April 21, 2026

LIVER INSTEAD OF SPLEEN: FL SURGEON CHARGED, SIGN'S 'SUICIDE' UNRAVELS, KAREN READ HIT WITH LAWSUIT

LIVER INSTEAD OF SPLEEN: FL SURGEON CHARGED, SIGN'S 'SUICIDE' UNRAVELS, KAREN READ HIT WITH LAWSUIT
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A surgeon who took out the wrong organ. An anchor's death his family never accepted. And four witnesses finally firing back at Karen Reed.

A Florida surgeon is indicted for manslaughter after allegedly removing a seventy-year-old patient's liver instead of his spleen — and his lawyer says it's not the first wrong organ he's pulled out. Nearly five years after Birmingham anchor Christopher Sign was found hanged in his home office, his family still refuses to accept the suicide ruling — no full autopsy, a forty-eight-hour cremation, a widow who allegedly told his sister 'this was a terrible mistake.' And four witnesses from the Karen Reed trials just sued Reed and the blogger Turtleboy for defamation. Garret Fisher breaks down three stories where the official version isn't holding.

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WEBVTT

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Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Tuesday,

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April twenty first, twenty twenty six. This is Daily Crime

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and Justice. Three stories today and a theme running through

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all of them. The official version isn't holding. A surgeon

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in the Florida Panhandle reaches into a patient's abdomen for

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what was supposed to be a routine spleen removal and

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comes out with, according to the indictment, the liver, not

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the spleen, the liver, which is on the other side

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of the body, which is about four times larger than

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the spleen, which has so many vessel connections that, to

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quote the attorney now representing the family, you can't accidentally

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take out somebody's liver. You have to actively dissect it

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loose that patient, a seventy year old Navy veteran named

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William Bryan, bled to death on the operating table. His widow, Beverly,

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was told he died from a ruptured spleen. She only

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learned the truth from the autopsy. Last week, a Walton

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County grand jury indicted doctor Thomas Shaknovsky on second degree manslaughter.

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He's out on seventy five thousand dollars. Bond and the

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lawyer for Brian's family says, this isn't the first time

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Shaknovsky has taken out the wrong organ. Second story, and

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this one you have to hold carefully because there's a

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lot of noise around it. Christopher Sign. If that name

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doesn't ring a bell, it should. Back in twenty sixteen,

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Sign was an anchor in Phoenix when he broke what

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was at that moment one of the biggest political stories

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of the election, Bill Clinton, walking across a tarmac and

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having a private meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at

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the exact moment her Justice Department was investigating Hillary Clinton's emails.

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Sign told everyone, his wife, his friends, his colleagues, the

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readers of his twenty twenty book, that he had received

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death threats, that he was teaching his three young sons

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secret code words, and that if anything ever happened to him,

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he was not suicidal. On June twelfth, twenty twenty one,

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he was found hanged in his home office. The death

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was ruled a suicide within hours, no full autopsy. His

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body was cremated within forty eight hours without his family

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being consulted. Nearly five years later, his mother hasn't seen

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her grandchildren. His brother is furious, and his older sister

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says the widow called her in twenty twenty three saying, quote,

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this was a terrible, terrible mistake un quote. We're going

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to walk through this one carefully, and finally, Karen Reid.

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Two criminal trials, one hung jury, one acquittal, and apparently

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the legal phase of this case is nowhere near. Over

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four of the people who testified against Reed filed a

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defamation lawsuit last Thursday in Barnstable Superior Court. They say

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read and the blogger Aiden Kearney, known online as Turtle Boy,

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ran a coordinated multi year campaign to falsely accuse them

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of killing John O'Keeffe and covering it up. Reid's side

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is calling it desperation on a page. Kearney's lawyer is

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basically saying, bring it on. We'll prove our case in

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civil court. The truth may finally have to come out

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under oath three stories. Let's start with the operating room,

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August twenty first, twenty twenty four, Miramar Beach, Florida, Ascension,

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Sacred Heart, Emerald Coast Hospital. William Bryan, seventy years old,

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a Navy veteran from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, is being wheeled

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into an operating room for a hand assisted laparoscopic splenectomy

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removal of the spleen. Here's what you need to know

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about how he got to that operating room. Brian and

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his wife, Beverly married a long time own a rental

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property in Okaloosa County, and they were visiting when Bill

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started having sharp pain on his left side. They go

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to the hospit they're admitted for evaluation of what doctors

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think is a spleen abnormality. Brian doesn't want surgery in Florida.

