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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who bought his mother shotgun shells and cigarettes
00:01:51
for her birthday he is the captain well I was hoping should kill my siblings it's good to be seen and it's good to
00:01:57
see you thanks for listening thanks for foron a [Music] friend this week we are very excited to
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be featuring tropical hazy by our good friends over at the zfk Brewing Company this is very fittingly named as tropical
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hazy is a New England style IPA that is tropical because of the Exquisite fruit flavors garage grade 4 and 3/4 bottle
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caps out of five so so close to five out of five all right here's a cheers to this week's contributors first up cheers
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to Elizabeth an aaox Virginia and a big shout out to Donnie in laale North Carolina next up we have Dave in
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Edmonton Alberta Canada and a big we like your jib to Olivia in witch Kansas next Captain we have Tamara in northst
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toown Pennsylvania and last but certainly not least we have Ashley and mon Georgia check out our blog and check
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out our show swag for purchase on the store Page both available at true Crim garage.com yeah and check out our old
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episodes for free on the Stitcher app and you can also check out our weekly show on Stitcher premium called off the
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Record and you can find all of that at true Crim garage.com and that is enough of the business all right everybody
00:03:22
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] oh in 1995 criminologist and political
00:04:05
scientist John delulio was invited to the White House to attend a working dinner on juvenile crime that same year
00:04:13
delulio wrote an article on the subject matter titled the coming of the super Predators he says the article is a much
00:04:23
needed reality check on the incredibly frightening picture that emerges from recent academ mic research on youth
00:04:31
crime and violence he says all of the Research indicates that Americans are sitting at
00:04:37
top a demographic crime bomb and all of those who are closest to the problem hear the bomb
00:04:45
ticking he says big city prosecutors inundated him with war stories about the ever growing numbers of hardened
00:04:54
remorseless juveniles who were showing up in the system quote they kill or maim on impulse without any
00:05:03
intelligible motive likewise a veteran police officer told dulio I never used to be scared now I say a quick Hail Mary
00:05:14
every time I get a call at night involving juveniles I pray I go home in one piece to my own kids on a visit to a
00:05:23
New Jersey Maximum Security Prison he spoke to a group of inmates one prisoner told him I was a badass Street Gladiator
00:05:33
but these kids are Stone Cold Predators he goes on to cite a soaring rise in youth crimes of violence stating between
00:05:42
1985 and 1992 the rate at which males ages 14 to 17 commit murder dramatically increased and while most violent youth
00:05:53
crime is committed by juveniles against juveniles of late young offenders have been committ committing more homicides
00:06:01
robberies and other crimes against adults there's even some evidence that juveniles are doing homicidal violence
00:06:08
in wolf packs citing a 1993 study that said juveniles committed about a third of all homicides against
00:06:18
strangers often murdering their victim in groups of two or more moreover the crimes are becoming
00:06:26
more violent and more serious for example aggravated assaults rather than simple assaults and attacks involving
00:06:35
guns rather than weaponless violence according to the article the youth crime wave has reached horrific
00:06:44
proportions 1994 in Los Angeles there were believed to be some 400 youth street gangs with known members alone
00:06:53
committing 370 murders and over 3,300 felony assaults the criminologist goes on to say what is
00:07:03
really frightening is what's just around the corner namely a sharp increase in the number of Super crime prone young
00:07:14
males at the time nationally there were about 40 million children under the age of 10 the largest number in decades in a
00:07:24
decade the then 4 to 7 yearolds will become 14 to 17y old to which he says it's simple more boys begets more bad
00:07:35
boys this spike in the young male population means big trouble ahead he pointed to quote scientific
00:07:44
Kitty crime literature A study of 10,000 boys who lived in Philadelphia between their 10th and 18th
00:07:53
birthdays over oneir had at least one recorded arrest most of the arrest occurred when the
00:08:01
boys were ages 15 to 17 half of the boys who were arrested were arrested more than once but the
00:08:09
most famous finding of the study was that 6% of the boys committed five or more crimes before they were 18
00:08:18
accounting for over half of all serious crimes and about 2/3 of all the violent crimes this 6% Doe 50% statistic was
00:08:31
replicated in a series of studies in several cities it is on that basis that James Q Wilson and other leading crime
