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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:02:18
with me as always is a man who just renewed his subscription to corn cob TV here is the captain Chu cha Cho Choo
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it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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a [Music] friend today is another great day in the garage we are still sipping on this fine
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beer from the good Folks At Low reses brewing in Chicago it's called Bob's your uncle which is a fine British pub
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ale there are notes of bread and biscuits with some toffee to smooth things out a little this is a fantastic
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Brown beer on tap at low reses right now A BV 5.5% garage grade four out of five
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bottle caps and cheers to these fine folks for supporting the garage a shout out to Olivia Peterson in West Fargo
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North Dakota and a big we like your jib to Christy in Vancouver Washington next up a cheers to Katie Keon in Aurora
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Ontario and last but certainly not least we have Amy and Guam everyone we mentioned helped us out with this week's
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beer fund and for that we thank you yeah bwe Ru n beer run thank you so much for
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supporting the show you want to support the show go to iTunes and leave a festar
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review we would love you forever and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] the Browns Chicken Massacre
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unfortunately was not the first time Illinois had experienced such a tragedy you have the St Valentine's Day Massacre
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which occurred on Valentine's Day 1929 in Chicago with seven victims left dead the Browns Chicken case taking
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place in 1993 but sadly it would not be the last of its kind experienced in the greater
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Chicago area we touched a little bit yesterday Captain on the importance of holdback information and what could be
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considered holdback information in this case the hold back information in the Browns Chicken Massacre to me was kind
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of different than what we have come accustomed to what's so great here is that we have no Witnesses now I say
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that's great that's obviously a big problem for the investigation you want witnesses witnesses will help you solve
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this thing faster putting eyes on anything and then relaying those details and that information to the
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investigators can only help solve this case faster however what we have here is we don't have anybody that was in the
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restaurant that day or night that is saying look this seemed suspicious this seemed odd this guy looked bad I think
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this guy was walking into the place with a gun or as I was leaving and I left the
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parking lot after closing I saw these vehicles there or these people that were still in the store that's we don't have
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that here and on top of that we don't have security footage like you mentioned yesterday exactly right and like we've
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seen in so many other cases where unfortunately these murders or homicides take place at a store or a restaurant we
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often times have a customer or patrons of that restaurant that are saying when I left everything was fine and this was
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the person that was still in the store or this was a person that I saw right before I left in the yogurt shop case we
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talk about several people saying that there were still two guys in the store when the girls closed the yogurt shop
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that night now while I say that having witnesses will help solve your case faster obviously I say here also that
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not having any Witnesses is and can be a good thing it's a good thing for your holdback information because now you
00:06:55
have more pieces that you can hold back from the public that should help you quickly decipher who should be ruled in
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as a possible possible suspect and who should be ruled out and when you're talking about a case of this magnitude
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where we have thousands of tips pouring in we have a lot of people working the case you need it is advantageous to your
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investigation if you have the ability to quickly move on from a potential suspect
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or quickly hone in on a potential suspect aspect and that's what your hold back information is going to help you
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with so with no Witnesses the first item of hold back information and some of this is weird to me Captain because some
