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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always I think he's running a little bit hot tonight here is our
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captain it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for
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telling a friend [Music] drinking big Tober Fest by the hard-working folks over at the big
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Brewing Company garage grade three and three-quarter bottle caps out of five big stands for beer is good brewing
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company and they are exactly right and you know who else is exactly right these great folks right here first up a big
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cheers to cats in the great white North a big shout out to Clancy in the 8th Center Kansas next up we have melody in
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Bridgeport Connecticut the big we like your jib to Holly in Tucson Arizona all right Captain here we go we got uh
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Marcus from Arkansas Big cheers to Marcus and last but certainly not least we have Gina and Mundy Lynn that cannot
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be right Illinois wherever you are Gina we thank you we love you everyone that contributed to this week's beer fun we
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thank you and love you yeah bwr-u-n a beer run make sure you sign up on our mailing
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on Stitcher premium and that is enough of the business all right thank you Captain everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] inside the woodruff's Royce City Texas
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Home family friend Todd Williams found the obviously slain couple and then quickly exited the trailer to call
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police who arrived on the scene at about 4 30 p.m and just to be clear since they
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have two houses they were staying in their new house and that's the house that they were found dead in from the
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book railroaded the married couple was sitting close together on a sofa before the TV and both had been shot and
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stabbed multiple times Dennis was shot once in the face and had nine stab wounds some as deep as five inches to
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his face neck and upper torso Norma was shot three times in the face and had a four inch front to back gash across her
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neck Norma was turning into Dennis as if for protective cover and Dennis held in his rigid hand a
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chewing tobacco spit cup their clothes and the sofa were blood soaked the television was on but all the
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lights were off and the cardboard box on which the TV set had blood spatter the firing was done from just inches
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away as indicated by the tight patterns of dark soot and red stipple on their skin surrounding the bullet entries the
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medical examiner characterized soot as the very fine Smoky material that comes out of the gun when it's fired and is
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the product of combustion that are occurring from the actual flame in the barrel of the gun and stippling is the
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actual particles of gunpowder that strikes the skin and cause tiny injuries Burns or abrasions from these burning or
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unburned particles of gunpowder that come out and hit the skin do they believe that the Bloods came from a
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single gun that's a difficult thing the murder weapon weapons we should say because of the
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stab wounds and the use of a gun it's always been quite difficult for the state to prove their case on one if they
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located the murder weapons and two exactly what was used to kill these two people
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what we do have here though Captain is some interesting information one we have Todd Williams saying the
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whole place was Secure when I found the place the doors were locked the windows were locked I come in I break into the
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home to find my friends obviously they've been murdered they're sitting in the dark with the TV on
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so whomever did this left the house and was able to lock the door behind them per the book railroaded it sounds like
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the most believable most likely explanation for this is that the front door was not accessed
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by the killer upon leaving the home it's believed that they went out the side door which would be near the
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carport and it was a setup as such we've talked about this before on the show where if you close the door behind you
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it's going to lock yeah but a lot of people in areas like this you said they're roughly on five acres
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a lot of people don't lock their doors correct correct when they were found dead all of the doors and windows were
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locked and if it's a true statement that he was found holding a spit can for his
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chewing tobacco you would almost assume that he was shot first and then stabbed afterwards
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because I feel like if somebody was being stabbed especially and the face that they might not be able
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to they wouldn't hold on to their spit can yeah and that's the thing here Captain I
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think we can determine a few things from the brief description that we've been able to provide about the crime scene
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and about the two deceased victims one there's no obvious sign of a break-in no forced entry into the home
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so was this somebody that the woodruff's invited in was it somebody that they knew or we've suggested this a few times
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where you also have a situation where somebody could have forced their way in simply by one of them answer the door I
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put a gun in your face and now I just walk in there's no sign of forced entry for that
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the other thing that's difficult here and very troubling is the close proximity in which the gun had to be to
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shoot Dennis and Norma right this person whoever killed them was able to put the gun right in
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Dennis's face basically and pull the trigger there's no signs of Dennis defending himself there's no sign of him
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flinching it almost is as if he didn't think this individual would shoot him yeah that's the thing like it was a
