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some true crime. Chino Hills, California. 1983. In the dark of night, evil lurks around
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a quiet house at the top of a hill. A sliding door was left unlocked, and evil makes its way inside the home.
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A sleeping family are surprised and slaughtered. One victim survives and tells a story
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that doesn't fit the evidence found at the scene. A suspect is quickly identified, and the
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manhunt begins. Kevin Cooper is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murders.
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The evidence was overwhelming. But was it suspiciously overwhelming? Did the police plant evidence?
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Did they ignore evidence? For more than 30 years, Cooper has proclaimed his innocence from
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a cell on death row. Can we trust the scientific results that were produced? Can we ignore coincidence after
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coincidence after coincidence? We will continue to present the facts, and you decide if you think this man is
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a murderer or convenient suspect. But remember, once is happenstance, Twice is coincidence.
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The third time is enemy action. Is Kevin Cooper the enemy? And were his actions murder?
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Welcome back. We got a lot to get into. Yes, and we know that Kevin Cooper was arrested for the murders of the Ryan
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family and young Christopher Hughes. But the trial, Captain, would be moved south to San Diego because of
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and this is as polite as I can put it, anger in the local community. Now, the trial began on October 23rd,
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1984. During the course of this trial, we won't go through everything regarding the trial because we have a lot of
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evidence that we want to get to later. But Cooper does decide to take the stand at his trial, and he does admit. This is
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where we know that he admits to being in the hideout house, just 126 yd from the
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crime scene. But he does deny having committed the murders. He admits that he escaped from prison. He admits that he
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eluded law law enforcement, and he admits to being near the crime scene. He also admits to having some of his
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what he referred to as {quote} roll-your-own tobacco with him when he escaped. Now, when they found him, he
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was on this boat, allegedly, trying to rape this girl. Does What does he claim on that front?
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Well, that he can just deny because he's not caught like red-handed, let's say. So, the way that
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the way that this goes down is this. According to the to her, he rapes her at knife point on her boat.
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Mhm. Later, she Remember we said that they were already looking for Kevin Cooper. Later, she sees a wanted poster
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for Kevin Cooper, and she goes, "Holy crap, that's the guy that raped me." So, she calls and phones the authorities
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letting them know, "Hey, Kevin Cooper is either in this area or at least he was when he did this to me."
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So, he's not caught necessarily red-handed for that. He can just deny that. Now, he's not going to be brought
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up on charges on rape charges against this woman because they're going to be seeking the
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death penalty in these murder charges and attempted murder of this young boy. So, while he is at trial,
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Cooper, he simply claims that he left the hideout house. He went back down and and these are his
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words, quote, "I went back down the hill on foot at night in the same manner as when I walked up the hill to the hideout
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uh following my escape from this prison." He states that along the way he started
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stopping drivers asking them either for directions to Mexico or for a ride to Mexico.
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Now, here's one thing that I was awfully curious about. If the cuz I can only I can only report what was presented at
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trial. I can't report without having speaking having spoke to his defense attorney.
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I can't speak to their tactics or what they tried to present at trial, only what was
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presented at trial. One thing I've often wondered about in this case is, did the
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defense attorney at any point do a call to action by the public and say, "Hey, did any Can anybody confirm this portion
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of Kevin Cooper's story? Were you a motorist that was driving that night and you were stopped or flagged down by this
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man who you saw on foot, and he either asked you for directions or for a ride. Because in my opinion,
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if if we could find some people to corroborate that portion of the story, that might lead you to believe that he
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is telling the truth, and that he Yeah, cuz how did he get to Mexico? Right. Right. So,
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the prosecutor is going to claim that Kevin Cooper murdered the family, drove the vehicle to Long Beach, dumped it
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there, and that he hitchhiked to Mexico. Again, I don't see any This is on the reverse side of this. On
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the opposite side of this, Right. where's the prosecutor presenting people that are willing to testify saying,
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"Hey, I drove this guy to Mexico from Long Beach, or I picked them up in Long Beach." So,
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the way that this goes down, Captain, is it's February 7th, 1985 that the jury begins deliberation. On February 19th,
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1985, the jury convicts Kevin Cooper of murdering Christopher Hughes, Douglas and Peggy Ryan, and their daughter,
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Jessica. And also convicts him of attempted murder of Joshua Ryan. Yeah, and for this, he's going to be
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sentenced to death. Yes. So, we go through that because what has gone on with this case since
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1985 is we have Kevin Cooper who is proclaiming his innocence of these murders from his prison cell on death
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row. And actually, he's almost been executed. There was one time, I think it was Was it 2004?