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of this may have simply have been happen stance some of it had may have been actual holdback information and we'll go
00:07:49
through these one at a time first thing that we have is the actual exact location of the bodies so in the early
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reports in the early media reports they had all seven bodies in one location of the restaurant and basically
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one corner of the kitchen the northwest corner all in or around that cooler of course we know that was not true we know
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that we have five victims in the freezer which is actually in an entirely different corner of the restaurant again
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I don't know if that was a situation of the papers got it wrong and police chose
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not to correct them or if they chose to hold back that information and just say very simply very generically we found
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seven victims they were all found in the kitchen area around this one cooler the
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other thing and you brought this up yesterday was the guns remember the newspapers were
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reporting that it is believed that two guns were used in the commission of these crimes and we know later that that
00:09:00
wasn't the case it was one gun a 38 caliber again I don't know if this was something that the investigators chose
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and strategize to withhold from the media and the public or if it was just a reporter ran with an idea and they chose
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not to correct the narrative well again law enforcement when they're talking to reporters
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because you got to talk to reporters in this case because the Threat Level that the
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community and the locals would feel so you have to pick and choose your words carefully because like you said you
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don't want to give out too much information and have somebody come forward with wrongful confession or
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somebody sending in a tip um that is sending you on a wild goose chase because they they got this information
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from a report and then we have a crime scene detail that was withheld there was a bullet that had
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been fired into one of the smoke hoods so this would be above the cookers or the friar we don't know if this was
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intentionally done by the perpetrator or you know to try to fire a shot in the air to gain control of the people you
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have seven people that you have to control and Corral or if it was happen stance that
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there was a struggle and for whatever reason the gun goes off or the perpetrator is just simply unable to hit
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their Mark but there was a bullet that was fired into one of the smokee heads so that hit something either the
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smokehead or something above one of the cookers another item was the money situation now we've seen this with Los
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crusis bow and several other cases it's very common that the money situation is part of the hold back information what
00:11:01
we have in the Browns Chicken case is we have police informing the media the registers were empty we have two cash
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registers both were found empty the safe had been opened and money taken from the
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safe the only money that they recovered from the Browns Chicken restaurant was $1,000 the $11,000 that remained was not
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because the perpetrators failed to find this money they they just couldn't gain access to it so it was on one of those
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timers so this safe had several different compartments a compartment where you can place things mainly cash
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but it also had a compartment that was locked down via timer and you could access money by typing in a code and it
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would release a small amount of money like you could request 21s or 520s I don't know what denominations were
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allowed for but basically you could not access that money without going past this timer so that $1,000 remained in
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this compartment now I don't believe that they released the exact amount of money that had been taken now that could
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be considered holdback information the exact amount but also I found in many cases and I and I know youve found this
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too Captain I think that often times they are not law enforcement is not incredibly precise on the exact amount
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of money that was taken yeah I'm sure if they brought in like a financial forensic investigator they could come up
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with the amount to the penny based on sales and receipts but if that is not clear at the end of the day law
