Episode Transcript
The below text transcription was is intended for audience reference and search purposes. Because it is generated automatically by computer, please forgive mis-translations, spelling and the lack of really any structured grammar.
on the evening of november
college sophomore sarah butler
left her home in new jersey to meet up
with a man that she met on the internet
nine days later her body was found in a
nearby park
[Music]
this is episode 24 the sarah butler story
[Music]
hi amy hi megan good to see you good to
see you too so before we get started
today i just want to point out that
august th will be the
year anniversary of the ratification of
the th amendment amy do you know what
the th amendment is
women’s right to vote how does this
relate to
women in crime according to women
history.org susan b
anthony who’s on the coin was an
activist and i’m sure you’ve heard of
her and a
pioneer for the women’s suffrage
movement in the united states
and her work helped pave the way for the
th amendment which was ratified again
in
well woman’s crime at the time after the
passing of the th amendment
susan was angry that it had not included
women’s rights to vote
and so as a test she voted in the
presidential election and can you guess
what happened to her after
she was arrested that’s correct she was
arrested and fined a hundred dollars
and the judge’s guilty verdict was
written before the trial even happened
so you can see that there was a presumed
outcome
it made people angry and it brought
national attention to the movement
and she didn’t pay the fine and didn’t
she pass away
before the amendment was even passed
sadly she did she died years before
it was passed
so you can check out our instagram and
you’ll actually see a pic of
my hand dropping in the tennessee ballot
and reason why
tennessee was the last state to ratify
the amendment and the ballot box was
from the s era
when women first voted how do we know it
is in fact your hand
it’s a good question because you have to
take my word
you’ll know my hand is my very best
friend oh yes i will we could do a side
by side
so check us out so megan do we have some
supporters to thank
okay so first we have shronda carter
thanks rhonda
next we have saga from sweden awesome
i know isn’t it cool to get listeners i
always think it’s the coolest thing that
they come from
all across the world we’re very less
we’re very lucky
we have april le master and april’s from
iowa and she says that she listens to
get
through her early mornings in work oh
thank you april
we have ariel stockdale thanks ariel and
then we have ali m and i actually know
aly m
and who might ellie mb she’s one of my
neighbors who listens and loves the
shows and she’s so
cool i really like her so that’s awesome
i know thank you ali
we also have laura miner from las vegas
and laura had a question about jeffrey
mcdonald
that’s great you can check out our
questions at the end of the show we
listened to we heard you
and we’re now going to address your
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we also have erin from manassas thank
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thanks so much deanna and thanks to
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and thank you to all of our supporters
who showed up at our first
ama happy hour wasn’t that fun that was
so much fun it was so great to meet some
of you
and i really hope that we can continue
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it was super fun thank you for the great
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we appreciate any feedback today we are
talking about sarah butler
so as you will see this case is so
tragic and has affected so many people
but it did not receive much media
attention and megan this case did not
happen
far from where we live and where we work
and i don’t know it
montclair new jersey i’m surprised
because i really don’t know much about
this so i don’t think it was publicized
and that’s the issue that we’ll talk a
lot about okay sarah was only years
old at the time of her murder
megan you know montclair right i know
montclair yeah it’s only minutes from
new york city right
excellent school districts a very
diverse town
really a lot going on really good
downtown scene good restaurants
montclair is a very affluent town the
family lived in what is known as the
south end neighborhood so this was more
of a
or is more of a gentrified part of town
it’s very hip but it’s not as upscale as
what’s known as
upper montclair upper montclair is a
very wealthy area got it
regardless this family was a solid
middle class family
both of sarah’s parents worked very hard
to stay in that area
her mother is laverne laverne emigrated
from jamaica in the early s and
worked locally as a nanny for a family
in montclair
her father victor worked at a nearby
country club and there are some reports
that he was also a bartender at a comedy
club
sarah was one of three girls she had two
sisters and sarah was the middle child
sarah’s family was part of a very close
knit community that was centered around
their church
