think that's the most charitable way I could put it. They had a victim and there was a gunshot entry wound on his left palm. There was an exit wound out the back of his left hand, something you should ask Chris Robinson about. You might remember Chris Robinson from our earlier episode this season

on bite marks and forensic science. In that episode, he went into the details of his work as a forensic consultant, including analyzing ballistics and gunshot residue, both of which come up in this case. So when Phil started assembling the defense, he brought Chris on to evaluate the crime scene and help determine whether or not his client's story of struggle

and self defense was likely or even possible. I believe the question was the way that the individual was shot, how close the range of fire was, the angle of trajectory through the body of the bullet. I believe it went through his hand and then into his face. So as it went through his hand, there was stippling on the hand a little bit, which is the bruising of the skin about the unburned gunpowder particles, and then he went through the hand and as it fragmented, that was

stippling all over his face. Some of that was pseudo stippling from the bones that went through the hand. Some of that could have been powder because it was very close to his face at the time, but the pictures he was right there. It was eviden I said that the gun is is up against the handles as you see it right through the hand, and and Philip was He's looked at me and he's like, are you serious, it's right there. Look, it's just still a tear. Stell

eight is the star shaped pattern. It's just a star shaped pattern from the contact type of gunshot wing that's caused by gas pressure. Bullets don't rip bullets punched holes. When you see stella tearing, that's an indication that most likely it was a contact shot, which means the muzzle of the gun was directly up against the hand the skin. It was an interesting case. The end of the day. Bill's question was, do you think it could have been

an accident? Well, absolutely, if you're strugging over the weapon. You see, we showed that his hand was was right on the gun, very close to the gun, and that there could have definitely been a struggle over the gun. We ran through it several dozen times. But he said, show me how how does the hand get in front of his face like it was? How does all this happens? It? Well, it broke the bombs as it went through and then the it went into the face and the face had

he was severe trauma. But she could tell all these things, and the more went over it, Philip was like, totally, I mean, I can totally see where it was a self defense kind of issue. The medical examiner told prosecutors that Phil's client had to have been far away and shot her husband from across the room. But what Chris found was the exact opposite the stippling pattern, meaning how the gunshot residue hit his body, as well as the star shaped bullet entry wound proved that it was a

shot where the gun was pressed against the skin. This describes what Phil's client told police and the nine one one operator. She and her husband struggled up close before the gun went off. The bottom line is that there was a struggle for control of a gun. So she walks in the room where he was and there's this gun, and you know, she's not a gun person, doesn't like gun. In fact, took a long time for me to be able to even try to reconstruct this using an unloaded weapon,

and we did that eventually. We we talked about it with Chris, and Chris and I were able to piece it all together. Once we got some photographs and some other evidence from the prosecutors, we were able to try to go in and test what she said on the nine one one call. Could these things have actually happened?

If he's right handed and he's holding a gun and they're fighting over control of it, Is it possible for what she said to the nine one one operator you know, to have happened, and lo and behold it was in fact, if if you're holding this particular gun and it was a glaw and you've got your finger on the trigger and the person that you're pointing it at reaches out, which would be the natural thing to do is to reach out and sort of push it back or whatever.

I remember back in my days in the police academy, we actually trained for how do you what do you do as somebody's close to you and they in a gun at you. Well, one of the first things that you can do, if it's your revolver, you just take your your hand and you clamp down over the top of the gun and you grab the cylinder of the revolver and they can't pull the trigger and it won't fire.

So that's what you do with the revolver. But with an automatic weapon or in this case, a semi automatic handgun, the best thing to do defensively is to grab the end of the weapon, the barrel, the business in and point it in another direction so that if they do pull the trigger, it's not coming right at you. That's sort of the instinctual thing that somebody's going to do. They're gonna grab the end of that weapon and they're

gonna try to push one way or the other. And if the person who's holding that gun, if their finger is on the trigger, unless they move their finger out of the trigger, if you rotate the business into that gun just a few degrees either side, left or right, the finger is going to contract and your hand is gonna cause your your trigger, your trigger finger basically to

pull the trigger, even though it's an involuntary movement. Chris and I went through this, and we we tested this scenario, and we never practiced this with a live round, of course, but using an unloaded glock, you can do it. I've got one here, and you can hear the click if you want to hear it, so you can hear it's it's a real gun. It's unloaded, there's nothing in the chamber. I'm not pointing it anybody, but I'm gonna hold it out with my arm extended like I'm pointing it at someone.

