00:00:00
when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special
00:00:06
financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of
00:00:13
better sleep to children in need and US Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today
00:00:22
and make every snooze count financing is subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for d details dreaming of
00:00:31
overseas Adventures or connecting more deeply with family from afar Rosetta Stone Bridges the language Gap I've
00:00:38
tried others but Rosetta Stone's immersive lessons and voice feedback technology are game changers dive into
00:00:44
25 Languages by learning intuitively just like when you were a kid and here's the holiday Sparkle grab a lifetime
00:00:52
membership now and save 50% gift yourself the world head to rosettastone.com now and save 50%
00:01:07
[Music] % [Music] welcome to True crab garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for
00:01:46
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always I think he's running a little
00:01:50
bit hot tonight here is our captain it's good to be seeing and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:01:57
a friend today we are drinking big toober Fest by the hardworking folks over at the big
00:02:09
Brewing Company garage grade three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five big stands for beer is good brewing company and
00:02:18
they are exactly right and you know who else is exactly right these great folks right here first up a big cheers to cats
00:02:26
in the great white North a big shout out to Clancy in yat Center Kansas next up we have melody in Bridgeport Connecticut
00:02:35
and a big we like your jib to Holly in Tucson Arizona all right Captain here we go we got uh Marcus from Arkansas Big
00:02:43
cheers to Marcus and last but certainly not least we have Gina and Mundy Lin that cannot be right Illinois wherever
00:02:50
you are Gina we thank you we love you everyone that contributed to this week's beer fund we thank you and love you yeah
00:02:58
BW Ru n Beer Run make sure you sign up on our mailing list so you know when we're having a garage sale and for all
00:03:08
of our old episodes download the Stitcher app they are free and check out our bonus show called off the record on
00:03:15
Stitcher premium and that is enough of the business all right thank you Captain everybody gather around grab a chair
00:03:22
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] inside the woodruff's Royce City Texas
00:03:46
Home family friend Todd Williams found the obviously slain couple and then quickly exited the trailer to call
00:03:54
police who arrived on the scene at about 4:30 p.m. and just to be clear since they have two houses they were staying
00:04:02
in their new house and that's the house that they were found dead in from the book railroaded the married couple was
00:04:10
sitting close together on a sofa before the TV and both had been shot and stamed
00:04:15
multiple times Dennis was shot once in the face and had nine stab wounds some as deep as 5 in to his face neck and
00:04:25
upper torso Norma was shot three times in in the face and had a 4in front to back gash across her neck Norma was
00:04:35
turning into Dennis as if for protective cover and Dennis held in his rigid hand
00:04:42
a chewing tobacco spit cup their clothes and the sofa were blood soaked the television was on but all the lights
00:04:51
were off and the cardboard box on which the TV sat had blood spatter the firing was done from just
00:05:00
inches away as indicated by the tight patterns of dark soot and red stipple on their skin surrounding the bullet
00:05:09
entries the medical examiner characterized soot as the very fine Smoky material that comes out of the gun
00:05:16
when it's fired and is the product of combustion that are occurring from the actual flame in the barrel of the gun
00:05:24
and stippling is the actual particles of gunpowder that strikes the skin and cause tiny injuries Burns or abrasions
00:05:33
from these burning or unburned particles of gunpowder that come out and hit the skin do they believe that the bullets
00:05:40
came from a single gun that's a difficult thing the murder weapon weapons we should say because of
00:05:48
the stab wounds and the use of a gun it's always been quite difficult for the state to prove their case on one if
00:05:57
they located the murder weapons and two exactly what was used to kill these two people what we do have here though
00:06:07
Captain is some interesting information one we have Todd Williams saying the whole place was Secure when I found the
00:06:15
place the doors were locked the windows were locked I come in I break into the home to find my friends obviously
00:06:24
they've been murdered they're sitting in the dark with the TV on so so whomever did this left the house and was able to
00:06:34
lock the door behind them per the book railroaded it sounds like the most believable most likely explanation for
00:06:43
this is that the front door was not accessed by the killer upon leaving the home it's believed that they went out
00:06:53
the side door which would be near the carport mhm and it was a setup as such we've talked about this before on the
00:07:00
show where if you close the door behind you it's going to lock yeah but a lot of
00:07:05
people in areas like this you said they're roughly on 5 Acres a lot of people don't lock their doors correct
00:07:13
correct when they were found dead all of the doors and windows were locked and if
00:07:18
it's a true statement that he was found holding a a spit can for his chewing tobacco you would almost assume that he
00:07:29
was shot first and then stabbed afterwards because I feel like if somebody was being stabbed especially in
00:07:38
the face that they might not be able to they wouldn't hold on to their spit can yeah and that's the thing here
00:07:48
Captain I think we can determine a few things from the brief description that we've been able to provide about the
00:07:54
crime scene and about the two deceased victims one there's no obvious sign of a Breakin no forced entry into the
00:08:03
home so was this somebody that the woodruff's invited in was it somebody that they knew or we've suggested this a
00:08:11
few times where you also have a situation where somebody could have forced their way in simply by one of
00:08:17
them answer the door I put a gun in your face and now I just walk you in there's
00:08:22
no sign of forced entry for that the other thing that's difficult here and very troubling is
00:08:29
the close proximity in which the gun had to be to shoot Dennis and Norma right this person whoever killed
00:08:41
them was able to put the gun right in Dennis's face basically and pull the trigger there's no signs of Dennis
00:08:51
defending himself there's no sign of him flinching almost is as if he didn't think this and individual would shoot
00:09:01
him yeah that's the thing like it was a total surprise but how is it a total surprise when the gun is so close to his
00:09:08
face then with Norma we see the opposite we see obvious signs that she's trying to avoid whatever's about to happen so
00:09:17
Dennis was shot in the face then we have Norma who turns in toward her husband puts her hands up to