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total surprise but how is it a total surprise when the gun is so close to his face then with Norma we see the opposite
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we see obvious signs that she's trying to avoid whatever's about to happen so Dennis was shot in the face
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then we have Norma who turns in toward her husband puts her hands up to try to block or defend herself
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and we know this because one of the bullets that and pardon me there's no way of not being graphic with this right
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but one of the bullets it went it injured her hand her finger and then of course ends up in her in her face
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well see this is also why I wonder is it possible that this person got into the house and they were asleep
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um you know fell asleep watching TV and then the individual wakes them up by shooting
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um the father and then attacking the mother but but the stab wounds afterwards makes me believe that would
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be more personable right and not just I'm here to kill you so I shoot you and then I'd be on my way this person then
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took the time to pull out a knife or if there's two individuals somebody pulled out a knife and then
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ended uh ended up stabbing these individuals in their face and that's something I do want to point
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out as well I don't think that anything at the crime scene particularly tells us
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one way or another if this was one offender or more than one perpetrator right we do know that we have at least two
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weapons that were used in the commission of these homicides so that actually points towards the possibility of more
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than one perpetrator the difficult thing here Captain is as you said how does this go down in this
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exact manner it appears and we know this from the medical examiner statements that Dennis shot at close range right in
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the face for whatever reason is not defending himself when that happens Norma then realizes what is going to
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happen she tries to block or defend herself by turning in toward her husband putting her hands up
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and then we have the stab wounds so it has been stated by the medical examiner that the gunshots happen first
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and then the stabbing and as you pointed out and the state of Texas as well as law
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enforcement agencies that work this case would tell us that this indicates that this was absolutely personal in nature
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that this was someone that had a deep hatred for both of these people not only wanted to kill them make sure that they
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were dead but you're kind of using the knife to actually destroy this man his appearance to mutilate him to stab him
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nine times with whatever knife was used in this homicide which I'd normally say a hundred percent of the time that's
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personable but we do have evidence that they're having financial difficulties and is it is there something that the
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public their their friends and family didn't know about or maybe they took a loan
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from somebody uh maybe they didn't pay back somebody that they should have and it's not as much of a personal thing as
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like um we're proving a point type thing right the other thing I want to point out too is was the gun used as
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necessity and then at some point the perpetrator or perpetrators decide that to keep using that Weapon It's
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awfully loud someone might hear it I'll finish the job with a knife or a bladed weapon yeah or yeah make sure the job is
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finished yeah I've heard one Theory and I don't want to get too much into all the theories that are out there because
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there is a big group of people that believe that Brandon Woodruff is in fact innocent of these crimes and therefore
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they have theories as to who have could have committed this murder and how they went about doing it right one of the
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theories that I just want to kind of I'm going to go ahead and squash it right away is there's a theory that's been put
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forward that they were killed and that somebody close to them hated them so much they showed up the next day
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and chose to stab Dennis after he was already dead we know that theory cannot be and that is
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because of the words of the medical examiner it says the medical examiner could not determine the order in which
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the stab wounds were inflicted but they all happened probably about the same time and he Dennis was alive during all
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of them but I can't tell you exactly what order they happened in but also if they're if it's just one gun at some
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point that gun runs out of bullets so the knife might have been used like the corner saying to finish the job and
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like you were saying also the gun is loud yes yeah we don't know why but this attack
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started with a gun and then it ended with these stab wounds and again we can tell by the medical
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examiner's words these weren't stab wounds that took place at a much later time this man unfortunately was shot and
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then stabbed fairly quickly the gunshots themselves to these individuals would have been fatal at
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some point but we had the medical examiner who says the stab wounds happen while he was still alive the problem is
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Captain that we have that big window of time sometime between Sunday evening and
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they're not found until 3 30 4 o'clock on Tuesday right there's a big window of time of when this could
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have happened now we can obviously shrink that down a little bit to try to figure out who had the means to carry
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out this brutal homicide and one is they were both supposed to be at work on Monday morning so I think we all can
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agree that this happened sometime before Monday morning yeah I think that makes the most sense and if we are to believe