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enforcement just knows knows that there was some money taken and does it really affect the investigation if it was
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$5,000 taken or $6,000 taken right it it could affect your investigation if it's
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a very you know not such a round number right if if if one individual knew that exactly
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$2,011 was stolen that night then that becomes of particular interest but you're exactly right you'd have to bring
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in somebody to figure out and decipher exactly how much money was missing and the problem then becomes here in this
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situation unfortunately everybody that was working that shift that night became a victim they were killed right and on
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top of that the two owner operators were killed too so you don't have a lot of great leads on getting you to that exact
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amount so therefore it wouldn't actually be hold back information but what we do
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have here is the details of that that safe and the registers they chose to release that information to the media
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and to the public well again law enforcement could talk to possibly a manager or assistant manager or other
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employees to just go hey what's the average sale look like dayt day and what does one look like on a Friday and to
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get does a ballpark figure on what possibly could have been taken now here is a big
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a very big piece of holdback information the detectives were able to figure out a couple things that went
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down that night and this is key for so many reasons first of all there was an actual sale that took place after the
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store had closed so at 908 p.m. one of the registers recorded a sale for a meal this was a chicken klaw and fries Meal
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which was I believe maybe the most popular combo meal that they sold at the time we have the dollar amount that is
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rang in so what happened was they were able to determine that the register had actually been closed down for the
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night remember the doors the main entrances and exits found in the lock position when police arrived and then
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found the bodies and most those you have to lock from the inside you can't just lock them from the outside unless you
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had a key obviously so registers closed and doors locked those are going to be key indicators to investigators
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that the restaurant was successfully closed on time at 900 p.m. for whatever reason even after the registers were
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closed we now have a sale of this meal at 908 p.m. after the store was supposed to be closed closed now they also found
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in one of the trash receptacles a receipt for this meal and in that trash receptacle they also
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found remaining portions of this meal in particular they found chicken this sounds like it would be a
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complete mess but there was some pretty neat and tidy things to this crime scene
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that really helped investigators one knowing that the registers had been successfully closed two this meal or
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what remained of this meal and the receipt that they recovered from the trash receptacle the other trash
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receptacles had been cleaned out so that part of the closing duties had been done
00:16:44
had been completed right you have this piece of information where you are sitting here going okay well let's try
00:16:51
to piece together what we think may have happened we think that the perpetrator or perpetrators May may have gained
00:16:59
access to the store somehow after they closed or remained in the store unseen to other customers when the store closed
00:17:07
and for whatever reason an employee or somebody allowed this late order to be rang in food prepared and served after
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the restaurant had actually closed the thing is there's a chance there's a strong chance that that meal and that
00:17:26
receipt have everything to do with your investigation yeah you could get a fingerprint off that or obviously later
00:17:33
on DNA evidence from the from the actual food so police were working on a couple
00:17:40
of theories they had a couple working theories here they weren't silent about this
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to the media the one that they were most vocal about was they had said that we believe this is a robbery gone wrong an
00:17:57
armed robbery that went wrong and what they surmised could have happened was that per or perpetrators take the money
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after corralling and controlling the employees and the owners and then become frustrated when they can't gain access