And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take my left hand, you push this barrel. What you'll hear is and that's once I took the end of the weapon and I basically just pushed the barrel to to the to the side. It caused my trigger finger to click. So we knew that it was plausible, if not probable, that she was telling the truth. This is something that nobody ever really thought about. They just said, well, she said he was pointing at it himself. He was pointing

in at her. He was waving around. You know, she she can't get make up her mind what the truth is, so she must be guilty. But the truth is all those things were probably happening. The medical examiner came up with some cookie theory that she must have been across the room because there was no stipling on his hand, and he totally ignored the fact that it was still eight entrance. When I knew the medical examiner's uh conclusions were bullshit, and I knew I was gonna have to

prove it. But I was able to figure out that he had had some problems. He was actually sanctioned by the state his medical license. I don't think it was suspended, but it I think he went into a probationary status because he was disciplined for, you know, doing a bunch of sloppy autopsies a number of years before this, and he had entered into an agreement where they wouldn't suspend his medical license, but he had to do a bunch of autopsies under some kind of supervision and in a

probationary sort of a status. So I knew that this guy had problems, and I knew that I'd known it about it for a long time. And when I saw his bizarre conclusions, I thought to myself, you know, he may very well be at it again, and and I need to get a sharp set of medical eyes on this. So we we reached out to a doctor who used to be the chief medical examiner for the state of Kentucky. At the end of the day, he confirmed and I'm

gonna read part of his report. He says, a tighter press contact gunshot wound will produce the exact same skin findings and facial markings as seen in this case. The only means to prove or disprove a tight contact wound is a careful dissection of the deeper injuries in the wound track. This was not done. This death is considered by me to be an undetermined manner of death. I favor accident as the results of a struggle between the two people over control of the weapon. There is no

proof of homicide. This told me that all along everything that I had thought and believed about this case, I felt vindicated personally, but that didn't do her a hell of a lot of good. She was still charged with murder. I knew we were on the right path, at least towards getting to the truth. Unfortunately, it took a long long time and a lot of money and some good help from from experts to to get to the truth. We shouldn't be the ones having to prove this. The

police should have gotten this riot, but they didn't. This is Caitlyn Phil's former are illegal. She worked with still on all aspects of this case. I was first paralegal for about four years. I have since moved to North Georgia and I am no longer working in law. I'm an optician now, but that probably doesn't matter, you know,

with this being five years ago. My mind is not as crystal clear as when everything was happening, So I would also just like to stay you know, I don't want to mislead and I don't want to missay anything, but you no, my my memories have might have changed just a little bit. So he took on her case a little bit before I got there, So it was probably nine months nine to twelve months underway when I

joined Phil. You know, that was the biggest thing he had going at the time, so I immediately was brought to speed. It was very important. It carried a lot of weight and at least to me, it was clear that she did not need to be charged criminally for anything. I know. He was very heavily invested through work but also emotionally, and it was a very big time in both of our lives because he had this in front of him where she was potentially faced with a very

I mean it was a very big charge. She could spend her life in prison, and he was just faced with making sure that didn't happen, because we knew that didn't need to happen. As far as I know, I had access to everything. If Phil had access to it, I had access to it. So I knew she wasn't criminally guilty because I knew about her past in her relationship with him. Um, and I knew the story, and

I knew the evidence. You know, I learned so much about stifling and how bone fragments fracture when gunshots come in at certain angles. Every single piece of direct, circumstantial, any type of evidence just pointed to I mean, it wasn't her. She didn't she didn't do it. She was sending herself. I actually was going through discovery gathering, compiling things for Phil and stumbled upon the autopsy photos unexpectedly.

Once it was shocking, But then once I saw it, you know, and took a second and realize, okay, this is what I'm looking at it, really it was intriguing. H I mean, just everything pointed to the fact that she was not criminally responsible for anything. I met her and her four children. Um, I met her parents also. I mean, I'll never forget any of them. They're really great people there. She especially, It's just the type of person you don't forget. I say, I had friends, you know,

I was newly out of college at the time. Now, her friends asked me, how can you defend criminals, and my mind always went to her. She isn't a criminal, but she's being charge like one. And the law can be very black and white sometimes, and you need criminal defense attorneys to protect people from being railroaded by the state. People need protecting from that, and she was a perfect example of someone who was not guilty, who could be charged with something, but it is not guilty of a crime.

Next time on Sworn, there was a laundry list of churches did they offered the plea? And I think that it was volunteering manslaughter. At first I didn't want the plea. I was like, no, I'm not taking a police I was furious, dude that he told me about the Alfred plea. Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio.

Our lead producer is Christina Dana. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV, Matt Frederick and Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and myself Philip Holloway. Additional production by Trevor Young, Mason Lindsay, Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright, and Halle Beadall. Original music and sound designed by Makeup and vanity set. Our theme song is Blood in the

Water by Layup. Show art and design is by Trevor Eisler, editing by Christina Dana, mixing and mastering by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner. Special thanks to the team at I Heart Radio from u t a or In Rosenbaum and Grace Royer, Ryan Nord and Matthew Papa from the Nord Group, Back Media and Marketing, and Station sixteen. I'd also like to extend a very personal and special thanks to all of our contributors and guests who have helped to make

all of these episodes possible. You can find Sworn on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Sworn podcast and follow me your host, Philip Halloway on Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q. Our website is sworn podcast dot com, and you can check out other Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot dot tv. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at Sworn at tenderfoot dot tv or leave us a voicemail at four zero four for one zero zero four one. As always, thanks for listening.