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I don't know if Thrace-accused rapist Bowen Turner will re-offend after he gets out of prison next week, but after the system gave him yet another easy pass recently, I am worried about what happens next as I am still learning just how broken our system is when it comes to victims of sexual assault ever getting justice.
My name is Mandy Matney.This is True Sunlight, a podcast exposing crime and corruption previously known as the Murdoch Murders podcast.True Sunlight is a LunaShark production written with journalist Liz Farrell.
Well, here we are again, angry at the system for giving Bowen Turner yet another pass.And yes, this one is new.I am talking about another time that the system failed again, and that failure only benefited Bowen Turner.
On September 25th, thrice-accused rapist Bowen Turner was quietly allowed to leave prison and travel to Florence County, where he pleaded guilty to his outstanding charge from his March 2024 DUI incident.
Meaning that once again, the system told this man, you can get away with anything.And that means that this thrice accused rapist will be released from prison on Halloween next Thursday.
And I mean it when I say, please spread the word to warn women across South Carolina, specifically in Columbia, Orangeburg, Bamberg, and Florence. We will be screaming about this on our social media pages for the next week.
And we would love the help of the True Sunlight Army, because unlike the majority of elected officials in this state, we actually care about the safety of women.
Now, for a much-needed refresher on the case, Turner is a thrice-accused rapist, thrice as in three different victims in three different counties, who got a shocking good-old-boy deal in 2022 thanks to his lawyer-lawmaker attorney, Brad Hutto, who, by the way, is up for re-election next month, so be sure not to vote for him.
Turner screwed up that deal almost immediately and was thrown in prison under the Youthful Offenders Act for violating his parole.
He served a little over a year in prison before he was released last November, and by March, he was already back behind bars for a daytime single-car DUI crash in Florence County, South Carolina. He was towing his ATV, one of his toys at the time.
Essentially, Turner is the poster boy for good ol' boys in South Carolina and how their version of protecting their own ends up endangering all of us.
The system has given Bo and Turner chance after chance after chance, and here they are again, letting him off easy.
We need everyone to remember his face, remember everything he is accused of, and remember what happened to their lives after they encountered Turner.
And most importantly, we need y'all to remember the names of all of the public officials who let this man off easy.
I mean it when I say that no other case has solidified my belief that the South Carolina justice system is in major need of an overhaul like the Bowen-Turner case has.
And we need to talk about each one of the systemic failures that only benefited Bowen-Turner. We need to talk about all of the times, and I counted, there are 10, that this system gave this man another chance.
So let's start with April 2018, when Bowen allegedly assaulted his first victim, who wishes not to be named.The system gave Bowen a pass that only helped him when they decided not to prosecute that case.
Had Bowen been charged in that case, Dallas Stoller would likely be alive today.Chloe Bess would likely have never been assaulted, and the lives of so many victims would have been drastically different.
But he wasn't charged, which brings us to systemic failure number two that only benefited Bowen Turner.
After Dallas reported her assault in October 2018 and Bowen was charged in January 2019, Judge Freeman not only released Bowen on an absurdly low $10,000 bond, but just three weeks after he ordered Bowen to wear an ankle monitor, Bowen's attorneys successfully
argued for it to be removed.This paved the way for Bowen to assault again, with no consequences.
In less than six months after he was charged in Dallas's case, Bowen Turner, and I have to say it, allegedly, raped Chloe Bess at a high school party in June 2019.Which brings us to systemic failure number three.
At Bowen's bond hearing in the summer of 2019, Bowen's attorney, State Senator Brad Hutto, disgustingly and successfully argued that Bowen was too good for juvie.And another judge, Judge George McFadden, agreed.
and he let him out of jail on a list of bond conditions, including a GPS monitor that they never actually monitored.So, time is great for the defense, and the Second Circuit Solicitor's Office allowed years to pass.
which is another systemic failure that only benefited Bowen.Because while Bowen was out on bond, he was violating his house arrest dozens of times with no repercussions.
Solicitor Bill Weeks' office let this case sit for years with little to no communication with the victims.
This weighed heavy on Dallas Stoller, who was severely bullied by her peers and their parents, adults, I mean, from the moment that she told police about the rape.
A prosecutor who cared more about Dallas than he did about his own future and impressing lawyer lawmakers would have likely changed the entire outcome of the story.But no. Solicitor Bill Weeks chose not to make this case his priority.
And Dallas felt that.If they ever would have updated her on the case, if they would have pushed for a trial date to give her hope for the closure of this hellish period of her life, I believe that Dallas would be alive today.But they didn't.
And Dallas Hayes Stoller succumbed to self-inflicted injuries in November 2021, when she was just 21 years old. That would be the biggest failure in this domino effect of failures.A life was lost here.We have to remember that.
Which brings us to systemic failure number five for Bowen.And this is the big one.
And the South Carolina Court of Appeals could fix this if they choose to finally consider justice and public safety over careers, connections, and keeping the status quo.
Well, back in 2022, Senator Brad Hutto managed to turn the hearing to address Bowen's multiple and significant bond violations into a plea deal hearing for the rape cases.
He got Judge Markley Dennis, a Charleston judge who for some reason, and very out of norm for him, was assigned to Orangeburg County that day.
and he got prosecutor David Miller to agree to a sweetheart deal for Bowen, where he was able to plea down to just one count of assault, and he was given probation under the Useful Offenders Act.
At the hearing, the court refused to allow survivor Chloe Bess' statement to be considered before Turner's light sentence. And that is exactly what the appeal case is about.Listen to episodes 66 and 67 to hear from Chloe and more on that.