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to that last $1,000 and either a struggle takes place or someone is taken out one of the
00:18:26
workers which would be witness was taken out and now you have witnesses and then
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they take out the other witnesses that was their general theory that we couldn't gain access to the $1,000 now
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we're flipping out and a problem breaks out and this thing just got really bad really quick maybe they showed up never
00:18:47
intending to kill anybody just wanted to clean the place out and were frustrated
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when they couldn't do so and like you said you have seven victims so we have seven eyewitnesses to this robber Roby
00:18:58
that might not be that big of a deal to the perpetrators but once something happens and one of the victims now
00:19:06
becomes a murder victim now you have another six eyewitnesses that they felt like they had to dispose of now one
00:19:13
theory that you cannot dismiss and you touched on this yesterday Captain and this is something that I find to be
00:19:21
fascinating you also could have the situation where this was personal maybe somebody wanted revenge and like you
00:19:29
said maybe they thought you know what let's take the money anyway we're here anyway let's clean this place out or
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let's clean out this place and make it look like the motive was something else right to jack up the investigation now
00:19:44
remember this whole idea money or something personal would be very similar to what
00:19:51
we spoke about when we discussed the Lane Bryant shooting that's in Tinley Park in another suburb of Chicago this
00:20:00
was a mass murder and armed robbery at a Lane Bryant outlet in Brookside Marketplace in Tinley Park that occurred
00:20:08
in February of 2008 and in that case sadly we end up with five dead one injured who the killer attempted to
00:20:16
execute the gunman was later described as a black man with thick Corn Road hair and a receding hairline and a a single
00:20:25
braid that came down the front of his face or near his cheek in that case was always believed to be a robbery
00:20:35
gone arai police are on record saying we believe this was a robbery gone arai that one of the hostages taken called
00:20:43
911 the gunman freaks out and and starts shooting people armchair detectives and
00:20:50
people that we spoke with were quick to point out hey there's all these little weird things with inside this case to
00:20:57
consider could is it possible that there was a hit involved or was it possible that this was not a robbery gone aai as
00:21:06
the police said and that this person goes into the Lane Bryant with the purpose of killing one or more of these
00:21:13
people but kills all of them or attempts to do so to cover up who the actual Target was well and think about this if
00:21:22
you're law enforcement if you just have if somebody breaks into somebody's house
00:21:28
and kills them and and takes nothing or or kills somebody in their car you start
00:21:34
with the Inner Circle and you start working out if you believe that the crime is not targeted in this case then
00:21:44
you're looking for almost an infinite amount of suspects and it's not crazy that these things
00:21:51
actually happen or that people would suspect this in any of these cases you know I was reviewing a case just the
00:21:57
other day where a woman hired two men to kill her husband he was killed inside their home and of course she tells them
00:22:05
make sure you ransack the place before you leave there's been a string of burglaries here in our neighborhood it
00:22:12
will look like he stumbled upon this Breakin and he was attacked and killed not that it was something personal where
00:22:21
a hired hit right so it's not out of the realm of possibility now that Lane Bryant case was our episode epis True
00:22:28
Crime garage episodes 200 and 2001 that case is is one of the cases that has intrigued me for years since
00:22:37
back in 2008 it's a very fascinating case and one that I think we both believe is very solvable but for
00:22:44
whatever reason it just hasn't been yet it's rumored that they have DNA in that case so maybe we get something that that
00:22:51
that breaks here this year or 2023 the year of got him yeah let's make it happen let's let's let's cuff these
00:22:59
people and bring them in now we do have suspects and we had suspects early on in
00:23:06
this case so this is actually within hours of the case breaking so there was a man that was held for questioning this
00:23:18
was a 23-year-old man he was a former employee of this particular Browns Chicken restaurant this man was let go
00:23:29
he was fired from his job what was stated was that he vowed to seek revenge and actually I I have a portion from one
00:23:39
of the newspapers here that say police raided the house of a 23-year-old former employee and arrested the man at
00:23:47
gunpoint on Saturday afternoon remember they discovered the bodies at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning this man was arrested
00:23:54
Saturday afternoon this after police learned learned that the man had been fired from the restaurant earlier and
00:24:02
had vowed Vengeance so police have a motive they hold this guy they keep him for
00:24:08
questioning they actually went to his house they searched this man's house and they were moved we have the media this
00:24:15
was a media frenzy when the case broke media they're watching this man's house as it's being searched they see police
00:24:24
leaving this man's house with two bags two big bags that they brought out of this guy's house one of the officers has
00:24:34
asked hey did you know did do you got the guy do you got the guy that did this is that what is this what are you
