WEBVTT
1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:13.240
Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, you're listening to Daily Crime
2
00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:17.359
and Justice. I'm Garrett Fisher and this is Wednesday, June third,
3
00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:21.960
twenty twenty six. Here's the question on the table this morning.
4
00:00:22.519 --> 00:00:24.719
If a jury looks you in the eye and says
5
00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:28.559
not guilty of murder, can the state turn around and
6
00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:30.800
put you on trial for the same night all over
7
00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:36.000
again in Connecticut. That's not a hypothetical. That is exactly
8
00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:39.280
what's about to happen to a young man named Raoul Vale.
9
00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:42.240
And on Monday, his lawyer stood up in a courtroom
10
00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:45.399
in Milford and basically told the judge this is a
11
00:00:45.439 --> 00:00:48.520
rerun nobody asked for. Look, I'm going to be honest
12
00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.159
with you. There's a teenager at the center of this
13
00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:54.439
who never got a retrial, never got a do over,
14
00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:59.439
never got anything. His name was Jimmy McGrath. He was seventeen.
15
00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:02.759
And before this turns into a debate about double jeopardy
16
00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:05.159
and legal theory, I want you to hold on to
17
00:01:05.319 --> 00:01:08.000
him because he is the reason any of this is
18
00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:11.840
happening at all. Then we're going to Las Vegas to
19
00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:15.799
Crime con the Big True Crime Convention, where two cases
20
00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:18.519
we follow closely on this show just had real news
21
00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:20.760
drop on a stage in front of a live audience.
22
00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:24.680
New details in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother
23
00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:28.560
of today's show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Scott Peterson's old
24
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:32.640
defense attorney Mark Garragas standing up to say his client
25
00:01:32.799 --> 00:01:37.079
is innocent and the proof is coming. Three stories, one
26
00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:40.480
verdict that wouldn't stick, one woman who's still missing, and
27
00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:43.359
one of the most famous convictions in American history getting
28
00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:52.640
picked apart again. This is Daily Crime and Justice. Let
29
00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:55.519
me set the scene, because if you haven't followed this one,
30
00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.239
you need the whole picture to understand why Monday's hearing
31
00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:04.319
matters so much. Fourteenth, twenty twenty two, Shelton, Connecticut. It's
32
00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:07.000
the tail end of the school year. There's a house
33
00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:09.560
party for kids from Saint Joseph's High School over on
34
00:02:09.639 --> 00:02:15.120
Lazybrook Road. Teenagers, alcohol, no adults paying close attention. The
35
00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:17.439
kind of night that's supposed to end with everybody going
36
00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:21.520
home and nursing a hangover the next morning. Instead, four
37
00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:24.919
people got stabbed and one of them died. His name
38
00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.960
was James McGrath. Everybody called him Jimmy. Seventeen years old,
39
00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:33.639
a junior at Shelton High, a lacrosse player, the kind
40
00:02:33.639 --> 00:02:36.000
of kid his friends describe as the one you actually
41
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:39.840
wanted around. One of his closest friends testified later that
42
00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:43.039
on that very night, before any of this happened, Jimmy
43
00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.520
had pulled her aside and told her how happy he was,
44
00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:49.000
how good things were going in his relationship. That was
45
00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.719
the conversation. That's where his head was. A seventeen year
46
00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:56.159
old talking about being happy, and then he was gone.
47
00:02:56.759 --> 00:03:00.719
How a stolen beer became a body. Here's how it spiraled.
48
00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:03.479
And I want you to notice how small the spark was.
49
00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:07.199
At that first party on Lazybrook Road, a kid named
50
00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:11.280
Jack Snyder grabbed another kid's beer. That's it. That's the
51
00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:16.280
inciting incident. The other kid, Ryan Hines, said, in effect,
52
00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:19.879
I'll fight you for my beer, and it turned into
53
00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:24.599
a brawl. Snyder Raoul Vale, a friend named Tyler da Silva,
54
00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:29.759
all Saint Joseph's kids against the Shelton crowd. That fight
55
00:03:29.879 --> 00:03:33.159
broke up, everybody got kicked out. And this is the
56
00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:35.039
part that should have been the end of the story.
57
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:37.879
They could have gone home, but there was a group
58
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.159
chat and here's a detail that tells you everything about
59
00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:44.960
how dumb and how preventable this was. That group chat
60
00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.360
had originally been set up to organize pickup basketball games basketball.