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Brandon he says that he had dinner with them and then he left his first Duty when he left
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was to run an errand for his mother and then carry on to their old house in Heath which this would be sometime after
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7 pm what backs Brandon's story up is that there were two phone calls that took place in the seven o'clock hour and this
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is both Norma and Dennis on the phone with relatives during these phone calls the the
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relatives on the other end of the line both got the impression separately separate calls both got the same
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impression that Brandon had already left the house that night that they were having these conversations after he left
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after they had dinner and I don't believe there was any mention of their be in an argument or anything
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it was just he came to visit he ate with us he left yes and without getting I'm finding it
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difficult to go through this case because it's a real messy one and it's almost like you have to tackle each of
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these issues as they pop up because one of the motivating factors that the state
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of Texas will say when Prosecuting Brandon Woodruff is one of the reasons that he killed his parents was because
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he's gay that he was living this secret gay lifestyle right and that he amongst other reasons this led him to killing
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his parents there's a big problem with that being a motivating factor and that being these
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two phone calls that took place in the seven o'clock hour on that Sunday in at least one of the calls Dennis is
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discussing Brandon being gay with his relative the relative says it didn't sound like
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Dennis was angry about this didn't sound like Dennis was uh you know mad at Brandon or thought that Brandon was
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living some kind of Secret Life the relatives said that Dennis sound concerned for his son
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stating that he worried about Brandon living that kind of lifestyle that he thought that that kind of Lifestyle was
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dangerous or it came with certain risk and that he probably didn't want his son to have difficulties
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in public in his public life or treated unfairly because of his sexuality right it's you know it's the same reason
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why there's there's kids with minor disabilities but parents will worry because of how society and kids will
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treat them and so it might be okay well you know you have no problem with your son and his sexuality but you know that
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there's going to be conflicts in his life because of it where those conflicts might not happen
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or there's just uh discriminations might not happen if his son were straight well and people I look for the good in
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everyone and I find a lot of good in everyone but people in general are not always accepting of people that live
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differently than them themselves right and so therefore out of ignorance they will treat these people differently or
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unfairly because of they of something they just don't understand one to be clear did he
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was he out to his parents before this dinner or was this dinner um hey Mom Dad I gotta tell you something
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but a lot of times parents know before the child ever comes forward that is one thing that's pretty unclear in this
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whole situation but I did want to point that out that he clearly didn't kill his parents to cover up the
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fact that he was gay or living a gay lifestyle right because we have the relative saying after the fact Dennis
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and I discussed this his parents were aware I don't know how aware they were or when they became aware right but we
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know that that Dennis knew what was going on Norma knew what was going on and again the relative
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saying the father didn't sound angry at Brandon he sounded concerned a question for you yo we have no
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evidence of Brandon coming out in high school like two friends uh I mean you said the
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[ __ ] kickers didn't like it so from what I found there captain that it's very unclear okay it sounds to me like right
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around the time that he was finishing up high school his lifestyle is changing and noticeably to his friends right and
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to others he's Brandon's now dressing different he's hanging out with a different crowd and I don't know if the
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[ __ ] kickers his old batch of friends if they were just suspicious or if they were made you know if he told them
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outwardly I have no idea which way that it went it did sound like at some point Mike Etherington and Brandon Woodruff
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one-time good friends their families know each other it sounds like not only did they quit being friends but it
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sounded like they were they were feuding like taking you know shots at each other
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as far as uh insults and um whatever was going down there was some type of feud between the two of
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them well he's somebody that should be looked at because I think a a motivation for this is
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if he within the last couple months really finalized coming out to his parents let's say because the lifestyle was
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shifting and possibly some people knew Maybe for some friends of his new obviously he
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was creating another um social Dynamic that knew and he was living openly gay to them
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that if it is finalized to the parents was there um a sexual partner that he had in high school or within his
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old community that is there then fearful that Brandon told them told the parents if that makes sense
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that an old friend might be outed by Brandon and be feel threatened by that right because also possibility look you
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know um it's it is an interesting thing when you're friends with somebody for almost