00:09:25
try to block or defend herself and we know this because one of the bullets that and pardon me there's
00:09:34
no way of not being graphic with this right but one of the bullets it went it injured her hand her finger and then of
00:09:43
course ends up in her in her face well see this is also why I wonder is it possible that this person got into the
00:09:52
house and they were asleep um you know fell asleep watching TV and then the individual wakes him up
00:10:00
by shooting um the father and then attacking the mother but but then stab wounds afterwards makes me believe that
00:10:11
it would be more personable right and not just I'm here to kill you so I shoot you and then I be on my way this person
00:10:19
then took the time to pull out a knife or if there was two individuals somebody pulled out a knife
00:10:25
and then ended uh ended up stabbing these individuals in their face and that's something I do want to point out
00:10:33
as well I don't think that anything at the crime scene particularly tells us one way or another if this was one
00:10:39
offender or more than one perpetrator right we do know that we have at least two weapons that were used in the
00:10:47
commission of these homicides so that actually points towards the possibility of more than one
00:10:55
perpetrator the difficult thing here Captain is as you said how does this go down in
00:11:02
this exact manner it appears and we know this from the medical examiner statements that Dennis shot at close
00:11:09
range right in the face for whatever reason is not defending himself when that happens Norma then realizes what is
00:11:17
going to happen she tries to block or defend herself by turning in toward her husband putting her hands
00:11:24
up and then we have the stab wounds so it has has been stated by the medical examiner that the gunshots happen first
00:11:32
and then the stabbing and as you pointed out and the state of Texas as well as law enforcement agencies that work this
00:11:40
case would tell us that this indicates that this was absolutely personal in nature that this was someone that had a
00:11:48
deep hatred for both of these people not only wanted to kill them make sure that
00:11:52
they were dead but you're kind of using the knife to actually destroy this man man his appearance to mutilate him to
00:12:01
stab him nine times with whatever knife was used in this homicide which I normally say 100% of the time that's
00:12:09
personal but we do have evidence that they're having financial difficulties and is it is there something that the
00:12:19
public their their uh friends and family didn't know about or maybe they took a loan from somebody um maybe they didn't
00:12:29
pay back somebody that they should have and it's not as much of a personal thing
00:12:35
as like um we're proven a point type thing right the other thing I want to point
00:12:43
out too is was the gun used as necessity and then at some point the perpetrator or perpetrators decide that to keep
00:12:51
using that Weapon It's awfully loud someone might hear it I'll finish the job with a knife or a blade ated weapon
00:12:59
yeah or yeah make sure the job is finished yeah I've heard one Theory and I don't want to get too much into all
00:13:05
the theories that are out there because there is a big group of people that believe that Brandon Woodruff is in fact
00:13:12
innocent of these crimes and therefore they have theories as to who have could have committed this murder and how they
00:13:20
went about doing it right one of the theories that I just want to kind of I'm going to go ahead and squash it right
00:13:27
away is there's a theory that's been put forward that they were killed and that somebody close to them hated them so
00:13:36
much they showed up the next day and chose to stab Dennis after he was already dead we know that theory cannot
00:13:46
be and that is because of the words of the medical examiner it says the medical examiner could not determine the order
00:13:53
in which the stab wounds were inflicted but they all happened probably about the
00:13:58
same time and he Dennis was alive during all of them but I can't tell you exactly what
00:14:05
order they happened in but also if there if it's just one gun at some point that
00:14:11
gun runs out of bullets so the knife might have been used like the corner are saying to finish the job and like you
00:14:21
were saying also the gun is loud yes yeah we don't know why but this attack started with a gun and then it
00:14:31
ended with these stab wounds and again we can tell by the medical examiners words these weren't stab wounds that
00:14:39
took place at a much later time this man unfortunately was shot and then stabbed
00:14:44
fairly quickly the gunshots themselves to these individuals would have been fatal at some point but we have the
00:14:52
medical examiner who says the stab wounds happened while he was still alive the problem is Captain that we have that
00:15:01
big window of time sometime between Sunday evening and they're not found until 3:30 4:00 on Tuesday right there's
00:15:12
a big window of time of when this could have happen now we can obviously shrink that down a little bit to try to figure
00:15:19
out who had the means to carry out this brutal homicide and one is they were both supposed to be at work on Monday
00:15:29
morning so I think we all can agree that this happened sometime before Monday morning yeah I think that makes the most
00:15:35
sense and if we are to believe Brandon he says that he had dinner with them and then he left his first Duty
00:15:43
when he left was to run an errand for his mother and then carry on to their old house in Heath which this would be
00:15:50
sometime after 700 p.m. what backs Brandon's story up is that there were two phone calls that
00:15:58
took place place in the 7:00 hour and this is both Norma and Dennis on the phone with
00:16:05
relatives during these phone calls the the relatives on the other end of the line both got the impression separately
00:16:13
separate calls both got the same impression that Brandon had already left the house that night that they were
00:16:21
having these conversations after he left after they had dinner and I don't believe there was any mention of their
00:16:27
being an argument or anything it was just he came to visit he ate with us he left yes and without
00:16:35
getting I'm I'm finding it difficult to go through this case because it's a real
00:16:41
messy one and it's almost like you have to tackle each of these issues as they pop up because one of the motivating
00:16:48
factors that the state of Texas will say when Prosecuting Brandon Woodruff is one
00:16:53
of the reasons that he killed his parents was because he's gay that he was living this secret gay gay lifestyle
00:16:59
right and that he amongst other reasons this led him to killing his parents there's a big problem with that being a
00:17:08
motivating factor and that being these two phone calls that took place in the 7:00 hour on that Sunday in at least one
00:17:17
of the calls Dennis is discussing Brandon being gay with his relative the relative says it didn't sound like
00:17:26
Dennis was angry about this didn't sound like Dennis was uh you know mad at Brandon or thought that Brandon was