We never got answers about how exactly this sweetheart deal went down, but think about it.
Chances are pretty high that prosecutor David Miller, who has been trying to be a judge for years now and thankfully dropped out under pressure earlier this year, likely wanted to impress Senator Hutto, one of the most powerful lawmakers in the state.
Hutto carries major weight in the decision of who gets to become judge in South Carolina.Is it possible that Miller gave thrice-accused rapist Bowen Turner a sweetheart deal so that he would advocate for his judgeship?Definitely.
because the alternative would be that all of these men fail to hold a thrice-accused rapist accountable simply because they did not care enough about women.
Either way, the system failed big time here by allowing this sweetheart deal to go through by not holding Bowen to account for violating Bond and by not prosecuting Dallas' case at all.
If you remember, the plea deal hearing itself was supposed to be about bond, which brings us to systemic failure number six.And this is the only one that the system has a chance of correcting with the current pending case in the court of appeals.
They are arguing.Chloe Bess' amazing attorneys Malia Bowers Jefferson and Sarah Ford are arguing that the court pulled a switcheroo in the last minute and did not give the victims a chance to speak on the deal.
That is, in a meaningful way, where they were listened to by the judge before the judge decided to accept a plea to a much lesser charge. and before Turner was given probation.
This is the heart of their argument to the Court of Appeals, that Chloe's constitutional rights were violated.And guess what?All of that only helped Bowen. And that brings us to systemic failure that only benefited Bowen, number seven.
In May 2022, in a surprise to absolutely no one, Bowen Turner violated his parole in less than a month.And he was back in jail for public disorderly conduct after he reportedly threatened to bite a deputy during his arrest.
But why was he charged for threatening a public employee?I understand that that's not a huge charge, but we've seen this in a lot of cases, usually involving less privileged defendants.
When they load up every charge possible, they didn't do that with Bowen.But they gave him a year in prison when it could have been up to five, in our understanding, for violating the Youthful Offenders Act.
During that time, when Bowen was finally behind bars, solicitor Bill Weeks' office did two things to give Bowen an easy pass.Which brings us to systemic failure number eight.
They told Dallas' family to stay out of the press and stay quiet while they work on possibly prosecuting Dallas' rape case.
But remember, they dropped Dallas's case entirely because they claimed that they could not prosecute a rape case without a victim, despite the evidence they had of Dallas's severe wounds from the assault, despite DNA evidence, despite everything.
despite the fact that murder cases are, by definition, tried without a victim to testify.They refused to even try to prosecute Dallas' case, again telling Bowen, go ahead, buddy, you can get away with anything. And that he did.
Less than five months after Bowen was released from prison for his Youthful Offenders Act offense, in March 2024, Turner was arrested again when he was in a DUI crash in Florence County.
He was charged with driving under the influence, having an open container in a motor vehicle, not wearing his seatbelt, public disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. Which was great, they loaded him up with charges.
But that brings us to systemic failure that helped Bowen number 9. All of the charges, except for the resisting arrest charge, were adjudicated with lightning speed.Bowen pleaded guilty to all of those charges and got time served as his sentence.
Time served being the 17 days he remained in jail while they tried to figure out what to do with him for violating his terms of probation.Not only
Had we never seen a DUI case get pleaded this quickly before, several attorney sources of ours hadn't either.These cases take months and months, not days.
And for the grossest part, the worst part about Bowen's March arrest is that Attorney Sarah Ford and Dallas' father, Carl Stahler, had to fight like hell to keep him behind bars.
The judge was set to let him go again, but still they gave this man time served for the charges that could have extended his prison sentence for at least a few more months.
Bowen has never gotten the maximum sentence on anything he has ever been charged with.And isn't this case what max sentences are for?Imagine if the system just once told him, we are not giving you the easy route.
We are giving you the hardest route possible. That is what we were all hoping for with this last remaining charge, the most serious charge of resisting arrest, which carries a max penalty of one year behind bars.
And that, y'all, is what brings us to systemic failure that only helped Bowen Turner number 10. On September 25th, 2024, Bowen Turner pleaded guilty to resisting arrest in Florence County General Sessions Court.Judge David P. Coraker Jr.
gave Bowen Turner, a man who has already been gifted the holy grail of systemic failures, He gave him another easy pass by sentencing him to 18 days of time served for the resisting arrest charge, according to the Public Index.
That sentencing clears the way for Bowen to be released as scheduled from SEDC on Halloween without any pending charges hanging over him.
And I'm not saying that this part is a systemic failure yet, but I just want to point out that it's a strange coincidence that a newly elected judge in the 15th Circuit covering Georgetown and Horry counties was assigned to this case in Florence County.
And guess where Bowen's recently hired attorney, Aaron E. Bailey, is from?Georgetown.It is not a smoking gun for corruption by any means, but it's odd.
Now, before all you lawyers start emailing me about how this is normal in our system, let me start by saying I know, and that is the problem.
I know that judges and prosecutors are under pressure to clear cases, and I know that defendants typically don't plead guilty to charges like these when they are risking losing their driver's license and serving any time in jail.
We are still waiting for the transcripts to see exactly how this deal went down.But I do know that it's likely that this new judge didn't see the totality of this case and every other systemic failure that helped Bowen.
And sadly, I know that sentencing anyone who has hired a lawyer to fight charges to any time at all, even if it's time served, looks good to them on paper.