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Mhm. He was hours away from his execution. They They were going to gas him within
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hours of of when they receive a phone call stating, "You know what? We need to take another look at this. We have some
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things that we need to look at." And that's what I want to do here, Captain, is look through some more of this
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evidence that we didn't get to yesterday and take a look good look at it and try
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to determine, does this point towards him being guilty? Do we have the right guy or
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has there been a murderer out there on the loose all these years, for 30 years? Let's just list some of the pieces of
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evidence that we went through yesterday. Well, the most damning piece of evidence
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is Cooper's own words. He admittedly is at the Hideaway House within yards of the murder scene. Yeah.
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We also have the cigarette butts that were found in the stolen vehicle from the Ryen's house. Yeah, one being a
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regular cigarette butt, one being a rolled cigarette. We know that he rolls cigarettes. He claims that he had
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tobacco from the prison. We also have his footprint or a footprint at the scene of the murders, which kind of
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lines up with the the shoes that they would give you in prison. We also have the potential murder weapon. You know,
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we said that a hatchet was found near the home as if somebody driving the stolen vehicle had just tossed the has-
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hatchet out the window. And Beer's making me a little sloppy. And we we know that this is likely the
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murder weapon because it has some of the victim's blood on it. Right. What it does not have is fingerprints
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from Kevin Cooper on it. Right. We have smudges on the hatchet, but no fingerprints. Now, the sheath to this
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hatchet is found in the hideout house, where he admits to have been staying. We also have people that occupied that
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residence at one time stating the hatchet came from this home. We also have a missing We have some
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missing knives that we didn't discuss yesterday. There's some missing knives according to the owners of this hideout
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house that were supposedly at the home sometime before Kevin Cooper occupied it for those couple days and since the
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murders they've not been able to find these knives. Again, he could have just tossed these
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out as well. With the autopsy showing that the weapons used in these attacks would be a hatchet of some kind or ax
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and then some kind of knife. So, we have now missing knives. The other thing that we have, Captain,
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is we have the survivor, the lone survivor, the young boy stating that he saw three white men. Or
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said possibly Hispanic, but what's reported most often is that he saw three white men and you brought up that he
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said maybe four as well. Regardless, um Kevin Cooper is a single individual Right. and he is not a white man.
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He is not Hispanic, nor would I believe him to be mistaken for either of those descriptions. He's an African-American
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man. Mhm. Um Later, the interesting thing here though is later little Joshua's story changes a
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bit. Where we have him telling Changes a bit. Yeah, we have him saying that bit more than a bit, my friend. Later,
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his story becomes that the person that committed this, all he could see, all Joshua could see, his
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limited memory of the crime, was seeing a shadow figure, a dark shadow figure with possibly bushy hair. Now, I will
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say Mr. Cooper certainly had bushy hair. Yeah. Uh in all those you can see it in
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his arrest picture when when they're walking him to the uh police car. He's got very bushy hair.
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Yeah, see, I wonder if he was just keeping this style cuz it's just getting out of the '70s.
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And maybe like he was really into disco, possibly. I think uh he was into whatever haircut he could get in the
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prison at the time. So, here's the strange thing though. You have to wonder, why does this boy's
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memory change? Okay. Well, no, I mean I hate to laugh, but the the the thing to me is when you have
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you would think now now I'll go back and say this boy was hit on the head. We know that. Mhm. So, the early
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questioning, can we even believe any of that? And if we're if we're to believe any of that, can we believe any of the
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story changing so dramatically? And I just think they almost cross each other out and you should just not view it as
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any evidence as at all. I think you're exactly right. And the reason why I liken this to I've
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never been knocked out, I've never had my throat slit, I've never been attacked in the horrible horrible manner that
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this Joshua boy was attacked in. I've never had to go through a tragedy or such a heinous crime as witnessing
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family members being killed. I could only I can't I can only imagine what that would do to someone, let alone a
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boy that young. Now, what I had to kind of think about is my own perspective, my own life
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experience, and and I liken that to having a big surgery. You know, I've had a couple surgeries in my lifetime, and
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when you're coming out from the medication, there's the there's these little pieces of memories that I have
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coming out from this medication, and it they're they're weird memories. They're memories of, you know,
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Doctor touching you. No, I I saw a person or two in the room. But but then when I'm when I'm
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clear-headed later, Mhm. I have a hard time even figuring out what time that would
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have been, what the person looked like, Mhm. how many people were in the room, things of that nature. And that's what I
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see kind of with his story as well. And I know people are sitting in their garage or their car right now making fun
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of me thinking of Every week, my friend. Nothing tragic, nothing crazy happened to me. I I just trying to put it into
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some get some kind of perspective from my end why this kid's story could change. Let's touch up let's
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Well, the other reason that his story could change is it doesn't fit the narrative of the police. So, let's just
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play devil's advocate and then they go, "Hey, we have this guy. We think he's responsible. So, now we need you to
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testify that you saw a single black man commit these crimes. And this is who you're going to point your finger
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towards." Or you don't even have to say you saw a single black man because that's not what he says. You can just
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say you didn't see three white guys commit this crime. Right. You know, and you could help a young boy along with
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changing that memory by going, "Look, you've son, you've been through a lot. You know, you were your your family's
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been wiped out. You were almost killed yourself. You were in so much pain. You were in and out of consciousness all
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night long. What we think has happened here is that the the people that you think were responsible, that you think
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were in the home at the time of the murders were not people that you actually saw in the home at the time of
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the murders. These were rescuers. These were people coming to your aid later at a later time. And you were going in and
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out of consciousness during this time. That is where those memories were created.