00:08:40
doctors predicted that the additional 500,000 boys who will be 14 to 17 years old in the year 2000 will mean at least
00:08:50
30,000 more murderers rapist and muggers on the streets according to dulio what was on
00:08:59
the horizon was tens of thousands of severely morally impoverished juvenile super Predators who were perfectly
00:09:08
capable of committing the most heinous acts of physical violence for the most trivial reasons they fear neither the
00:09:16
stigma of arrest nor the pain of imprisonment they live by the meanest code of the meanest streets a code that
00:09:25
reinforces rather than restrains their violent hair trigger mental it in prison or out the things that
00:09:33
super Predators get with criminal Behavior sex drugs money are immediate rewards Nothing Else Matters to them so
00:09:44
for as long as their youthful energies hold out they will do what comes naturally murder rape Rob assault
00:09:54
burglarize deal deadly drugs and get high man's field B Frasier's book warned of a Sharp cataclysmic increase in youth
00:10:03
crime and violence and what he called the coming Menace it is speeches articles and
00:10:11
reports like dulos that cites flawed statistics and study results that led to the growing panic in the US of
00:10:20
exaggerated inflation of Youth gang violence and a new political phrase the juvenile super predator
00:10:29
[Music] Somerville Massachusetts a beautiful place located directly northwest of
00:10:57
Boston the population at the time of our story is about 77,000 people now our day in question
00:11:05
will be or should be a beautiful Sunday a summer's day in July this is July 23rd
00:11:12
1995 the kids are out of school but 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien is getting up early Eddie works a part-time job he's
00:11:22
had this job for over a year Eddie is pretty much your ordinary average 15-year-old kid in almost every way save
00:11:31
but one Eddie is big and he's not just big for his age he is big for any age Eddie is 6'4 in tall and weighs about
00:11:42
250 lbs that's a lot of lbs for a 15-year-old there captain now the best way to describe Eddie other than big I
00:11:53
would say is babyfaced in the close-up photos from 1995 the head shots where you can't see his large frame his face
00:12:01
looks kind and boyish looking younger than 15 in my opinion but as said Eddie is pretty much a normal kid he has lots
00:12:11
of friends he's on the football team at school he's a big sports fan and I mean come on Boston is one of the great
00:12:19
Sports towns in all of America so what does he play running back I think he might have been a lineman so of course
00:12:27
his favorite team you know being in the Boston area is going to be the Pats and his favorite athlete is one of the
00:12:36
all-time greats Mr Larry Joe bird on this Sunday Eddie has to be at work at 700 a.m. this is to put together the
00:12:45
Sunday papers he works at a carry out so the big sellers are things like newspapers magazine soda that kind of
00:12:54
stuff it's important to note a couple of things the store where Eddie works is not very far from his home he could
00:13:02
easily walk there and did often Eddie has several friends close friends in the neighborhood and they hang out all of
00:13:10
the time and they are in and out of each other's houses all of the time kind of like our old white Road Keller farms
00:13:18
connection for us back in the day MH now Eddie goes to the store where he works but he even goes there when he's not
00:13:28
working so this is not just a workplace for him this is also somewhere that he frequents
00:13:33
in his free time as we said he's a big sports fan so he likes to go there and read the magazines and the
00:13:41
newspapers his friends from the neighborhood they like to go to this store there often as well Eddie spent
00:13:47
the entire morning working he got a ride home from his older sister he brought home from the store two newspapers the
00:13:56
Boston Globe and the Boston ha haral and he also brought home some candy for his
00:14:01
little sister the newspapers were for his parents and since we mentioned it Captain the Boston Globe is by far in a
00:14:09
way one of the better one of the best resources actually for this case and if anyone has not seen the movie Spotlight
00:14:16
which is about the Boston Globe it's a mustsee 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien he lives with his parents Patricia and
00:14:24
Edward Senor okay so even though Eddie Jr is 6'4 250 lbs his dad is known in his
00:14:34
family and to the neighborhood as Big Ed okay so Eddie is the 15-year-old big kid
00:14:41
and Big Ed is Eddie's father there are five kids in Eddie's family and he's the only son it's also important to note
00:14:51
that across the street from Eddie's house is his best friend's house this is Ryan Downing the Downing household
00:15:00
consists of Ryan's mother Janet who is 42 years old and single and her four children around 5:00 p.m. Eddie leaves
00:15:12
his house with his sister and Ryan downing's twin brother Paul they're going to go to the Catholic Church to
00:15:21
attend the 5:30 mass Eddie's sister jeie will be driving the group of teens as they get closer to the church
00:15:30
jeie drops Eddie off at Union Square this is near his place of work he sees someone he wants to talk to at his work
00:15:39
