New evidence in Idaho slayings; Alex Murdaugh’s conviction – TCD Sidebar
In this episode of True Crime Daily The Sidebar Podcast
Jonna Spilbor joins host Joshua Ritter to break down the biggest cases making headlines across the nation. They discuss Alex Murdaugh’s murder conviction, the involuntary manslaughter charges facing the parents of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, and the release of documents detailing items seized by police in the Bryan Kohberger investigation.
Tweet your questions for future episodes to Joshua Ritter using the hashtag #TCDSidebar.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:00:10]
Hello and welcome to True Crime Daily's The Sidebar, taking you inside the courtrooms of high profile and notorious cases from across the country. I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'm a criminal defense lawyer based here in Los Angeles and formerly an LA County prosecutor for nearly a decade. You can find me at Joshuaritter.com. We are recording this on Thursday, March 9th, 2023.
In this week's episode, finally, the conviction and multiple life sentences imposed on disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh. Also, we discuss the potential criminal liability for parents of the Oxford School shooter, Ethan Crumbley. And finally, we discuss the newly unsealed documents revealing details of search warrants executed on the Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger.
Today, we are joined by Jonna Spilbor, a fellow prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney, owner and operator of Jonna Spilbor Law and legal analyst you can find on Fox News, Court TV, and many other television media outlets. Jonna, welcome back.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:01:14]
Joshua, thanks for having me. Looking forward to chatting with you today.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:01:19]
Good, good. And I'm looking forward to it too, because this is the episode that we're finally going to cover the end of the Murdaugh case. We weren't able to last week because it actually the verdicts came in the same day we were recording that episode. So we're excited to finally get to that. But before we jump into all of this stuff, for listeners who haven't heard from you or caught you on this show the first time around, tell us a little bit about your current practice and what you've been up to lately.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:01:46]
Oh, sure. Well, very lately I've been up to covering nothing but the Alex Murdaugh double murder case. But I have a thriving little practice here in the hustling, bustling city of Poughkeepsie, New York, which is about 70 miles north of Manhattan. And we have a busy boutique practice. I actually just posted on Facebook that I celebrated my 15th anniversary of being on my own. I've been a lawyer for 4000 years but 15 where I sit right now, the owner and sole owner of Jonna Spilbor Law. So we're excited about that and we've been --
Joshua Ritter:
[00:02:24]
Congratulations. Congratulations. That's very cool.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:02:27]
Thanks.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:02:28]
Well, excellent. Well, because you have been following Murdaugh so closely, we're really interested to hear your insights on this trial. So let's just catch people up to what we're talking about. We're talking out of Walterboro, South Carolina. After a highly publicized six-week trial, a South Carolina jury reached their verdict in just under three hours, convicting Alex Murdaugh of the brutal murder of his wife and son.
Alex, the scion of a former legal dynasty, was then sentenced the following day to serve two consecutive life sentences for the killings. Murdaugh's son, Paul and wife Maggie, were found murdered on the family's sprawling hunting estate in June of 2021. No arrests were made in the case for over a year after Murdaugh alleged that the killings could have been linked to either a drug gang whom he owed money or in retribution for his son's drunken boating accident, which resulted in the death of a teen girl.
Throughout the trial, numerous references were made to Alex's drug addiction and financial crimes, which he still faces 99 different criminal accounts for. Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to halt investigations as his life was spiraling out of control. The prosecution also unveiled a video taken from his son's phone, which challenged Alex's alleged timeline and put the former lawyer at the murder scene within minutes before his wife and son were gunned down.
In a surprising move, Alex opted to take the stand in his own defense, often breaking down in tears in his emotional testimony. Alex alleged that he lied to investigators about his whereabouts because of a drug induced paranoia that left him with a distrust of law enforcement. Jurors reported that Murdaugh's testimony played a role in their verdict as his voice identified him beyond a reasonable doubt in the prosecution's video.
Reportedly, Alex's testimony also raised questions about his credibility. After his conviction, Murdaugh's defense have indicated that they plan to appeal his consecutive life sentences as far as legally permitted. All right, Jonna, jump right in. Did this verdict surprise you at all?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:04:35]
Oh, boy. So many things about this verdict surprised me. Let's take it from the top. The speed with which this jury came back, to me, I'm going to say it. To me is almost offensive. Why do I think it's offensive? Because we sat there, and I watched every day of this trial. It was a six-week convoluted trial within a trial, as you know. It became a trial within a trial because of the notorious 404 B bad character evidence that was introduced as to all of Alex Murdaugh's past financial crimes. And they were doozies. They were doozies.