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He wants to go home. Muscle Shoals is about a

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five hour drive. He wants to be seen by doctors

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he knows. That is what he tells his wife, and

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that is what the records reflect. According to the family's attorney,

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a Pensacola lawyer named Joe Zarzar, two doctors at Ascension

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Sacred Heart pressured Brian to stay. Doctor Thomas Shechnovsky, the

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general surgeon, and doctor Christopher Bokani, the hospital's chief medical officer,

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both reportedly told the family that if Brian left, he

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could face serious complications. So Brian stayed. And on August

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twenty first, he went in for the procedure. And now

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here's where it gets and I'm choosing my words very carefully,

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impossible to explain as an accident. The spleen is on

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the left side of the abdomen, near the stomach. It's

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about the size of a clenched fist. The livers on

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the right side of the abdomen. It's the largest internal

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organ in the human body, roughly four times the size

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of the spleen. The liver has multiple major vascular connections,

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the hepatic artery, the portal vein, the hepatic veins, the

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bile duct, all of which have to be actively dissected

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loose before the organ can be removed. That's not my analysis,

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that's the attorney for the family, Joe Zarzar, who said publicly, quote,

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you can't accidentally take out somebody's liver because it has

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so many different connection points that nobody, not even a

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brand new surgeon, would not know they're taking out the

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liver unquote. What the Florida Surgeon General found in an

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emergency licensed suspension order filed in September of twenty twenty

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four was this during the procedure Brian began hemorrhaging. Staff

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called a code and began emergency resuscitation. Shachnowski completed the procedure.

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Then he placed a quoteute readily identifiable liver unquote on

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the surgical table, and he told the operating room staff

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it was the spleen, which it was not. The staff,

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according to the Florida Surgeon General's own order, were shocked.

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Brian bled out on the table. He died in that

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operating room. And then here's the part that I want

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you to sit with. Shacknofsky's operative report, the official document

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that describes what happened in the surgery, never mentions the liver.

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The word liver does not appear. The report says, quote

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the spleen was exposed noted to be severely deformed unquote,

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and that it was quote quite friable, and certainly the

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large side made the dissection challenging unquote. Look, I'm going

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to be honest with you. A deformed, friable spleen is

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not a liver. A liver is a liver. You know

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what you're looking at when you're holding it. And Beverly Bryan,

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the widow, was told by the surgeon that her husband

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had died because of bleeding from a ruptured spleen. She

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believed that she went home and buried her husband, believing

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his spleen had ruptured. She only learned the truth that

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her husband's liver had been removed and that his spleen

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was still inside him when the autopsy came back. She

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later said, and I'm quoting her here. When I tell

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people what happened, it still sounds too awful to be true,

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that that could happen. I still have trouble believing it

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happened myself. Can you imagine? No, I cannot imagine. Nobody

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can imagine. That is the point. So here's what happens next.

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The Florida Surgeon General suspends Shechnovsky's license on an emergency basis.

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In September of twenty twenty four, the Alabama Medical Licensure Commission,

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where he was also licensed, revokes his license that same year.

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Beverly Brian files a civil malpractice law suit in early

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twenty twenty five. That case has been moving through the courts. Then,

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last Monday, April thirteenth, twenty twenty six, the Walton County

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Sheriff's Office arrests Shachnowsky and Miramar Beach and transports him

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to the Walton County Jail. The day before, a grand

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jury handed down a single count of second degree manslaughter.

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He appeared in court Tuesday, posted seventy five thousand dollars bond,

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and walked out. He's due back in court May nineteenth,

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seventy five thousand dollars. Let me walk you through this.

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A man is dead. The State Medical Board has already said,

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in writing in an emergency order that the surgeon committed

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quote repeated egregious surgical errors unquote. And also, and this

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is actually maybe the bigger line engaged in quote egregious

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conduct fabricating medical records unquote. And the bond is seventy

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five thousand. That's what they said it at for a

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doctor who, according to the state's owned findings, killed a

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patient and then documented the wrong cause of death. Now

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here's the part that puts it over the line for me.