61
00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:52.319
By the night of May fourteenth, it had curdled into
62
00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:55.080
a trash talking war room between two groups of teenage
63
00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:59.120
boys daring each other to show up, and somebody said, slide,
64
00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:03.120
come over, let's do this. So a car load of them,
65
00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:06.319
seven kids in a Honda Pilot drove about a mile
66
00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:10.439
to a second party, Tyler Rich's house on Laurel Glenn Drive,
67
00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:13.879
about thirty Shelton High kids in the yard, and when
68
00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:16.399
that suv pulled up, the two groups went at each other.
69
00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:19.600
Before anyone even got out of the car. Kids surrounded
70
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:23.839
the Honda. They rocked it, They threw things. Somebody threw
71
00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:27.279
a bottle out of the car and it shattered. Witnesses
72
00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:30.120
said the suv circled the block three or four times
73
00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:34.639
before coming back and inside that car. According to multiple witnesses,
74
00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:39.360
Raoul Valet was, in their words, going pretty insane about
75
00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:42.480
the damage to his friend's vehicle, and he was asking
76
00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:48.079
for a knife jack, where's your knife? Snyder testified he
77
00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:50.959
reached into the center console and handed Valet a black
78
00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:55.879
folding tactical knife. They drove back, and in the brawl
79
00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:00.519
that followed, four people were stabbed. Ryan Hines, the kid
80
00:05:00.519 --> 00:05:03.439
whose beer started the whole thing, took wounds to the
81
00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:08.279
chest and torso his lung collapsed. A doctor testified he
82
00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:10.639
heard a bubbling sound from his own chest and thought
83
00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:13.839
he was going to die. An emergency chest tube saved
84
00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:18.800
his life. Tommy Connery stabbed in the leg, Faison tele
85
00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:22.000
stabbed in the arm, didn't even realize it until someone
86
00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:26.759
pointed out the blood. And Jimmy McGrath stabbed once in
87
00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:29.959
the left side of the chest. The blade, between two
88
00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:31.759
and a half and three and a half inches deep,
89
00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:36.000
punctured the left ventricle of his heart. The medical examiner's
90
00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:39.079
word for whether he could have survived it was impossible
91
00:05:39.399 --> 00:05:41.879
unless it had happened on an operating table with surgeons
92
00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:46.560
standing over him. Jimmy said, I've been stabbed, and he collapsed.
93
00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:50.480
And here's the detail that several eyewitnesses hammered on over
94
00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:55.399
and over. Jimmy McGrath wasn't fighting anybody. One witness said
95
00:05:55.439 --> 00:05:59.680
she watched volley go right towards Jimmy. Another, a kid
96
00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:03.600
named Charlie Connery untestified, he yelled he has a knife,
97
00:06:03.959 --> 00:06:06.759
and then watched Volley turn and stab Jimmy, who he
98
00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:11.240
said went after him with a purpose. The defense disputes that,
99
00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:14.759
but the picture of the prosecution's witnesses painted was of
100
00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:18.480
a bystander, a kid standing there who is now dead.
101
00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:22.759
After the stabbing, witnesses say Valet got back in the
102
00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:26.040
car distraught and said I think I just stabbed four people,
103
00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:29.240
and then as they drove off, he threw the knife
104
00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:32.079
into the woods near a cul de sac. Police searched
105
00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:35.720
for that knife. They searched for it repeatedly, as recently
106
00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:38.959
as last year. They never found it. Vale, who was
107
00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.519
sixteen at the time, left for Florida with his mother
108
00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:44.279
and brother. Came back a few days later when the
109
00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:47.920
arrest warrant came down. He turned himself in four days
110
00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:51.839
after Jimmy McGrath died. Now there's another side to this,
111
00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.879
and I'm going to give it to you straight, because
112
00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:58.800
the jury heard it and it clearly landed. Vale took
113
00:06:58.839 --> 00:07:01.560
the stand in his own defense. He told the jury
114
00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:04.199
he never wanted to fight, that the group was just
115
00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:07.360
looking for another party, that the car was surrounded by
116
00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:10.519
a mob banging on the windows and rocking it, that
117
00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:13.959
somebody sprayed w D forty in his face, that he
118
00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:16.680
got hit so hard he blacked out at one point,
119
00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:20.279
and that Jack Snyder, not him, produced the knife and
120
00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.360
tossed it to him. He said he stabbed without any
121
00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:26.319
real direction, that he was terrified, that he just wanted
122
00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:30.199
to get people away from him self. Defense. That was
123
00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:33.360
the whole case. And here's the thing about that defense.