00:24:41
removing from his home what did you guys find and he simply says this is evidence
00:24:46
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hp.com [Music] garage sister won't be quiet screaming the same song All drive and my dad keeps giving me
00:27:56
unsolicited life advice now my mom's taking selfies and tagging my friends and the dog just threw a ball
00:28:10
over my shoes why does none of this bother me could it be this spous gy C the spacious new Volkswagen Atlas it
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Clinic you know where to go all right we are back thank you for joining us here in the garage cheers to
00:29:07
you all and cheers to you the crispiest of the kernel list cheers everybody out there he's back I never left but uh
00:29:17
cheers to you Captain thanks for returning uh this guy though he would not be their only suspect in this case
00:29:27
because what we have here Captain is they are able to hold this man for two days for approximately 48 hours and then
00:29:36
they released him they sent him along his way even though the officer says this is evidence and that's all I'll say
00:29:44
about that the thing is they may have had a motive or could put a motive on this guy for why he would be the
00:29:51
perpetrator of the crime they actually had zero evidence connecting him to the murders they found nothing actually in
00:29:58
his house that connected him to the murders and yes he did vocally tell at least one other person that he was going
00:30:06
to get Vengeance or some kind of Revenge it's not clear it's what he stated you know if he said he was going to kill the
00:30:15
owner or kill the person that fired him or you know egg the place we don't know what type of Revenge he was seeking
00:30:23
because that portion is not reported and probably rightfully so because as it turns out this guy doesn't look so good
00:30:30
after you've talked to him for two days yeah I used to get in trouble for this all the time and I blame Frank Rizzo r i
00:30:36
z zo because there was that famous jerky boy sketch and he would say my wife is sick my kids are sick you you want to
00:30:44
talk about coupon I'll bum this place and I used to make that threat a lot when I was younger and my my Dumber days
00:30:53
now 10 days after the murders we get a additional potential suspects we got three
00:31:02
people that police brought into the station for questioning this is because well and and face it they didn't
00:31:11
have to look very hard for these these person so these individuals were suspects in another case that took place
00:31:19
within a week or so of the Browns Chicken Massacre these suspects had committed some armed
00:31:28
robberies and they were all robberies that were committed in suburbs surrounding Chicago and the reason why
00:31:37
the police were really interested in these three guys is that in all cases the employees were rounded up and forced
00:31:46
into the coolers of those restaurants and businesses yeah makes sense so it it seems like something they've done before
00:31:54
but then this one maybe got out of hand and that's why we have murdered victims now I'm uncertain captain of how long it
00:32:01
took for investigators to determine if if and when and how these guys are just robbers and not actual murderers but at
00:32:12
some point these guys go from looking really good for this to not looking good for it at all what I do want to point
00:32:19
out here too and this is something you can learn from the actions of an actual investigation is what have the police
00:32:27
figured out and what have they not figured out about the crime scene and about the perpetrators well here when
00:32:34
you see one individual being arrested in question for two days and then later a week later or so you find three persons
00:32:42
being arrested it looks to me like police are uncertain or they have evidence that's telling them don't lock
00:32:51
into an idea of how many people committed this crime right don't lock in on if it's one guy two guys or three or
00:32:58
four people that you are looking for in the Browns Chicken case but also if these guys end up not being suspects
00:33:05
that's fine but think about the information that you're probably going to learn during the questioning of that
00:33:12
well how would this go down and and these guys essentially are somewhat of experts when it comes to arm robbery by
00:33:20
the Oney year anniversary of this massacre sadly the case was still unsolved and police were they had
00:33:31
assembled a task force very early in this investigation which consisted of 84 detectives and support staff from 10 law
00:33:40
enforcement agencies including the state police the Chicago Police Department and
00:33:46
the FBI this task force Captain would include more than 100 individuals from 21 law enforcement agencies the task
00:33:56
force Force ultimately within that first year received more than 3,000 tips we said this was going to be a large
00:34:04
complicated investigation and you can see by the 3,000 tips and then them following up on more than 1,000 leads
00:34:12
how complicated this case was police spent more than 400 hours processing the actual crime scene and collected more
00:34:21
than 240 pieces of evidence at the scene and lifted 200 late fingerprints sadly after 365 days while
00:34:32
we had some suspects that may have looked good briefly we don't end up with any arrest there's no court date set for
00:34:39
anybody for a murder trial here after that time period which is tough on the victims families it's tough on law
00:34:46
enforcement it's also tough on the community because this is a tragic situation and we just don't have any
00:34:53
answers after 365 days the task force d dwindled in numbers of course they they send these officers and investigators
00:35:02