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According to the Florida Department of Health report and Zarzar's

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own statements, this is not the first wrong organ surgery

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Shaknovsky has been accused of. In May of twenty twenty three,

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more than a year before Brian died, Seknovsky allegedly removed

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a portion of another patient's pancreas when the intended surgery

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was an adrenal gland resection. Different organs, different locations, different operation,

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and he kept his privileges, kept operating. And then in

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August of twenty twenty four, Bill Brian walked into that

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hospital with left side pain. And a year later he's

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in the ground, and his widow is finding out from

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an autopsy that her husband didn't have the injury she'd

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been told he died of. There's one more thing, and

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this one, this one, I want somebody with subpoena power

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to answer Tsarzar. The attorney has said publicly that Shaknovsky

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may still be treating patients through the US military system.

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His words, and I'm quoting here, the military system is

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not tied to any particular state, and I guess he

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has figured out a way to continue practicing medicine and

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not disclose what's going on in his civilian life. Unquote. Now,

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we have not been able to independently confirm what Shaknovsky's

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current military contract status is. Somebody needs to the claim

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that Shaknovsky may still be treating military patients comes from

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the Bryan family's attorney, Joe Tsarzar, we have not independently

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verified his current military affiliation. Beverly Brian said something last

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week after the indictment that has stuck with me. She said, quote,

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he would want his death to prevent someone else from

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being hurt, which is what I think the criminal charges

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being brought will do. If we had to suffer through

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this and he had to die, then at least no

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one else will be hurt by this man. Now unquote.

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That is a widow trying to find meaning in something

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that has no meaning. That is a woman trying to

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turn a dead husband into a firewall for somebody else's husband,

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and she shouldn't have to. That is the job of

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a hospital. That is the job of a credentialing board.

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That is the job of a chief medical officer, who,

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in this case, by the way, was allegedly one of

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the two doctors who pressured Bill Bryan to stay at

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that hospital when he wanted to drive home to Alabama.

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May nineteenth is the next hearing we'll be watching. Okay,

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this next story is going to require us both to

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slow down. Christopher sign forty five years old at the

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time of his death, a television anchor in Birmingham, Alabama

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before that, an anchor in Phoenix before that, a University

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of Alabama football player aligneman six foot one, two hundred

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and fifteen pounds, three young sons, a wife he'd known

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since college, a book deal, a father's day the following week,

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a vacation plan, birthday parties on the calendar for all

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three boys, pads and helmet football starting for his sons,

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a baseball game the next day with a friend from Tennessee.

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And in twenty sixteen, while working at ABC fifteen in Phoenix,

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Christopher Sign broke a story that, whatever you think about

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the politics of it, was undeniably one of the biggest

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scoops of that election cycle. He was the reporter who

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revealed that former President Bill Clinton had walked across a

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private airport tarmac in Phoenix and boarded the plane of

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then Attorney General Loretta Lynch for an unscheduled private meeting.

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At the exact moment, Lynch's Justice Department was actively investigating

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whether Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server had

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been a crime. Both Clinton and Lynch said publicly it

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was a chance encounter, a social conversation, small talk about grandchildren.

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The revelation of the meeting set off a political firestorm,

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prompted Lynch to pledge she'd accept whatever the FBI and

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career prosecutors recommended on the Clinton email case, and it

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put Christopher Sign on the map as a serious reporter.

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It also, according to Sign himself, on the record for years,

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put him in fear for his life. Sign told friends

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and colleagues he was getting death threats. He went on

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Fox and Friends and said he had taught his three

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young sons secret code words so they would know when

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to hide and who to trust. And in his twenty

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twenty book called Secret on the Tarmac, he put it

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in writing. The sentence quoted in the Daily Mail and

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in coverage at the time reads quote, I made it

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clear in front of my wife that I was not suicidal.

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We all laughed, but deep down knew it was serious. Unquote.

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On the morning of June twelfth, twenty twenty one, in

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his home in Hoover, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, Christopher

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Sign was found hanging from the door of his home

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office by his wife and by his eldest son. That

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is the fact that happened. A man who told everyone

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including in the pages of a published book that if

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anything happened to him, it would not be by his

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own hand. Was found dead in what the Jefferson County

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Coroner ruled within hours a suicide. Here is where I

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have to be very careful with you, because the moment

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Christopher Sign died, the conspiracy theory machine spun up Alex Jones,

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Dan Bongino, then Congresswoman Lauren Bobert, Charlie Kirk. A Facebook

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group called Justice for Christopher Sign filled up with posts

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calling him the latest victim of the so called Clinton

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body count, a conspiracy theory that has for decades attributed

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any number of deaths of Clinton associates to the Clintons.