00:17:34
living some kind of Secret Life the relative said that Dennis sound concerned for his son stating that he
00:17:43
worried about Brandon living that kind of lifestyle that he thought that that kind of Lifestyle was dangerous or it
00:17:50
came with certain risk and that he probably didn't want his son to have difficulties in public in his public
00:17:58
life life or treated unfairly because of his sexuality right it's you know it's the
00:18:04
same reason why there's there's kids with minor disabilities but parents will worry because of how society and kids
00:18:13
will treat them and so it might be okay well you know you have no problem with your son and his sexuality but you know
00:18:22
that there's going to be conflicts in his life because of it where th those conflicts might not happen or those just
00:18:30
uh discriminations might not happen if his son were straight well and people I look for the good in everyone and I find
00:18:38
a lot of good in everyone but people in general are not always accepting of people that live different than them
00:18:45
themselves right and so therefore out of ignorance they will treat these people differently or unfairly because of they
00:18:53
of something they just don't understand well and to be clear did he was he out to his parents before this dinner or was
00:19:03
this dinner um hey Mom Dad I got to tell you something but a lot of times parents
00:19:12
know before the the child ever comes forward that is one thing that's pretty unclear in this whole situation but I
00:19:21
did want to point that out that he clearly didn't kill his parents to cover up the fact that he was gay or living a
00:19:29
gay lifestyle right because we have the relative saying after the fact Dennis and I discussed this his parents were
00:19:37
aware I don't know how aware they were or when they became aware right but we know that that that Dennis knew what was
00:19:45
going on Norma knew what was going on and again the relative saying the father didn't sound angry at Brandon he sounded
00:19:53
concerned a question for you we have no evidence of of Brandon coming out in high
00:20:02
school like two friends uh I mean you said the [ __ ] kickers didn't like it so from what I found there captain that it
00:20:10
it's very unclear okay it sounds to me like right around the time that he was finishing up high school his lifestyle
00:20:19
is changing in noticeably to his friends right and to others he's Brandon's now dressing different he's hanging out with
00:20:26
a different crowd and I don't know if the [ __ ] kickers his old batch of friends uh if they were just suspicious
00:20:34
or if they were made you know if he told them outwardly I have no idea which way
00:20:40
that it went it did sound like at some point Mike Etherington and Brandon Woodruff one time good friends their
00:20:50
families know each other it sounds like not only did they quit being friends but
00:20:55
it sounded like they were they were feuding like taking you know shots at each other as far as uh insults and um
00:21:03
whatever was going down there was some type of feud between the two of them well he's somebody that should be looked
00:21:09
at because I think a a motivation for this is if he within the last couple months
00:21:17
really finalized coming out to his parents let's say because the lifestyle was shifting and possibly some people
00:21:25
knew maybe some friends of his knew knew obviously he was creating another um social Dynamic that knew uh and he was
00:21:35
living openly gay to them that if it is finalized to the parents was there um a sexual
00:21:47
partner that he had in high school or within his old community that is there then fearful
00:21:58
that Brandon told them told the parents if that makes sense that an old friend might be outed
00:22:05
by Brandon and be feel threatened by that right because also possibility look you know
00:22:13
um it's it is an interesting thing when you're friends with somebody for almost 18 years and you've had a lot of
00:22:21
conversations with them uh about dating and girls that you know one of my friends that's pretty much all
00:22:30
we talked about later come to find well that was just kind of a cover up you know he wasn't into girls he's always
00:22:37
been into boys but that was his kind of cover you know if I if I'm constantly telling my friends that I'm have a crush
00:22:45
on somebody and he always picked like the top of the top uh and and but he then told us well I picked girls that I
00:22:54
knew were way out of my league because then you wouldn't want wonder why I never got to go on a date with them
00:23:01
right you know it it was just oh you know you're just not going to go on a date with them they're out of your
00:23:07
league so it is an interesting situation because you you are shocked on some level and then on some level you start
00:23:17
going well maybe I I kind of knew this all along but if he would have then said well and I realized I was gay when I I
00:23:27
made out with one of our other buddies none of his closest friends when he came out none of us had any hatred
00:23:37
towards him or discrimination towards him MH so I think you know obviously it's a different part of the
00:23:44
country um and sometimes in in those smaller communities um there's more of an ignorance to different
00:23:55
Lifestyles and but you also see sometimes these people that are um that that discriminate the most
00:24:06
against somebody's sexuality is because of their own hatred to them to themselves that they're homosexual
00:24:16
themselves and but they hate themselves because of it and then they hate anybody
00:24:21
uh that out is going to come out well I think what we can agree on here is a couple of things one it appears that
00:24:31
Brandon's lifestyle wasn't such a secret that his parents knew this about Brandon
00:24:37
that they had some kind of conversation this was something they spoke about Dennis is concerned not because he does
00:24:45
not approve it's more so that he's worried concerned for his son everyone's always concerned for their children this
00:24:52
is just another one of those type things for Dennis now we should point out though
00:24:59
too with Brandon that you know I say he's not living this secret lifestyle but there were some
00:25:07
extremes going on here because he did do some pornography work MH and this was from my
00:25:17
understanding in the summer to late summer of 2005 and this was gay pornography work
00:25:25
that he did uh he filmed a couple scenes in Dallas and a couple scenes down in Florida from my understanding this is
00:25:35
something that took place over the course of two different weekends and he was paid fairly well for his time
00:25:42
MH I'm guessing that this is not something that Dennis and Norma knew about right and I look whether your kid
00:25:53
um is a a homosexual or a heterosexual most parents are going to find that activity to be extreme
00:26:03
Behavior correct you know that's just especially in in Texas and the way that this went down for my understanding
00:26:11
captain and I actually don't think that this pornography work has too much to do
00:26:16
with the actual case itself right the state of Texas and the prosecutor would tell us different at trial but from my