The thing is, I am not sure that we can blame the good ol' boys for this most recent systemic failure.I think Bowen Turner's case is just showing us time and time again, in the clearest way possible, that this is how broken our system really is.
When you think about it, thrice accused rapist Bowen Turner essentially benefited from his previous bad acts.
If this round of charges were Bowen's first rush with the law, he would have likely spent years and lots of money fighting the charges to lessen his chances for punishment. Most people don't want to risk a DUI on their record.
Most people don't want to risk 30 days in jail.Most people don't want to risk losing their driver's license.
But thanks to Bowen's many, many major mistakes and judgment, he had the privilege of lumping all of his bad acts in with his latest crimes and getting time served for all of it.
I know consecutive sentences are rare in cases like this with misdemeanor charges.But again, if Bowen Turner is not the perfect example of someone who deserves maximum sentencing, I don't know who is.
The justice system should be focused on public safety.The system should prioritize the safety of victims and the public above all else.
The system should provide a backstop for the criminals who prove that they are a danger to the public time and time again. The system should look at the totality of a criminal's past when determining the punishment of a crime.
If Judge David Caraker took just a few minutes to look at Bowen's troubling past, he would have seen a very blatant and obvious pattern.
For six years, Bowen Turner has been repeating a dangerous cycle of getting into trouble, getting out of it, then immediately going back to breaking the law again.And an unfortunate amount of victims have been hurt in the process.
Beth Braden has FOIA'd for the transcripts of Bowen's latest hearing so we can find out exactly what went down there.Was it corruption or just incompetence?
But in the meantime, again, this man is set to be released from prison next week and we want everyone to be alert. On three separate occasions, Bowen Turner could not last six months without breaking the law.
On at least 10 separate occasions, different officials from different positions of power within the South Carolina justice system chose to give Bowen the benefit of the doubt, chose to put Bowen's needs above the victims, and chose to give this man another chance without facing major consequences.
ten times in four different judicial circuits.I'm talking about at least five judges looking at Bowen and his problematic history and deciding that he does not deserve tough punishment.
The Bowen Turner case is not as simple as a kid who got off easy because his parents paid big bucks for a powerful good old boy attorney to make a deal. It is worse than that.
The Bowen-Turner case is simply showing us that the system is already fixed for the good old boys.The system does not consider sexual assault to be a public safety issue.The system is designed for privileged men like Bowen-Turner.
And the sick thing is that if Bowen heard that sentence that I just said, I think he would agree.He knows that the system treats him differently.He knows that it treats him better.
And we know this because of how he repeatedly told the state trooper on his way to jail that he was a white boy, and therefore he couldn't and shouldn't be taken to jail for a DUI.Take me to my grandma's house, he told her.
Ten failures across several counties in multiple circuits is too many.Two failures is too many.And one life lost is too many.
If Chloe Bess, Sarah Ford, and their team are successful in their court of appeals case, victims will have the opportunity to let judges know what happened to them in their words and in their voices.
And a judge will have to consider those words, those voices, when they decide whether justice is being served with whatever lighter charge they plead down to.
And who knows what could happen from there if the system finally decides to prioritize victims.We are not expecting to hear from the Court of Appeals for months, but we will be watching Bowen Turner and his whereabouts closely.
And we hope that law enforcement and the public will too.
Before we get into updates, I want to take a second to mention the Press Act.
A few weeks ago, advocacy groups for journalists renewed their call for Congress to finally pass the Act, which would, among other things, further protect whistleblowers and other anonymous and unnamed sources by making it harder for courts to order journalists to reveal those sources.
It would also make it harder for unscrupulous lawyers to bully reporters into backing down by doing things like using third parties to get at reporters' phone and computer records.
Mandy and I both know firsthand that these things happen because a few years ago, Greg Parker's attorneys did a workaround by sending a subpoena to Verizon for attorney Mark Tinsley's phone records, specifically asking Verizon to check for our phone numbers.
Now, shield laws exist in many states across the country, but this federal law would serve as a strong backstop in those states and as a safety net in the states that don't already have these protections.
This is obviously important because of what we saw happen in Marion, Kansas last year. Would a federal law have deterred the police chief?Would it have scared the judge enough to think twice about signing those warrants?Who knows.
But when you're a corrupt public official, you tend to believe that you have enough connections in your own state to, you know, just do what you want.
It's a whole other thing to have to face the feds who usually don't care one bit about who you're connected to in state law enforcement. At any rate, the PRESS Act is a bipartisan bill.
PRESS is an acronym for Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying.It was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year.We just need the Senate to pass it.
The Society of Professional Journalists and Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press, among others, have called on Senators to make this happen.One way you can help get it passed is to reach out to your U.S.
Senator's offices via a phone call, email, or letter, or even social media, to encourage them to support the bill. The way we see it, it's not just about helping to further protect the work we do.
It's about helping keep sunlight on people like former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody and Judge Laura Veyer.
Because they're far from being the only ones out there who think they're above the law when it comes to using their position of public trust to bully the press into silence.Anyway, thank you in advance to anyone who reaches out to their senators.
That's what we call being pesky. Alright, that said, we have some really great news to share with you all, after this short break.
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In our last episode, we told you about how things were going in the civil conspiracy case against Gas King Greg Parker, which the family of Mallory Beach filed in December 2021 after photos of Mallory's body were used in a video to sell a documentary.
A documentary that lists one of Greg Parker's known associates as a producer.
Again, this case arose because it not only appeared that Parker and company were using all available tactics to weaken the resolve of the Beach family, to keep them from wanting to follow through with the boat crash case.