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Let's talk about the sheath. Because that sheath was found in the hideout house. Now, there's been people that
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have said the police might have planted that sheath. Why? Because they searched the hideout house and did not find that
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sheath upon the first search. Right. It's kind of like the keys. Yeah, so the the problem I have with that I
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think that's a leap by by people on the outside. I think that's that's a leap by people saying, "Look, they
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searched the house the first time. If it was there in plain sight, they would have found it." Well, I want to throw a
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couple things into the mix here. It was the home The home was searched by deputies, first of all. Second of all,
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at the time that they searched the home, they may not know that this sheath that
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came from a hatchet, it's obviously from a hatchet, is of any importance at all.
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When you're doing this initial search by, let's go ahead and assume un- inexperienced law enforcement agents,
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Mhm. deputies, low guys on the totem pole, going into this house, they may not have a clear understanding of what
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took place at the murder scene. Right. They didn't see a bloody hatchet, so they said, "Well, this doesn't matter."
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You You send out deputies to canvas the area and look for obvious signs of evidence.
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Right. That's not an obvious sign. I agree with you there. Yeah, they're looking for a
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a man covered in blood. Mhm. Oh, well, we didn't find that, or We did not find him. So, what happens is
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later, you have the medical examiner who says that, "Look, a lot of these wounds
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were caused by either a hatchet or an axe." Well, now, all of a sudden, a hatchet sheath becomes something of
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importance. Two, you have a civilian who found the hatchet covered in dried blood
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and had victim's hair on it. Yeah, we have fingerprints, but not prints, but smudges. Correct.
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But, so the other thing, too, is there wasn't there a eyewitness um that was on that road or close to the
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road of the house and saw um three white men driving a station wagon, the the car that was stolen? And this is
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big because this points to Kevin Cooper being innocent because we have the Ryans' vehicle that was stolen. And yes,
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I know that I pointed out that he did have enough time to steal the the vehicle, go to Long
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Beach, make his way to Mexico, and check into a hotel by 4:00 that afternoon. He
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had enough time to physically do that. The problem with that is we have eyewitnesses saying that there
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were white men inside that vehicle. We don't have any eyewitnesses saying I saw a single black man driving that vehicle.
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Let's talk about that car a little bit, because that car is, like I said, something that is very, very tricky when
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you want to say that Kevin Cooper is guilty. Well, let's just you know, to be clear, there was a husband and their
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wife and they're in the car. The husband believes he saw three individuals. The wife believes she saw four.
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Now, I believe the husband was driving, so I'd put a little more weight into what the wife saw, because she wasn't
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driving. She didn't have to pay attention on that level. We also have a situation, Captain, where we have an
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eyewitness who states that they saw the station wagon the following day. So, we know that the the vehicle was not found
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until about a week later. Right. Where was the other person that saw the vehicle? Okay. Well,
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let me kind of go through this thought first. The The thought being this. With with the vehicle not being found
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until a week later, we know where Kevin Cooper was during that time period. We know he was already in Mexico. So, if we
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assume that he killed these people, stole the vehicle, dumped it in Long Beach, he would have done that before
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going to Mexico. Mhm. What we don't know is where that car was for the next few days.
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The problem being now that there's a witness stating that that car was being operated the day after Kevin Cooper says
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that he was already in Mexico. Right. So, it doesn't necessarily matter where the vehicle is as long as it's not in
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Mexico. I don't know that this witness has, um, stated who they thought was driving the
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vehicle at the time that they saw it, but again, regardless, it doesn't matter who was driving it because we know Kevin
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Cooper could not have been driving it. Okay. Also, further information, further eyewitnesses regarding this car. There's
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a witness who states, this is from a woman who states that she is scared of being identified as this witness, but is
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willing to testify under oath if necessary. She states that she saw three white people in the Ryans' car and they
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were driving pretty crazy. All right. They said that they almost crashed into her vehicle. Her grandmother was with
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her that day. She wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle that almost
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smashed into them. Hours later, this is after the murders were discovered, the authorities
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broadcasted a description of the missing car with its license plate. So, the person the person that's the
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woman and her grandmother they see this broadcast. They go out to the car, they get the slip of paper from
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which they wrote down the license plate number, and they say it was exactly the same.