and by all accounts sarah did very well
in school she was described as bubbly
with an infectious energy and she was
very driven in high school she actually
led the dance team
and she was part of a traveling group at
the premier dance theater
and they won i guess this group won the
school’s dance scholarship they finished
third at amateur night at the apollo
theater in harlem so they were
you know they’re pretty good they were
really good she was also a lifeguard at
the local ymca she often babysat
and there were some reports that say she
was paying her way through bartending
school
wow so after graduating high school
sarah began attending
new jersey city university oh right near
me
right around the corner from you megan
literally so she was a commuter
for her freshman year and this was also
a very big deal she was the first in her
family to attend college
understandably like most students she
wanted to experience campus life so she
actually began living in the dorms her
sophomore year
of course some of her close friends
reported that she didn’t like her
roommates and she struggled to make
friends but overall she was a happy girl
and had a lot of friends
okay so this is where the story starts
her mother laverne picked her up from
school
in jersey city on november nd
around pm she was actually picking her
up to come home for a thanksgiving break
after her mother picked her up she asked
her mom for the keys to borrow the
family’s van so she could go meet up
with friends that evening
it’s usually what we did when you’d go
home for thanksgiving break the first
night right first night was always a big
party night right
so of course her mother agreed sarah
said she’d be out just a couple of hours
and her mom said okay no problem
unfortunately she hadn’t returned by
morning and she hadn’t answered her
phone
and her family became very alarmed and
of course they began calling all of her
friends and they were even calling local
hospitals and eventually they did call
the police however they
no one really had any answers for them
sarah’s sister
and sarah’s good friend spotted the
family’s car
which was just a blue minivan it was
tucked behind a former factory just four
miles
from where she lived sarah’s friends and
her sister they’re kind of driving
around trying to just
check around and they actually found the
car that they were looking for which is
very
rare so of course they call the police
at this point the reason why they call
the police
in the car not only was the car
abandoned but they also noticed um a
piece of her hair
this is the moment that when they
realized something is wrong and sarah’s
simply not missing
she was likely in danger right her hair
was a bright red at the time so it was
so her hair really stood out it stood
out so yes it was clear that this was in
fact
sarah’s hair sarah’s friends and sister
were very worried at this point
they rushed to sarah’s home and quickly
decided to look at her
social media that’s a smart place to
start very smart so
luckily they knew sarah’s passwords so
they looked at her emails they looked at
all
you know facebook and they also came
across an app
called tagged have you ever heard of
tagged no is this a new one
oh well no it’s . yeah so apparently
tagged was
i guess it was an app and also a website
that people it was more like a hookup
culture not like a place you’d go to
necessarily
meet a long-term someone in a long-term
relationship but more of like a hookup
thing there were also some reports that
it was a place where
people would go to solicit sex workers
i guess i’m just old and uncool and they
found that sarah had interacted with a
young man
named little yacht rock little yacht
rock little yacht rock
and this was in fact khalil wheeler
weaver
so what they did they saw that she had
been speaking to him
just a few nights prior and now at this
point she’s been missing for three days
so they’re so smart these girls they
decided to create a fake profile in an
attempt to lure the man
that’s really clever so they made up a
fake profile they took
they found some sexy pictures and they
tried to lure him by offering him sex
and guess what he took the baby he took
the bait so they arranged for a meet-up
and they were planning to meet at panera
bread in montclair new jersey i’ve
actually been to that panera bread but
that’s an odd place to be right
so i think they were probably gonna meet
and then drive away together somewhere
yeah got it i don’t
know that they were planning on doing
something in the panera but i hope not
i hope not sarah’s friends told the
police that this was this meetup was
going to be occurring
so to his surprise when khalil got to
panera bread he was not met by this
beautiful young lady he was met by the
police
wonderful amazing however they
questioned him briefly about sarah he
ended up telling them his real name
showed him an id but they had nothing to
go on they had no body no evidence of a
crime
absolutely no reason to consider him a
suspect they had no choice but to let
him go
but that’s okay because now things are
starting to move they’re gonna start
you know surveilling him and meanwhile