But to me, the motive that that evidence was there to show fell flat. Prosecution did a great job proving that Alec Murdaugh is the lowest of the low kind of lawyer. He is a liar. He is a cheat. He is a thief. But for me, I don't think they connected the murder dot and perhaps the jury got confused by all of that 404 B. Let me just say this. I'm not insulting the jury either. You know, here's something -- let me -- I'm going to ask you a question that's going to sound very facetious, but I actually mean it seriously to make a point, because we do this to jurors, and I don't think it's fair.
Imagine, if you would, Joshua, that a surgeon came up to you today and said, Joshua, sit down, I'm going to explain to you how to do brain surgery. I'm going to explain to you how to cut open someone's cranium and remove a cancerous tumor and sew them back up. Okay. And you go, okay, I'm smart, I can get it. And he explains it to you. And then five minutes later, he wheels in a live patient and says, okay, your turn.
We do the equivalent, the legal equivalent with jury instructions to jurors all the time. Sometimes very complex jury instructions that non-lawyers are going to be difficult to understand naturally and even lawyers could take years to truly understand what these concepts mean and how they are to be applied. But we put 12 strangers in a jury box, and we give them those instructions, and then let them have at it and hope for the best. That's why a three-hour verdict, a less than three-hour verdict offended me because the very definition of deliberate means to carefully consider. How carefully was the evidence considered? I question that.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:07:04]
Yeah. Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to throw these jurors under the bus, but it was obvious to me, you know, they make requests of the jurors, and they instruct them, please do not start your deliberations even in your own head, until you get back into the jury room and have a chance to discuss this with other people. It's obvious that all of them had arrived at this conclusion by the time they had already entered the jury room. I read a tweet that said it took them three hours but, you know, the first two hours of that was them just being Southern.
So it does highlight how quickly all of this took place. I mean, jurors I know can take, you know, half an hour or so just to pick a foreperson, just to read through the jury instructions. Just to get the exhibit book back in front of them might take some time. So three hours might sound like a lot if all you're talking about is people sitting down and having discussion with each other. But that's not all that's taking place in that first amount of time that they're back in the room. So it is breakneck speed.
For listeners, flesh out that point that you made about the prior bad acts a little bit and why it's so dangerous and why the prosecution can use it in a way that can turn this trial into something that it shouldn't really be about.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:08:21]
And that is precisely what happened. So we'll try to break it down in English because when it was happening in real time, I said this isn't going to be good and this is going to be a reason for, you know. So what happened here was because Alex Murdaugh is still facing 99 separate crimes having nothing to do with this murder but having to do with some serious financial misdeeds that really do go to his character. He hasn't been tried for those crimes yet.
The prosecution made a motion which was granted to allow all of that evidence in. Evidence that Alec Murdaugh is a liar, a cheat and a thief, but not to be considered for the purpose of proving Alex Murdaugh is a liar, a cheat and a thief. That evidence was allowed in under an exception to the rule, which says the juror could consider that that the financial crime evidence for the purpose of proving motive to murder.
Now, a couple of things. Motive is never an element of a crime, but human beings, jurors and otherwise want to know the why. Whenever there's a crime, people want to know why. And in a case like this, especially where you had a man accused of literally blowing the brains out of his own son, what would motivate somebody to behave that way? Because if you can't find the why, then maybe you don't have the guilt. But prosecution was able to put it in over the objection of the defendant and then away we went for days on these separate financial crimes and people who had known Alex Murdaugh, people who had loved Alex Murdaugh, people who he had loved himself, and he screwed them all financially speaking and looked like a horrible person.