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And why do you think this is important? Oh, well, this is really important because
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if we go back to the eyewitness, the sole survivor, Joshua. His early statements are I saw
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three white men. All right, we're back. Captain. Cheers to you, Captain. Hey, there's a It was a really great
00:23:04
off-the-record this week. So, if you want to check that out, we did a kind of talked a little bit of the
00:23:09
update of Kenneka Jenkins. So, check that out on Stitcher Premium. That was a highly demanded update. Highly
00:23:17
requested. So, one piece of evidence, Captain, that we have not got to yet, which
00:23:23
I originally thought this could hold the whole key because, I'll tell you, for the past week or so looking at this
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case, I have been swayed every which way. I One minute I think he's guilty, the next
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minute he's innocent, next minute stuff was planted, nope, he's guilty again. Yeah, and
00:23:44
like you said, you sway every way. You go, "Ah, he's guilty, he's innocent. Maybe O.J. did it. Maybe it was Casey
00:23:50
Anthony. I'm not really for sure at this point. I'm very confused." The thing that we didn't get to, though, is a
00:23:55
piece of evidence that I don't think could have been planted. And it is hair. There was hair that was
00:24:03
found in the little girl's hand. She had was clutching some hair when her lifeless body was found. Now, I've heard
00:24:15
and read this hair as being described as blonde or brown hair. Yeah. Remember I said yet earlier that
00:24:25
one thing I don't like about this case is people presenting this case often have an agenda. They often want to sway
00:24:32
you in their direction. And one thing I've noticed is this hair being described as blonde. Well, guess what?
00:24:40
If she ripped If she ripped this hair in defense off of one of her attackers or the killer,
00:24:50
and it's blonde hair, well, we know Kevin Cooper does not have blonde hair. And actually, he probably has the
00:24:55
furthest thing from what would be described as blonde hair. So, I wanted to know for certain what color was this
00:25:04
actual hair because like I said, I think some people have an agenda and they describe things in certain ways to sway
00:25:11
you to their side. This I found a picture of the hair. It's not blonde hair. I can tell there's no way
00:25:19
anyone ever should describe this hair as blonde hair. Now, what I will say is it's appears to be brown hair to me and
00:25:28
not a light brown. A pretty as brown as brown can be. It's the most normal brown hair I've seen. Get down,
00:25:36
Charlie Brown. What I can tell you though, I do not need a microscope, I do not need a fancy degree or a laboratory
00:25:44
to compare hairs plucked from Mr. Cooper's head to the hair that was found in this little girl's hands
00:25:52
to tell you that they're not the same hair. I can tell I can Mhm. From pictures of the hair found and
00:25:57
from pictures of seeing him, Kevin Cooper, I can tell you that that hair does not match that person. You don't
00:26:04
want to run this through like some computer program or possibly call up somebody, good friend Rami
00:26:10
Malek, and and ask for a second opinion? I I I'm telling you I'm right on this. It's not Kevin Cooper's hair and I think
00:26:18
we can get back to that in just a little bit cuz I do want to discuss this other
00:26:22
guy. What? There's another guy? Yes. There's an There's another guy. Who is this guy? Well, some people that
00:26:30
point to Kevin Cooper being innocent have also pointed to somebody else as a likely suspect.
00:26:36
Okay. Okay, so this is what we know about this this person. This turd stain. On June 9th, a woman named Diana Roper
00:26:44
calls the Sheriff's Department. Okay, and she tells the Sheriff's Department that her boyfriend, Lee Farrow,
00:26:52
had come home in the early hours of that day. Okay, he comes home basically in the middle of the night. Right. All
00:26:59
right. He arrived at their home in an unfamiliar station wagon. A vehicle she identifies as a station
00:27:06
wagon and she doesn't know she's never seen it before. Right. She also says that he is with some people who stayed
00:27:14
in the car. She doesn't know who these people are, cannot identify them. She said that he came into the home, he
00:27:20
changed out of his uh overalls or bib overalls, whatever you want to call them. She said that he left these on the floor
00:27:29
of their closet. Mhm. He was not wearing a t-shirt when he had come home. He left
00:27:35
the house about some overalls, you know, without a t-shirt. He's just peacocking
00:27:42
all over the place. That's how he arrived at the home, correct? Mhm. She says that he left a short time
00:27:47
later and did not return for a long time, okay? Now, both this woman, Diana, and her father both have concluded that
00:27:57
the overalls were were covered in blood. Right. Two two eyewitnesses. Yes. And so Diana turns
00:28:06
she turns in this evidence to the sheriff's department. Mhm. She gives it to a deputy and she
00:28:12
says, "Hey, look, not only am I giving you what I believe to be blood-covered bib overalls,
00:28:18
but I'm telling you I think that my uh boyfriend, Lee Faro, I think that he was involved in those murders." She also
00:28:27
stated that a bloody hatchet found beside the road, the hatchet that we've discussed, matched a hatchet that was
00:28:34
now missing from her garage. Mhm. Like I said, a hatchet could be found in almost any
00:28:40
home. So, the police department, the sheriff's department, they They tested the overalls for blood that were turned
00:28:48
into them. Good job. Well, I don't know that all of them are to blame because what we have here,
00:28:57
these items were This item was thrown away in a dumpster. Okay, so it was not tested nor was it
00:29:04
given to Cooper's defense. So, phone logs would later back up a sergeant's story that he had retrieved
00:29:15
them and made multiple attempts to turn them over to uh the lead investigators. Right. And why wouldn't they take them?