authorities were looking at sarah’s cell
phone data
and they discovered that the last ping
was from eagle rock reservation
so eagle rock reservation is a nearby
park and
on december st which is just a week
after her mom had picked her up from
school her body was found covered in
leaves and other debris
by a parking lot in that berry park at
this point they arrest
khalil so when police arrest khalil it
was just five days after sarah had gone
missing
and they charged him in connection with
her murder really thanks to her family
and friends they set this whole thing in
motion now how badass is that
oh i think that’s great are you saying
that they arrested
uh him when they found her body is that
correct yeah because then they were able
because they couldn’t they had nobody
they thought
for all they knew sarah had just ran off
on her own accord right right
so you would think the story ends here
okay found the guy done
no the most shocking revelation was
still to come before we talk about that
i want to talk about
what we know leading up to sarah’s
murder so no surprise
the friend that she was planning to meet
that evening was khalil wheeler weaver
and he was actually an online
acquaintance some reports say that they
had known each other in passing
but other say that they had just met on
that app
what actually happened was he offered to
pay sarah
for sex that evening they had talked a
few days prior
and they had had a similar exchange and
she backed out of the meeting
because she says that she you know she
got nervous and couldn’t go through with
it
in fact the second time they ended up
talking before you know this fateful
night
she messaged him you’re not a serial
killer right oh
gosh and that instinct you know the
instinct was there
that was right before leaving the house
to go meet up with him and
i read somewhere that he said nope i’m a
cool guy once you get to know me
it’s just so sad that she you know and i
think she wrote like
lmao like laughing my ass off like ha ha
but that just shows that
i think she probably knew like should i
be doing this should i not be doing this
so once he made her feel that he was not
a serial killer
around pm that night she picked him
up at an abandoned house in orange new
jersey
you also know orange new jersey right i
sure do yep and eerily this is the same
house where at this moment when she
picked him up
there was another woman’s body dead in
that home we’ll get to that
okay so after she picks them up they
drive to a -eleven
store which is a few blocks away and you
don’t know we have surveillance cameras
picking this up
she stayed in the car he went in and he
purchased some condoms
for some reason one of the news articles
mentioned that it was trojan fire and
ice condoms
so there you have it but either way
securities cameras
captured him in the store and it would
turn out the outfit he was wearing is
the same outfit he would
be seen wearing in other incidences okay
so he was wearing
a black sweatshirt with a hood pulled
over pretty much covering
almost his whole face black sweatpants
black sneakers and tight fitting black
gloves
oh i mean this outfit doesn’t sound yeah
so at p.m
very few minutes later they drove away
and headed towards eagle rock
reservation which again was this park
the park was in west orange and that is
where sarah’s body would later be
discovered
so who is this khalil wheeler weaver we
don’t know too much about him but he was
just years old at the time of the
crime
okay he worked at a grocery store he was
a security guard
and he also sometimes dj’d as well again
in orange classmates described him as
really keeping to himself mostly
somewhat nerdy in appearance you know he
would wear a lot of like flannel shirts
tucked into khakis and white sneakers
glasses
but some people say he was a funny guy
he had no criminal record whatsoever
by all accounts comes from good home
good family several of his family
members
worked in various law enforcement jobs
his father had died when he was a little
younger but his stepfather
the police detective in east orange and
his uncle a retired detective
with the newark police department wow
yes the police were very quickly able to
link him to two
other unsolved murders of young women in
the area
and one attempted murder how
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yes and it was just seven days earlier
that he had his last victim before sarah
oh wow that’s really quick
and we’ll talk a little bit more about
those cases in a moment but in february
he was indicted on three counts of
murder
one count of attempted murder and a
litany of other charges including
desecration of human remains
arson sex assault and kidnapping so
sarah’s family and friends
really did a huge service for the
community here well if you’re saying
it hasn’t been proven yet but if he’s
got three victims then you’re saying
serial killer again
three confirmed deaths and one attempted
we’ll talk about the one
i guess you could say the one who got
away is the one who really
made this case what it was okay so there
was a joint
trial for the three murder victims the