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There is no evidence that Clinton's had anything to do

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with Christopher Sign's death. The Clintons have never been charged.

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There's no credible investigation pointing to them. I am telling

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you that not to litigate whether you believe it or don't.

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I'm telling you that because the conspiracy theory noise around

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this case has, in my view, actually made it harder

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for reasonable people to ask reasonable questions about the official investigation.

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And the official investigation has some real problems. So let's

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separate those two things and look at what the family

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is actually saying, not what the internet is saying. The

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Daily Mail published this week a long piece with extensive

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interviews with Christopher Sign's mother, his older brother, his older sister,

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00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:41.080
his college football teammate Josh Swords, who went on to

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become a prosecutor and then a defense attorney, and the

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publisher of his book, Bill Knocker in Birmingham. These are

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people who knew him, These are people who grieved him,

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and every single one of them is on the record

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saying the official ruling does not sit right. Here are

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the specific things they are questioning. One on one. There

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00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:05.720
was no full autopsy. The death was ruled a suicide

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by the coroner within hours. Gnar, the publisher, told The

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Daily Mail, and this is a paraphrase, he wishes they

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had paused long enough to honor Sign's own written request

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to examine the possibility of foul play if he ever

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died under suspicious circumstances. Number two, Sign's body was cremated

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within forty eight hours of his death, without his parents,

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00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:32.399
without his brother, without his sister being consulted. His mother,

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00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:35.840
Susan Seyn, who is eighty years old, told The Daily

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Mail she drove from Texas to Alabama the morning after

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her son's death, specifically to see his body one last time,

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and when she arrived, she was told by her daughter

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in law's mother, he's already been cremated. That is her

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direct quote. Number three. The cremation took place at a

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00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:58.360
facility in a rough part of Birmingham, far from the

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00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:02.559
Hoover suburb where sign L lived. That detail may be nothing,

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but the family has noted it. Number four, and this

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00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:09.240
is the one I cannot stop thinking about. Sign was

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a big man, six foot one, two hundred and fifteen

269
00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:18.000
pounds of former college offensive lineman. According to the initial reports,

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he hanged himself with a puppy leash and his feet

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00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:25.599
were touching the floor. Now, I want to be honest

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with you about something. It is medically and physically possible

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00:17:28.839 --> 00:17:31.400
to die by hanging with your feet on the ground.

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It is not the most common method, but it is

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00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:39.359
not impossible. Asphyxiation from ligature pressure on the neck does

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not require suspension in the conventional sense. So I'm not

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going to tell you that detail by itself proves anything.

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But I will tell you that detail, combined with the

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00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:53.200
absence of a full autopsy. That combination is the part

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that haunts people. Now Here's where the family's account gets

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00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:00.160
really strange and where I have to flag the We

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00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:02.759
are reporting what the family has told The Daily Mail.

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00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:09.000
We are not independently verifying their accounts. Christopher Sign's older sister, Stephanie,

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told The Daily Mail that sometime in the summer of

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00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:14.680
twenty twenty three, two years after her brother's death, his

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00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:18.319
widow Laura, called her out of the blue. Stephanie said

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she was not close to Laura. They had never been closed,

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00:18:21.079 --> 00:18:25.119
so the call itself was unusual. Stephanie says her son

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Seth was with her and heard the call on speakerphone,

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and she says Laura repeated the same phrase to her

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for about an hour. Quote this was a terrible, terrible

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00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:39.839
mistake unquote, Stephanie says. She kept asking what mistake? Tell

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00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:43.200
me what the mistake was, and Laura allegedly just kept

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repeating it and then eventually hung up. I don't know

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00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:51.079
what that call was. Nobody does except the two people

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00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:54.279
on it. Laura Sign has never spoken publicly about her

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00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:57.759
husband's death. She told The Daily Mail by text this

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00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:00.279
week that she and the boys are focused on his

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00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:03.720
life and legacy, on the outstanding husband and father and

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00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:08.240
journalist he was, and not on quote the ending on quote,

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00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:11.480
and two friends of hers and Hoover defend her publicly

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00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:15.039
on the Justice for Christopher Sign facebook page, saying she's

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00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:19.319
been unfairly blamed for circumstances outside her control. That is

304
00:19:19.400 --> 00:19:22.119
also part of the record. Here are the other things

305
00:19:22.200 --> 00:19:25.640
in the record. Christopher Seinn's family says they have been

306
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:29.440
almost entirely cut off from his three sons since the funeral.