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18 years and you've had a lot of conversations with them about dating and girls that you know one of my friends
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that's pretty much all we talked about later come to find well that was just kind of a cover-up you know he wasn't
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into girls he's always been into boys but that was his kind of cover you know if I if I'm constantly telling my
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friends that I have a crush on somebody and he always picked like the top of the top uh and and but he
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then told us well I picked girls that I knew were way out of my league because then you wouldn't wonder why I never got
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to go on a date with them right you know it was just oh you know you're just not
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going to go on a date with them they're out of your league so it is an interesting situation because
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you you are shocked on some level and then on some level before you start going well maybe I I kind of knew this
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all along but if he would have then said well and I realized I was gay when I I made
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out with one of our other Buddies none of his closest friends when he came out none of us
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had any hatred towards him or discrimination towards him so I think you know obviously it's a different part
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of the country um and sometimes in those smaller communities um there's more of an ignorance to
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different lifestyles and but you also see sometimes these people that are um that discriminate the most against
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somebody's sexuality is because of their own hatred to their to themselves that there are homosexual themselves
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and but they hate themselves because of it and then they hate anybody uh that out is going to come out
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well I think what we can agree on here is a couple of things one it appears that Brandon's lifestyle wasn't such a
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secret that his parents knew this about Brandon that they had some kind of conversation this was something they
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spoke about Dennis is concerned not because he does not approve it's more so that he's
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worried concerned for his son everyone's always concerned for their children this
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is just another one of those type things for Dennis now we should point out though too with
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Brandon that you know I say he's not living this secret lifestyle but there were some
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extremes going on here because he did do some pornography work and this was from my understanding in
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the summer to late summer of 2005 and this was gay pornography work that he did uh he filmed a couple scenes in
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Dallas and a couple scenes down in Florida from my understanding this is something that took place over the
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course of two different weekends and he was paid fairly well for his time I'm guessing that this is not something
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that Dennis and Norma knew about right and I look whether your kid um is a homosexual or a heterosexual
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most parents are going to find that activity to be extreme Behavior correct you know that's just especially in in
00:25:06
Texas and the way that this went down for my understanding captain and I actually
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don't think that this pornography work has too much to do with the actual case itself right the state of Texas and the
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prosecutor would tell us different at trial but from my understanding the way that this went down was you you get
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producers just like you would with any type of you know movies or entertainment or whatever that they find these they're
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they're looking for attractive young men to be in these movies and it's not hard
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to find them because they'll go to some of the bigger cities that have cool gay clubs to get into right and they hang
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out in the crowd you know and you find a couple good looking guys and offer them
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a position if they want one but I think it's important to point out that the state of Texas and the
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prosecutor are going to tell us that his gay lifestyle is one of the key factors
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one of the motivating factors for Brandon to kill his parents and it doesn't seem that that's what was going
00:26:08
on here [Music] oh oh [Music] no no no no no no no no no no no no no [Music] no make sure you check out true crime
00:26:47
garage.com and go to our blog and leave your opinions on this case and let us know if you liked my singing there in
00:26:55
this week's music yeah a sample of the kernel okay Captain let's talk about the crime
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scene a little more and this is more for the thought as to police theories and things that they were seeing at the
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crime scene it says here and this is from some court documents that I found that
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the police theorize that Norma may have been attempting to duck behind her husband the crime scene
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investigation did not reveal any signs of forced entry any signs of a struggle or any signs the house had been
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ransacked investigator Tommy granfield testified that he did not believe the position of the bodies was suggestive
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that the victims had been taken by that the victims have been taken by surprise the wallets of Dennis and Norma were
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missing but many valuables including a handgun a computer jewelry appliances remained in the home
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the police noted blood droplets in front of the couch and a trail of blood droplets leading from the couch toward
00:28:06
the guest bathroom and bedroom so it's believed that either blood is dripping off of the knife the killer or
00:28:16
both after they killed the woodruffs and then walked from that spot right there in front of the couch to the guest
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bathroom and I'm guessing that is to clean up themselves clean up the murder weapon
00:28:32
later we would find out that when police did the luminal testing throughout the house they found a good amount of bleach
00:28:40
in that bathroom so it appears that the person or persons cleaned themselves up and anything else that they needed to
00:28:48