00:26:24
understanding the way that this went down was you you get producers just like you would with any type of you know
00:26:29
movies or entertainment or whatever that they find these they're they're looking
00:26:34
for attractive young men to be in these movies and it's not hard to find them because they'll go to some of the bigger
00:26:41
cities that have cool gay clubs to get into right and they hang out in the crowd you know and you find a couple
00:26:48
good-look guys and offer them a position if they want one but I think it's important to point out that the state of
00:26:56
Texas and the prosecutor are going to tell us that his gay lifestyle is one of the key factors one of the motivating
00:27:04
factors for Brandon to kill his parents and it doesn't seem that that's what was
00:27:09
going on [Music] here this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays maybe
00:27:35
you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or even
00:27:42
anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings
00:27:47
therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to
00:27:55
manage everything going on if if you're thinking of starting therapy give better
00:27:59
help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to
00:28:04
your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist
00:28:10
at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com
00:28:17
Garay to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.com garage Rosetta Stone is the language learning
00:28:30
program with a lasting impact I've been using the rap to learn French and it's not just about memorizing words but
00:28:36
actually having real conversations and it's not just French they offer 25 languages right now Rosetta Stone has an
00:28:42
awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever for anyone keen
00:28:49
on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com it's a GameChanger major phone carriers make
00:28:58
you sign contracts with rigid data plans to trap you into a kind of forced phogy
00:29:03
sounds pretty insecure if you ask me at Consumer Cellular we believe in a more consensual and healthy form of phogy
00:29:09
free of contracts and more flexible to your data needs this way you stick around not because we force you to with
00:29:14
contracts and fees but because you love our phone plans like ardently love our phone plans monogamously Consumer
00:29:22
Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 freedom [Music]
00:29:44
and make sure you check out truecar.com and go to our blog and leave your opinions on this case and let us know if
00:29:51
you liked my singing there in this week's music yeah it was a oh sample of the colonel okay Captain let's talk about
00:30:01
the crime scene a little more and this is more for the thought as to police theories and things that they were
00:30:09
seeing at the crime Scene It says here and this is from some court documents that I found that the police theorized
00:30:17
that Norma may have been attempting to duck behind her husband the crime scene investigation did not reveal any signs
00:30:24
of forced entry any signs of a struggle or any signs the house had been ransacked investigator Tommy granfield
00:30:32
testified that he did not believe the position of the bodies was suggestive that the victims had been taken
00:30:40
by that the victims had been taken by surprise the wallets of Dennis and Norma were missing but many valuables
00:30:49
including a handgun a computer jewelry appliances remained in the home the police noted blood droplets in front of
00:30:59
the couch and a trail of blood droplets leading from the couch toward the guest bathroom and bedroom so it's believed
00:31:09
that either blood is dripping off of the knife the killer or both after they killed the Woodruff and then walked from
00:31:18
that spot right there in front of the couch to the guest bathroom and I'm guessing that is to clean up themselves
00:31:27
clean up the murder weapon mhm later we would find out that when police did the luminol testing through out the house
00:31:36
they found a good amount of bleach in that bathroom so it appears that the person or persons cleaned themselves up
00:31:44
and anything else that they needed to and then cleaned the bathroom afterwards well we can't rule out that this was
00:31:51
just a simple robbery and then they had to kill the victim victims maybe because
00:31:58
the victims knew who they were or maybe that was just part of the plan we can't rule that
00:32:03
out but it is suspicious that somebody went into a bathroom and cleaned themselves off that could just be simply
00:32:11
to have no trace evidence going back into your vehicle I've always found it troubling too that they had just
00:32:17
recently moved into this house I know it's it's very unlikely and this thank God is a very very rare occurrence but I
00:32:27
have read cases where it's a mistaken identity that somebody goes to a home and a new family lives there now right
00:32:36
and the offender is unaware that that is the situation I don't know that that's the situation here but I'm just throwing
00:32:45
that out there so how does Brandon Woodruff become suspect number one well we have the Hunt County Sheriff's Office
00:32:55
investigating this case but they're doing it with the assistance of the Texas Rangers the problem for Brandon
00:33:01
will be he's got some missing time he's got a missing window of time of where he's unaccounted for on the night that
00:33:10
they believe that the Woodruff were killed so we both said that we can agree that they were killed sometime either
00:33:16
late that Sunday night or very early Monday morning before they had to go to work well investigators are going to
00:33:23
shrink that window even more because what they're going to say is that the Woodruff were killed sometime between
00:33:32
9:30ish and 10:30 to 11-ish okay but what time does he meet up with his friend to get back to school he meets
00:33:41
Robert at the Denny's parking lot at 1100 p.m. all right so that's not looking too good for him right and
00:33:49
here's how they come up with this window of time there's a phone call that takes
00:33:54
place around 9:00 and we kind of talked about this a little bit already remember
00:33:59
Charla is visiting extended family on that Sunday night right she's at her grandmother's house grandma's on the
00:34:06
phone with her mom Norma grandma says to Charla would you like to talk to your mom I got her on the phone that phone
00:34:12
call takes place between 9 and about 9:20 maybe 9:30 at the very latest all right so we have another person a
00:34:22
witness saying they were alive for that time period so now we're shrinking that window a little bit Charla says that she
00:34:31
will call her mom when she gets home she says that she tried calling Mom and Dad
00:34:36
at 11:00 p.m. that night and nobody answered you mentioned the call forwarding she's concerned that nobody
00:34:43
answered so that's how the police are going to come up with they were killed during the time frame between 9:30 and
00:34:51
11:00 the problem with Brandon's story he was supposed to be there to pick up Robert between 5 and 6 then that gets
00:35:00