Now, the jury wasn't supposed to consider that, to show that he was a horrible person. The jury was supposed to consider that to determine whether or not his financial undoing was reason to kill his wife and kid as a distraction from the house of cards that was falling around him. I say it's a weak motive. I said it then. I'm saying it now and I'll say it when the appeals court in South Carolina also has to take a look at it, because if he's got a reason to appeal, if he's got a valid argument to win an appeal, that will be top of the list.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:10:50]
Yeah, I agree with you, 100 percent. On appeal, that's going to be paragraph number one. He's talking about all those financial crimes. Just to dovetail off of what you said too. Yes, you can understand why a judge might open the door to some of that evidence a little bit if the motive was such a strong connection, if there was such a direct nexus between the financial crimes and the murders.
For instance, if they were able to prove that he was going to get some huge financial windfall out of the murders of his wife and child and that that would somehow help out with the financial crimes and, you know, creating further kind of delay and people discovering it and everything like that, but there was none of that. It was just kind of like, hey, folks, this guy's in a bunch of trouble. His life spiraling out of control. Dot, dot, dot. He kills his wife and child. It wasn't strong enough to me to open the door as wide as they did.
The other problem I had with it is that the judge, there was a lot of discussion about this. And it wasn't that the defense just rolled over on this. They pounded their fists on the table trying to keep this stuff out. And the prosecution kind of made this kind of lip service towards the idea that they're just going to keep it really tight, that they're just going to kind of let jurors know a little bit about it, help them to understand there was a motive here. It does kind of exist and allow them to get into it.
But like you said, it just took over. It became a huge part of it to the extent that when he testified, the prosecution opened with all of that, spent several hours on all of that, and even in their closing, talked about all of that. And I just feel, listen, I've been a prosecutor. You've been a prosecutor. We all want to secure that conviction. I think they were a little myopic in the way they approached this and just kind of concentrated on, I don't care, I'm going to get away with what I can get away with because I need to put this man in cuffs for what he's done. But on appeal, that may present some problems.
Let's talk about his testimony. Obviously, in retrospect, you know, we're going to say, well, the jurors didn't buy it. Obviously, in retrospect, you can say it was a bad move for him to make. But if you could put all of that aside, do you think it was a bad move or do you think it was something he had to do? And do you think he did himself any favors? I mean, I know we're looking at a conviction here in three hours, but what were your thoughts on his testimony?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:13:12]
So when I was watching that in real time as well, I had a couple of thoughts. One, Alex Murdaugh outlawyered Creighton Waters. He really did. He was masterful at trying to elicit sympathy. I bought it. I bought the snot bubbles. I bought the tears that the jury said they didn't see. I bought the emotion, number one.
And number two, I think when you show somebody to be a liar and then you put that person on the stand and they own it, you give the jury permission to believe you because you're owning it as opposed to getting up there and continuing the lie. And I thought Alex Murdaugh did that. He gave the jury permission to believe him, but obviously they didn't, because if they had, if they had believed Alex Murdaugh's testimony, nothing else matters. You can forget all the other five weeks, five and a half weeks of testimony wouldn't matter because he got up there and he said unequivocally, I didn't do it.
But obviously, sure, now, if I were on that jury, we'd still be deliberating, because I don't think the prosecution proved every element of these murders and nothing would change my mind about that. I'm not saying, look, he might know what happened. He might have even been there when it happened. But that wasn't the theory of the case. And Alex Murdaugh didn't have to offer that up. I mean, there's still a lot of unanswered questions that I have, don't get me wrong. But I think Alex Murdaugh is going to have a great shot on appeal. And I thought his testimony helped, not hurt.
Now, we can't automatically assume that because he lied about being at the scene around the time that the murders occur. And Sidebar, no pun intended. Sidebar. We don't even actually know exactly what the time of death was. We only have a general idea. So the fact that he lied about being there doesn't automatically make him the culprit. And I say that because, you know, let's take this down a notch. How many times has anybody within the sound of our voice been in the car speeding, you get stopped by a cop. Police pulls up and says to you, do you know why I pulled you over. Now, you know, you were going 20 miles an hour over the speed limit. But what do you say? No, officer, I have no idea. That's a lie. That's a lie. And people do it all the time.
Now, granted, in that scenario, guess you'd be guilty of speeding. But you can understand why people don't always tell the truth to law enforcement and may not be guilty of what the investigation is trying to uncover. And I think that's what he was trying to explain to the jury when he fessed up and said I was there, but I panicked. I didn't trust SLED. I'm on opioids. He was trying to explain why he would be motivated to lie. And it made some sense.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:16:07]
I don't think it's an overstatement to say the entire six weeks of that trial was window dressing for that one answer that he gave. I mean, it really all came down to his one answer on why did you lie to police? Because I agree with you. If they believed him, they'd still be back there deliberating. I think the problem was and the answer made sense. I mean, I really think he would have sunk his own ship if he had said, that's not my voice on the recording and just kind of doubled down or, you know, had some other lame excuse for why he lied.