There's also evidence that Team Parker was trying to put as much of the blame as he could for Mallory's death on his co-defendants, Ellick and Buster Murdoch, regardless of who got hurt in the process.
Which, fine, no one other than the Murdochs and their trolls were ever arguing that the Murdochs didn't bear a hefty share of the blame, but it was and is significant that Paul was able to buy alcohol underage at Parker's convenience store, a store that had just settled a case
related to their allegedly illegal sale of alcohol and another person's death.Without that alcohol that Paul bought that night, there might not have been a bunk crash.
Now, the Bell Crash case was obviously a 10 out of 10 when it comes to toxic and contentious lawsuits in that A, we think it was a motivating factor in Elk's decision to murder Maggie and Paul, and B, clearly Parker's Kitchen's team was willing to burn down villages to get what it wanted, and they spent a lot of money doing it.
The civil conspiracy case, though, is worse than that.It's like a 15 out of 10, minus the Murdoch murders part.
If you think that Team Parker went to the ends of the earth to try to minimize its liability in the boat crash case, before finally settling for $15 million, they have an even bigger drive to do that here because, well, in our opinions anyway, it doesn't look good.
Anyway, Parker's attorneys are only too happy to play his game for him. They twist the truth in an even more brazen way than Dick and Jim did for Ellick.
Which, when you think about it, Ellick was fighting against his life in prison and everyone knowing what a low-down dirty murderer he was.In Parker's case, it's just about money.That's it.
Money and the public finding out the extent he and his team might have gone to in fighting the boat crash case.
The case has been so toxic and contentious that it has included hit pieces written with the intent of trying to take down The Beach's attorney, Mark Tinsley, and even us, which is silly because Mark's reputation is solid.
Everyone in the world got to see what kind of attorney he is when he sat up on the stand during Alec Murdoch's trial and had Alec's lawyer, Phil Barber, hopping around while Mark shot at his feet with the truth.And us?
Well, we're here to bring the sunlight.Because sunlight works, as evidenced by what happened this week.
After we told you about how the Beach family had asked that Judge Doc Morgan recuse himself from the case because of conflict of interest that arose in his office, and after the judge refused to recuse himself, after Mr. Gasking's attorneys fought against the judge recusing himself, and after that hit piece was written making Mark out to be shady boots for even making the motion for the judge to recuse himself,
The judge recused himself.Of course, he didn't do it until after we called him out publicly, but we'll take what we can get.This is a big deal because one, he should recuse himself.
The issue was that an intern who had worked for Debbie Barbier, who is one of Parker's main attorneys in this case and has a small law practice, now worked for the judge as his clerk.
The judge let all parties know about this potential conflict after the clerk had sent out an email to everyone letting them know he had gotten their thumb drive of information and saying that he would let them know if he had any trouble retrieving the data from it.
The judge even asked the Beach family if they had a problem with this and they said they did, but the judge didn't step down.
More than that, he tried to minimize the issue by saying that the clerk had just been hired that day and even though the email had the clerk's name and number on it, the judge tried to say it had come from the previous clerk.More than that,
Parker's attorneys argued that it was no big deal, and yet their own exhibit showed that the story they and the judge were relying on to show that it wasn't a big deal, that the clerk hadn't started until that day, contradicted this because included in it was evidence that the clerk's email switched over the day before.
And more than that, a Zoom directory online shows the clerk starting on August 1st. We are still waiting for an answer from the South Carolina Judicial Branch on the clerk's start date.
We also reached out to the State Department of Administration for an answer.We haven't heard back.It should be a very simple thing to be able to tell us the start date of a publicly paid employee.
This clerk is paid around $64,000 a year, according to the state's online payroll database. And yet, again, no answer.
This really seemed to be yet another case of yet another South Carolina judge just doing what he wanted to do despite the appearance of impropriety.But we're happy he ended up doing the right thing.
It's actions like this that will help repair the judicial's reputation in the state.And it's more proof that being pesky is not only important, it's effective.
A new judge will be assigned to the case, and we'll let you know what happens moving forward.
And speaking of things moving forward, let's talk about Buster's defamation case because a whole bunch has happened since we last talked.
Last week, all of the defendants in Buster Murdoch's defamation lawsuit filed motions to dismiss the case, which was interesting because we don't even know where the case will reside, whether it will be in state court, like Buster wants, or in federal court, like the defendants want, which Buster wasted no time pointing out.
His attorney was like, hold your horses, guys.He asked the judge to hold off on ruling on the motions to dismiss until it was decided where the case belongs.
On Friday, Judge Richard Gergel issued his order in favor of Buster's motion to stay, meaning to hold off on his decision about dismissing defendants until a decision is made on where the jurisdiction is.So that is a win for Buster, for now, anyway.
We talked about this in Cup of Justice, about how we're not really sure what to make of the decision in terms of what it might forecast.
Does this mean that Judge Gergel is leaning toward sending Buster's case back to Hampton County with its curated and well-trained juries?Or is he simply saying, one thing at a time, boys?
What we didn't really talk about on Cup of Justice is what was in these motions to dismiss.
There were some gems, which we will share, but also the defendants made some very good points, which is important because this case is one that has left the entertainment industry on edge.
We don't have to tell you about how important true crime documentaries and series that are based on true stories are to streaming services.And not just streaming services, to audiences and to even getting justice.
Authorities are literally right now talking about releasing the Menendez brothers from their life sentences for killing their parents because of documentaries on the case in the Netflix show Monsters that show the horrible abuse the brothers endured leading up to the murders.