and then cleaned the bathroom afterwards well we can't rule out that this was just a simple robbery and then they had
00:28:58
to kill the victims maybe because the victims knew who they were or maybe that was just part of the plan we can't rule
00:29:05
that out but it is suspicious that somebody went into a bathroom and cleaned themselves
00:29:11
off that could just be simply to have no trace evidence going back into your vehicle I've always found it troubling
00:29:18
too that they had just recently moved into this house I know it's it's very unlikely and this thank God is a very
00:29:27
very rare occurrence but I have red cases where it's a mistaken identity that somebody goes to a home and a new
00:29:37
family lives there now right and the offender is unaware that that is the situation I don't know that that's the
00:29:45
situation here but I'm just throwing that out there so how does Brandon Woodruff become suspect number one well
00:29:54
we have the Hunt County Sheriff's Office investigating this case but they're doing it with the assistance of the
00:30:01
Texas Rangers the problem for Brandon will be he's got some missing time he's got a missing window of time of where
00:30:09
he's unaccounted for on the night that they believe that the woodruffs were killed so we both said
00:30:16
that we can agree that they were killed sometime either late that Sunday night or very early Monday morning before they
00:30:22
had to go to work while investigators are going to shrink that window even more because what they're going to say
00:30:29
is that the woodruffs were killed sometime between 9 30ish and 10 30 to 11ish okay but what time does he meet up
00:30:39
with his friend to get back to school he meets Robert at the Denny's parking lot
00:30:45
at 11 PM all right so that's not looking too good for him right and here's how they come up with this window of time
00:30:54
there's a phone call that takes place around nine o'clock and we kind of talked about this a little bit already
00:31:00
remember Charla is visiting extended family on that Sunday night right she's at her grandmother's house grandma's on
00:31:08
the phone with her mom Norma grandma says to Charla would you like to talk to your mom I got her on the phone that
00:31:14
phone call takes place between nine and about 9 20 maybe 9 30 at the very latest
00:31:20
all right so we have another person a witness saying they were alive for that time
00:31:28
period so now we're shrinking that window a little bit Charla says that she will call her mom
00:31:34
when she gets home she says that she tried calling Mom and Dad at 11 PM that night and nobody answered you mentioned
00:31:42
the call forwarding she's concerned that nobody answered so that's how the police are going to come
00:31:48
up with they were killed during the time frame between 9 30 and 11 o'clock the problem with Brandon's story he was
00:31:57
supposed to be there to pick up Robert between five and six then that gets pushed back to 9 9 30
00:32:04
and he doesn't show up to Denny's until 11 pm what the prosecutor and the Hunt County
00:32:12
Sheriff's Office are going to tell us is that left enough time for Brandon to make it to the heath house do all this
00:32:20
running around commit murder and then meet up with his friend at the Denny's he gives them you know right it puts
00:32:29
them in the perfect time situation but what is his excuse for all this his excuse is that I
00:32:37
told you everything that I did I was just off on my times okay and I've look there's a lot of
00:32:44
people as I said earlier that are doing really good work on this case trying to help out Brandon's case to prove that he
00:32:50
is in fact innocent and they all say about the same thing you prosecuted this kid because he was
00:32:57
off on his times he wasn't lying about what he did he wasn't lying lying about when he did what he did he was just off
00:33:05
on the time well the prob the problem with that statement is you don't know you don't he may be lying he may he may
00:33:12
have done this in just flat out lied and now he's oh I was off on my times what we do know is that Robert says I didn't
00:33:19
see Brandon until 11 p.m right so what is Brandon doing between that 736 phone call where he calls mom to relay the
00:33:29
message about the horse and then when he finally makes it to the Denny's at 11 PM and I do have some some
00:33:36
uh references here for you right but real quickly we do have travel time so we have to put that into account so
00:33:44
we can shorten his window a little more the other thing that's a little in his favor is that he did a favor for
00:33:53
his parents and he was then going to take their truck and they were going to have his truck fixed but one could also
00:34:00
say well maybe he did that favor because it that was part of the setup right so here's some let's go through this
00:34:09
distance between a couple of these locations shall we okay so we have the double wide I'm going to refer to the
00:34:16
new house as the double wide that's on County Road 2648 in Royce City Texas we know that Brandon took that trip to
00:34:28
the stables for his mom and a phone call took place at 7 36 PM The Stables from the double wide to The Stables is
00:34:37
approximately a 16 minute drive from The Stables to the heath house remember he says I'm going to the heath
00:34:45
house because I'm going to pick up the fancy truck right I'm going to take care of the animals and then I'm going to go
00:34:52
get robber and we're going to either go out for the night or we're going to go back to campus
00:34:57
so the Stables to the heath house is 30 minutes and it's been said by several people
00:35:03
Brandon including that it would take roughly 30 minutes for him to take care of all the animals at the heath house
00:35:11
okay from the heath house to the Denny's it's another 30 minute drive so if he's
00:35:18
already left the stables at 7 36 when that phone call is placed to his mother by Brandon
00:35:26
then we have an hour and a half should have gone by before he arrives at the Denny's which would put him at the
00:35:35
Denny's at a little after 9 pm but he doesn't show up until 11 pm so we are missing about an hour and 45
00:35:44
minutes roughly of what was he doing and when was he doing it right now there are
00:35:50
several phone calls that happened during that time frame the thing that kind of sucks for Brandon
00:35:57
is Brandon will say that these phone calls point out that he was doing what he says he was doing and the phone calls
00:36:04
would tell us he was nowhere near the murder scene at the time that that law enforcement are telling us the woodruffs
00:36:11
were killed at his trial these phone calls that Brandon speaks of are not presented to the jury or at any
00:36:20
point during the trial right these these phone calls the phone records on Brandon's part have been lost and that's
00:36:28
simply due to time his defense attorneys would tell us that that is on the fault of the prosecution
00:36:35
and it's on the fall of law enforcement that they failed to get his phone records they got other people's phone
00:36:41
records but they didn't get his yeah the difficult thing here Captain is there was some kind of transition going on
00:36:48
between singular and at T at the time and I don't know if it was a t purchased singular or what went down but at this
00:36:58
time in 2005 in this area if you were an ATT person or a singular person your calls would use both of
00:37:08
their towers but they only have records for who his actual carrier were does that make sense
00:37:15
yeah yeah so they cannot really triangulate where they believe Brandon would have been during some of those
00:37:22
phone calls the problem for Brandon is we have one person that says and this is Robert who
00:37:28
says I didn't see him till 11 pm Robert also says Brandon told me to tell everybody else that I saw him at 9 30.
00:37:37
