Forensic Transmissions

This audio is from Day 7 (March 12, 2015) of the trial of Jonathan Broyhill, 31, for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill after he stabbed young Democratic strategist Jamie Kirk Hahn and her husband, Nation, 27, at their North Raleigh residence in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 2013. Jamie, 29, sustained fatal stab wounds to her abdomen; Nation recovered. On the stand, Nation Hahn is being cross-examined about the day of the murder by defense attorney Joseph Arbour. We learn that Broyhill was known as a longtime friend of the couple. He and Nation Hahn grew up in the same town and Broyhill was the best man at the Hahns’ wedding in 2009. Since at least 2010, Broyhill worked for Jamie’s policy firm, Sky Blue Strategies. Brad Miller (D-NC) had worked with both Jamie and Broyhill through Sky Blue Strategies in 2012 on his reelection campaign, which he ultimately abandoned. Miller’s campaign had been independently investigating Broyhill for alleged campaign-finance irregularities. We learn that Broyhill had been lying about the fact that he had cancer, and stealing money from the Miller campaign. The attack on the Hahns, we learn, came from a confrontation about the money. Nation Hahn maintains his composure on the stand, although Arbour’s chummy tone clearly grates on his nerves. He responds to most questions with a “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” or “I can’t recall, sir,” remaining dignified even when being questioned about taking his iPad to the bathroom with him, or whether or not his pants were down or up when he heard Jamie scream. His poise and self-possession make Arbour sound like a chump. Broyhill was convicted, and is serving a life sentence in prison. Listen to the episode here.

Plumber Nathan Lee was at work on Thursday, January 17, 2008; his wife, Denise Lee, was at home with their young children. She called him at 11:21 a.m.. They discussed the nice weather: the couple decided that the windows should be opened at their home. Denise said she had already opened them. Nathan Lee arrived home around 3:30 p.m. to find the windows closed, his wife missing and the children home alone in the same crib. This prompted him to call 9-1-1. During the afternoon, Denise Lee was abducted from her home by an unemployed man named Michael King. He drove her around, tied up in his vehicle, for quite some time; several people witnessed the journey. Around 6:30 p.m., a witness, Jane Kowalski, heard screaming from a car next to hers at a stoplight. Kowalski called 9-1-1 to report what she believed to be a child abduction. Later that evening, King raped and murdered Lee and buried her in a shallow grave. Her body was found on January 19, 2008. King was later found guilty of kidnapping, sexual battery and first degree murder; he was sentenced to death and is presently detained awaiting execution. This episode contains two of the 9-1-1 calls. This first is Denise Lee, in the car with King, trying to convey information about her situation to the dispatcher without alerting her abductor. The second is the call from Jane Kowalski. Listen to the episode here.

This episode contains audio from Day 2 Part 1 of the Sentencing Hearing of Larry Nassar, the 54-year-old USA Gymnastics team osteopathic physician and convicted child molester. This testimony, from January 17 2018, includes impact statements from the following gymnast-victims: Gina Nichols (on behalf of her daughter, Maggie Nichols); Tiffany Thomas-Lopez; Jeanette Antolin; Amanda Thomashow; Gwen Anderson; Amanda Barterian; Jamie Doski; Janelle Moul, and Madeline Jones. In handing down Nassar’s punishment, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said, “Our Constitution does not allow for cruel and unusual punishment. If it did, I have to say, I might allow what he did to all of these beautiful souls — these young women in their childhood — I would allow someone or many people to do to him what he did to others.” Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison. See an article in Time magazine by By Anne E. Gowen January 26, 2018, on How Larry Nassar Judge Rosemarie Aqualina Undermined Justice. Listen to the episode here.

Edward Emil Kemper, after a horribly abusive upbringing, murdered both of his grandparents at age 15, and was sent to the criminally insane unit of the Atascadero State Hospital, where he was held until he was 21. At this point, he convinced psychiatrists he was reformed and well enough to be released. From May 1972 to April 1973, Kemper kidnapped and killed at least eight more people. Six were female college students hitch-hiking , his abusive mother, and his mother’s friend — dismembering and defiling their bodies in ways too horrible to mention here. At 6”9 and 350lbs, Kemper comes across as personable and articulate (he reportedly has an IQ of 145). He was ultimately convicted for eight counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in the California Medical Facility. As of 2015, Kemper remains among the general population in prison and is considered a model prisoner. He is in charge of scheduling other inmates’ appointments with psychiatrists. He is an accomplished craftsman of ceramic cups and a prolific reader of books on tape for the blind. This audio is taken from an interview with Kemper by FBI profiler John E. Douglas, who described Kemper as “among the brightest prison inmates” he ever interviewed and capable of “rare insight for a violent criminal. In the interview, Kemper is very forthcoming about the nature of his crimes and appears to express regret, though he also blames his mother for her “emasculating” cruelty. Listen to the episode here.

This episode presents the court testimony and 911 call of Michelle Wilkins, 26, who went to the home of  Dynel Lane, 35, in Longmont, Colorado, in response to a Craiglist ad for free baby clothes for her unborn baby. Lane stabbed and choked Michelle, who was heavily pregnant, until she lost consciousness. She then cut Michelle’s baby from her womb and left her to die in the basement. She had told her husband that she was pregnant with a baby boy, and on the day of the attack told him she herself had suffered a miscarriage. The baby died, and Michelle, who managed to recover and call 911, spent 5 days in the ICU. Lane was convicted of the unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and four counts of felony assault. Because the baby was still a fetus when it had been removed from Michelle’s womb, she could not be charged with murder. She was found guilty of all charges, and sentenced to 100 years in prison. Listen to the episode here

Scott Peterson, a fertilizer salesman implicated in a notorious murder case, and Amber Frey, a masseuse whose relationship with him drew national attention, reveal shocking insights from their recorded phone conversations. They discuss the deception surrounding their romance and the emotional turmoil they faced. Amber, despite knowing she is being listened to by police, struggles to reconcile her feelings for Scott while probing for answers about his missing wife, Laci. The conversations expose complex layers of charm, manipulation, and betrayal.