victim
who was able to get away became a huge
part of the trial but
the charges for her were in a separate
trial so in october of
khalil wheeler weaver stood trial for
the murders of
-year-old robin west of philadelphia
robin west was murdered on august st
. year old joanne brown
of newark new jersey and that murder
occurred december th
and of course the murder of sarah
butler
all of the women were drugged all of
them were found with packing tape over
their noses and mouths and they were all
strangled with an item of clothing
although the two other cases
before i get available more about
sarah’s case though i do want to just
say it is so clear that wheeler weaver
targeted vulnerable victims
both robin west and joanne brown were
young black women
they were confirmed sex workers and they
were women who
suffered from mental health issues and
homelessness
i find it quite interesting that sarah
did not fit this yes sarah was
allegedly soliciting sex on this app but
she had no history of being a sex worker
and she came from a really strong family
and no
history of any mental health issues or
homelessness
but it’s possible that khalil did not
know exactly what sarah’s background was
you know and this will all i know you’re
dying to talk about the serial killer
aspect i see you over there
no he’s i just know that he’s obviously
targeting women who are um
advertising for sex because they are an
easy target an opportunity
and i think he probably honestly he
picked the wrong victim with sarah
because if he can unfortunately if he
continued to pick these
marginalized vulnerable victims then he
might
still very well be out there but sarah
had a family and she had friends who
kept pushing
to get answers and they got answers and
they really got justice for a lot of
people here
for them because you know we talk about
this that you know as you said they’re
they’re seen somewhat as less human
less valuable and no one’s going to
notice if they disappeared or no one’s
going to care or listen unfortunately
what was the evidence against khalil
wheeler weaver
there was not very much physical
evidence there were some trace amounts
of dna
under sarah’s fingernails but no
physical evidence in the other two cases
they claimed that he wore gloves and
always wore a condom during the attacks
which might account for the lack of
physical evidence so the prosecution
relied heavily on
internet searches and cell phone data
location khalil admitted to meeting
every one of the victims
he just claims that he met them and he
left and he doesn’t know what happened
to them after that
his cell phone data puts him at the
location
where he admits to meeting the victims
but also the locations where all of the
bodies were found
not so smart gleal before sarah and
khalil met on november nd
he had searched the internet for
information about date rape drugs and
homemade poisons
how to put someone to sleep and how to
erase phone data
specifically he asked google how to make
homemade poisons to kill humans
and what chemical could you put on a rag
and hold to someone’s face to make them
go to sleep immediately
wow taking all those other precautions
and then googling it
well then he did he did ask google
though how do you erase this
oh god the prosecution also relied on
surveillance footage and some
information from police interviews where
he lied a little bit about where his
about where he was at certain times the
one piece of evidence that was the
strongest was the one victim who got
away
okay tell me about this victim she is
for survivor
she is a survivor absolutely so
tiffany taylor was a huge part of the
trial she recounted
waking up in the back seat of a car with
duct tape on her face
and then getting choked back to sleep
eventually she managed to loosen the
tape by screaming
and crying if i remember correctly in
the transcript she actually said the
reason why
the tape loosened is because there was a
mixture of blood and
tears that loosened the tape it was
horrifying to listen to
he had choked her out she came back to
consciousness and
she was very smart because instead of
fighting back i think she realized the
ways that she could manipulate him and
she got him
to trust her and to bring her back to
the hotel because she said she had to
retrieve her phone
was she his first victim she was not she
would have been the she would have been
the third
victim oh she was seven days before
sarah oh okay
but after the first two women got it so
she knocks on this hotel door
she goes in and she locks the door
behind her and she pretty much
opens the you know opens the blinds and
like ha ha
i’m in here you’re out there she has the
dangling handcuff from her wrist
and guess what’s on surveillance camera
what khalil
you know trying to get her back out and
wearing the same exact outfit he was
wearing
when he went to -eleven the night of
sarah’s murder so he unlocked her she
had her handcuffs and he unlocked her
handcuffs she was able to get out of it
how did she get out of her hair
i read somewhere that she’s double
jointed and then i read somewhere also
that she had asked him to loosen it