that he picked me up at Denny's at 9 30 not 11. that's weird and Robert also says that during this missing period of
00:37:45
time where we don't know where Brandon was Brandon called me to make further arrangements remember could you meet me
00:37:51
at the Denny's it's it'll save us some time right Robert says that Brandon was breathing
00:37:56
heavy during this phone call and the prosecution is going to point out well that's because he was exhausted from
00:38:03
having physically murdered two people dense but it's definitely suspicious when somebody shows up and says hey by
00:38:11
the way tell people that I was here hour and a half earlier yeah and I don't have any reason to not
00:38:18
believe this Robert person right what is what does he have to gain from any of this he doesn't even seem to
00:38:24
know Brandon real well there's not a close relationship he doesn't know Brandon's family he's not a suspect
00:38:32
so I don't know why Robert would make this up or other people have suggested maybe he's unclear about the times I
00:38:41
think he's pretty clear about the times he's he's annoyed he's been waiting hours several hours after the original
00:38:47
agreed upon time to get picked up then we have another weird story that comes out and this is from Brandon's friends
00:38:53
the ones that he went to the club with that night remember he picked up Robert Robert agreed to go to the club
00:39:01
when they are driving back some of the guys in the back seat of the truck are horsing around and they're going through
00:39:08
some of the belongings in the truck Brandon has a bag with him like a I don't know like an overnight bag or a
00:39:14
book bag when one of the persons picks that up they said that Brandon who is is usually very laid back
00:39:23
happy-go-lucky kind of person was visibly upset and angry and told them to put his bag down
00:39:33
the prosecution tells us that there was something in that bag that Brandon did not want everybody else to see
00:39:40
maybe it was a blood-stained shirt maybe it was one of the murder weapons or both
00:39:45
of them right but that he freaked out on these individuals because he couldn't risk anybody opening up that bag and
00:39:53
questioning what was inside of it to back that story up not only do we have more than one person who says that that
00:40:01
that took place we have a text message the next day from Brandon to his friend that says I'm sorry I freaked out last
00:40:09
night in the truck they're saying that's referring to this whole thing with the bag
00:40:15
but then there's some weird things captain that look like Brandon could be innocent
00:40:21
the first which I think is the most bizarre thing in a lot of this case is there's a phone call we talk so much
00:40:28
about these phone calls there was a phone call that was placed to the Hunt County Sheriff's Office the morning
00:40:34
after the bodies were discovered and somebody had used the old star six seven to block to block yes they wanted to
00:40:43
make an anonymous call so Anonymous that they didn't want you to know the phone number
00:40:48
several of these calls were made on that morning and it was a woman who is asking
00:40:53
if they have any suspects in the murders of the woodruffs why is that weird and suspicious it's
00:41:01
weird and suspicious because at that time police had not announced to anybody that the woodruffs were murdered
00:41:07
when the bodies were found they notified their employers and they notified family
00:41:12
and they simply told everyone that the woodruffs were found dead that they had died and they died
00:41:21
together now you can take that a million different ways most people assume that it was some type of accident
00:41:29
a v you know a vehicle accident or carbon monoxide I mean there's a dozen different ways right so it was not
00:41:38
confirmed at that time with anyone that the two had in fact been murdered yet they're getting a phone call to the
00:41:44
Sheriff's Office from a woman who is asking if they have any suspects in the murder of Dennis and Norma
00:41:51
Woodruff they figured out that the caller was Norma Etherington remember she's the mother of Mike who is
00:41:59
Brandon's former friend right she's the one that had that weird Feud with Norma Woodruff about the 500
00:42:07
4-H scholarship that Brandon got so what is very bizarre here is not only do you
00:42:14
have a feud between Brandon and Mike you have a feud between the two mothers it's
00:42:19
almost like the Hatfields and McCoys at this point it's like family against family right
00:42:24
there's a lot of things in this case captain that just don't make sense and they don't make sense for or against
00:42:32
Brandon depending on how you look at these different items we mentioned the bag earlier where he got all upset that
00:42:39
these guys were going to go through his bag the prosecution tells us there's something in the bag that he didn't want
00:42:44
us to see blood soak clothing murder weapon what have you right Brandon's explanation for his behavior
00:42:52
that night is that he had not fully come out to his friend Robert remember what we got going on right now in Brandon's
00:43:00
life is he's coming out but he's also attending a Christian University those things don't usually work hand in hand
00:43:09
together and he says Robert didn't know that I'm gay I didn't want that bag opened up
00:43:16
because then he would know that I'm gay what doesn't make sense to me is his defense of his behavior
00:43:24
you took Robert to a gay club that night you took him to a gay club with you asked him if he wanted to go but was it
00:43:32
actually a gay club or was it a gay friendly club and it was just maybe attended by more gay people than
00:43:38
straight people and it wasn't I think that's very fair that you say that because I don't know for certain
00:43:44
which it is I I know what club that they went to that night and I've heard it described as both by different people so
00:43:52
yeah that's that's a very fair statement but I do find it a little questionable his explanation for knowing that they
00:44:00
just went to either a gay club or a gay friendly Club most of the night it could
00:44:04
have been gay porn it could have been sex toys it could have been something that's also just embarrassing for people
00:44:11
to be messing around with that's true that's true as well now we have yet to discuss the murder weapons and we were
00:44:21
talking about why the prosecution and the law enforcement agencies believe that Brandon should be the number one
00:44:27
suspect well that's because of his quote-unquote access to the believed murder weapons now Brandon got locked up
00:44:36
a couple weeks after his parents were killed and he was arrested for the charge of double homicide once he was
00:44:44
locked up his bail was set so high that he would not be able to make bail to get
00:44:49
out leading up to his trial remember we've talked about this plenty of times and look there's not always something
00:44:56
wrong with it but sometimes there is you have the right to a speedy trial in the
00:45:00
United States you just might not get one Brandon's trial was about two and a half
00:45:04
years after his parents were killed that's ridiculous now that could again not always something wrong with that
00:45:12
sometimes that's at the request of the defense I don't know what the case is here but it looks to me like the
00:45:19
prosecution wasn't so confident about their ability to convict Brandon meaning they didn't think that
00:45:27
they had that strong of a case then then you let him out you know while you try to build that case and here's why I
00:45:34
think it points to the prosecution believing that they don't have a very strong case against this guy one
00:45:41
there are they are going to present a bladed weapon a dagger is what it's often referred to as in court and say
00:45:48
this was one of the murder weapons and we found this at the remember the woodruffs called it their Barn at the