307
00:19:30.039 --> 00:19:33.559
His mother, Susan, says she sent her grandson's Christmas presents

308
00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:36.440
one year and the presents were returned and she was

309
00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:40.799
accused of spreading harmful rumors. Christopher's brother Bobby says the

310
00:19:40.839 --> 00:19:43.839
Sign family had to find hotels during the funeral while

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00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:47.519
Laura's family stayed at her house. Laura came into what's

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00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:51.440
been reported as approximately a two million dollar life insurance

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00:19:51.480 --> 00:19:55.759
policy after her husband's death, along with a mortgage insurance

314
00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:59.000
policy that paid off the family home within a year.

315
00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:01.519
She was dating a dev worst father of three named

316
00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:05.200
Matt Fagan. She and Fagan are now engaged and have

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00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:08.400
moved together with his three sons and her three sons

318
00:20:08.440 --> 00:20:12.279
into a roughly million dollar home in a gated community

319
00:20:12.359 --> 00:20:15.960
in Chelsea, Alabama, about thirty minutes from the Hoover home

320
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.400
where Christopher died. Nobody was paying attention to Christopher Sign's

321
00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:23.920
family after he died. The conspiracy theorists were busy with

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00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:27.519
their own theories. The local police have refused to comment.

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00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:30.319
I want to be clear. The Daily Mail says it

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00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:33.359
contacted the Hoover police captain who handled the case and

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00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:36.039
the former chief who is now the mayor of Hoover

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00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:40.440
multiple times by phone, email and in person, and both

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declined to say anything. So when the family says nobody

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00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:47.480
will answer their questions, they mean that literally, the people

329
00:20:47.480 --> 00:20:50.559
with the records are not talking. Here's what I'm willing

330
00:20:50.599 --> 00:20:53.000
to say and what I Am not going to say.

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00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:56.160
I'm not going to tell you who killed Christopher Sign.

332
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:00.400
I do not know. Nobody publicly knows. I am not

333
00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:02.559
going to tell you the Clintons did it. There is

334
00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:05.920
no evidence for that. I am also not going to

335
00:21:05.960 --> 00:21:09.519
tell you he definitely died by suicide because the truth is,

336
00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:12.839
the investigation that was supposed to determine that was closed

337
00:21:12.839 --> 00:21:16.319
in hours without a full autopsy, and the body was

338
00:21:16.359 --> 00:21:19.440
destroyed within two days before anyone outside the wife's inner

339
00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:22.759
circle could examine it. What I am telling you is

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00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:26.519
that when a man tells his family, his colleagues, his readers,

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00:21:26.599 --> 00:21:30.000
and the national television audience of Fox and Friends that

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00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:33.359
he is not suicidal and then dies in a way

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00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:37.359
ruled suicidal within hours by a county coroner, and is

344
00:21:37.400 --> 00:21:41.000
cremated within forty eight hours without his parents being allowed

345
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:44.400
to see him, that is not a closed case. That

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00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:49.039
is an unanswered case, and his family deserves answers they

347
00:21:49.079 --> 00:21:52.119
are not being given. There's a playbook for this close

348
00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:55.640
the ruling fast, cremate the body, freeze out the family,

349
00:21:56.359 --> 00:21:59.759
let the conspiracy theorists run wild, so the legitimate questions

350
00:21:59.799 --> 00:22:03.039
get lumped in with the lunatic ones. I am not

351
00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:06.039
saying that playbook was used here. I am saying it

352
00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:08.880
could have been, and nothing about the handling of this

353
00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:13.200
case would tell us otherwise. Christopher Sign left behind three

354
00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:16.279
young boys. They would be let me do the math,

355
00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:19.599
roughly thirteen eleven and nine. Now, if I'm reading the

356
00:22:19.599 --> 00:22:23.160
coverage right, they are growing up in a gated community

357
00:22:23.200 --> 00:22:27.200
in rural Alabama with a stepfather and three step brothers.

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Two sources told The Daily Mail that those six boys,

359
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:34.359
all six believe, in the words of one source, that

360
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:39.440
the Clintons did it. Which think about that for a second.

361
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:43.400
If the official version is correct and it was a suicide,

362
00:22:43.640 --> 00:22:46.400
those kids have been told a story that isn't true.