and he goes in there and he hangs out for a while he leaves there on foot heading in the direction of his
00:15:47
house Eddie stops off at a park and sees his best friend Ryan Downing at this park they chat for a bit and decide to
00:15:57
walk home with two other friends together now so all of them are going back to their neighborhood the group
00:16:04
decides to go to Ryan's house okay Captain this is important as we are about to have several moving
00:16:13
pieces here and I want to make sure this portion of the story comes out clear and
00:16:18
that it is easy to follow because the events and the movements in regards to a a group or groups of teenagers will be
00:16:27
very important to the of our story so to be clear we are now just after 6:30ish and we have four teenage boys
00:16:38
all very good friends this is Eddie O'Brien Joey Dion Chris Ford and Ryan Downing they are all going to Ryan's
00:16:47
house they have all been there I don't know a hundred times before they hung out there until almost 8:00 p.m. this is
00:16:56
when the group is leaving to to go swimming at a friend's house in the neighborhood Eddie is the only one in
00:17:04
the group that does not want to go swimming yeah he's a bigger boy so right sometimes bigger boys don't want to go
00:17:11
swimming well you're right you think back to when when you're a kid everyone knows someone for any number of reasons
00:17:18
that was uncomfortable swimming in a group or with girls or with guys maybe yeah or you had a friend that always had
00:17:25
to swim with his shirt on yeah I had to swim with a shirt on but I prefer to swim without pants on well and it was
00:17:33
actually known to his closer friends that Eddie was uncomfortable about his weight right so not only did he choose
00:17:41
to not go swimming on this occasion I'm guessing that was probably a pretty regular thing for him well and just his
00:17:48
overall size as well I mean 6'4 you're a giant compared to your your friends you're you're bigger than most of your
00:17:55
friends parents yeah so he's going to opt out on the swimming for that evening now again Eddie's house is right across
00:18:03
the street so he just walks home the Edward O'Brien house did not have air conditioning so on a summer's day or
00:18:12
night and this was pretty typical of the neighborhood in general his family they
00:18:18
might hang out on their front porch for hours and hours so his father and Eddie and his little sister were all chilling
00:18:26
on the porch MH some neighbors dropped by periodically to hang out and chat now just before 8:30 Eddie's sister Jeanie
00:18:36
and Paul Downing came home they said they were going to go to the beach and swim Paul went to his house across the
00:18:45
street to change and then was seen leaving the house around 8:30 p.m. note that at this time just around
00:18:54
8:30 p.m. Paul is believed or was the only only one scen going into the Downing house at this time right at 9:15
00:19:04
p.m. Eddie decides to go out for a little bit before the night is over here is his plan he's going to walk to the
00:19:12
Burger King grab a snack and then walk to his friend his friend's name is Garvey he's going to walk to garvey's
00:19:20
house this is at 9:15 MH okay so we're all on board so far we are going to move ahead in this timeline just a few
00:19:28
minutes this is between the minutes of 9:45 to 10 p.m. when the following takes place Ryan Downing returns home he finds
00:19:39
his mother Janet Downing in a pool of blood on the dining room floor Ryan runs from the house to get help he runs
00:19:48
across the street and gets big Ed Big Ed goes running with Ryan back to his house
00:19:55
mhm just before they go inside Big Ed yells to the neighbors this is Barry in Virginia reckley he yells for some kind
00:20:04
of assistance from Barry so now entering the home all behind Big Ed we have the reckley and Ryan during this time they
00:20:16
call 911 to report what they saw from their own house correct on July 23rd 1995 Janet Downing age 42 and mother of
00:20:26
four is found stabbed to death in her Somerville home she was murdered sometime between 8 and 10 p.m. that
00:20:34
Sunday night this July 23rd this 800 p.m. to 10: p.m. marker comes from Margo Nash's fantastic book the politics of
00:20:43
murder the Boston Globe says she was killed between 8:30 and 9:15 p.m. I'm guessing other outlets probably reported
00:20:53
similar times likely more to the 8:30 to 9:15 p.m. time frame frame I say that because we have Paul Downing who entered
00:21:02
the home sometime around 8:15 and left just before 8:30 shortly after 10 p.m. Eddie calls police from the midnight
00:21:11
convenience store where he works and he says he was attacked by two men with a knife he tells them he was mugged and
00:21:20
had cuts to his right hand M police speak with Eddie briefly at the store they go there and speak with him they
00:21:27
take down the report and the paramedics are there too they examine his Cuts I wonder if these actually look like
00:21:34
defensive wounds cuz we know that somebody trying to use a knife the knife could become slippery and cause wounds
00:21:41
to their hands but it also didn't seem like he was covered in blood right so what we have go down here at the
00:21:48
midnight convenience store Captain the police speak with him they take down his report the paramedics examine his cuts
00:21:56
at the at this time the the paramedics don't believe that he needs much medical attention