00:29:23
I I cannot answer for them. Oh, it's probably cuz they have a suspect that's black. So, he's been he's been
00:29:30
you know, this problem's been brought to this person who collected this this item
00:29:34
and he's saying, "Look, all I can do is attempt to turn it over to investigators. If they don't want to do
00:29:40
anything with it, I can't make them." Now, about this Furrow guy, Lee Furrow, he has a bit of a background. He had
00:29:50
actually been released from a state prison earlier that year. He had been part of what
00:29:57
what has been dubbed and I should shouldn't have laughed, but Yeah, yeah. I'm making, you know, You're
00:30:01
a sensitive prick. He has been he was a part of a murderous gang. Okay, that's what it's referred to in the
00:30:09
newspaper. Mhm. But he was given a short sentence in return for turning state's evidence against the leader of this gang
00:30:17
who was, I guess, sentenced to death for this this murder that they were convicted of. So, Furrow told friends
00:30:25
that while he was a part of this gang, he had killed a girl, cut up her body, and thrown her body parts into the Kern
00:30:32
River. Now, this Here's another bit of thing about this Lee guy, right? The station
00:30:38
wagon that didn't turn up until about a week after the killings. Right. This is near the home of Lee's stepmother who
00:30:46
lived in Long Beach. Right. So, okay, back to these gang murder. It's just one, right? From my
00:30:53
understanding, it's the murder of one person, yes. A murder of one person, but how many
00:30:56
people were involved in the murder of this one person? Um that is not clear. But it's more than two?
00:31:04
Well, it would at least be Lee and this guy named Clarence Ray Allen. Okay, so So, at least two.
00:31:11
Yes. The only reason why I bring this up is because we have It's one thing to have
00:31:15
criminal a criminal past, right? Cuz we know that Kevin Cooper does. He would break into
00:31:22
cars, he break into other things. And but now we have a past of somebody that committed a murder
00:31:30
or was at least involved in a murder. Right, with a group of people. Yes, and I'm assuming that it's more than just
00:31:36
him and Clarence Ray Allen because it's referred to as a murderous gang, meaning
00:31:41
a group of people that have committed at least one murder. Right. Now, the the information that I have
00:31:49
and this is a very squishy, unconfirmed, speculative information. Squishy. Okay, so this information is
00:31:59
that the gang leader was Clarence Ray Allen. And he had raised the same kind of horses, the same kind of Arabian horses
00:32:08
as the Ryans. Now, remember they were not only raising horses, but they were training them and
00:32:13
showing them as well. Mhm. So, there's like I said, squishy, unconfirmed evidence that Allen may have had
00:32:22
previously threatened to kill Peggy Ryan. Why? That they had some kind of fight over a
00:32:29
horse sale that had gone wrong. Squishy. That he he felt that he was cheated. Mhm. Um and that she was
00:32:38
uh you know, threatened. Threatened her life. Okay, let me try to unpack this a little
00:32:44
bit. So, we have eyewitness that claims that he was possibly in their vehicle the night of the murders. Came home
00:32:52
roughly at a little bit after the night at the time of the murders. Came home to change, was in overalls,
00:32:59
was covered in blood. These were never tested. We also have the person that he lived with, the girlfriend saying,
00:33:05
"Hey." And also the hatchet that is the murder weapon, {quote} {unquote}, looks kind of like the hatchet that's missing
00:33:12
from our house. Uh also, by the way, we're into horses. He also possibly sold Well, the gang leader.
00:33:20
The gang leader. That he was supposedly a member of might have been into these horses.