On June 25, 2015, a woman walking her dog on the shore of Deer Island in Winthrop, Massachusetts, discovered the remains of a 3 year old child in a plastic garbage bag.  After widespread media publicity, the child was identified three months later as Bella Bond. Her  mother, Rachelle Bond, and her mother’s boyfriend, Michael McCarthy, were arrested, and authorities confirmed that Bella had been murdered. Rachelle Bond, 40, was charged with “accessory after the fact” in regards to her daughter’s murder, and pleaded guilty as the result of a plea deal, testified against McCarthy in his trial. She alleged that McCarthy had punched Bella in the stomach multiple times after claiming Bella was a “demon.” She said he was the sole perpetrator of the murder. Rachelle, a heroin addict and former prostitute, also admitted to concealing Bella’s death. She was in the car with McCarthy when he dumped her daughter’s body, but says she does not remember this happening, as she went on a drug binge immediately afterwards. When people asked Rachelle where Bella had gone, she claimed the child had been removed by the Department of Family Services. This was a plausible excuse, as two previous children had been taken away in the past. In June 2017, Michael McCarthy was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to life with possibility of parole. Listen to the episode here. More information about the Bella Bond case.

This episode contains excerpts from an interview conducted by the forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz with “The Iceman,” Richard Kuklinski (1935–2006) in Trenton Maximum Security State Prison, New Jersey, in 2002. Kuklinski was a mafia contract killer who was convicted for five murders, although to Dietz, he claims to have been responsible for the deaths of between 100 and 250 people.  Kuklinski was given the nickname “Iceman” for his method of freezing a victim after the murder in order to mask the time of death. At 6’5″ and 270 pounds, the Iceman had a fearsome reputation among the mafia, but his wife and children in the suburb of Dumont, New Jersey apparently believed he was a successful businessman. In fact, by the early 1980s, Kuklinski was involved in narcotics, pornography, arms dealing, money laundering, and hijacking; he also worked as a contract killer for Newark’s DeCavalcante crime family. By the mid-1980s, he began to make mistakes and get sloppy about disposing of his victims. Kuklinski was arrested in 1986 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988. After his conviction, Kuklinski took part in a number of interviews during which he confessed to many violent and disturbing crimes. Though some have expressed skepticism about the extent of Kuklinski’s alleged murders, police believe he killed at least several dozen people both at the behest of organized crime bosses and on his own initiative. Listen to the episode here. Watch the documentary on Youtube here.

This episode contains an excerpt from the morning of day 2 in the in the November 2015 murder trial of Phillip Chism, 16, who is accused of killing his Danvers High School math teacher, Colleen Ritzer, 24. Chism is being tried as an adult in the Salem Superior Court. First a fellow math teacher, Todd Butterworth, describes the search for Colleen  when she didn’t come home after school on October 23, 2013. Her car was found in the high school parking lot. Butterworth explains how, during a search of the school grounds, he found Colleen’s large, distinctive school bag, that contained a pink calculator, wedged between some rocks near the woods. Near the bag, Butterworth said he also saw a pair of white gloves with blood on them and splatters of blood on nearby leaves. Next, Stephanie Wennerberg, a police officer, described how she found  several pieces of blood-stained evidence were found in the woods by the school. She also found a bloody hand print during a search of the second-floor girls’ room. Finally, a canine officer, Justin Ellenton, describes how the he and his dog, Falco, searched for Miss Ritzer, and how Falco found a gray sneaker and a large green recycling bin with blood inside. Later in the trial, the jury learned that, after his math class, Philip Chism pulled a hood over his head, put on a pair of gloves and followed Miss Ritzer into a second-floor girls bathroom, where he strangled her, cut her 16 times with a wire cutter, and raped her. He then rolled a large green recycling bin into the bathroom, put Colleen’s body inside it, then dragged it into the nearby woods. His motives remain unclear. Listen to the testimony here. Learn more about the case here.

This episode contains the first interview given by UFO abductee Travis Walton after his apparent abduction from the Apache-Seagreaves National Park, Arizona, in November 1975. Walton is being interviewed by KOOL-TV reporter Jim Ryerson for the show Face the State on 11.11.1975. This is one of very few UFO abduction cases that has been supported by multiple eyewitnesses. Travis Walton was one of a small crew of loggers clearing trees and brush when a UFO descended on them. Walton’s co-workers say that Travis was  struck and seemingly wounded by a beam of light that emerged from the strange aircraft. His co-workers drove away in a panic. Later, they returned with search and rescue personnel, but Travis had vanished. He did not re-appear for five days. When he returned, Walton had an incredible story to tell. As he explains in this interview, he was taken on board the UFO and subjected to a number of unusual encounters and experiments. Back in Arizona, he thought only a few hours had passed. At the time, the case gained widespread publicity. At first, when Travis was missing, police suspected the UFO story was a cover-up for a logging accident. When he returned, he was given a polygraph exam, which he failed. He gives the reasons for this in the interview, along with commentary by a polygraph examiner. Travis Walton and his coworkers have continued to insist their story is true. Listen to the interview here Interview Transcript (pdf) More about the case