00:22:03
and like you said he's clearly not covered in blood or the police are going to have a different reaction
00:22:09
to the the sight of this young man but we also have to go through what Eddie told the police but this is not at
00:22:19
the midnight convenience store this is later that same night when Eddie was treated at the hospital for these same
00:22:28
injuries the cuts to his right hand and also some minor abrasions to Eddie's shins one of the officers that
00:22:37
participated in the safety sweep at the Downing house this is the murder scene the crime scene at the Downing house was
00:22:45
later dispatched to go to the Somerville Hospital he was dispatched or so we're told this to interview a boy about an
00:22:55
incident that took place earlier that day the boy Eddie who said he was mugged and
00:23:01
injured during that crime so two officers arrived at the hospital around midnight they spoke to Eddie for a while
00:23:11
his father and his uncle were present Eddie was photographed during this meeting he was wearing a white Above the
00:23:20
Rim t-shirt which was turned inside out Eddie was also wearing green shorts and black tennis shoes
00:23:28
police took blood swabs from Eddie's shins they found a small drop of blood on one of Eddie's shins and later this
00:23:36
would be tested we should keep in mind that the O'Brians believe that Eddie is being
00:23:43
talked to because he was mugged earlier that day the evidence that is being collected at this time is Eddie's
00:23:50
clothes fingerprints blood they're taking photographs of the young boy and such and again they believe this is
00:23:58
necessary for the mugging incident Eddie and his father filled out and signed the consent forms for
00:24:05
collection of this evidence after collecting the evidence and the photographs were taken it was
00:24:12
time for the officers to have a nice long chat with all of the parties so they went to the Somerville police
00:24:20
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[Music] all right cheers mates cheers to you there Mr Captain cheers to everybody out there there we
00:26:48
go we just covered everybody yeah every everybody in the world at the Somerville
00:26:54
police station so on our timeline it is now just after 2: a.m. the officers have
00:27:00
Eddie sign a Miranda waivers form this is protocol at the time in Massachusetts for persons over the age of 14 but under
00:27:11
the age of 17 this is not typically done when you are about to interview a victim
00:27:19
so this is where Captain us on the outside looking in can see that the officers here do not fully consider the
00:27:28
15-year-old boy to be a victim they think of him in such a manner that requires them it requires
00:27:38
the consent form before questioning Eddie's father went with one of the officers into another room for a
00:27:46
questioning of his own and then Eddie and his uncle and now we have Eddie's mother present as well remained in this
00:27:53
room during the questioning and several officers are questioning Eddie at this time so I don't I I want everybody to be
00:28:00
clear this this boy this 15-year-old boy was not left alone with officers yes he
00:28:06
has no attorney present with him but he has his mother and his uncle in this room with him so he's got parental
00:28:14
supervision or you know the the backing of his family Eddie was asked to recall his day Eddie said when he arrived at
00:28:23
his best friend's house Ryan's house that the groceries were already in the house this is because Janet the mother
00:28:31
went to the grocery store just prior to Eddie arriving he said he did not help bring
00:28:38
them in because there was no need to do so he and a boy named Joey Dion went into the den this with the intent to
00:28:48
play video games but Ryan's mother was asleep in that room so they went into the kitchen instead they did this so
00:28:56
they would not wake her up there in the kitchen were other the other boys hanging out soon
00:29:04
everyone left all at the same time and Eddie went home later Eddie said he was on his front porch when he saw Paul down
00:29:13
and go into his home and then saw Paul leave after he says 10 maybe 15 minutes and Paul leaves with three girls they
00:29:23
get in a vehicle they drive off right then Eddie said he walked down the street and went to Burger King this is I
00:29:31
I had to laugh about this Captain because we just spoke a few weeks ago about how McDonald's always seems to
00:29:36
weasel its way into 60% or so of our cases well now we have Burger King trying to step in on old Mickey D's
00:29:43
action right the Whopper that's right so Eddie says he walks to the Burger King and he said that the the restaurant was
00:29:51
quite busy and then the food that he ate there upset his stomach a bit so he decided to leave so not a good showing
00:29:59
out of Burger King right but do we have a receipt for this visit that's that's interesting that you say that I don't we
00:30:07
don't have a receipt for this what's interesting is the Burger King thing does not so much come into question
00:30:13
because of other information that will later come out he says after this experience at the old BK that he decided
00:30:21
to walk down to Union Square to this area because he wanted to go to a place called jimmies this was like another
00:30:28
food establishment on his way there is when he said he got mugged he was mugged he