The industry has seen a backlash recently with lawsuits like the one filed after the show Baby Reindeer that aired on Netflix.
For those who haven't seen the show, it is a TV series based on a Scottish comedian's life and specifically his trauma, which included being repeatedly raped by his mentor and being relentlessly stalked by a woman.
The series never named the rapist or the stalker in depicting them.
But the stalker, the woman, filed a $170 million defamation case against Netflix, even though she outed herself as being the person in Baby Reindeer by going on the Piers Morgan show.
This is all just to say that Buster's lawsuit isn't just about Buster.It could end up having a ripple effect and put a chill on the industry. which would be a problem because like we said, sometimes these shows result in meaningful change.
Anyway, that is why the filings were interesting, because as you know, the best defense in a defamation case is the truth.And that is exactly what the defendants are arguing.
Collectively, the defendants' core argument is that the Murdoch case was one of great public interest because of the Murdoch's involvement with and influence over law enforcement and the judicial system, which is why they're also arguing that their productions are covered by the fair report privilege.
I think some people, obviously not you all, can be confused about what we mean when we say the truth when we're talking about a defamation case.
It is true to say that the Murdoch family's names, including Buster's, appear in the Stephen Smith investigation case file a number of times.Reporting that is not defamatory.It is a fact.
Reporting that Cindy Smith said that she saw Randy Murdoch at the site of where Stephen was killed shortly after Stephen's death is true.She said that.But it also has to include the fact that Randy has denied this.
More importantly, while social media and content creators do sometimes play fast and loose with that information and sometimes make defamatory comments about Buster related to his alleged involvement in Stephen's death, notice I said alleged there, good journalists and documentarians don't.
Buster claims that this is what the defendants did, though, that they called him a murderer.And the defendants go to town showing that that's not what happened, in their opinion.
They also point out that Buster is suing eight different entities related to three different documentaries and that he did this by design.
They assert that his complaint is nothing more than what's called a shotgun lawsuit, meaning that Buster is trying to use bits and pieces from each of the projects and apply them to all of the defendants in some way.
So there are three sets of defendants in the case. There's Hampton County reporter Michael DeWitt and the company that he works for, which is Gannett.There's Netflix and the production company that made their docuseries, which is Cinemart.
And there's the Warner Brothers defendants, which includes two production companies, one of which aired their show on Discovery and the other of which aired theirs on HBO, which is now called Max.
It's easier to think of them as DeWitt, Warner Brothers, and Netflix.So that's how we're going to refer to them.
In Warner Brothers' motion to dismiss, they maintain that at no point did they speak in certainties about Buster's alleged involvement in Stephen's death or even that Stephen was, in fact, murdered.They cited a Fourth Circuit opinion from 1995.
Here's David with a passage from that decision.
In the court's view, it is a story constructed around questions, not conclusions.But the mere rising of questions is, without more, insufficient to sustain a defamation case in these circumstances.
Questions are not necessarily accusation or affronts, nor do they necessarily insinuate derogatory answers.
In their filing, Warner Brothers also took the time to educate the court on some Murdoch history, specifically when Ellick and Randolph, quote, reportedly went to the hospital the night of the fatal crash in an apparent attempt to, quote, get everyone to change their story, to construct a narrative that someone other than Paul was driving the boat.
Why did they do that, exactly?
To show the court that it was highly relevant to explore what happened in Stephen's case, given that the investigators in 2015 said that they felt hampered, and given the multiple mentions of the Murdoch name in the case file.
Warner Brothers was basically like, look. We discuss what was in the investigation file.We talked about law enforcement officers' theories about the case.We never said that Buster did it.We never called him a murderer.
We didn't do anything with malice or ill will.We had the right to report on this.And in the end, we put up on the screen that law enforcement hadn't identified any suspects or persons of interest, including Buster.Now, Netflix,
This is where things get a little saucy because the allegations made against them include that Netflix was dog-whistling its audiences about Buster's alleged involvement in Stephen's death when they included a dramatic depiction of Stephen's death with a red-headed actor holding a bat.
Here is David with what Netflix wrote in their motion.
The depiction to which Plaintiff refers actually shows blurry images of a group of young men, some of whom appear to be holding bats, walking on the side of the road, then inside a vehicle.None of their faces are shown.
This is a visual illustration of the speculation and theories that were rampant in the community. included as reported to and being investigated by the police, based on the police informant's second-hand speculation described above.
The statements and visual illustrations of which plaintiff complains are at the heart of what the fair report privilege is intended to protect, and cannot be the basis for a claim as a matter of law.
Now, Buster also took issue with what DeWitt said in his interview on the Netflix shows.DeWitt's motion to dismiss was the most aggressively argued.Here is David again.
Defendant DeWitt, editor of the Hampton County Guardian, did not write, direct, produce, distribute, or otherwise exercise responsibility or creative control over any of these docuseries.
Instead, he briefly appears on camera in a single series, the Netflix series, during which he recounts the unique experience of reporting on a powerful local family caught in a miasma of scandals and investigations.
and becoming the subject of national attention.In those few minutes on camera, DeWitt does not say anything that amounts to or reasonably implies a false and defamatory statement of fact about Buster Murdoch.
Again, DeWitt is the most important aspect of Buster's case right now.
Without him, Buster is going to have to argue his case in federal court, in front of a federal judge, and if it goes to trial, even a jury picked from a more far-reaching area than Buster's neighbors.
See, without DeWitt as a defendant, there's no Hampton County jury, and DeWitt sure did point this out in his motion.Here's David.