pushed back to 9 9:30 and he doesn't show up to Denny's until 11 p.m. what the prosecutor and the Hunt
00:35:10
County Sheriff's Office are going to tell us is that left enough time for Brandon to make it to the heath house do
00:35:18
all this running around commit murder and then meet up with his friend at the Denny's it gives him you know right it
00:35:26
it puts him the perfect time situation but what is his excuse for all this his excuse is that I told you everything
00:35:36
that I did I was just off on my times okay and I've look there's a lot of people as I said earlier that are doing
00:35:43
really good work on this case trying to help out Brandon's case to prove that he
00:35:48
is in fact innocent and they all say about the same thing you prosecuted this kid because he was off on his times he
00:35:56
wasn't lying about what he did he wasn't lying lying about when he did what he did he was just off on the time well the
00:36:04
problem the problem with that statement is you don't know you don't he may be lying he may he may have done this and
00:36:10
just Flatout lied and now he's oh I was off of my times what we do know is that Robert says I didn't see Brandon until
00:36:17
11: p.m. right so what is Brandon doing between that 7:36 phone call where he calls mom to relay the message about the
00:36:27
horse and then when he finally makes it to the Denny's at 11:00 p.m. and I do have some some uh references here for
00:36:36
you right but real quickly we do have travel time so we have to put that into account so we can shorten his window a
00:36:43
little more the other thing that's a little in his favor is that he did a favor for his parents and he was then
00:36:52
going to take their truck and they were going to have his truck fixed but one could also say well maybe he did
00:36:59
that favor because it that was part of the setup right so here's some let's go through this distance between a couple
00:37:09
of these locations shall we okay so we have the double wide I'm going to refer to the new house as the double wide
00:37:16
that's on County Road 2648 in Royce City Texas we know that Brandon took that trip to the Stables for his mom and a
00:37:28
phone call took place at 7:36 p.m. The Stables from the dble Y to The Stables is approximately a 16-minute
00:37:38
drive from The Stables to the heath house remember he says I'm going to the heath house because I'm going to pick up
00:37:45
the fancy truck right I'm going to take care of the animals and then I'm going to go get Robert and we're going to
00:37:52
either go out for the night or we're going to go back to campus so the stable to the heath house is 30 minutes and
00:37:59
it's been said by several people Brandon including that it would take roughly 30
00:38:04
minutes for him to take care of all the animals at the heath house okay from the
00:38:10
heath house to the Denny's it's another 30 minute drive so if he's already left the stables at
00:38:18
7:36 when that phone call is placed to his mother by Brandon then we have an hour and a half
00:38:29
should have gone by before he arrives at the Denny's which would put him at the Denny's at a little after 900 p.m. but
00:38:36
he doesn't show up until 11: p.m. so we are missing about an hour and 45 minutes
00:38:43
roughly of what was he doing and when was he doing it right now there are several phone calls that happen during
00:38:50
that time frame the thing that kind of sucks for Brandon is Brandon will say say that these phone calls point out
00:38:58
that he was doing what he says he was doing and the phone calls would tell us he was nowhere near the murder scene at
00:39:04
the time that that law enforcement are telling us the Woodruff were killed at his
00:39:11
trial these phone calls that Brandon speaks of are not presented to the jury or at any point during the trial right
00:39:19
these these phone calls the phone records on Brandon's part have been lost and that's simply due to time his
00:39:28
defense attorneys would tell us that that is on the fault of the prosecution and it's on the fault of law enforcement
00:39:35
that they failed to get his phone records they got other people's phone records but they didn't get his yeah the
00:39:42
difficult thing here Captain is there was some kind of transition going on between singular and AT&T at the time
00:39:50
and I don't know if it was AT&T purchased singular or what went down but at this time in 2005 in this area if you
00:40:00
were an AT&T person or a singular person your calls would use both of their towers but they only have records for
00:40:10
who his actual carrier were does that make sense yeah yeah so they cannot really triangulate where they believe
00:40:17
Brandon would have been during some of those phone calls the problem for Brandon is we have one person that says
00:40:24
and this is Robert who says didn't see him till 11:00 p.m. Robert also says Brandon told me to tell everybody else
00:40:33
that I saw him at 9:30 that he picked me up at Denny's at 9:30 not 11: that's weird and Robert also says that during
00:40:41
this missing period of time where we don't know where Brandon was Brandon called me to make further arrangements
00:40:47
remember could you meet me at the Denny's it's it save us some time right Robert says that Brandon was breathing
00:40:53
heavy during this phone call and the prosecution's going to point out well that's because he was exhausted from
00:41:01
having physically murdered two people vce but it's definitely suspicious when somebody shows up and
00:41:08
says hey by the way tell people that I was here hour and a half earlier yeah and I don't have any reason to not
00:41:16
believe this Robert person right what is what does he have to gain from any of this he doesn't even
00:41:22
seem to know Brandon real well there's not a close relationship he does know Brandon's family he's not a suspect so I
00:41:30
don't know why Robert would make this up or other people have suggested maybe he's unclear about the times I think
00:41:38
he's pretty clear about the times he's he's annoyed he's been waiting hours several hours after the original agreed
00:41:45
upon time to get picked up then we have another weird story that comes out and this is from Brandon's friends the ones
00:41:52
that he went to the club with that night remember he picked up up Robert Robert agrees to go to the club when they are
00:42:00
driving back some of the guys in the back seat of the truck are horsing around and they're going through some of
00:42:06
the belongings in the truck Brandon has a bag with him like a I don't know like an overnight bag or a book bag when one
00:42:14
of the persons picks that up they said that Brandon who is is usually very laid back happy go-lucky kind of person was
00:42:24
visibly upset and and angry and told them to put his bag down the prosecution tells us that there was something in
00:42:34
that bag that Brandon did not want everybody else to see maybe it was a Blood Stained shirt
00:42:41
maybe it was one of the murder weapons or both of them right but that he freaked out on these individuals because
00:42:47
he couldn't risk anybody opening up that bag and questioning what was inside of it to back that story up not only do we
00:42:56