00:30:35
said when he walked down Somerville street after this he went to his work which was nearby remember this would be
00:30:43
a safe place for Eddie right he's just been mugged where you going to go you ain't going to go to Jimmy's now and get
00:30:49
something to eat in fact the people that mugged you stole all of your money so you're going to go to your work you're
00:30:55
injured and he said that he said he never returned to the Downing home after he left with the group when he said he
00:31:04
was going home because they were going swimming and he didn't want to go swimming
00:31:09
right what's interesting here we say that they're questioning this boy but really all they do is ask him to recall
00:31:17
his day he's not being asked specific questions even about the mugging or specific question so much about Janet
00:31:25
Downing who was murdered who lived AC Ross the street from him he's just being asked to record his day recall his day
00:31:32
and really it appears to me that the majority of this visit seems more about photographing him
00:31:43
right and taking his fingerprints and taking his blood getting that stuff getting collecting evidence from him
00:31:51
well two days later on July 25th 1995 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien he is arrested and charged with the
00:32:00
murder of his best friend's mother who lives almost directly across the street from the O'Brien home one month later on
00:32:08
the 25th of August a grand jury indicts Eddie for first deegree murder so what the hell happened police
00:32:18
said they didn't believe Eddie story they believed that the cuts to his hand was not from the knife attack
00:32:26
during the mugging incident that Eddie said took place but that the cuts were from his knife attack that he committed
00:32:34
on Janet Downing and he had either injured himself while killing his best friend's mother or when she fought and
00:32:42
tried to fight for her own life causing the cuts to his hand right also police said that they had physical evidence
00:32:51
that Eddie committed the crime police said they matched a bloody fingerprint from a beam in downing's Cellar to Eddie
00:33:02
O'Brien the prosecutor said they had Eddie's blood in fingerprints at the crime scene and
00:33:10
Eddie had blood consistent with that of Janet Downing on his shin this was a small
00:33:18
drop they also said that they had three eyewitnesses that saw Eddie fleeing the murder scene their claim is that Eddie
00:33:27
fabricated the mugging story as an alibi for the cuts suffered during the commission of the murder right and some
00:33:35
of his family members were out on the porch you would have think they would have noticed him going in and out of the
00:33:41
neighbor's house yeah this story doesn't really heat up and get really interesting and into the nitty-gritty of
00:33:49
the details until the whole thing gets to trial this is what's coming out in the
00:33:56
papers at the time time the police and the prosecutor saying this is what we have against this this 15-year-old boy
00:34:02
we're going to arrest him we're going to charge him with first-degree murder and
00:34:07
it looks on the surface from what they're putting in the papers to be what could
00:34:13
amount to a mountain of evidence against this boy yeah like I said if if he used
00:34:19
a knife and there was that many stab wounds that there would be a lot of blood that knife becomes slippery the
00:34:25
handle becomes slippery they normally can injure themselves by attacking somebody else so Eddie O'Brien is
00:34:32
arrested and charged as we said Janet Downing was laid to rest Eddie's parents were invited by neighbors to attend the
00:34:41
funeral and the mass for the services for Janet Downey the neighbors said that they did not want this tragedy to tear
00:34:51
the neighborhood split right down the middle as one neighbor put it though Brians not only believed their son's
00:35:00
story and believed that he was innocent of the charges they were very vocal about this belief they did interviews
00:35:08
with the globe and on August 2nd 1995 just a a little more than a week after the murder the O'Brians announced a
00:35:19
$5,000 reward for information leading to the men they believe mugged their son now two days later and I I believe
00:35:30
that this should give everyone some insight into the character of this boy of Eddie O'Brien or what those around
00:35:37
him thought about him at the time even though this kid's been charged with murder the owner of the store where
00:35:43
Eddie worked he added $10,000 to the reward offered by the O'Brian yeah and you don't do that if you think this kid
00:35:52
is scumbag well that's the thing he's you know I I know this term is well overused
00:35:59
and it it's say it it's tired but he's he's described as a gentle giant or a big teddy bear well like you said his
00:36:07
face makes him look younger than he actually is he's got a kind face and I and I I hate that phrase too but really
00:36:14
when I saw pictures of him that's that's what I think of he's he's got boyish looks he's got a baby
00:36:20
face and people said that he was not an aggressive person he didn't argue with people he didn't get angry he didn't you
00:36:28
know fly into fits or anything like that in fact his parents and some of the coaching staff on his football team
00:36:37