124
00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:37.360
Some of it was genuinely messy for the prosecution. There
125
00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:41.399
were two kids who testified under immunity and non prosecution deals,
126
00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:45.560
Jack Snyder, who handed over the knife, and Tyler Da Silva.
127
00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:49.759
Their families refused to let police interview them for six months.
128
00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:53.519
Six months. So when Valet's lawyer told the jury there
129
00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:56.959
was so much stupid running around that night and that
130
00:07:57.079 --> 00:07:59.199
his client was the only one of all these kids
131
00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:04.240
actually sitting in courtroom, that argument had teeth. The verdict
132
00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:07.519
that didn't finish the job. So in July of twenty
133
00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:10.879
twenty five, after a thirteen day trial, the jury came
134
00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:13.560
back and the result was the kind of split that
135
00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:18.959
satisfies absolutely nobody. On the top charges murder, first degree assault,
136
00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:23.439
not guilty across the board. The jury would not convict
137
00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:27.959
Raoul Valet of intentionally murdering Jimmy McGrath or intentionally assaulting
138
00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:32.759
the others, but on the lesser charges reckless manslaughter reckless assault,
139
00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:37.919
they deadlocked, couldn't agree hung, so the judge declared a
140
00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:41.000
mistrial on those counts, which means, in the eyes of
141
00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.360
the law, those charges are still alive, unresolved, which means
142
00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.159
the state can try them again. And that's the box
143
00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:51.679
everyone's been stuck in for almost a year, acquitted of
144
00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:54.879
the worst of it, never cleared of the rest, and
145
00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:57.879
a family that buried their son with no finish line
146
00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:02.879
in sight, which brings us to this past Monday, June first,
147
00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:06.559
in a courtroom in Milford, Connecticut. Valley is twenty Now
148
00:09:06.679 --> 00:09:09.559
he has a new attorney, a man named Darnell Crossland,
149
00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:13.120
and Crossland came in swinging to get these remaining charges
150
00:09:13.159 --> 00:09:16.639
thrown out before any retrial can happen. His argument has
151
00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:20.720
a few layers. First, double jeopardy, he told the judge
152
00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:24.159
the court has no business trying this case again, same act,
153
00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:28.200
same night, same individuals. Second, and this is the more
154
00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:31.399
interesting one. He argued that when the jury acquitted Volley
155
00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:35.679
of murder. They necessarily decided that Valet acted in self defense.
156
00:09:36.279 --> 00:09:38.840
And if self defense cleared him of the big charges,
157
00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:40.919
it has to clear him of the small ones too.
158
00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:45.440
You can't slice it. And third, he leaned on time,
159
00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:49.399
four years, four years since Jimmy McGrath died, and the
160
00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:52.840
state still hasn't finished. And then Crossland gave the line
161
00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:55.600
that put this hearing in headlines. He said, and I'm
162
00:09:55.679 --> 00:09:58.440
quoting him, if we tried this case at three o'clock
163
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:01.519
this afternoon, the exact s, the same victims, the exact
164
00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:04.600
same defense, the exact same burden on the state, it
165
00:10:04.600 --> 00:10:09.919
would be Groundhog Day all over again, same movie, same ending.
166
00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:13.679
Why run it twice? Here's where it got good because
167
00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:17.559
the judge, Judge Kevin Russo, did not just nod along.
168
00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:21.120
He pushed back, and he pushed back with the exact
169
00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:24.840
question a sharp judge should ask. He said, isn't it
170
00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:28.159
possible the jury never even got to the self defense question.
171
00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:32.120
Isn't it possible they acquitted simply because they didn't think
172
00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:35.960
the state proved intentional conduct beyond a reasonable doubt, which
173
00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:39.679
is a completely different thing from finding self defense. Because
174
00:10:39.720 --> 00:10:42.840
if that's why they acquitted. Then the recklessness charges are
175
00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:47.000
wide open. Reckless isn't intentional. You can fail to prove
176
00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:49.200
someone meant to do it and still have a real
177
00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:52.519
question about whether they did it recklessly. That's not a
178
00:10:52.519 --> 00:10:55.480
small distinction. That is the entire case balanced on the
179
00:10:55.519 --> 00:10:59.399
difference between he didn't mean to and he was justified,
180
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.159
and the defense needs door number two. The judge just
181
00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:07.159
reminded everyone door number one exists. The father standing next
182
00:11:07.159 --> 00:11:11.799
to the prosecution outside the courthouse, Jimmy McGrath's father, Kevin McGrath,
183
00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:14.960
stood next to the prosecutors, and he didn't talk like
184
00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:18.080
a man looking for revenge. He talked like a man
185
00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:21.919
who is exhausted. He said nobody wants a speedy trial
186
00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:25.279
more than the McGrath family. He said, all they've gotten
187
00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:29.039
for four years is delay. He said, we'd like to
188
00:11:29.039 --> 00:11:31.879
get this behind us. Sit with that for a second.