have more than one person who says that that that took place we have a text message the next day from Brandon to his
00:43:04
friend that says I'm sorry I freaked out last night in the truck they're saying that's referring to this whole thing
00:43:11
with the bag but then there's some weird things captain that look like Brandon could be
00:43:18
innocent the first which I think is the most bizarre thing in a lot of this case
00:43:24
is there's a phone call we talked so much about these phone calls there was a phone call that was placed to the Hunt
00:43:30
County Sheriff's Office the morning after the bodies were discovered and somebody had used the old star
00:43:38
67 to block to block yes they wanted to make an anonymous call so Anonymous that
00:43:43
they didn't want you to know the phone number several of these calls were made on that morning and it was a woman who
00:43:50
is asking if they have any suspects in the murders of the Woodruff why is that weird and suspicious it's
00:43:59
weird and suspicious because at that time police had not announced to anybody that the Woodruff were
00:44:04
murdered when the bodies were found they notified their employers and they notified family and they simply told
00:44:12
everyone that the Woodruff were found dead that they had died and they died together now you can take that a million
00:44:22
different ways most people assume that it was some type of accident a ve you know a vehicle accident
00:44:30
or carbon monoxide I mean there's a dozen different ways right so it was not confirmed at that time with anyone that
00:44:38
the two had in fact been murdered yet they're getting a phone call to the Sheriff's Office from a woman who is
00:44:45
asking if they have any suspects in the murder of Dennis and Norma Woodruff they
00:44:50
figured out that the caller was Norma Errington remember she's the mother of Mike who is Brandon's former friend
00:44:59
right she's the one that had that weird Feud with Norma Woodruff about the $500 4 scholarship that Brandon got so
00:45:08
what is very bizarre here is not only do you have a feud between Brandon and Mike
00:45:14
you have a feud between the two mothers it's almost like the Hatfields and McCoy
00:45:18
at this point it's like family against family right there's a lot of things in this case captain that just don't make
00:45:26
sense and they don't make sense for or against Brandon depending on how you look at these different items we
00:45:34
mentioned the bag earlier where he got all upset that these guys were going to go through his bag the prosecution tells
00:45:40
us there's something in the bag that he didn't want us to see blood soak clothing murder weapon what have you
00:45:46
right Brandon's explanation for his behavior that night is that he had not fully come out to his friend Robert
00:45:55
remember what we got going on right now in Brandon's life is he's coming out but
00:46:01
he's also attending a Christian University those things don't usually work hand inand together and he says
00:46:09
Robert didn't know that I'm gay I didn't want that bag opened up because then he
00:46:15
would know that I'm gay what doesn't make sense to me is his defense of his behavior you took Robert to a gay club
00:46:24
that night you took him to a gay club with you asked him if he wanted to go but was it actually a gay club or was it
00:46:31
a gay friendly club and it was just maybe attended by more gay people than straight people and it wasn't I think
00:46:39
that's very fair that you say that because I don't know for certain which it is I I know what club that they went
00:46:45
to that night and I've heard it described as both by different people so yeah that's that's a very fair statement
00:46:53
but I do find it a little questionable his explanation for knowing that they just went to
00:46:58
either a gay club or a gay friendly club and hung out there most of the night it
00:47:02
could have been gay porn it could have been sex toys it could have been something that's also just embarrassing
00:47:08
for people to be messing around with that's true that's true as well now we have yet to discuss the murder weapons
00:47:18
and we were talking about why the prosecution and the law enforcement agencies believe that Brandon should be
00:47:24
the number one suspect well that's because of his quote unquote access to the believed murder weapons
00:47:32
now Brandon got locked up a couple weeks after his parents were killed and he was
00:47:37
arrested for the charge of double homicide once he was locked up his bail was set so high that he would not be
00:47:45
able to make bail to get out leading up to his trial remember we've talked about
00:47:50
this plenty of times and look there's not always something wrong with it but sometimes there is you have the right to
00:47:57
a speedy trial in the United States you just might not get one Brandon's trial was about 2 and a half years after his
00:48:03
parents were killed that's ridiculous now that could again not always something wrong with that sometimes
00:48:10
that's at the request of the defense I don't know what the case is here but it looks to me like the prosecution wasn't
00:48:19
so confident about their ability to convict Brandon meaning they didn't think that had that strong of a case
00:48:27
then then you let him out you know while you try to build that case and here's why I think it points to the prosecution
00:48:33
believing that they don't have a very strong case against this guy one they are they are going to present a bladed
00:48:41
weapon a dagger is what it's often referred to as in court and say this was one of the murder weapons and we found
00:48:49
this at the remember the Woodruff called it their Barn at the heath property we found it there in the barn mhm and
00:48:58
Brandon must have tried to conceal it and hide it there they searched that Barn a couple of times didn't find it
00:49:06
but then two and a half years later right before the trial they find the dagger in the barn that's poppycock it
00:49:13
has been described and this is one thing that is very Troublesome to me I've heard experts say it cannot physically
00:49:21
be the blade that was used in the attack that it was probably a kitchen knife or
00:49:26
something similar to a kitchen knife that was used in the attack this is like an ornate decorative dagger that's why
00:49:34
they keep calling it a dagger some have even called it a sword because the blade
00:49:37
was so large remember we mentioned that the the cuts the stab wounds the deepest
00:49:43
one on either victim was 5 in roughly 5 in this thing is described as having a blade that's about 12 in Long wow now
00:49:53
there's been other experts that say yes this instrument could in fact have made these wounds so expert opinion different
00:50:02
experts saying different things in regards to this murder Weapon It's all depends on who's paying them the problem
00:50:09
for Brandon though is and this is fact this is not opinion they did find a small drop of blood on the dagger on
00:50:20
like a underneath one of the decorative skulls that's on the dagger right on the handle
00:50:27
and it's described as it would be in a place that if one were trying to clean blood off of a murder weapon that they
00:50:34