363
00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:50.000
If the official version is wrong and something else happened,

364
00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:52.839
those kids are growing up with a version of events

365
00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:56.119
that nobody on the record has confirmed. Either way, somebody

366
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.039
is telling those boys a story, and somebody decided which

367
00:22:59.039 --> 00:23:03.559
story they're being told. Accountability doesn't have a legal department,

368
00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:07.119
but it apparently also doesn't have a coroner willing to

369
00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:09.799
do a full autopsy. When the dead man's own book

370
00:23:09.839 --> 00:23:13.319
told you to do one, someone has to say his name.

371
00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:19.359
Christopher Sign forty five, a father, a husband, a reporter,

372
00:23:20.079 --> 00:23:24.480
found hanged on June twelfth, twenty twenty one. The case

373
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:28.200
is not closed. The case was just mark closed. There's

374
00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:43.839
a difference. Last Thursday, April sixteenth, in Barnstable Superior Court, Massachusetts,

375
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:46.000
a complaint was filed that is about to force the

376
00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:49.720
Karen Reid case into a phase nobody quite expected. Four

377
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:52.279
of the people who testified against Read during her criminal

378
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:55.599
proceedings have sued her and the blogger known as Turtleboy

379
00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:59.680
for defamation. Let me remind you who we are talking about,

380
00:23:59.720 --> 00:24:02.640
because as this case has produced more name participants than

381
00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:07.319
most people can keep straight the plaintiffs. The people suing

382
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:12.079
are Jennifer McCabe, Brian Albert, Colin Albert, and Brian Higgins.

383
00:24:13.240 --> 00:24:16.480
Brian Albert owned the Canton home where John O'Keeffe's body

384
00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:20.079
was found in the snow on January twenty ninth, twenty

385
00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:24.599
twenty two. Jennifer McCabe is his sister in law. She

386
00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:27.880
was with Reed the morning O'Keeffe's body was discovered, and

387
00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:30.599
she made the Google search for quote how long to

388
00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:33.640
die in the cold? Unquote that became one of the

389
00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:37.759
central pieces of evidence at trial. Colin Albert is Brian

390
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:40.920
Albert's nephew. The defense at Reid's first trial tried to

391
00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:43.079
point to him as someone who might have been involved

392
00:24:43.079 --> 00:24:46.400
in an altercation with O'Keefe. They didn't push that theory

393
00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:49.440
as hard the second time around. Brian Higgins is a

394
00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:52.440
federal agent and a friend of Brian Albert. He exchanged

395
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:55.599
text messages with Karen Reid in the weeks before O'Keeffe's death.

396
00:24:56.039 --> 00:24:59.319
Those four are the plaintiffs. The defendants in their new

397
00:24:59.400 --> 00:25:03.000
lawsuit are Karen Reid herself acquitted in June of twenty

398
00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:06.759
twenty five on murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene charges,

399
00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:10.920
convicted only of drunk driving, and Aiden Kearney, the Worcester

400
00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:15.079
area blogger who runs the Turtle Boy media brand. Kearney

401
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:18.759
was the single loudest pro read voice online during both trials.

402
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:23.119
He posted constantly. He named the witnesses by name, he

403
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:27.000
followed them, interviewed people about them, speculated publicly and in

404
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:31.400
detail about their involvement in O'Keefe's death. Kearney is currently

405
00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:35.839
also under criminal indictment on witness intimidation charges related to

406
00:25:35.880 --> 00:25:40.400
that coverage. The plaintiff's legal team Costcoff, Costcoff, and Beater,

407
00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:43.880
along with Hinckley, Allen and Snyder, filed a complaint that

408
00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:49.759
is essentially a direct accusation. They allege Reed and Kearney conspired.

409
00:25:50.039 --> 00:25:53.160
The word conspired is used in the filing to quote

410
00:25:53.279 --> 00:25:57.119
defame and did defame the plaintiffs by falsely asserting, among

411
00:25:57.160 --> 00:26:01.319
other things, that they were responsible for o'keef's death. Conspired

412
00:26:01.359 --> 00:26:04.519
to conceal their roles in his death and framed Read

413
00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:10.319
for murder unquote. The plaintiffs are seeking damages. The exact

414
00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:12.839
amount is not specified in the filing, but will be

415
00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:16.440
developed through discovery. Here is what the plaintiffs said in

416
00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:19.160
a joint statement released Thursday, and I want to read

417
00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:23.519
you the emotional core of it. They said, quote, for years,

418
00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:26.480
we have done the right thing by assisting authorities in

419
00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:29.599
the hope that John's family would find justice in peace.