189
00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:34.879
The defense is in court arguing that a retrial would
190
00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:38.799
be a pointless rerun, a waste groundhog day, and the
191
00:11:38.919 --> 00:11:41.840
murdered boy's father is standing on the courthouse steps saying,
192
00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:46.279
please run it, finish it. We've been waiting four years
193
00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:48.080
for somebody to put a period at the end of
194
00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:51.320
this sentence. Both things can be true here, and that's
195
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:54.799
what makes this hard. Raoul Vale was a sixteen year
196
00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.960
old who was acquitted of murder by a jury of
197
00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.200
adults who heard everything. He has presumed innocent on what's left,
198
00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:04.879
and he is entitled to every protection the Constitution gives him,
199
00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:08.159
including protection from being hauled back into court for something
200
00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:12.519
he's already been cleared of. That's real, that matters. The
201
00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:16.440
double jeopardy clause exists for a reason. And also, a
202
00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:20.240
kid is dead, a kid who by most accounts wasn't
203
00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:23.279
even in the fight, and his father has spent four
204
00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:26.200
years driving to hearings instead of watching his son grow up.
205
00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.960
The legal system's job is to resolve that, not to
206
00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:33.360
let it dangle indefinitely. Because the first jury couldn't finish
207
00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:37.000
the sentence. Judge Russo says he'll issue a written ruling
208
00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:40.720
in the coming weeks. So this isn't over today. But
209
00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:44.200
whichever way it breaks, it tells you something about how
210
00:12:44.279 --> 00:12:48.360
our system handles the cases it can't cleanly resolve, the
211
00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:50.559
ones that end in a hung count. Instead of a
212
00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:54.000
clean answer, somebody has to say Jimmy McGrath's name in
213
00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:57.159
that courtroom until it's actually finished. We'll be watching for
214
00:12:57.200 --> 00:13:01.279
the ruling when we come back. We're going to Las
215
00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:05.120
Vegas to Crime Con, where a panel of reporters and
216
00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:08.399
investigators just dropped new details on two cases we've been
217
00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:12.360
following for months, the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie's mother and
218
00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:28.200
the conviction of Scott Peterson. Stay with me, Welcome back.
219
00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:32.200
You know this case. Nancy Guthrie, eighty four years old,
220
00:13:32.279 --> 00:13:35.679
the mother of Today's show hosts Savannah Guthrie, vanished from
221
00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:38.960
her home in Arizona back in the winter. A doorbell
222
00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:42.600
camera was disabled, there was a search, there were reported
223
00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:47.120
ransom notes, the FBI got involved, and then, like a
224
00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:51.000
lot of these cases, it went quiet. We're now more
225
00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:55.039
than one hundred days out. She is still missing. This
226
00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:57.440
past weekend at Crime Con in Las Vegas, there was
227
00:13:57.480 --> 00:14:03.000
a panel devoted entirely to her disappearance. Reporters, a defense attorney, investigators,
228
00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:05.159
and a few things came out of that room that
229
00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:09.240
are worth your time. First the News. A Fox Digital
230
00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:12.720
reporter on the panel, Michael Ruiz, said he'd heard from
231
00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:17.759
a federal source minutes before walking on stage that investigators
232
00:14:17.799 --> 00:14:21.840
are now discussing bringing new tools into the case, technological
233
00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:25.960
tools specifically. He didn't say more than that, but after
234
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:28.559
one hundred plus days of stall, any signal that the
235
00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:33.120
investigation is escalating is something second, and this is the
236
00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:36.440
one that got my attention. A defense attorney on the panel,
237
00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:40.200
Donna Rotano, said she's learned that Savannah Guthrie has now
238
00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:42.720
spent half a million dollars of her own money hiring
239
00:14:42.759 --> 00:14:48.200
private investigators. Rotuno's read on that she's not satisfied a
240
00:14:48.279 --> 00:14:51.120
daughter does not spend five hundred thousand dollars on private
241
00:14:51.159 --> 00:14:54.480
investigators if she has faith that law enforcement is going
242
00:14:54.519 --> 00:14:57.159
to bring her mother home. And then the panel got
243
00:14:57.159 --> 00:15:00.600
into something more uncomfortable, whether this case was at the