His lie made sense in the idea that I could wrap my heads around it. You're right. People get paranoid. People sometimes hide the truth from police. But I think what really did it is you're lying about the most important thing in this entire case as to where were you within minutes of these murders? You're right. We can't pinpoint it, but we can put it within a good 15, 20 minute range. And he is now placing himself at the scene of the murders within minutes of the murders. And that's what he's lying about and continues to lie about it until this video comes out. If that video wasn't discovered, who knows if he would have even been on trial?
I mean, that's how important that video was, because, like you said, this whole case, zero to no forensics. All circumstantial. Zero to no motive. It all comes down to this man had the, what they said in the closing, that he had the opportunity means and I forget what the third one was, but he was closest to the murders when they took place. And he lied about being closest to the murders when they took place. And I think that's what jurors really hung it all on.
And again. I'm not trying to say I believe this man to be innocent, but I'm also not trying to say I think this was a slam dunk of a case. And I think he had to take the stand to talk about that one question. If it weren't for that question, if it weren't for that video, I don't know if he would have gotten anywhere near the stand. And the other reason I think he took the stand is what we talked about before. All of his dirty laundry was out there anyways. That's a lot of the reason why defendants don't take the stand is they don't want the entire world of cross-examination opened up. With the judge already allowing it in, he had nothing to lose really. Go ahead.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:18:38]
Josh, let me pause it something to you, because this is also bugging me. Imagine if and we could probably do this if we took an Exacto knife to this case, take out all of the financial crimes if you can and only have the one harmful thing for Alex Murdaugh be the fact that his voice is there and that he had previously lied about it. Let's say that's the only lot that gets put into evidence. So now the jurors have, like you just pointed out, no forensics, completely circumstantial, no real evidence of motive. And then they have the one lie, I think the outcome, and do you think the outcome of this case might have gone the other way? But for that 404 B evidence that just made him out to be what he is.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:19:26]
I don't know if it would have gone completely the other way, but I wouldn't have been surprised that a hung jury, because you would have had the juror sitting back going, why did he do it? I don't understand why he did it. I mean, he lied to cops. Okay, I get that. But why would this man kill his wife and son? Because there is no motive. There is no motive other than this weak kind of financial crimes motive.
I think what it came down to more than anything is that they used that evidence in the way that they're instructed not to. And they believe, well, this guy's a liar. He's a liar who lies and a lying liar who lies is somebody who might commit this type of crime. And I think that's what they, after all of that financial stuff and hearing drug addictions and everything else, they may have just felt like this guy is just such a untrustworthy person that maybe he we can't put it past him that he did this.
Last point on this. Again, I know we're in retrospect trying to criticize, you know, a case that came back in three hours. But how do you think the prosecution did, especially in their closing, because we haven't had a chance to talk about that on this show. What were your thoughts on the closing arguments?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:20:32]
So again, and not that I, you know, it's not like I have any particular dislike for the prosecution in this case, but they treated their closing the same way they treated the trial. There are often times in the trial where I said to myself, you made your point, move on. Because that's another thing when you have jurors that are plucked out of their daily lives for six weeks, there's fatigue, they want to get home. They don't want to spend like -- and that can affect the way they deliberate.
But, you know, I think Creighton Waters did a lot of dead horse beating, didn't need to. Like we probably could have gotten through this trial in half the time even including a lot of the financial crimes. He didn't need to call as many witnesses and go through so many different circumstances. The point had been made previously. So, yeah, I didn't love it, but I also didn't love -- the defense's closing argument was good because it did show the gaps in the case. Neither one of them really struck me as going to go down in history as one of my favorite closings. I thoroughly enjoyed the defense opening statement but the closing fell a little flat for me.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:21:36]
Yeah. Yeah, they both. I agree with you. I think they both were kind of underwhelming. And the prosecution, I think, picked up a little steam when they actually started to talk about the timeline of the murders themselves. But it seemed to me like the prosecution really just kind of took this personally. It was almost like they were insulted with this man, with his prestige and his wealth and the power and everything that he had in that community could have done something this horrible.