would get angry and upset with him because he wasn't aggressive enough on the football field he even told his
00:36:44
father according to Big Ed anyway that he was worried that he would hurt the kids he didn't want to hurt the kids cuz
00:36:52
he was so much bigger than most of them right so he kind of hold back when he play against people yeah so we have
00:37:02
Eddie who says I was mugged we have his parents and now his employer who are looking for the people that mugged
00:37:09
him but see Eddie's got a secret and it's a really big secret and it's about to come
00:37:17
out two weeks after Eddie O'Brien was arrested and charge with murder he gave his attorney a note that said he was at
00:37:27
the crime scene the night that janning Janet Downing was murdered Eddie says the following is the real
00:37:38
story let's remind everyone of Eddie O'Brien's plans for that night he's going to walk to the Burger King grab a
00:37:46
snack and then walk to his friend garvey's house but before doing this this is the part that is new to
00:37:53
everybody but before doing this at the last minute he said he decides he's going to go
00:38:00
across the street to see if his best friend Ryan had returned from swimming and if so he wants to see if Ryan wants
00:38:09
to tag along with him for that night I really want to hit home this timestamp of 9:15 p.m. right at 9:15
00:38:18
p.m. three Witnesses Place Eddie O'Brien at his house this is his father this this is
00:38:26
his sister and this is also the grandfather Eddie O'Brien's grandfather was living with them at the
00:38:33
time they would later say we all were aware that he was there at 9:15 because we heard him yell to Big Ed hey I'm
00:38:43
going out I'm going down to the I'm leaving the house to go to Burger King so this was not just him going to his
00:38:49
father and asking this is him kind of yelling it at the house and asking for permission but announcing it at the same
00:38:56
same time so Eddie says he went across the street to the Downing house he knocked on the window which was
00:39:04
typical he says he noticed that the front door was unlocked so he went inside he said most of the lights in the
00:39:13
house were off he said he saw blood in places as he made his way through the house he noticed the bathroom door was
00:39:22
closed he says he saw Janet Downing l hang on the living room floor she's lying on her side mhm he says he ran
00:39:33
over to her to see if she was all right he put his hand on her and he said Janet
00:39:39
was not conscious and Eddie said that there was blood all over the floor he says he didn't understand what
00:39:47
had happened to this woman he turned her over so now she is on her back he says that he saw all of the cuts to her neck
00:39:58
Janet was covered in blood and she wasn't breathing Eddie wanted to get help so he said he started to go back to
00:40:05
the front door mhm he says before he got to the door someone grabbed him from behind he described this person as a
00:40:14
tall man with dark hair the man was wearing a nylon stocking over his face in some kind of what Eddie called latex
00:40:23
gloves as tall as Eddie or is he shorter than Ed there was no height description
00:40:29
given in the information that I found the man put a knife to Eddie's throat and told him if you tell anyone
00:40:38
about this I will kill you and I will kill your family and I will have plenty of time to do it before the cops can
00:40:45
catch me right then Eddie said he heard something and he he believes it was a knock at the
00:40:51
door the man then told Eddie to get out of there so Eddie ran to the cellar and out the Cellar Door so he's he doesn't
00:41:01
run out the front door he runs to The Cellar down the steps to The Cellar and out the Cellar Door he said when he got
00:41:10
to this portion of the house that the Cellar Door was already open so he's just running outside once outside he
00:41:18
stumbled and fell into some bushes if you look at a map of the the neighborhood you will see that there is
00:41:26
a large amount of bushes or what even some were calling a wooded area that is described to be I would describe it as
00:41:35
behind the Downing home I have seen some reports that say it's beside the Downing
00:41:42
home so I I mean I don't want to whatever words people want to use go for yeah do we have a map that we can put on
00:41:49
the website or Instagram uh we might um check our Instagram cuz we might have I'm looking at one right here I do want
00:41:59
to point out something too before we move on that I found this to be interesting and it is somewhat part of
00:42:04
the case but it it should be noted the the home the Downing home is a duplex so they share a wall with
00:42:14
somebody else right the Downing family purchased this home in the late 70s her Janet Downing and her ex-husband
00:42:22
purchased this duplex in the late '70s and they lived in one and rented out the other side so at the time in 1995 Janet
00:42:32
who is now single divorced she's living there with her four kids on one side and
00:42:37
they've rented out the other side the people living at the other side are the recky the ones that follow Big Ed into
00:42:44
the crime scene right the reckley had rented from Janet Downing for like five years and they didn't hear anything they
00:42:52
heard some things and we can get into that during the trial but some of the things they heard I personally I
00:42:58