00:45:56
heath property we found it there in the barn and Brandon must have tried to conceal it and hide it there they
00:46:04
searched that Barn a couple of times didn't find it but then two and a half years later right before the trial they
00:46:12
find the dagger in the barn that's poppycock it has been described and this is one thing that is very Troublesome to
00:46:20
me I've heard experts say it cannot physically be the blade that was used in the attack that it was probably a
00:46:28
kitchen knife or something similar to a kitchen knife that was used in the attack
00:46:32
this is like an ornate decorative dagger that's why they keep calling it a dagger
00:46:37
some have even called it a sword because the blade was so large remember we mentioned that the the cuts the stab
00:46:44
wounds the deepest one on either victim was five inches roughly five inches this
00:46:50
thing is described as having a blade that's about 12 inches long wow now there's been other experts that say yes
00:46:57
this instrument could in fact have made these wounds so expert opinion different
00:47:05
experts saying different things in regards to this murder Weapon It's all depends on who's paying them the problem
00:47:11
for Brandon though is and this is fact this is not opinion they did find a small drop of blood on
00:47:21
the dagger on like a underneath one of the decorative skulls that's on the dagger right on the handle
00:47:29
and it's described as it would be in a place that if one were trying to clean blood off of a murder weapon that they
00:47:36
might not look that this kind of they forgot to clean this one little spot is there bleach residue on the on the knife
00:47:45
if there is it wasn't discussed at trial either way that there wasn't or that there was it's it's not mentioned what
00:47:53
is mentioned that's pretty damning here is that drop of blood is confirmed to be Dennis woodruff's
00:48:01
blood now of course there are ways that his blood could get on that knife and that
00:48:06
night knife not having been used to murder him but it's very suspicious very sketchy very sketchy
00:48:15
stuff now there are some people that have even suggested that the police planted that
00:48:21
knife in that location I don't believe that I don't have any reason to believe that they seem to be open about hey yeah
00:48:29
we probably should have found it earlier we just didn't go through every particular thing the first time we
00:48:35
searched that area the other problem for Brandon is that they will point out that he had access
00:48:41
to the gun that they believed was used in the homicide remember we mentioned on that Saturday the day before it's
00:48:48
believed that his parents were killed he spent the majority of the day helping out his old girlfriend his friend Morgan
00:48:54
Lee he was at her house on and off for most of Saturday at some point in the investigation after the woodruffs are
00:49:03
killed the Lees tell law enforcement hey a gun is missing from our house we had a decorative gun on display it
00:49:12
was on a shelf like in a I'm guessing in like a glass case for display purposes right on a shelf in either a hallway or
00:49:22
a spare bedroom but it's regularly agreed upon that anybody that had access to their home had access
00:49:30
to this gun it wasn't stored in a way that some if you were in their house you could just you could just take it and it
00:49:36
was loaded they had ammunition yes it was loaded and there was ammunition on display with this gun that seems like a
00:49:44
great idea the prosecution would tell us that they believe that Brandon stole this gun on Saturday and then used it on
00:49:52
Sunday to murder his parents the Lees tell law enforcement this gun is missing we didn't notice it missing until the
00:49:59
woodruffs were killed until sometime after they were killed but when was the last time you handled that gun oh about
00:50:05
a year ago right so it could have and in fact been gone before the woodruffs were killed it could have
00:50:12
been gone before Brandon had access to it on that Saturday right that gun has never been found
00:50:19
and I think that the problem I have with the knife is against Brandon it's got his father's blood on it that looks very
00:50:27
bad but what the prosecution would tell us later is that the gun was probably thrown in a
00:50:34
lake somewhere because they present at trial this guy that was in a cell that says
00:50:40
hey at some point Brandon asked me if a gun with a wooden handle if it would float to the top
00:50:48
or how long would it stay submerged in water like he was concerned that they were
00:50:53
going to find the murder weapon oh I hate any of these jailhouse snitches here's the problem I have with this
00:50:58
jailhouse snitch amongst other things I know you don't like them I don't like them either but it's like if he threw
00:51:05
the gun that was used in a lake somewhere why would he throw the knife in there as well why why are we finding
00:51:12
this knife in the garage because it was a sword man he wanted you got to keep that Soul the collectors it's a
00:51:19
collector's item it's going to be worth a lot of money someday oh unfortunately I I agree with you I mean if you're
00:51:25
going to dispose of the gun why wouldn't you dispose of the knife unfortunately what we have here Captain is Brandon is
00:51:32
convicted of double homicide and he's been in prison ever since the thing that I have a big problem with
00:51:42
is I've looked at this thing for the past week we've been looking at this case and I thought from from the get
00:51:49
from Jump Street that oh we're going to come across something at some point in this next week that's either going to
00:51:56
definitively for me prove that Brandon's either a innocent or be guilty yeah I can't find anything that tells me that
00:52:04
he is in fact innocent I can't find anything that says to me 100 that he's guilty I am very suspicious of that
00:52:12
missing time that hour to hour and a half that he's unaccounted for on that night it's
00:52:20
been suggested this is what was going on or that was what was going on that he didn't lie to police but I don't know
00:52:27
that until there were people that can back up where he was and what he was doing and when it when he was doing it
00:52:33
or the fact that he tells his friend hey I was here an hour and a half earlier correct that's very suspicious now
00:52:41
in a lot of cases we don't have uh the suspect talking whether that's a interrogation or anything but what we do
00:52:49
have in this case is and we played in the trailer it's Brandon telling his supporters you
00:52:58
know believe me I did not kill my parents and normally you can get a sense a gut sense of whether or not you
00:53:06
believe the kid in this case it's so weird because it seems like he says a couple lines that
00:53:14
make sense and I go okay probably didn't then he says a couple lines where I don't think he's saying anything wrong
00:53:20
it's just the way he chose to say him and that could have been nerves or whatever but I kind of walk away from
00:53:27
the whole uh him pleading his case to his supporters and still kind of throw my hands up like I
00:53:37
don't know I don't think I learned anything from it well in online you can find the interrogation or questioning
00:53:43
tapes when the Rangers and the Sheriff's Office are questioning Brandon right and
00:53:50
I've watched them and they're very interesting because his body language to me never at any point even for a second
00:53:59
shows what I would believe to be a guilty person he is he's extremely Cooperative with their questioning so
00:54:09
much so that he's offering up to a DNA test he's offering up he's even telling them like hey I'm not planning on
00:54:15
sticking around in this city I don't like it here my parents have been killed right I'm probably not going
00:54:23