And it almost came out as a personal vendetta at points and the way that the closing played out. But again, here I am criticizing from the cheap seats while the guy's been convicted in three hours. So we'll continue to keep an eye on this, though, for the appeal, because I agree with you. I think something's coming up.
Let's jump over to Oxford Township, Michigan, where prosecutors and representatives of Ethan Crumbley's parents faced off in an appeals court to determine if the couple will face a criminal trial. Their son, Ethan, pled guilty to charges of terrorism and murder for his perpetration of the Oxford High School shooting that left four students tragically dead and seven injured. Prosecutors have filed charges of involuntary manslaughter against James and Jennifer Crumbley for purchasing the firearm their son used in the shooting.
Ethan, who was 15 at the time, had displayed a documented pattern of disturbing behavior prior to the incident, and his parents were called in by a school official the day of the shooting. Jennifer and James opted to leave their child at school even after a teacher confronted them with a drawing discovered in Ethan's notebook, which depicted a gun pointing towards the words "The thoughts won't stop. Help me." Their son had also repeatedly made multiple pleas for help from his parents, which were rebuked or openly mocked, according to prosecutors. The appeals court will announce their ruling at a later date.
Jonna, what are your thoughts on this? Just the idea of parents and you can talk about this case in particular, just the concept in general about parents being held criminally liable for the independent actions of their child. And what I mean by that is this isn't a situation where the parent acted as the getaway driver. This is something where the child does something independent of his parents and the parents are being held criminally liable. What are your thoughts?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:24:03]
You know, that's a no from me. And it's unfortunate because this case is so tragic and so horrible obviously, whenever, you know, four people lost their lives and it was so preventable. And it gets us right here, but it is a stretch, a legal stretch to assign criminal liability for the homicides on to the parents who were nowhere near the property when this happened. They didn't physically put the gun in their child's hand. They weren't the so-called getaway driver, as you say. And it really stretches the bounds of criminal responsibility. Civil responsibility, whole different ballgame for me. But criminal, no.
And I know that people want to do it because we have this visceral reaction. But honestly, we can't go there. And I'm fairly confident the appeals court will also agree with that. The parents of Ethan Crumbley will be on the hook in civil court, no doubt. And you know who else will be civilly liable? The school. And if -- because if you're going to charge criminally the parents, are you going to charge criminally the officials at the school, because they had him in their midst and they let him go? So, you know, you got to do for one, you got to do for the other.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:25:24]
To your point, the school did not require Ethan to be taken home even after the discovery of those disturbing drawings. And the point I'm trying to make is to dovetail off of what you said. The school, you know, certainly could have taken some actions here that they did not in retrospect. And it's the idea of no one is saying that the actions of the parents are illegal themselves. No one is saying it was illegal that they leave him at the school. No one is saying it's illegal that they purchased him a gun.
But they're saying that in hindsight you should have done more and therefore not having done more, basically the crime of being a bad parent, we're going to hold you criminally responsible. And I agree with you. It tears at your heart. We all want to do something to stop all of this. We all are willing to get creative about how to solve this problem, but I don't know if this is it. It just feels like it's a slippery slope. No.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:26:29]
Oh, 100 percent a slippery slope. And, you know, do something else. Create, you know, create legislation that makes it a crime to have somebody under the age of 18 be able to obtain your gun in your house. You know, even if you have it locked up, do something like that. Let the voters figure that out for you. But you can't take this leap as much as they want to. And like I said, the parents aren't going to be off the hook. Parents are going to be civilly responsible, as is the school. I'm going to bet that the school is a deeper pocket to compensate those who have lost loved ones in this and the loved ones who were hurt in this horrific accident.
And you raise the other point that's really got me bugged. You sit the kid down. You see there's a problem. You give the parents the option to take him out. No, you call the police, you let family court deal with it. You know, bye, Ethan. Get out. You got to go. Take him home. You don't give the option if you think he's that much of a danger at the school really screwed up in that regard on this one.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:27:29]
Yeah. It's the idea, too, that it's like this -- you're reconstructing the crime after the thing has taken place. And it's like this idea of looking like, where do we draw the line, I guess is the idea. In criminal law, we need lines, right? We need elements and lines so that we understand lines have been crossed and therefore crimes have been committed. And here, it's like you're going to go back and dissect the parenting of these children over the past few months and things, what you know, well, you could have been better about intervention and getting him therapy and you ignored where he was making these cries for help.