question them um there's been a lot made of what they might have heard at 8:15 which is difficult because we have
00:43:09
Paul who's in and out of the house at 8:15 MH back to uh Eddie's story okay so he runs out the Cellar Door says the
00:43:17
Celler door was already open when he got to that point of the house once outside
00:43:21
he said he stumbled and fell into those bushes that I am saying are directly behind that house he says he doesn't
00:43:28
remember getting scratched or injured during this fall he said then he went to the sidewalk and started walking away
00:43:35
from the house he believes that he heard someone or maybe some people calling out
00:43:42
to him but he says he just kept going so now he is fleeing from the house and he's running down if if you're looking
00:43:51
at a map he's running down Hamlet Street toward Highland Avenue away from the Downing home he said he then walked to
00:44:00
the Burger King and he went into the bathroom washed his face and some of his body because he says he was sweating
00:44:10
profusely by this time not only is it summer and it's probably hot out right but if his story is truthful he's
00:44:18
probably scared to death and he's been moving quite quickly through the neighborhood to get down to the Burger
00:44:23
King and he said he didn't know what to do he said he wanted to go home that's your natural thought I guess but he said
00:44:31
he was afraid to remember so right across the street right across the street you're taking a very long DET
00:44:38
tour yeah so well no he he says he it wasn't until he got to the Burger King that he could
00:44:46
kind of clear his mind my my guess is that when he's running from the Downing house he's just running from the Downing
00:44:53
house once at the Burger King he that's where he's saying once there I didn't know what to do I I wanted to go
00:45:00
home but because it was right across the street from where the man threatened my
00:45:05
life and my family's life he didn't feel like he could go home he says he left the Burger King and it was then that he
00:45:13
was approached by what he describes as two boys most of the newspaper articles say two men but his description was that
00:45:21
of two boys and he said one of them had a knife these two boys were the ones who
00:45:26
who he claims mugged him he said that he gave them all of the money that he had which was
00:45:33
$17 he said one of the boys threatened him and told him that he was going to cut him and this kid was coming at Eddie
00:45:41
and Eddie says he kind of side stepped him you know steps back right and he stuck out his hand and his arm to try to
00:45:48
Shield himself with his hand he doesn't remember getting cut at this time but he
00:45:53
put his hand out to block the knife from there he decides to go to his work the midnight convenience store there he told
00:46:04
one of his co-workers that he had just been jumped the worker picked up the phone and dialed 911 and handed Eddie
00:46:12
the phone and that is when police and EMTs arrived at the midnight convenience store about 15 minutes later right and
00:46:19
that's where they're going to check his person and and the injuries take him to the hospital and that's kind of where
00:46:26
the conversation between him and police start happening yeah so here's what they
00:46:32
observe at the midnight convenience store there is a cut on Eddie's pinky finger there is a larger cut on the palm
00:46:41
of his hand and a cut going down his thumb all three of these Cuts were to Eddie's right hand right so after the
00:46:50
EMTs were done with Eddie the Somerville police who responded to the call they they drove Eddie home now once he was
00:46:59
home his grandfather is recommending hey you should probably go to the hospital and get a tetanus
00:47:07
shot and get this hand examined one more time remember the EMTs when they examined his hand they didn't really
00:47:15
they didn't do anything they just kind of you know cleaned it up well and like we said and I I think I've brought it up
00:47:21
twice already if he is using a knife himself think about what would happen if a knife
00:47:29
slipped through your hands you're going to be cut possibly on your thumb your next finger your your palm so it doesn't
00:47:38
those wounds don't have to be multiple stabo it could be one injury for one slippage of of a knife that you're in
00:47:47
control of yes it was a cut a cut to his thumb a cut to the palm and a cut to his
00:47:52
pinky finger now they decide that that his family decides that Eddie probably should have got
00:48:02
stitches they think he should get a tetanus shot they take him to the hospital and then that is where we know
00:48:10
that police really first started questioning Eddie because think about this for a situation now yeah there's 77
00:48:17
roughly 77,000 people living in this area but you get a call at just before or right around
00:48:26
10:00 that a woman's been stabbed to death in her home and then a shortly after 10:00 you
00:48:35
get a call that a boy 15-year-old boy and depending on which route you take which is her neighbor yeah depending on
00:48:44
which route you take it's 04 to0 five so less than a half a mile away mhm this kid is involved in a knife attack so so
00:48:56
not only proximity in far as location but proximity in time as well two knife attacks take place or at least the
00:49:06
finding of one victim and then the reporting of another victim yeah friends with her kids knows the victim the