back to college I was failing anyway and I don't really want to go back there I'll probably go here and I can't
00:54:30
remember where he says he tells them where he's planning on going I think it's to go off and stay with extended
00:54:35
family which makes a whole lot of sense it's just in a whole different city right
00:54:40
but he's so Cooperative to the point that he doesn't have to tell them that he's planning on leaving the area one if
00:54:47
he were guilty I think I think he wouldn't have told them that Tui doesn't have to tell them where he's going
00:54:53
and three he even says he even offers up that he will stay in the area long enough for them to
00:55:00
clear him as a suspect when you're done when you guys are all done with your investigation or you're all done looking
00:55:06
at me right let me know and then I'll I'll wait till then to go so super Cooperative during the
00:55:13
questioning process it's one of those cases Captain where I I cannot find a reason to push me to one
00:55:20
side of the table or the other the innocent side or the guilty side what I will say is I don't feel that Brandon
00:55:26
regardless of what people out there listening feel if he's guilty or not I feel that this guy got screwed in court
00:55:33
I don't think that this was a fair trial and a large part of that comes from this
00:55:40
fact and this is known fact it's in the court documents we have a judge who had to make a ruling on this after the fact
00:55:47
it was proven that the prosecution was not only listening into Brandon's phone calls while he's in jail for two and a
00:55:55
half years mind you leading up to the trial they were listening to phone calls between him and his defense attorneys
00:56:02
that's that's awful right he should be he's one if you're going to hold somebody that long I understand that you
00:56:10
think he's a murderer but if you think he's a murderer then get him to trial if you're going to hold him for two years
00:56:16
then release him he should not have to sit in jail it it's supposed to be innocent until
00:56:22
proven guilty an innocent man shouldn't have to sit behind bars for a whole two years the other thing too is I would I
00:56:30
really want to know if Brandon came forward and and talked about any sexual encounters that he possibly had uh in
00:56:38
his community during High School would there be any individual that showed discrimination towards him that would be
00:56:46
afraid of him possibly telling his parents or or telling the community well this this whole mess right here is pure
00:56:55
and simple abuse of power is what it is I get it okay this was taken to a higher
00:57:02
court and a higher Court had to make a ruling on this and determine that no wrongdoing took place
00:57:08
uh let's say horseshit all right I'm sure that's a term that they use a lot in Texas that's what this is to me abuse
00:57:16
of power because what they did here was let's take this guy lock him up we'll set the bail really
00:57:23
high so he can't get out and then in the time that we take to build our case we're going to use him
00:57:30
being locked up to our advantage to build a case against him by snooping on his phone calls now I get what the Court
00:57:37
ruling says that you know they were told the inmates the the people that are housed at that facility are told your
00:57:44
phone calls will be recorded I get that that's fine I also get that he was mirandized that says you've been
00:57:51
arrested for this charge and anything you say or do can and will be held against you in the court of law I get
00:57:57
that the problem is where the hell is the attorney-client privilege right okay I get that they they presented this has
00:58:06
happened in other cases where they've presented um Casey Anthony her phone calls that she
00:58:13
had while she was in jail locked up they've presented those at trial they didn't present the phone calls between
00:58:19
her and her attorney because that's privileged information and that shouldn't be information that maybe it's
00:58:26
not presented at trial but prosecution shouldn't be able to hear that and then I think the problem becomes
00:58:35
it just seems like they're discriminating against this guy simply because of his sexuality or that they've
00:58:42
built this case against this guy maybe they really believe that he killed his parents and it has nothing to do with
00:58:47
his lifestyle for them maybe they just really believe that he did it but they're going to stack the deck against
00:58:53
this guy which is just unfair that's not what our society has deemed to be right
00:58:58
right and the thing is too the higher Court ruling was that well none of the information gathered in those recordings
00:59:06
was used against him at trial so what who cares well you can't actually prove that because whatever information that
00:59:15
the prosecutors heard they could have changed their strategy based off the information they heard so there would be
00:59:21
no way of really proving unless they took direct words or direct lines between those Communications and
00:59:30
presented those at trial I agree 100 and so it's one of those situations where I cannot tell you if
00:59:37
Brandon Woodruff killed his parents I can tell you this there were other suspects that I would
00:59:42
have looked at these etheringtons are weird that whole family Mike Etherington said lies to the police we know that
00:59:49
because he told police that he saw on Brandon's Myspace page that Brandon hated his parents and he wished they
00:59:56
were dead the police checked the Myspace page it didn't say that it said that he
01:00:01
loved his parents so why did Mike make that up I find that really strange to go run an errand for
01:00:08
your parents when you want to kill them and come back and kill them yeah and to take it a step
01:00:14
further there was hold on I was just gonna say if they came back and said that Aaron was never run I'd go okay
01:00:22
well that makes more sense but when they come back and go okay well we have proof that
01:00:27
that that Aaron was run I go but this doesn't make a lot of sense well to take that a step further there Captain this
01:00:35
is similar to the Eddie O'Brien Junior case that we covered back in August of this year in episodes 416 417 the trail
01:00:43
Blood episodes there was evidence at the crime scene that is directly related to these
01:00:51
murders that was not tested and not presented at trial and that is a difficult bitter pill to
01:01:00
swallow at the end of the day there was hair found in Norma woodruff's hands that law enforcement agree this I'm
01:01:09
going by their own statements they believe that that hair likely came from the killer could it have come from
01:01:16
Norma's head yes could it have come from her husband yes do we know where it came
01:01:21
from no it was never tested and it was never presented at trial Brandon Woodruff did not receive a fair
01:01:27
trial [Music] [Music] all right thanks for joining us here in the garage we want to hear from you we
01:01:45
want to know what your thoughts are on this case check us out at truecrime garage.com and go to our blog and leave
01:01:52
us a comment Colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week this week we are recommending railroaded the
01:01:59
homophobic prosecution of Brandon Woodruff for his parents Murder by Philip Crawford Jr available in both
01:02:07
paperback and Kindle forms among those who have read Crawford's book is Catherine Ferguson she is one of
01:02:14
woodruff's defense lawyers and I found an online review that she wrote for the book which says quote Mr Crawford has
01:02:22
done an excellent job of setting forth facts not speculation or Prejudice that show Brandon Woodruff is innocent check
01:02:30
out railroaded that great title and many others are listed on our recommended page at truecrime garage.com and until
01:02:38
next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] foreign