might not look that this kind of they forgot to clean this one little spot is there a bleach residue on the on the
00:50:42
knife if there is it wasn't discussed at trial either way that there wasn't or that there was it's it's not mentioned
00:50:50
what is mentioned that's pretty damning here is that drop of blood is confirmed to be Dennis woodruff's
00:50:59
blood now of course there are ways that his blood could get on that knife and that KN knife not having been used to
00:51:06
murder him but it's very suspicious very sketchy very sketchy stuff now there are
00:51:15
some people that have even suggested that the police planted that knife in that location I don't believe that I
00:51:22
don't have any reason to believe that they seem to be open about hey yeah we probably should have found it earlier we
00:51:29
just didn't go through every particular thing the first time we searched that area the other problem for Brandon is
00:51:36
that they will point out that he had access to the gun that they believed was used in the homicide remember we
00:51:43
mentioned on that Saturday the day before it's believed that his parents were killed he spent the majority of the
00:51:49
day helping out his old girlfriend his friend Morgan Lee he was at her house on and off for most of Saturday at some
00:51:58
point in the investigation after the wood Ruffs are killed the Lees tell law enforcement hey a gun is missing from
00:52:05
our house we had a decorative gun on display it was on a shelf like in a I'm guessing in like a glass case for
00:52:14
display purposes right on a shelf in either a hallway or a spare bedroom but it's regularly agreed upon that anybody
00:52:25
that had access to their home had access to this gun it wasn't stored in a way that some if you were in their house you
00:52:31
could just you could just take it and it was loaded they had ammunition yes it was loaded and there was ammunition on
00:52:39
display with this gun that seems like a great idea the prosecution would tell us
00:52:44
that they believe that Brandon stole this gun on Saturday and then used it on Sunday to murder his parents the Le tell
00:52:53
law enforcement this gun is missing we didn't notice it missing until the Woodruff were killed till sometime after
00:52:59
they were killed but when was the last time you handled that gun all about a year ago right so it could have in fact
00:53:06
been gone before the Woodruff were killed it could have been gone before Brandon had access to it on that
00:53:13
Saturday right that gun has never been found and I think that the problem I have with the knife is against Brandon
00:53:22
it's got his father's blood on it that looks very bad but what the prosecution would tell us
00:53:28
later is that the gun was probably thrown in a lake somewhere because they present at trial this guy that was in a
00:53:37
cell that says hey at some point Brandon asked me if a gun with a wooden handle if it would float to the top or how long
00:53:47
would it stay submerged in water like he was concerned that they were going to find the murder weapon I hate any of
00:53:53
these jail house snitches here's the problem I have with this jail house snitch amongst other things I know you
00:53:58
don't like him I don't like him either but it's like if he threw the gun that was used in a lake somewhere why
00:54:06
wouldn't he throw the knife in there as well why why are we finding this knife in the garage cuz it was a sword man he
00:54:13
wanted you got to keep that sword it's a collector's it it's a collector's item it's going to be worth a lot of money
00:54:18
someday oh unfortunately I I agree with you I mean if you're going to dispose of
00:54:23
the gun why wouldn't you just of the knife unfortunately what we have here Captain is Brandon is convicted of
00:54:32
double homicide and he's been in prison ever since the thing that I have a a big
00:54:39
problem with is I've looked at this thing for the past week we've been looking at this case and I thought from
00:54:46
from the get from Jump Street that oh we're going to come across something at some point in this next week that's
00:54:53
either going to definitively for me prove that Brandon's either a innocent or B guilty yeah I can't find anything
00:55:01
that tells me that he is in fact innocent I can't find anything that says to me 100% that he's guilty I am very
00:55:09
suspicious of that missing time that hour to hour and a half that he's unaccounted for on that night it's been
00:55:18
suggested this is what was going on or that was what was going on that he didn't lie to police but I don't know
00:55:25
that until there were people that can back up where he was and what he was doing and when it when he was doing it
00:55:31
or the fact that he tells his friend hey I was here an hour and a half earlier that's very suspicious now in a
00:55:39
lot of cases we don't have uh the suspect talking whether that's a interrogation or anything but what we do
00:55:47
have in this case is and we played it in the trailer it's Brandon telling his support ERS you know believe me I did
00:55:57
not kill my parents mhm and normally you can get a sense a gut sense of whether or not you believe the
00:56:06
kid in this case it's so weird because it seems like he says a couple lines that make sense and I go okay probably
00:56:14
didn't then he says a couple lines where I don't think he's saying anything wrong
00:56:18
it's just the way he chose to say them and that could have been nerves or whatever but I kind of walk away from
00:56:24
from the whole uh him pleading his case to his supporters and still kind of throw my
00:56:33
hands up like I don't know I don't think I learned anything from it well in online you can find the interrogation or
00:56:41
questioning tapes when the Rangers and the Sheriff's Office are questioning Brandon right and I've watched them and
00:56:49
they're very interesting because his body language to me never at any point even for a second shows what I would
00:56:59
believe to be a guilty person he is he's extremely Cooperative with their questioning so much so that he's
00:57:07
offering up to a DNA test he's offering up he's even telling them like hey I'm not planning on sticking around in this
00:57:15
city I don't like it here my parents have been killed right I'm probably not going back to college I was failing
00:57:23
anyway and I don't really want to go back there I'll probably go here and I can't remember where he says he tells
00:57:29
them where he's planning on going I think it's to go off and stay with extended family which makes a whole lot
00:57:35
of sense it's just in a whole different city right but he's so Cooperative to the point that he doesn't have to tell
00:57:42
them that he's planning on leaving the area one if he were guilty I think I think he wouldn't have told them that
00:57:48
two he doesn't have to tell them where he's going and three he even says he even offers up that he will stay
00:57:55
in the area long enough for them to clear him as a suspect when you're done when you guys are all done with your
00:58:02
investigation or you're all done looking at me right let me know and then I'll I'll wait till then to go so super
00:58:09
Cooperative during the questioning process it's one of those cases Captain where I I cannot find a reason to push