saying that it was hurting her and she
actually says when he obliged to loosen
it she knew she got him
good good for her yeah she’s really you
have to read one of the articles that i
source
it’s it really focuses on her story and
it is they need to make a netflix stock
on this story it’s incredible
okay so of course she calls the police
and believe it or not megan the police
did not take it seriously
because she’s a sex worker she’s a sex
she not only was she a sex worker
she was female and she was
african-american i was going to say that
too
so she told the police khalil’s exact
name
showed them his facebook page pretty
much handed him on a silver platter to
the police
and also let me also say that tiffany
taylor was four months pregnant
she still had her handcuffs dangling
from her wrist and they treated in her
words they treated her
like trash this has been a problem of of
cases
like this historically and i mean that
disappoints me because i know it’s
changed a lot but obviously
not so much and if they treated if they
took tiffany’s claim seriously sarah’s
death could have been prevented because
seven days later he kills sarah yes
so there is you know they really dropped
the ball here the defense
didn’t have too much to say because
obviously there’s a lot of evidence here
the defense basically said you know he
told police where he had last seen them
and he said that he was you know he left
them and they were alive and safe
and if he were guilty he would never he
would never have revealed
he would have exactly he was very
forthcoming exactly he was forthcoming
and he cooperated with investigators and
that is not the conduct of a guilty
individual
and not only that they went on to
contend that the victims put themselves
in vulnerable positions and what
happened to them afterward
is not really mr wheeler weaver’s
problem victim blaming
exactly lots of victim blame it so the
trial lasted two months
did khalil testify he did not testify
smart move
very smart although i mean i don’t think
at this point i don’t think it would
have
helped him or hurt him it doesn’t matter
right true strong case yep so the trial
lasted two months
on december very recently
after just two hours of deliberation he
was found guilty on all three counts of
murder
and he also was found guilty on all the
other convictions which were
other counts he is now facing a life
sentence plus years
good i’m glad to hear that i’ve been
trying so hard to find where this case
is now
i you know from what i found it said he
will be sentenced in early and that
has not yet happened and why do we think
that
is oh corona corona everything we know
that was supposed to be slated for you
know
is getting pushed back and obviously
he’s not getting out anytime soon no i
don’t think they have a huge rush to get
him sentenced
so that’s where we are now of course i
want to pick your brain about this
because i know you teach about serial
killers i want to give you some of my
thoughts and then i want you to correct
me and school me on what’s really going
on
unless you know well unless you’re right
no one ever used the term serial killer
but this is clearly a serial killer it
does fit with the definition
three or more murders with a cooling off
period
he does not exactly fit the profile of a
serial killer from what i understand
he was very young at the time just
years old no known criminal history
he did follow a metal methodical
obsessive pattern all of his victims had
similar profiles and he had the same
method of killing
so that kind of feeds into what i know
about serial killers
there was one other aspect of him that i
think lends itself to the serial killer
profile is that he had a strong interest
in law enforcement
remember i mentioned he was a grocery
store security guard right
but searches of his computers and phone
also revealed that he was very
interested in taking a law enforcement
exam sometime in the near future
or he was at least very interested in
getting information about what was on
that exam
i mean that’s obviously terrifying thank
goodness he didn’t wind up in the field
because then he would have just used his
position of power as well
probably to solicit more victims like
the golden state killer and other serial
killers
who are in positions of power and law
enforcement right and then he would have
learned
other probably better tactics at
covering this all up so what do you
think megan
as far as does he fit the profile of a
serial killer
yes he does but there are some things
that are anomalies
one of the things is that most serial
killers do not begin their offending
until later on and that doesn’t mean
they don’t begin some type of offending
but usually there’s a progression
a lot of times they might start with
stalking or voyeurism or harming animals
there’s usually you know this kind of
work up and i think that most of the
male serial killers
will begin their actual offending
against humans against people
in their late s early s so in that
way he’s very
atypical just one thought on that just
because he was never caught does not
mean he was not exhibiting this behavior