00:49:13
neighbor of the victim was in the victim's house earlier that day many times it it seems like kids
00:49:21
frequent that address uh um what I wonder though is what was he wearing before he went home uh instead
00:49:34
of going swimming before going home and and not hanging out with his friends what was he wearing well see
00:49:41
that is where a big problem happens for you're the big problem the police and for later the
00:49:49
prosecut okay there are there there's like a dozen witnesses that say Eddie O'Brien was wearing the same thing that
00:49:58
morning that afternoon that evening before and after the murder and then he's photographed by police right
00:50:08
twice mhm white shirt white shirt it's Above the Rim shirt remember people from the 90s will remember the Above the Rim
00:50:18
uh brand I don't know if they're still around everything's below the rim now um very sad it's very but uh he had a white
00:50:27
Above the Rim t-shirt on which was turned inside out and he was and again this was not uncommon and it's not like
00:50:34
he was wearing the shirt right side out and then later it's inside out no every person says he was wearing an Above the
00:50:42
Rim shirt that morning that afternoon that evening that night he was wearing green shorts and he was wearing his
00:50:49
black tennis shoes now you point out something that's very interesting it's the yes yes if if if this giant of a boy
00:50:59
was using a knife to to murder this woman and stab her repeatedly it very easily could have
00:51:05
slipped and he could have cut himself during that attack or she's fighting him off and he loses control the knife and
00:51:12
cuts himself but then you have a problem where this woman was brutally attacked and yeah he's got cuts to his hand well
00:51:20
let's stay at the crime scene for but where's the blood on his on his body or on his clothing yeah cuz how many stab
00:51:26
stab wounds do we have oh man this was see that's the other thing too this was a
00:51:33
horrible horrible attack so what's the motive for this kid well because because he thought she
00:51:40
was a attractive well so then wouldn't the motivation be sexual in nature do we have any sexual assault that happened
00:51:49
sexual assault she was stabbed believed to be 98 times 98 times 9 times and that's not the extent of her
00:51:57
injuries we can get into that during the trial portions of this story but I mean
00:52:02
you're talking 98 times that's a brutal attack the the general thought was that she that that Eddie O'Brien became
00:52:11
obsessed with this woman and that he was some kind of sexual sadist and he decided to attack and kill her and he
00:52:19
went in there with the knife and stabbed her 98 times and then he fled the scene
00:52:23
made up this whole story of oh I was attacked I mean did he stab her like really slowly to make sure that he
00:52:31
didn't get any blood on his shirt well see that's the part of the story that there's all these question marks
00:52:39
Captain Captain there's there's a ton of C cin cabin mhm C his new name is cabin there's all
00:52:49
these question marks there are things that make this young man appear to be guilty M but there are also things that
00:52:57
you go well if he did in fact kill her why are we not seeing this type of evidence well people will go well he
00:53:04
went to the Burger King he said by his own his own admission that he went to the Burger King and he washed his face
00:53:11
he washed his hands and he washed portions of his body well yeah good luck getting that amount of blood off of you
00:53:18
and how did he get the blood off of his clothes right the one thing I don't like
00:53:22
about his story though Captain is that it's not that Eddie called 911 it's that he gets to the
00:53:29
store and it's it's the uh the the store clerk working at the time that goes what
00:53:37
the hell happened to you oh I was jumped that store clerk dials 911 hands him the
00:53:42
phone it's almost like he was forced to do it he was forced on the spot to come up with an excuse for why he was cut
00:53:50
right and maybe boom that's his his Alibi maybe he wasn't intending on going home for several hours after he killed
00:53:57
though the problem you have is you have a store clerk that knows him that doesn't tell you he's covered in
00:54:04
blood so unless you can find a bloody shirt somewhere that he changed out of and like you said there's multiply
00:54:11
Witnesses saying he wear wore the same shirt that's not to say he lives right across the street I'll just take this uh
00:54:19
shirt I'm I'm going to pull this one off I'll wear this shirt I go in commit the
00:54:24
crime I got blood all over me I have to discard the the shirt now I put back on my old shirt again a big bloody mess and
00:54:33
you're going to put on a white shirt a lot of other colors you could go with that that just doesn't make a lot
00:54:40
of sense to me 98 times like if I was wearing a white shirt and I was eating spaghetti and I
00:54:48
took 98 bites I'm going to get more spaghetti sauce on me than this kid that supposedly just stabbed this lady 98
00:54:56
times violently because he's so obsessed with her got any blood on his [Music] shirt so much more to get to make sure
00:55:10
you stick around join us again tomorrow in the garage until then be good be kind
00:55:16
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