onto cases other cases that they acquire throughout that time period so did the tips the tips dwindled as well now after
00:35:12
one year there was a $17,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and a conviction here in
00:35:21
the Browns case police used the one-year anniversary to remind the public they believe that the case was simply
00:35:29
just one phone call away from being solved someone out there knows who the Killer is and hasn't come forward they
00:35:37
go on to say that we're looking for someone who could be an an accessory to the trigger man or someone that the
00:35:45
killer or Killers have talked to about what they have done and they were reminding the public hey we want that
00:35:53
person to contact us well like like the colonel was saying we we have this task force and they're together for a whole
00:36:02
year and yes we don't have a rest yet in the Browns Chicken Massacre but this task force was successful because as
00:36:11
they're questioning individuals and in gathering information in this case they were able to actually make AR rest of 10
00:36:19
to 12 individuals in other cases some other statements that were released to by the police on the one-year
00:36:27
anniversary that I like here Captain they went on to say some of the officers said this offender has caused a lot of
00:36:34
human suffering the task force has compiled thousands of pages of reports and information that has been shared with
00:36:43
police agencies throughout the country The Killers eventually will slip up this case is going to be solved we have some
00:36:53
unfortunate little details in this case yeah there's always these sad little details that you find Captain in these
00:37:00
cases where you're like this victim could have been avoided it it may not this person didn't have to be there that
00:37:08
night or this person was scheduled to be there at the last minute so yeah like an
00:37:14
unfortunate change of events exactly so we have the restaurant owners themselves they had actually just bought
00:37:21
this store months earlier and it was actually the first restaurant the married couple had ever owned it was a
00:37:29
career change for the couple right then we have the cook Maldonado he had just started working
00:37:39
there three weeks prior to the massacre the two teenagers were just part-time employees
00:37:48
and you know one thing that's sad here in that case you go back to 1993 we had 2 million Americans 18 and younger that
00:37:58
made up 2/3 of America's fast food Workforce at the time where most of them were making the federal minimum wage of
00:38:08
just $425 an hour and then we have one of the individuals that was working that night
00:38:16
Rick Solace who was actually filling in for another employee that night after having traded shifts with a fellow
00:38:25
employee so that one of them or both of them could attend events that they wanted to go to on for
00:38:32
Rick a different night and for this employee that particular night well and that's what we talk about with the when
00:38:38
you have a victim there's multiple victims family members co-workers Community but now in this situation you
00:38:47
have these guys that they traded shifts with each other and and that guy has to live with that for the rest of his life
00:38:54
where you know that'd be that'd be difficult for me if if one of my buddies took on my shift and something bad
00:39:02
happened to him uh that'd be very difficult there's always a lot of survivors guilt in these type of cases
00:39:12
in circumstances you touched on something earlier captain that will end up being the Crux of this case in the
00:39:19
investigation and remember police pointed out in interviews shortly after the homicides took place that you know
00:39:27
we have blood evidence here in this case and we've really been working significantly with a lot of blood
00:39:33
evidence and spatter and positional things and directional things involving blood spatter that tell us certain
00:39:41
aspects about a crime and how things went down at a scene and we believe that soon one day that's going to lead to
00:39:49
more DNA technology that can be used in these types of Investigations that was all very very
00:39:57
foretelling in a way because what we have here is after years of the case not being solved there's a lot of pressure
00:40:07
being put on the police department a lot of criticism being thrown there way by the media and by the public because they
00:40:15
wanted this thing solved and they started to think that it would never be solved well meanwhile behind the scenes
00:40:22
police were still working with the idea of hey that big piece of holdback information that we had about the
00:40:29
receipt about the meal being sold after the store closed and the chicken and the
00:40:36
items that were found in that trash receptacle while we couldn't pull any fingerprints from it in
00:40:42
1993 we better save all this stuff because we think one day we might be able to use these items and pull
00:40:50
evidence particularly DNA from them that at some point hopefully we can connect it to an actual suspect and then we know
00:40:57
who was there that night all the while I believe it was about 5 years they kept testing these items that they found in
00:41:05
that trash receptacle eventually after about five years they were able to pull DNA from one of those
00:41:13
pieces of chicken they're not working with genealogy detective work back then so we can't just take this and then work
00:41:21
it for 6 months to 18 months and hopefully figure out family tree that may lead us to the perpetrator but if we
00:41:31
get the right guy or girl or whomever we at least have DNA now that we can start
00:41:36
comparing it to suspects what happens is they actually end up with several confessions in this
00:41:44
case I don't know the total number of confessions that they ended up with but even after the 5-year Mark once they