Indeed, Plaintiff is so determined to find a way to sue DeWitt that he resorts to misrepresenting outright what DeWitt said in the Netflix series.The reason why is as obvious as it is calculating.
Like Plaintiff, DeWitt is a resident of Hampton County, and Plaintiff wants to litigate this action in the same courthouse
where members of the Murdoch family served for generations as the circuit solicitor, and where his grandfather's portrait still hangs.
If this case does get sent back to state court, I think we might see the defendants take issue with the notion that Buster lived in Hampton County after the murders.
There are multiple reports that he was living in Buford County at the time, with his uncle and then his girlfriend, and then bought a house there after Maggie's estate settled.
Anyway, there's a whole lot going on here, but the main takeaway, or rather the thing that I think needs to be pointed out over and over, is that Netflix and DeWitt have now repeatedly called Buster out for the accuracy of his claims.
They're both saying that Buster's initial complaint left out critical context in both DeWitt's statements and the visual depiction that included the red-headed actor. And worse, misrepresented what DeWitt was actually referring to at one point.
One thing to mention here, Buster has unequivocally denied any involvement with Stephen Smith's death.We'll keep you posted on what Judge Gergel ends up deciding about jurisdiction.We'll be right back.
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Now, we want to talk about a horrifying case out of Texas that has ties to South Carolina.
One that is yet another instance of what is either a disturbing trend that we are seeing or something that has been going on since the dawn of time and we are just now catching these men in their lives.
And that is law enforcement getting told by a woman's husband or boyfriend that she has died by suicide, only to later find out that no, it was not suicide.That was a homicide.And the guy trying to say it was a suicide is now charged with murder.
On October 7th, just a few weeks ago, 38-year-old Krista Bauer Gilley was found dead by her husband, Lee Gilley, in their Houston Heights home. Lee, also 38, told investigators that Krista had killed herself by taking drugs.
He said that they had an argument three hours earlier in an apparent attempt to make it look like Krista, a mother of two small children and a woman who was nine weeks pregnant with their third child, was so distraught by whatever they allegedly fought about that she overdosed on purpose.
The problem with that story is that Krista did not overdose.According to the medical examiner's office, she was killed by strangulation.
I don't want to get too graphic here, but it is important that we all take a second to remember how violent an intentional death by strangulation is.That is, when one person puts their hands around the neck of another person.
You can watch the forensic testimony in Michael Colucci's first trial from Court TV's coverage to learn about this.In Gilley's case, Lee is six foot three inches tall.Krista was tiny.She barely came up to his shoulder when they posed for photos.
She all but disappeared into his frame. According to the district attorney's office, the medical examiner found that Krista had suffered significant trauma.
She had two black eyes, along with petechial hemorrhaging to her eyelids and chin, meaning her breathing was so restricted it caused blood vessels in her face to burst.There was visible discoloration and swelling to her eyes and cheeks.
and extensive bruising to the muscles and tissues in her upper back between her shoulder blades.Her hyoid bone was also fractured.The hyoid bone being fractured is a rare thing to happen.
Typically, you don't see that in people who have some unusual trauma to their neck, like from a car crash or someone strangling you. Krista was killed while her two children were in the house.
And obviously, the lack of oxygen caused her unborn child to die.Four days after Krista's death, when the results came back from the medical examiner's office, Lee Gilley was arrested and charged with capital murder.
Again, this is Texas, they do things differently there.Capital murder is a more serious charge than first-degree murder in that the sentencing guidelines are pretty black and white.
If you're guilty of capital murder, you're either sentenced to prison for life or you go to death row.Capital murder is no joke and we're really glad the DA chose that charge. because Lee Gilley is a man of privilege.
Now, if you're asking yourself, why does that matter?Here's why.On October 12th, Lee had his first appearance in front of a judge to determine bond.The judge gave him no bond.Sorry, pal, it's jail till trial for you.
But then on October 17th, when Lee was scheduled for his arraignment and after he dumped the public defender he was assigned and hired two criminal defense attorneys, it somehow turned into a bond hearing.
Now, we are just learning about how the Texas system works.Their Press Association FOIA guide alone is like 350 pages.By comparison, South Carolina's is 24 pages.So it's not just the hair that's bigger in Texas.
But it seems to us to be a valid question to raise.How?
Because while we can see that on October 17, the state filed a motion for bond conditions and a motion for sufficient bail, we don't see a motion from the defense asking for a bond reconsideration.
So if any of you are familiar with Texas criminal law procedures and have an explanation for that, please let us know.Because right now it looks like the state recommended a bond without the defense asking for one.
And maybe that's the normal course of business.We just don't know.But us, that seems counterintuitive to what the DA's office goal should be there.
But it could also be a simple explanation, such as he was originally seen by a magistrate, and because of the seriousness of his charge, he needed to be seen by a district judge instead.
So the arraignment hearing got turned into a bond hearing, or was always bond hearing, and I'm just misreading it. And the arraignment is now scheduled for November 20th.We'll keep you posted about that.
But at this hearing that appears to have supposed to have been an arraignment hearing, Lee got bond.He was released from jail on $1 million bond, which we will talk about in a second.
First, let's talk about what the state was asking for here.They wanted the court to order Lee to give up his passport and bar him from seeking any supplemental passport or travel documents.
They wanted him to be ordered not to have any sort of contact with Krista's family, and they wanted him to be barred from having any contact with his two children.
They wanted the court to prevent him from possessing any firearms, ammunition, or weapons.They wanted the court to bar him from drinking alcohol or using drugs.They wanted him to submit to GPS monitoring and have a curfew.