he was very i don’t know if i mentioned
this but he was very
clean cut he almost resembled like ted
bundy kind of very preppy
you know under the radar kind of guy so
i’m wondering if he kind of was doing
all these shady things maybe he just
never got caught is that possible oh
that’s absolutely possible yeah
i continue sorry and you’re right just
because you didn’t discuss it doesn’t
mean it didn’t happen
but regardless most of these people
spend years on this and they’ll still do
that into their s
so it is atypical that he would begin
offending at such a young age
the way he selected victims makes sense
so usually serial killers will pick
their sexual preference and they’re
usually
intraracial so they usually pick people
from their own race so in the fact that
he’s selecting
young black females who are in positions
that are vulnerable
a lot of serial killers have targeted
prostitutes for the very reason that
they know a
they’re easy targets and b huh people
probably won’t care about them
so his selection of targets the fact
that he was
very strict to his modus operandi so how
he killed the way he did it every time
yes there’s usually
a method by which they stick and that’s
usually the way they you know they very
often or very rarely would deviate from
that so he’s very common that way
is it true that most serial killers are
white men
that’s not true that’s a misconception
now so historically at one point there
were
certainly more um white serial killers
but now
what we know is that there are almost
it’s almost a match between
black male serial killers and white
syrup there’s just about as many
so black male serial killers just do not
get the same press
yes and they don’t get the netflix
documentaries and
they often do not and do you want to
know why they do know why because of
their victims
because is that right that’s correct
because their victims
are usually black young females a
marginalized population already because
they may be
you know they’re not always sex workers
so i don’t want to imply that but
because of their
you know because of their race they do
not get the attention that the stories
of you know white um blonde or
you know what i mean like they haven’t
gotten the attention that uh serial
killers
you know the victims like of ted bundy
are going to get we’re going to change
that
right here right now well i mean i’m
already you know it’s great that we’re
already
we’re already teaching it and the best
way to change it is to just project the
truth about
this and and the fact is um you know
they’ve caught some very prolific
recently some very prolific uh male
black serial killers
who have very high body counts samuel
little was one of them very recently
i don’t know if you remember the uh i
forget his name i think it was lonnie
jackson he was known as the grim sleeper
um very long careers of offending
and there there’s definitely uh there’s
more attention being paid now so you’ll
you’ll start using this case in your
class i already use cases i already
talked about so in my in my class in
serial killers i spend
you know at least uh a class discussing
the racial differences and why
yeah the y is yup the actual why so my
students will leave with a clear
understanding of why cases like sarah’s
did not get enough attention and you
know it’s unfortunate because like you
said sarah
sarah’s murder could have easily been
prevented had the police taken this case
seriously
and so i i was very disappointed to hear
that in the what was the years was it
like or around
you know oh yeah it’s this is recent
this is very recent
i was very disappointed to hear that the
police did not take these claims
seriously and i think that is the most
tragic part
of this whole story obviously the whole
thing is tragic because there’s so many
victims
and something else i didn’t mention
about the case that was striking
was in court i saw footage of khalil’s
mother embraced with one of the victims
fathers i believe it was and you know
there was this really the strong moment
of forgiveness and
because everyone loses here you know
khalil’s family
is a victim in obviously in a different
way but they’re a victim as well because
i couldn’t agree with you more you know
so nobody’s won here yeah
nobody but it really is i will say
really
wonderful you know detective work by
sarah’s friends and they probably
prevented
you know could have prevented the next
prolific serial killer oh yeah they
definitely
i want to thank them for keeping our
community safe because i
want to give them more of a pat on the
back than the police in this one i
absolutely agree
so thank you again for listening to
today’s case on sarah butler
i’d like to turn now to the question
that we had from our patron
laura miner so laura had a question
about a case which she
says fascinates her she says the alleged
perpetrator is not female but the
victims were
jeffrey mcdonald i don’t think he did it
especially after reading errol morris’s
book
if you guys have any thoughts on it i
would love to hear
i would love to talk about this case
you know a lot about this case i know