00:58:17
me to one side of the table or the other the innocent side or the guilty side what I will say is I don't feel that
00:58:24
Brandon regardless of what people out there listening feel if he's guilty or not I feel that this guy got screwed in
00:58:31
court I don't think that this was a fair trial and a large part of that comes from this fact and this is known fact
00:58:39
it's in the court documents we have a judge who had to make a ruling on this after the fact it was proven that the
00:58:46
prosecution was not only listening into Brandon's phone calls while he's in jail
00:58:52
for 2 and a half years mind you leading up to the trial right they were listening to phone calls
00:58:57
between him and his defense attorneys that's that's awful right he he should be he one if you're going to hold
00:59:05
somebody that long I understand that you think he's a murderer but if you think he's a murder then get him to trial if
00:59:12
you're going to hold him for two years then release him he should not have to sit in jail it it's supposed to be
00:59:19
innocent until proven guilty an innocent man shouldn't have to sit behind bars for a whole two years the other thing
00:59:26
too is I would I really want to know if Brandon came forward and and talked about any sexual encounters that he
00:59:34
possibly had uh in his community during High School would there be any individual that showed discrimination
00:59:42
towards him that would be afraid of him possibly telling his parents or or telling the community well this this
00:59:50
whole mess right here is pure and simple abuse of power is what it is I get it okay this was taken to a
01:00:00
higher court and a higher Court had to make a ruling on this and determine that no wrongdoing took place uh let's say
01:00:07
horseshit all right I'm sure that's a term that they use a lot in Texas that's what this is to me abuse of power
01:00:14
because what they did here was let's take this guy lock him up we'll set the bail really high so he can't get out and
01:00:23
then in the time that we take to build our case we're going to use him being locked up to our advantage to build a
01:00:30
case against him by snooping on his phone calls now I get what the Court ruling says that you know they were told
01:00:37
the inmates the the people that are housed at that facility are told your phone calls will be recorded I get that
01:00:45
that's fine I also get that he was mirandized that says you've been arrested for this charge and anything
01:00:51
you say or do can and will be held against you in the court of law I get that the problem is where the hell
01:00:58
is the attorney client privilege right okay I get that they they presented this has happened in other cases where
01:01:05
they've presented um Casey Anthony her phone calls that she had while she was in jail locked up they've presented
01:01:14
those at trial they didn't present the phone calls between her and her attorney because that's privileged information
01:01:20
and that shouldn't be information that maybe it's not presented at trial but prosecution shouldn't be able to hear
01:01:28
that and then I think the problem becomes it just seems like they're discriminating against this guy simply
01:01:37
because of his sexuality or that they've built this case against this guy maybe they really believe that he killed his
01:01:43
parents and it has nothing to do with his lifestyle for them maybe they just really believe that he did it but
01:01:49
they're going to stack the deck against this guy which is just unfair that's not
01:01:53
what our society has deemed to be right right and the thing is too the higher Court ruling was that well none of the
01:02:02
information gathered in those recordings was used against him at trial so what who cares well you can't actually prove
01:02:10
that because whatever information that the prosecutors heard they could have changed their strategy based off the
01:02:16
information they heard so there would be no way of really proving unless they took direct word or direct uh lines
01:02:26
between those Communications and presented those at trial I agree 100% And so it's one of those situations
01:02:33
where I cannot tell you if Brandon Woodruff killed his parents I can tell you this there were other suspects that
01:02:40
I would have looked at these Etherington are weird that whole family Mike Etherington said lies to the police we
01:02:46
know that because he told police that he saw on Brandon's Myspace page that Brandon hated his parents and he wished
01:02:54
they were dead the police checked the Myspace page it didn't say that it said that he loved his parents so why did
01:03:01
Mike make that up I find that really strange to go run an errand for your parents when you want to kill them and
01:03:10
come back and kill them yeah and to take it a step further there was hold on I was just going to say if they came back
01:03:16
and said that Aon was never run I'd go okay well that makes more sense but when they come back and go okay well we have
01:03:23
proof that that that Aaron was run he go but this doesn't make a lot of sense well
01:03:30
and to take that a step further there Captain this is similar to the Eddie O'Brien Jr case that we covered back in
01:03:37
August of this year in episodes 416 417 the trail Blood episodes there was evidence at the crime scene that is
01:03:47
directly related to these murders that was not tested and not presented at trial
01:03:54
and that is a difficult bitter pill to swallow at the end of the day there was hair found in Norma woodruff's hands
01:04:04
that law enforcement agree this I'm going by their own statements they believe that that hair likely came from
01:04:12
the killer could it have come from Norma's head yes could it have come from her husband yes do we know where it came
01:04:19
from no it was never tested and it was never presented at trial Brandon Woodruff did not receive a fair
01:04:27
[Music] [Music] try all right thanks for joining us here in the garage we want to hear from you
01:04:42
we want to know what your thoughts are on this case check us out at true Crim garage.com and go to our blog and leave
01:04:50
us a comment Colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week this week we are recommending railroaded
01:04:57
the homophobic prosecution of Brandon Woodruff for his parents' Murder by Philip Crawford Jr available in both
01:05:05
paperback and Kendall forms among those who have read Crawford's book is Catherine Ferguson she is one of
01:05:12
woodruff's defense lawyers and I found an online review that she wrote for the book which says quote Mr Crawford has
01:05:20
done an excellent job of setting forth facts not speculation or Prejudice that show Brandon Woodruff is innocent check
01:05:28
out railroaded that great title and many others are listed on our recommended page at true Crim garage.com and until
01:05:36
next week be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] you can start your day off right when
01:06:19
you find a professional on Angie to get your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals
01:06:25
to get all your home projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you
01:06:30
Angie that