00:33:25
Right. And this gang that he was involved in also murdered somebody as a gang. So, I mean, this just
00:33:34
How many more things do you need to tie to this guy? Well, there I mean, there are there
00:33:38
actually a few more things. So, there there is at least one eyewitness, if not two or three eyewitnesses, that claim to
00:33:47
have seen three white men at a bar at some point after the murders. And they believed that at least one of them was
00:33:56
covered in what appeared to be blood. Like had blood on their clothing. But people, you know, you would just
00:34:02
assume if you're out in public and you see somebody like that that it's you're not seeing blood. It's paint or it's
00:34:09
you know, maybe they were hunters and had it was animal blood. So, we have that statement. We what we
00:34:15
don't have from those eyewitnesses is them saying one of those men was Lee Furrow. We don't have that. We just have
00:34:23
three unidentified Caucasian males at a bar, one of them being covered in what was thought to be blood.
00:34:30
Well, we also have his girlfriend saying he came back with this station wagon with other people in it. And we also
00:34:37
have the couple that says, "Hey, we saw a station wagon with at least three white males in it." Well, and another
00:34:43
thing against Lee Furrow is this. Remember the vehicle that was being driven by the woman and her grandmother
00:34:50
was in the car as well, and they said they almost got into an accident because the station wagon was driving so wildly.
00:34:57
Well, she was later shown a photograph of Lee Furrow. To which she would say, "I believe that
00:35:05
guy matches the description of the guy I saw driving Right, right. the vehicle at the time."
00:35:11
So, now we need to talk about the shirt though. Remember we mentioned he came home, Lee Furrow, according to his
00:35:16
girlfriend Diana, comes home in the middle of the night, he's not wearing a shirt, and he's got these overalls on
00:35:23
that are covered in blood. He leaves those at the house, changes his clothes, and if we think that these three men are
00:35:30
the same as the three men later spotted at the bar, he's getting cleaned up to go out for
00:35:36
a celebratory drink after having killed these people. Yeah. He showed them a lesson after they screwed us on horses.
00:35:44
Well, one big, big piece of evidence against Kevin Cooper would be a T-shirt that was found, okay? So, the problem
00:35:53
with this T-shirt though is we have Diana Roper, who is the girlfriend of Lee Furrow, stating he
00:36:01
comes home without a T-shirt, and oh yeah, by the way, the bloody T-shirt that was found beside
00:36:07
the road leading from the murder house, Mhm. that was his shirt. It matches a shirt that I had purchased for him at
00:36:15
one time. She states that it's a Fruit of the Loom shirt uh with one of those, you know, it's a T-shirt with a breast
00:36:21
pocket. Right. And she stated that she knew this to be his shirt, because she purchased it for him.
00:36:29
Right. So, how's this against The big problem with this shirt, though, is it has blood evidence on it. Mhm. Okay?
00:36:41
And the problem with this evidence on the shirt Mhm. it points toward Kevin Cooper
00:36:49
his blood being on that shirt. Well, spank my ass and call me Susan. So, this is difficult because it's like you
00:36:57
were like you said before, you said earlier um you know, after so many times it can't
00:37:02
be a coincidence anymore. Mhm. But there it seems like there was as many coincidences pointing towards Kevin as
00:37:09
there are pointing to somebody else. I agree with you, but the but the the thing that Cooper's not going to be able
00:37:15
to shake is this T-shirt. And I say that because the problem with this T-shirt, and I I think I called it
00:37:21
yellow, but it's I I see a picture of it, and I think of it as yellow. It's often described as a tan
00:37:27
T-shirt. So, if anybody out there knows about this case, and I'm talking about the one in the same,
00:37:33
okay? They're the same shirt. Okay, well. Now, I don't trust you with that hair sample. Well,
00:37:40
if I showed you this picture, you would say that this shirt could be yellow. Anyway, regardless of what color this
00:37:46
shirt is, the problem for Kevin Cooper is this shirt contains his blood, and it also
00:37:53
contains the blood of Doug Ryan, of the father. Right. So, if this shirt was discarded near the
00:38:01
crime scene, and it has the suspect's blood, Kevin Cooper, and the victim's blood on it, he's looking pretty damn
00:38:08
guilty at this point. Right. This shirt is a big piece of contention for both the defense
00:38:15
and the prosecution. And not so much at his trial, at Kevin Cooper's trial, but later at his appeals, why? Because they
00:38:24
tested Here's what Kevin Cooper states. He states, "Look, they took my blood and
00:38:31
at some point they put it on this T-shirt." Okay. They put my blood on this T-shirt.
00:38:36
It didn't It didn't come from my veins, it didn't come from an artery, it didn't
00:38:42
come out of my body and go onto that shirt. It went into a tube somewhere and then from the tube it went onto the
00:38:48
T-shirt. Right. And therefore it was planted by law enforcement or somebody and that's how they've put me behind
00:38:56
bars and that's how they're going to kill me. The evidence to suggest that he might be
00:39:01
right is this, that later they test this blood and there's this Okay, so they find EDTA
00:39:11
Right, right. in this sample. Okay, what is this? This is This is a preservative that is used to
00:39:18
preserve blood samples such as the one that was taken from Kevin Cooper years ago.