00:41:52
have this DNA we have confessions from a boyfriend and girlfriend that say that they were involved we have confessions
00:42:00
from two friends uh not related to the boyfriend and girlfriend that admitted to being involved and had done the
00:42:08
killings however Captain what we end up with is in March of 2002 police are going back through and
00:42:17
they are going to kind of toss everything out except for the DNA evidence and look at this case with new
00:42:26
fresh eyes start a new and one thing they had always been really working in this case and it's obvious by the
00:42:34
actions of the investigation remember we had said that 23-year-old former employee was brought in within hours of
00:42:40
the murders and questioned and held for two days his home searched they were always locked in on this idea that the
00:42:48
probability of it being a current employee or former employee they thought was rather high so when they start
00:42:56
investigating this case a new in 2002 one of the first things they were doing was they were contacting all of the
00:43:05
former employees and Associates of known associates of the former employees well in March of 2002 they get
00:43:15
an individual named an Lockett on the phone and an Lockett is somebody that they had interviewed a couple of times
00:43:23
but in March of 2002 she has a different story to tell them than what she's told
00:43:28
them in the past mhm and this time she's telling them I know exactly who did it because the two individuals told me that
00:43:35
they did it so now we have to introduce James dorski and Juan Luna the way that this story works here
00:43:47
Captain is that dorski and Luna told Lockett that they had committed the crimes here's a little little bit of a
00:43:56
problem for investigators this is not the first person to tell them that they had committed the crimes not not Luna
00:44:02
and dorski right but remember they have the other confessions and they've had other people along the way that have
00:44:09
told them hey I think I know who did it but we have all that holdback information so now we can ask her what
00:44:16
are the details that they gave you and do those match anything that maybe somebody in the public wouldn't know yes
00:44:23
and the reason why I cited those two specific confessions the boyfriend and the girlfriend pair and then you also
00:44:30
have the two friends I cited those because police had a hard time moving on from both of those because they both
00:44:39
nailed a lot of the hold back information in fact in one of those cases the detectives were screaming and
00:44:46
shouting hey we got to arrest these guys and take them to court and the prosecutor kept reminding them okay now
00:44:53
keep in mind guys we have the DNA they can say all day and night that they did this and that the um they know
00:45:01
intimate details of the murders or the crimes but their DNA does not match that that is found on the chicken so the
00:45:08
prosecutor did not allow for the arrest in either occasion well one of the problems too with the case not being
00:45:14
solved right away is that hold back information starts leaking out in a small town I mean you you said it
00:45:21
was a village basically less than 50,000 people there's information that's probably getting leaked out and we've
00:45:28
seen that in other investigations as well it just happens unfortunately it's unfortunate but it just happens now in
00:45:36
this case one piece that nobody had gotten right about the hold back information was that and and this is
00:45:46
very sad and disturbing to say all at the same time so I apologize for having to say this but one
00:45:53
piece of holdback information was that one of of the victims vomited as he was being shot or or or
00:46:02
just before he was shot right and these other confessions that they had that detail was missing
00:46:10
from those confessions when they speak with an Lockett and then they start talking to
00:46:16
Luna and dorski that detail is present in those stories thus separating them immediately from anybody
00:46:27
else that they've ever spoken to and then they say to Juan Luna they're they're interviewing him at his
00:46:35
home I believe it might have been right in front of his home take this swab and just rub it on the inside of your mouth
00:46:41
here we put it in this tube no big deal we're asking everybody to do this we're asking anybody that we talk to to do it
00:46:48
and he willingly agrees and he swabs the inside of his cheek and it takes some time of course but after they check that
00:46:56
swab and then compare it to the DNA found on the chicken it's a match so now we have a DNA match putting Juan Luna at
00:47:04
the scene later he gives a confession that puts James dorski there with him they are both the gunmen in this
00:47:12
confession we have an Lockett who says that Juan Luna did it and James dorski did it and they told me the detail about
00:47:20
the victim vomiting and so all these things are matching up eventually James dorski gives a confession as well the
00:47:28
short of it here Captain is that we end up with two individuals as being present
00:47:34
there two individuals involved and responsible for the murder of seven individuals and they end up being tried
00:47:42
and tried separately now while this case took place the murders took place in 1993 the arrests do not occur
00:47:52
until May of 2002 this this is after they get the DNA sample back right almost 10 years and then we don't have
00:48:00
trials that start until one trial started in 2007 and the other started in 2009 and these took so long to get to
00:48:10
court because both of these trials were rather complicated you had yes the DNA with Juan Luna
00:48:18
but just because he ate a piece of chicken and left it at this restaurant does not necessarily mean that he's the
00:48:24