And most interesting, they wanted him restricted from going within 200 feet of his house, the one that he shared with Krista, and restricted from going within 200 feet of their children's daycare.
They also wanted him to surrender any passports the children might have.And finally, that he be placed on a 24-hour house arrest at the location at which he resides while on bond.As for the bond, the state recommended $3 million.
The state also included a long paragraph educating the court on the extent of Krista's injuries, and ending with this line, Quote, the defendant also has significant ties out of state and sufficient means to flee the jurisdiction.
We'll talk more about those out of state ties later.According to reports, the defense wanted Lee's bond to be only $200,000, which is interesting.
because in his initial bond hearing slash probable cause hearing on October 12th, the state pushed for no bond and Lee's public defender asked for a $50,000 bond.So we aren't sure what changed there.
Oh, have we mentioned that when investigators discovered that Lee's initial story was a lie, according to court filings, Lee admitted that Krista was not suicidal and did not take drugs.
It's going to be interesting to hear what he says happened in those three hours between when he said that he last saw Krista during their argument and when he found her body.Ultimately, the judge decided on a $1 million surety bond.
The judge agreed with pretty much all of the state's requests, including the GPS monitoring, which will cost Lee only $6 a day.His curfew is between 10 p.m.and 6 a.m. That is where he has to be, but where?See, that is the messed up part.
Lee Gilley is barred from going within 200 feet of his house.So where exactly is he going?The state did not ask Lee to be restricted from traveling except outside of the US, and the judge did not check that box on the bond conditions order.
Lee Gilley isn't even ordered to stay in Harris County or even in Texas, which could mean that he's going home to his mama in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, where he's from, and his parents own a business called the Yum Yum Snack Shop.
Or maybe he's already there because he has been released from jail.He has been let out, and the public has no way of apparently knowing where he currently is.
That said, there's so much to cover in this case, and we're not just interested in it because Krista was from Somerville, South Carolina, or because Lee and Krista got married in Charleston or went to Clemson.
We're interested in it because it's yet another example of investigators being misled about how a woman died.
right at the juncture where it matters most in the investigation, which is to say evidence collection, and investigators apparently believing the story they were being told.Now, we're still learning about what went down before Lee's arrest, but
Did they really not have probable cause that night to arrest him?We know Lee told police that he had given CPR to Krista before they arrived, but were there no visible marks on Krista that caused concern with police that night?
Given the medical examiner's report, it would seem like there would have been. Obviously, we're going to explore those questions with some hefty FOIAs.
In addition to this being yet another case of the suicide lie being told, this case bears resemblance to the Sarah Lynn Colucci case.Sarah died in Somerville, South Carolina in May 2015.
Her husband, Michael Colucci, is still awaiting retrial in her death and no date has been set.
Michael stands accused of murdering Sarah Lynn, but he told police that she died after hanging herself using the loop of an industrial hose that had been hanging from a fence post outside their warehouse where they had stopped for her to go to the bathroom after an evening of drinking.
Michael later changed that to, well, maybe she fell and stumbled into the hose, but I didn't kill her.
Despite there being evidence of an apparent struggle in their car, police, some of whom knew Michael Colucci and the influence of the Colucci name, believed Michael's story.
It took Sarah Lynn's family pushing investigators to do their jobs for Michael's account to finally be challenged. Took about a year before he was charged with murder, though.
And of course, that gap in time, that initial acceptance of his story about how she died just being thought of as the truth, has given Michael and his high-priced attorney Andy Savage plenty of fodder when it comes to challenging the evidence.
and the continued delay in getting his case adjudicated by the Attorney General's office is creating even more beneficial time and space for witnesses to die, move, or forget what happened that night and during the investigation.
Also, like Krista, Sarah had a young child at the time of her death.That young child is now a grown, married woman, still awaiting justice for her mother.
Before we go, we need to talk about one more thing here.Krista was an incredibly smart and accomplished woman.She was beloved.
I have barely posted about this case on social media, and I've already received messages from women in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas who knew and loved her.
I've already heard from several people who knew her from Clemson, and I can already tell she is one of those people remembered as human sunshine, even from those who barely knew her.
She had her doctorate in physical therapy, and she was a board-certified clinical specialist in cardiovascular and pulmonary physical therapy, according to a beautiful tribute that her sister, Samantha, posted on Facebook.Here is what Samantha said.
And just like that, my whole world has been turned upside down.I lost a big piece of my heart this week.My worst nightmare has come true.Krista was my best friend, my sister, my person.She was my role model and biggest cheerleader.
A beautiful, brilliant, yet humble, selfless, kind-hearted, and loving person.My world will never be the same. She was perfectly perfect in every way.What I wouldn't give for one more day.I miss her so much already.What a tough road we have ahead.
I love you forever. Once again, the world loses a good person because, allegedly, a man could not control his emotions.
Instead of taking a breath or going for a walk to blow off some steam or doing anything to calm down, Lee Gilley is accused of taking out his anger on the person he was supposed to love and protect.
And we don't say that lightly, by the way.Lee himself appears to have thought of himself as some amazing family man, at least online.And I'm not talking about cute posts about loving being a dad.I'm talking about aggressive posts.
Posts that, when taken together, and honestly, in some cases, even taken piece by piece, show Lee to be an angry, resentful misogynist who believed women belonged in the home.
Lee appears, at least from what we've seen so far, to maybe even be a men's rights advocate.