the case probably not as well as you do
i think you’re probably
you probably have better insight so this
case
is pretty old at this point we’re
talking about years ago
right jeffrey mcdonald he was in the us
army he was accused of murdering his
pregnant wife and two very young
daughters very
very brutal crime scene is such a sad
story you say that and i think of
shanann watts and chris watts
too it’s similar except this was in the
home and we’ll get in we’ll get into
that right now
mcdonald’s says that four intruders
three men and one women
broke into the home and began stabbing
them
they were chanting words like acid is
groovy and
killed pigs and also wrote the word pig
in blood
on the walls he was stabbed once and he
suffered a collapse long he also there’s
some reports that he had defensive
wounds but
there’s a little back and forth about
whether or not they were in fact
defensive wounds
but unfortunately his wife was stabbed
more than times
and each of the young children were
stabbed dozens of times
so he actually at first he was
exonerated by a military court so in
he was exonerated of all charges
and then about years later he was
convicted on criminal charges
okay got it the prosecution contends
that he actually staged the crime scene
and he tried to blame a hippie gang
remember what was happening at this this
is manson right now exactly yep and
there were some parallels
between some of the mans and crimes and
what happened in this crime
there’s also copycats of manson
absolutely so during trial he did end up
taking the stand and we know that’s not
common and not surprisingly he didn’t do
very well
i think it was a harmless error i think
that he would have been convicted even
if he didn’t take the stand
but he was convicted and sentenced to
three life terms
now we’re talking decades of failed
appeals
the innocence project actually joined
his defense in .
when the innocence project comes on i
feel like they see something
you know they don’t take every case they
have to be selective you know this
better than i do but so when they take a
case i think they see
real you know there’s there’s some doubt
the reason why the innocence project got
involved is there were some untested dna
there you go so they ended up getting
the hairs tested it took almost a decade
for them to get these hairs tested as it
often does yep
and these hairs did not match mcdonald’s
however
that was not enough because of course it
is possible that there
you know there could be unknown hairs at
the scene you know i feel like with
these dna cases
you know better than i do but i feel
like there have been a number of them
where the hair
exonerates someone and then you have
just the other half where they go well
you know it could have been well i think
it’s easier if the hairs
point to somebody else so it wasn’t a
match to him
and there was no it didn’t hit on
anything in codis got it
so i think makes perfect sense yeah but
you’re absolutely right
so is he innocent is he guilty it’s so
hard to say if i had to i lean a little
more towards innocence partially because
of what you said
i really trust the innocence project and
i really believe that when they get
involved
they do their due diligence but if you
look his injuries were very superficial
compared to the
others so there was a lot of you know
there were a lot of questions there but
on the flip side there was a ton of
issues with the way the evidence was
handled
there was a confidential actually she
wasn’t even confidential but there was
an informant
that fit the description of one of the
women that mcdonald’s says was an
intruder and she ended up testifying
towards mcdonald’s guilt
and there’s a lot of questions there’s
some people that actually think that
this woman her name was helena stockley
she died back in the s but there’s a
whole camp of people that believe that
she was actually one of the people
involved
in this so where the case stands now
last i’ve heard i believe in december
so pretty recently
he was denied relief i do believe at
this point his only chance at release is
either being granted parole or
granted a commutation yeah i think
you’re right on that and uh just
i don’t have much to add because i have
to say i can make a case for his
innocence or guilt and so
i wouldn’t feel comfortable you know
leaning one way or the other at this
point thanks for doing a better job than
i would have amy oh thank you laura and
if you ever want to chat about this case
more call me i loved it i could talk for
hours about this case
i actually thought the same thing we can
cover this case as she points out the
victims
females no thank you for bringing us
this case and you know i didn’t know of
it and i’m glad i do and you’re right i
will use it as an example so
thank you so much amy thank you megan
thanks to our listeners and we’ll catch
you next time on women in crime
women in crime is written and hosted by
megan sachs and amy schlossberg
our producer and editor is james varga
our music is composed by dessert media
[Music]
sources for today’s episode comes from
northjersey.com
new jersey nj and the washington
post