killer it just means he was the last customer of that day he was there and he was somebody that was never willing for
00:48:30
all these years to admit that he was there so that makes him much more suspicious than anybody else of course
00:48:36
you end up getting a confession out of him well and he also confessed to an so correct and then after you
00:48:44
arrest his partner in crime James dorski you get a confession out of him as well
00:48:50
the problem with the Gorski is you actually end up with zero physical evidence evence putting him at the crime
00:48:56
scene you're arresting him based off of what Juan Luna is saying and what an Lockett is saying yes dorski eventually
00:49:05
confesses and I keep circling around on this because what ended up being a problem at both trials was that it was
00:49:12
quickly pointed out that yeah these two guys confessed but so did other people right and other people confessed because
00:49:21
of the pressure that was put on them by the police by the detective they may have been a little overly aggressive in
00:49:28
their pursuit of suspects that were not correct but like you said the difference
00:49:33
between those confessions and these confessions are little details and that's good thing so when everybody's
00:49:40
screaming at the top of their lungs that law enforcement needs to release more information well this is one of the
00:49:47
reasons why it's so important that they keep certain details back because if they would have said that one of the
00:49:53
victims threw up then that's that one little detail that than anybody would have known both Luna and dorski while
00:50:03
tried separately they were both found guilty on all seven counts of murder in both cases we have the state of
00:50:13
Illinois unsuccessfully sought the death penalty against dorski and Luna and they
00:50:20
were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole now keep in mind those trials were 2007
00:50:33
2009 the state of Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011 at the time there were 15 inmates
00:50:40
of the state still on death row the then Governor Pat Quinn commuted those sentences to life sentences but if you
00:50:49
look up this case now you're going to see that James dorski he's been fighting for a new trial and trying to bring new
00:50:57
evidence and he's he's actually won and and and got to higher courts to actually hear this information
00:51:06
but the last thing I read on it was that he got to the higher courts but then the
00:51:11
courts um listened to the argument but then dismissed they dismissed his notion to get a new trial yeah again the
00:51:20
complications were the confessions themselves because they did both give different
00:51:27
versions a few different versions of what went down there that night it could just be that they're trying to put more
00:51:33
blame on the other perpetrator and put less blame on themselves dorski ended up being compensated by the state to the
00:51:43
tune of $451,000 this was in 2014 when a jury awarded him that money for punitive
00:51:52
damages this was because he was beaten sever ly by a sheriff's deputy in Cook County Jail in May of 2002 this was days
00:52:01
after his arrest for these seven murders yeah which would make you question the validity of a
00:52:11
confession under oath because he's basically being physically tortured by the police and both Luna and dorski have
00:52:21
recanted all of their confessions and they are also saying that they were fed information from the
00:52:28
police during the interrogation or questioning process their lawyers have pointed out that an Lockett was awarded
00:52:37
money $107,000 roughly actually her and another woman split the money because they provided information about dorski
00:52:45
and Luna to the police to me Captain I I see their arguments and I understand them and I think that there is some
00:52:56
level of Merit there that they have an an argument and of course look that's why I
00:53:03
am that's why in some cases I am fond of our system because they do have appeals
00:53:09
where they can express those concerns and can make those arguments however from where I sit both of these guys look
00:53:17
incredibly guilty I do want to make sure that we give a big shout out to the Chicago Triune who did an absolute
00:53:26
gangbusters job absolutely gangbusters work on covering this case over the many many years that it took to see this
00:53:35
thing [Music] through want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage for
00:53:50
another week onward and upward inching our way towards episode 1000 it'll be here before you know it
00:53:58
colonel but do we have any recommended reading this week we are recommending a lovely girl the tragedy of Olga Duncan
00:54:07
and the trial of one of California's most notorious Killers by Deborah Lin this is the incredible story of a murder
00:54:16
that ended with the last woman to ever be executed in California a lovely girl by Deborah Lin follows a murder so
00:54:25
Twisted it seems ripped from a Greek tragedy the Mystery Begins on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara when a
00:54:33
pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment check out a lovely girl the tragedy of Olga Duncan
00:54:40
and the trial of one of California's most notorious Killers by Deborah Lin you can find that great title and many
00:54:48
more wonderful recommendations on our recommended page at true Crim garage.com yeah you wanted the best best and you
00:54:55
got the best the colonel is the goat I've said it before and I'll say it again and until next week be good be
00:55:02
kind and don't [Music] [Applause] litter [Music] [Music] my sister won't be quiet and the dog just threw a
00:55:54
allall of over my shoes why does none of this bother me could it be the spous the spacious new Volkswagen Atlas
00:56:11
it does life beautifully