Well, kids have problems, right? I mean, there's an epidemic of mental unwellness in this country with young folks, which is so unfortunate. But are we going to then hold all of these parents responsible? Again, and I know we'll get flack for this, but I feel horrible about what we're dealing with these school shootings. And I feel like something needs to be done. I just don't know if this is the right way to go.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:28:38]
Yeah, I agree with you. And I'll bet it's not. I bet we're not going to see criminal liability on behalf of the parents, nor should we. And that's one other point I want to make on this. Schools have a lot of responsibility. Schools stand in what we call in loco parentis. When your kids are there from 7 to 3 or 7 to 2, whenever they are, they are your kids, parents. They are responsible for the well-being of your kid and all the other kids.
And where I come from, if a kid is misbehaving so badly, sometimes the parents don't have a say. The Family Court will take over and file its own petitions against a child and or the parents to get this kid back in line if the parents aren't going to do it. Why this didn't happen in this case? I don't know yet. Maybe we'll find out at some point in the future.
And not every parent is a great parent. And we'll get flack for this, too. But, you know, maybe the Crumbleys aren't the best parent. Maybe they have some incapacity that prevents them from being the best parent. These are all things that we do not know yet. And at some point, in the future, hopefully we will find out because if we can fix those problems, then we can fix the problem.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:29:48]
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Well, we will be closely watching to see how the appeals court handles this case in particular. Let's move to our final case here out of Moscow, Idaho. Additional records have been unsealed, revealing details about items seized by police in the arrest of suspect Bryan Kohberger for the stabbing murder of four Idaho students. During a nighttime raid on the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger's parents, police conducted an extensive search which revealed multiple knives and a Glock handgun. Police additionally seized clothing of Bryan's, along with medical style gloves, a flashlight, and reportedly removed sections of Kohberger's white Hyundai Elantra for further testing.
Bryan was apprehended by police after multiple sightings of his Elantra were captured on surveillance cameras around the house where four college students were murdered. Pardon me. As police search for the vehicle, Bryan was on a cross-country trip with his father back to their home in Pennsylvania. After determining his whereabouts, investigators used genealogical DNA testing from his parents' garbage to tie Bryan to a sheath found at the site of the murders. Really incredible police work there.
Bryan was a PhD criminology student at the neighboring Washington State University, has yet to enter a plea for charges of murder. Kohberger's next date is scheduled for June 26th. He's currently being held without bail. Jonna, what do you make of these additional seized items? Do you think these move the needle for you or not? I have some thoughts on -- I know every time something comes out in this case, there's a lot of speculation. People really dive right in. So I'll let you dive right in but what do you think about this stuff? Has it move the needle?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:31:32]
I'm going to begin with the caveat that I do think this case is weird for a couple of reasons. Number one, that even after he was initially brought to court, they continued the case for six months, which is completely unheard of in a criminal case. But we can talk about that in a little bit. The list of items that you read off that they got in a search warrant of the parents' house. Every single item that you read off I have in my house. I have gloves, I use them for cleaning. I have knives. I mean, we have a drawer full of them for food. I don't know. They don't say what kind of knives. I don't have a ton of machetes, although I do have some bigger knives.
Every single item that you mentioned I have in my house, probably a lot of people have in their house. They're not unusual items. What makes this case also weird for me is, and the dot that really needs to be connected is again, kind of similar to Alex Murdaugh, what is the motive for this guy who apparently had no connection or we know of no connection yet to these four students, what made him target them and brutally murder them if, in fact he is the culprit, which we're not even close to getting enough proof to make that determination yet.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:32:46]
Yeah. That was my take, too on the items recovered. I know that everybody is, you know, making it sound so ominous. And, you know, in light of the fact that we now believe this man to be, you know, a horrible multi murderer, a lot of these atoms do sound ominous that he would have a gun and dark clothing and everything. But I agree with like everybody's got dark clothing, everybody's got knives, millions of people own guns.