420
00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:32.799
As a result, we and our families have been subjected

421
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:37.680
to relentless false accusations, harassment, and intimidation based on a

422
00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:41.480
deliberate campaign of lies. These lies have torn our community

423
00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:47.960
apart and caused immense suffering unquote. Now the other side,

424
00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:50.880
Karen Read's attorney, Alan Jackson, who has been with her

425
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.440
since before the first trial, called the lawsuit and I'm

426
00:26:54.559 --> 00:26:59.920
quoting desperation on a page. Kearney's attorney, a man named

427
00:27:00.119 --> 00:27:04.640
Mark Betteroh, issued a statement that is honestly maybe the

428
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:07.519
most interesting document to come out of this whole filing.

429
00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:11.240
He said, quote, this lawsuit is the latest attempt to

430
00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:14.480
relitigate the question of whether Karen Reid was responsible for

431
00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:19.079
John O'Keeffe's death, which the scientific, incredible evidence clearly establishes

432
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.960
she wasn't. Truth is an absolute defense to defamation, and

433
00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:26.920
this move by the plaintiffs will afford mister Kearney the

434
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:30.039
form to explain exactly why he said what he said

435
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:34.079
about who allegedly is responsible for mister O'Keeffe's death and

436
00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:37.640
the alleged cover up un quote, and then Kearney's co

437
00:27:37.640 --> 00:27:42.240
counsul Tim Braddle added this quote in essence, the plaintiffs

438
00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:45.200
have invited mister Kearney to defend the suit by prosecuting

439
00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:48.920
them in civil court for the murder of John O'Keeffe unquote. Look,

440
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:51.720
let me walk you through this, because that is a

441
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:55.000
legitimately audacious legal position, and it tells you what this

442
00:27:55.119 --> 00:27:58.720
next phase is going to look like. Defamation in Massachusetts

443
00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:01.160
requires the plaintiffs to prove prove that the statements made

444
00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:04.599
about them were false, that the statements were made negligently

445
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:08.559
or with actual malice, and that the statements caused them harm.

446
00:28:09.119 --> 00:28:12.480
Kearney's legal team is publicly signaling that their defense is

447
00:28:12.519 --> 00:28:15.240
going to be the most aggressive form of the truth

448
00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:19.680
defense available. They are not going to say we apologize,

449
00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:23.400
we got carried away, we spoke loosely. They are going

450
00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:26.359
to say, on the contrary, everything we said about these

451
00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:29.079
four people was accurate, and we are going to prove

452
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:32.319
it in discovery. We are going to take depositions, We

453
00:28:32.359 --> 00:28:34.799
are going to cross examine these four under oath. We

454
00:28:34.839 --> 00:28:37.799
are going to demand documents. We are going to try

455
00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:41.079
to establish in this civil proceeding where the standard of

456
00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:44.920
proof is preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt,

457
00:28:45.319 --> 00:28:49.079
that our accusations were justified. That is, and I say

458
00:28:49.119 --> 00:28:52.920
this soberly, the exact opposite of what the plaintiffs wanted.

459
00:28:53.319 --> 00:28:56.200
The plaintiffs wanted a lawsuit that would produce a damages

460
00:28:56.240 --> 00:28:59.640
award and make the harassment stop. What they may have

461
00:28:59.720 --> 00:29:03.119
walked into is a civil litigation where the blogger they

462
00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:06.799
sued gets to subpoena their phone records, their text messages,

463
00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:10.200
their communications with one another, and call them to the

464
00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:13.640
stand to ask under oath, what exactly happened on the

465
00:29:13.640 --> 00:29:17.279
morning of January twenty ninth, twenty twenty two, in the

466
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:20.680
Albert home on Fairview Road. This is also not the

467
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:24.319
only active read related lawsuit. Reader Cell filed a civil

468
00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:28.880
rights lawsuit last fall against the Massachusetts State Police, the mccabs,

469
00:29:29.079 --> 00:29:32.519
the Alberts, and Higgins, alleging the same framing theory. Her

470
00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:36.319
defense ran at criminal trial that o'keef died inside the

471
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:40.279
Albert home after an altercation, and that evidence was planted

472
00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:43.440
and reports were falsified to pin it on her. That

473
00:29:43.519 --> 00:29:45.839
case was moved to federal court and assigned to a

474
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:50.880
US district judge that is also an active discovery, and

475
00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:54.880
the O'Keeffe family, John o'keeff's surviving relatives, has filed their

476
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:58.720
own wrongful death suit against Karen Reid, alleging she killed

477
00:29:58.759 --> 00:30:03.440
him and then quote outrageously created a false narrative unquote.