00:39:23
Right. I think they found this in a couple of the samples with O.J. as well. Well, Cooper states that the EDTA that's
00:39:32
found in the blood on the on the shirt in that sample is proof that they took it from the
00:39:39
tube, that they tried to preserve my blood, preserve the sample and then they dumped it onto the shirt.
00:39:45
The problem with that is EDTA is a common compound found in hand creams, laundry detergent and other
00:39:54
everyday products. So, that being said, if this shirt had ever encountered any of these products like
00:40:02
laundry detergent, there would be some presence of EDTA found possibly in that sample. And has
00:40:11
the defense ever tested this shirt to see if there's any other blood? You know, because you know, they can
00:40:17
we have two blood samples here, but maybe there's a third. From my understanding and from looking at the
00:40:25
shirt and from evidence produced from the shirt, I believe they've only found two kinds
00:40:32
of blood on the shirt. One coming from Kevin Cooper and one coming from Doug Ryan. So, where do we go from here?
00:40:39
Well, that's the problem. Because You're the problem. the shirt when first presented with this evidence of the
00:40:45
shirt, Mhm. you go, okay, this makes him guilty. His blood was found on the shirt. Then years
00:40:51
later, you go, wait, they found EDTA in this sample? Right. Well, then it's planted, so he's
00:40:56
innocent. If it was planted, he has to be innocent. Or is there somehow that this guy killed these people and the
00:41:02
police just thought they were doing the right thing by making a case against him.
00:41:08
So, Well, the EDTA, in my opinion, actually doesn't clear anything up. Because as
00:41:15
much as it points toward it being planted, it also points toward it well, it could just be happenstance that it's
00:41:21
there. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I really want to know when Joshua started changing his story.
00:41:29
Because I think there's something there. You know, if you if you come out of this
00:41:35
traumatic situation and you say, hey, I think it was at least three individuals,
00:41:41
regardless of color, that once you start changing the story to, well, I think it was you know, one
00:41:47
person and you know, it was a black man or a man of color. So, I think once you figure out where that
00:41:55
story starts changing because there's again, so many For all the pieces of evidence pointing
00:42:02
toward somebody, there's pointing toward somebody else as well. Well, I Here's one thing that I don't like about this
00:42:07
case. It's the racism factor. Okay? I think that I think race and racism gets brought up in this case a lot because we
00:42:16
have this individual that might be wrongly convicted and he happens to be African-American. Right. And what I
00:42:24
Here's the problem with that. The problem is that all this does is murky the waters. All it does is confuse
00:42:30
things and cloud things. In my opinion, I don't think that the police went out and sought a black man
00:42:38
for this crime. I think if they had any prejudice about them, it was against Kevin Cooper, not against an
00:42:46
African-American man. Right. And what I mean by that is they can prove that he was near the crime scene
00:42:53
roughly about the time the crime went down. Very near. Yes. And so therefore, I think that if there was any prejudice,
00:43:00
it was against Kevin Cooper, not against an African-American man, if that makes sense.
00:43:05
Mhm. And so I think when people bring up racism and bring up this kind of thing,
00:43:10
it only clouds It doesn't help anybody solve this any faster because the problem is we're running out of time.
00:43:17
Mhm. This guy will be likely will be executed at some point. We stated that in the early 2000s, he was hours away
00:43:25
from being executed. And if you allow something like racism to get involved in this,
00:43:32
push that aside. Please push this aside because I think some of the evidence might be able to point you to what
00:43:38
actually happened here. Now, we should we should mention, too. Well, I think what you're trying to say
00:43:42
is that they get a couple pieces of evidence, right? And it's going against Kevin Cooper.
00:43:51
Does not matter what color his skin is. It's just the fact that we have this heinous murder we're trying to pin it on
00:43:57
somebody. Right. And they got cloudy in in that vision and had nothing really to do. These
00:44:02
heinous murders that you look if I believe if Kevin Cooper was a white man, this still would have happened the
00:44:09
same way it happened. Oh, I agree. I think that if police thought that I were in that hideout house at that time, that
00:44:16
they would say, "You know what? This is our guy." But it right, but the difference here is they wouldn't have to
00:44:21
have the key eyewitness change their story so dramatically. Now, did we mention that he has appealed this time
00:44:29
and time again? Yeah, and we Well, I think we have and I think we've also mentioned that he
00:44:35
has claimed his innocence throughout. Correct. Now, one part of the appeals process, remember we talked about that
00:44:43
hair that was found in little Jessica's hand. Yeah. Okay. That hair was part of his appeals
00:44:49
because they wanted to test that hair to prove that it didn't come from Kevin Cooper.