We took a look through Lee's LinkedIn account, which honestly, we never would have guessed we'd one day be talking about how someone's LinkedIn posts are potentially connected to a murder motive.But here we are.
From the post, in addition to all the things we just told you, Lee also seems to be someone who viewed himself as strong and successful and a self-made man.
He was self-employed at the time of his arrest and appears to have been since he was about 24 years old.His specialty appears to be writing code for software that is related to Excel spreadsheets.
His Twitter account lists his business as bringing in a million dollars. It's not clear what time period that is referencing, whether it's a year or a month or in the entire time of the business's existence.
That said, on his bond paperwork, Lee listed his salary to be $8,000 a month and his expenses to be around $6,400 a month. Okay, back to those LinkedIn posts.
Let's start with what Lee appears to have liked right around the literal time of Krista's death.It was a post from a guy named Harrison Schenck who says he is a social media influencer.Specifically, he has an Instagram account called Save Our Sons.
The LinkedIn post that Lee appeared to like right around the literal time of Krista's death said, quote, some things in life are non-negotiable.Dinner as a family is one of those things.
Now, a post like that obviously has no nefarious meaning for anyone who isn't being accused of killing their wife right around that same time of endorsing that sentiment or at least appearing to endorse it.But it does raise a question.
Did Lee have a problem with Krista's success? Two months ago, Lee left a comment on a post from someone named Dirk Roeder. Here's what Dirk wrote, quote, unpopular opinion.The greatest trick the money printer ever pulled is feminism and equality.
The trick goes like this, quote, for centuries, women were dependent on the goodwill of men.Therefore, women labor must be activated slash enabled.And by doing so, independence will rain down on women, end quote.And he goes on to say,
The results are women are now dependent on their bosses instead of their husband.The burden of making a living is now shared equally because a middle class family requires a double income to call itself middle class.
Bottom line, 100% dependent and compliant citizens instead of 50%. Then Dirk wrote, quote, important side note, nowhere do I say or state that women shouldn't enjoy equal rights.That's not the point of this post.
And he ended it with a jolly exclamation mark.Sure Dirk, the better system is the one where women are dependent on their husbands who end up getting charged with their murder.
To emphasize his point, Dirk included a photo with his post of one of the three French drag queens who carried the Olympic torch this summer.It's not clear why.So, Lee sure did like this sentiment.
So much so that he commented this, quote, very nice and simple breakdown.You got my follow.Then he put a fist pump emoji, and then he included a quote, and it was this.
Quote, your freedom lies directly behind your newfound dependence on having a job and having to work for someone else.Also, caring for the home and family isn't as worthwhile or fulfilling as your own mother made it out to be.
So focus on your personal independence.Just hire help for the home and kids. The funny thing here is that Dirk was like, where's that quote from?And Lee had to come clean in a reply.It wasn't an actual quote.
Lee was just paraphrasing the meaning that he had extracted from Dirk's post.
About five months ago, Lee commented on a post of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nine Pillars of Success.The original poster shared it on LinkedIn with the comment, this may be the best definition of success I've ever come across.
And Lee's comment, I like these, but what about family?In my opinion, building a good family is a huge measure of success.
His attorney's paralegals are no doubt screen capturing these as we speak so that they can roll them out during trial to be like, see?Legally loved his family.How could a man who loved his family kill the mother of his children?
On a post about Charlie Munger's death and a quote from him about how the best way to find a good spouse is to be a deserving one,
Lee appears to have commented on someone's reply that basically took issue with the word deserve, meaning that they did not agree with the entitlement aspect of that sentiment.Here is what Lee said to that.
This is a victimized perspective of someone accustomed to being offended at trivialities.Strong people attract and deserve strong spouses.That is all Munger is saying. Weak, damaged, auto-victimizing people don't deserve someone strong.
And nor should someone who puts in the work to be strong be burdened with a weak partner.That is an interesting sentiment from a man who is now accused of brutally killing his wife and unborn child.
Like I said, we have so much to talk about with this case.While we continue to pull strings in the Micah Francis case, we have decided to cover the Gilley case because important questions need to be answered in order to save lives.
My heart broke when I looked up Krista Gilley's Instagram page this week and I saw that she was following me.Had she heard of Micah's story?Had she followed our reporting on coercive control?
Whatever the reason, I took her following me as a sign that this case involving a privileged man desperately needs sunlight."We wanna know about what the media is not covering in this case.
We want to know about Krista and Lee's relationship and what her friends and family thought of him.We wanna know if there were warning signs for other loved ones of abuse victims to catch.
We want to know about Lee's past and whether or not this was allegedly the first time he put his hands on a woman.We want to know more about Krista and her impact on the world.
We want to know more about Lee's whereabouts and if the system has already failed with his bond.
We want to know at what point the police decided to switch the investigation from suicide to homicide, because that pivot could be so important in other cases where husbands get away with murder simply for saying the word suicide.
We have a lot of important questions in this case and we are looking for sources who will help us find answers.
If you or someone you know could help us answer these questions and tell us more about this case, please reach out to info at lunasharkmedia.com or mandy at lunasharkmedia.com or liz at freshhellmedia.com.
As always, we promise to protect our sources and tell Krista's story truthfully, carefully, and purposely.In the meantime, I encourage you all to donate to the GoFundMe site that her family has set up for legal fees and child care costs.
Check the link in the description.Stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight. True Sunlight is a LunaShark production created by me, Manny Matney, and co-hosted by journalist Liz Farrell.
Learn more about our mission and membership at lunasharkmedia.com.Interruptions provided by Luna and Joe Pesky.
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