The one item that actually stood out to me was they also recovered a black mask. And as long as putting aside that's not, you know, one of the kind of masks that we've all been wearing for the past couple of years during the pandemic, if this is something different than that, that was interesting to me because at least in the reports, we now know that a surviving witness described the perpetrator of the crime as leaving the house wearing a black mask.
So if that can somehow connect him to those murders, that was the one item that stood out to me that wasn't just kind of innocuous like everything else was. But you bring up a good point about motive and connecting him to this. And I know there's been whisperings about him having followed some of the victims on Instagram and maybe gone to a restaurant where they worked and stuff, but we don't know a lot. And everything that we do know kind of has a bunch of speculation storm following it because of a gag order that the judge issued in this case.
And I was curious to get your thoughts on that because it was an incredibly extensive gag order that extended to family members and attorneys representing families, you know, who are families of the victims and everything else. What are your thoughts on a judge just shutting all of that down?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:34:30]
You know, it must have come from some sort of prompting, obviously, from law enforcement, because this case seemed very, very tenuous from the start. And if the judge doesn't want anything to interfere with the investigation because the investigation is seriously ongoing, no, we throw that term around. The investigation is ongoing. The investigation is ongoing. You can't make a request for this, that and the other reason.
They really got to do some investigating here because there is a gap between connecting Kohberger to the scene of the crime and a lot of other extraneous things that need to go along with actually prosecuting him for this, which incidentally, the one item on the list that I think is key and most important is his car. Because of the brutality of this crime, there's no way, I don't care how good he can clean his car, he would have to burn the inside and then put it all back together again. There's going to be DNA evidence. That's what I want to hear about. The knives, gloves, flashlight, I don't care. Car. And but guess we're not going to know what that search reveals until the gag order is at least partially lifted.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:35:42]
Yeah, but I think this whole case hinges on that knife sheath that was found at the murder scene that has his DNA on it, which was how they were able to connect it to, you know, the DNA from his father found in the garbage and all these connected dots. The police I felt did a very thorough job in their investigation with tracking the car and the phone and the phone going off during the time of the murder. Really fascinating stuff. But again, all of that is kind of, you know, white noise buzzing if you don't have that DNA of actually placing him at the crime scene. So we'll have to see what comes out on that car.
But I am frustrated by this gag order because, you know, you're infringing on people's First Amendment rights here. I mean, you know, if I'm a lawyer representing the family of a victim, why I'm being told I can't talk to anybody about this case? Because it's what threatening an investigation that you're going to claim is now ongoing when you have your only suspect in prison. It just makes no sense to me. And I think it's a little overreach on the judge's part. But I don't know. We'll continue to watch it and we'll continue to, I'm sure, get more and more speculation because it is one of those cases that have captured the attention of the country. I'll let you kind of give your last thoughts on it.
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:37:04]
Yeah, it's captured our attention, rightfully so. Another just unspeakable crime where we don't seem to have a clear path between who they've got charged with it and how he was able to pull it off and why he pulled it off. And again, we keep coming back to this notion of motive. Never an element, but so important, nonetheless.
And now we all have to sit back and wait until June, if not farther along, to find out what the next steps, in this case is going to be. And I wouldn't be surprised if law enforcement isn't even sharing a lot of their information with the victim's families for fear that they're going to somehow taint this difficult investigation, but we're going to definitely going to stay tuned to this one.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:37:49]
Absolutely. Yeah. Jonna, thank you so much for coming on this week. Where can people find out more about you?
Jonna Spilbor:
[00:37:55]
Joshua, first, thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. You're such a professional and I love being on with you. And if anybody wants to get a hold of me, if you're in the hustle bustle of Poughkeepsie, New York, you can visit my website at jonnaspilborlaw.com. You can find all the ways to contact me through there. I'm on Instagram at @jonna_spilbor and on Facebook as Jonna Spilbor.
Joshua Ritter:
[00:38:18]
Fantastic. And I'm your host, Josh Ritter. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at @JoshuaRitterESQ. Please check me out on my website Joshuaritter.com and you can find our site of our episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And we want to hear from you. If you've got questions or comments you'd like us to address, tweet us your questions with the hashtag #TCDSidebar. And thank you for joining us at the True Crime Daily Sidebar.