00:44:55
And it didn't come from Kevin Cooper. We know that to be the truth. Right. Here's
00:44:59
the problem with this, though. The hair did not come from the killer. The hair what belonged to victims.
00:45:07
It was victims' hair that was in Jessica's hand. So, this kind of backfired on his appeals
00:45:15
because it didn't point to the killer at all. Didn't help find out who the killer
00:45:20
was. We already know who the victims were. Well, in this case, it's so difficult
00:45:23
because we could have done four parts on the speculation and debating that, and that's not really what we're try We're
00:45:29
trying to get a little bit closer to the truth. And I think, um, you know, anybody that
00:45:34
has opinions on this case, please go to our website True Crime Garage.com and check out the blog on this case. Well,
00:45:41
the thing the problem with this case is this, Cap. We could have discussed it 4 or 5 hours.
00:45:47
But it would have It would have been We only recorded 2 hours of it. It The The problem is each little point of
00:45:55
evidence is a discussion topic. It's something that you could argue for or against the guilt of Kevin Cooper.
00:46:04
And when you start pouring through these item by item by item, it gets awfully lengthy. We didn't want anybody to have
00:46:10
to sit and listen to us pour through each and every single item. The reason being
00:46:16
is that in my opinion, let's throw this I want to take the shirt the the shirt with the blood evidence found on it,
00:46:24
right? Let's put that in its own little compartment. As planted evidence. Well, no, let's put
00:46:30
that in its own little compartment for now. All the other evidence, and there's lots
00:46:36
of it, none of it specifically names Kevin Cooper as having killed these people.
00:46:44
However, by the same token, none of it exonerates him. Mhm. None of it excludes him.
00:46:53
So, there there is the big issue. There's the big problem right there. Now, let's go back to the shirt.
00:47:00
Was Kevin Cooper's blood on the shirt? Yes. 100% yes. How did it get there? What Did
00:47:05
it come from a tube? We don't know. Did it come from his body? We don't know. put it on that shirt, if it was planted,
00:47:12
I hope that they come forward one day and say, "Hey, I did this and I was wrong." They probably won't, but they
00:47:18
should. Well, there's an individual uh his last name is I can't think of it right at this
00:47:25
moment. Um but we we know who it was. There was a there was a man that worked on this case uh that worked on some of
00:47:32
the blood evidence, and I will say this, there seems to be some shaky things going on regarding that operation.
00:47:44
Whether this could have been tampered with with it whether it was planted, Right. there's some shaky business going
00:47:51
on there, and that makes me not trust this shirt so so It makes me have a hard time trusting
00:47:58
this shirt. And the best opinion I can give on this case and as far as the guilt of Kevin Cooper, I'm not going to
00:48:05
lie to you. I think there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that he might be guilty.
00:48:12
But I don't have anything to pinpoint him 100% other than that T-shirt. And I don't trust I don't know that I
00:48:20
trust that evidence. Right. I don't trust a lot of the evidence. I'm just going to break my part down real quick.
00:48:27
The way I view it is you don't kill a whole family to steal a car. We have other people that are tied to
00:48:34
the to the family, have other possible motives. And as much speculation as there out
00:48:42
there, again, you don't kill a whole family to steal a car. You possibly kill a whole family and
00:48:49
steal the car because they did your gang wrong. And and in the autopsy when they when the
00:48:56
coroner comes out and says that they think that all these attacks were done within
00:49:03
a minute or so, Mhm. that that points to me as evidence that this wasn't done by one person or
00:49:10
couldn't have been done with by by one person. It would be if that medical examiner is right. It would be very very
00:49:18
difficult in my opinion for one person to have committed all of these murders in such a short amount of time as has
00:49:26
been suggested by the medical examiner. The other thing that I take issue with is that the medical examiner also
00:49:34
suggests the autopsy suggests the use of multiple weapons. The use of multiple weapons. And not
00:49:41
that not to say that one person couldn't have entered the home brandishing multiple weapons.
00:49:47
However, I just find it unlikely. I think multiple weapons to me points more likely to multiple assailants.
00:49:57
Before we leave, Captain, I want to wrap up with some words from the lone survivor, from Joshua Bryant,
00:50:04
and his thoughts on this case. He states, "I wish I could remember. I don't know if they think I have the
00:50:13
answers or that it's in my head. It won't come back to me." Josh says he doesn't remember seeing
00:50:20
Kevin Cooper that night, only a shadow. And he also says, quote, "I want to know
00:50:26
if he really did it. I couldn't live with myself knowing that there could have been a chance that he didn't do it.
00:50:33
That's not right." Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Till next week. Be good. Be
00:50:53
kind. And don't litter.