478
00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:07.240
So you are now looking at three simultaneous civil cases

479
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:11.519
read suing the witnesses and the state police, the witnesses

480
00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:15.680
suing Reed and Kearny, and the O'Keeffe family suing Read.

481
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:19.599
Every one of those cases involves the same fundamental factual

482
00:30:19.720 --> 00:30:23.079
question what happened on the morning of January twenty ninth,

483
00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:27.359
twenty twenty two, And in every one of those cases,

484
00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:30.079
that question is going to have to be answered under oath,

485
00:30:30.519 --> 00:30:35.240
in deposition with documents. The criminal case is over Karen

486
00:30:35.319 --> 00:30:39.720
Reid was acquitted double jeopardy means the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

487
00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:42.759
cannot charge her again for O'Keeffe's death. But that does

488
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:45.039
not mean the factual question of what happened that night

489
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:47.559
is settled. It just means the criminal answer to that

490
00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:52.079
question is settled. The civil system slower, lower standard of

491
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:55.519
proof allows for discovery on a scale the criminal system doesn't.

492
00:30:56.160 --> 00:30:59.440
Is now where that factual question moves. And here's the

493
00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:03.119
thing about that. In a civil proceeding, the plaintive witnesses,

494
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:07.079
McCabe the Alberts Higgins are going to have to sit

495
00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:10.599
for depositions. Jennifer McCabe is going to have to answer

496
00:31:10.720 --> 00:31:13.200
questions under oath about the two to twenty seven am

497
00:31:13.359 --> 00:31:16.839
Google search time stamp that her expert disputed and Reid's

498
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:20.480
experts stood behind. Brian Albert is going to have to

499
00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:23.759
answer questions under oath about why he sold the house

500
00:31:23.799 --> 00:31:26.920
and why his dog went to Vermont. Colin Albert is

501
00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:29.480
going to have to answer questions under oath about what

502
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:32.640
he was doing that morning. And Brian Higgins is going

503
00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:35.599
to have to answer questions under oath about the content

504
00:31:35.640 --> 00:31:38.759
of his text messages with Reid. Reed and Kearney are

505
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:42.519
also going to have to answer questions under oath about coordination,

506
00:31:43.119 --> 00:31:46.079
about sourcing, about what they knew when they said what

507
00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:49.480
they said. This is exactly what Kearney's lawyer was telegraphing

508
00:31:49.519 --> 00:31:54.079
when he said, bring it. This is our forum. Accountability

509
00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:57.799
doesn't have a legal department, but accountability in this case

510
00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:01.279
now has three law firms, a federal judge, two state

511
00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:04.599
court judges, and an ocean of sworn testimony ahead of it.

512
00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:09.640
Someone killed John O'Keefe. The jury said it wasn't Karen Reid,

513
00:32:10.079 --> 00:32:14.400
but somebody did, and all three of these lawsuits are

514
00:32:14.599 --> 00:32:18.160
in their way about finally getting the answer to that question,

515
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:21.440
or at least as close to it as the system

516
00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:24.839
is capable of producing. The next procedural dates on the

517
00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:29.440
calendar are pre trial scheduling. We'll be watching all three cases,

518
00:32:31.559 --> 00:32:35.640
so three stories, one thread in all three. The official

519
00:32:35.720 --> 00:32:39.000
version is not holding a surgeon whose operative report says

520
00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:41.880
spleen when the organ on the table was clearly a liver.

521
00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.640
A coroner who ruled suicide in hours for a man

522
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:50.000
whose published books said he wasn't suicidal, a criminal acquittal

523
00:32:50.039 --> 00:32:53.400
that is about to collide with three simultaneous civil discovery

524
00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:57.400
processes designed to force sworn answers from people who didn't

525
00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:00.920
have to answer much at trial. That it's not a mistake.

526
00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:04.079
That's what happens when the first version of the story

527
00:33:04.119 --> 00:33:07.440
gets written in a hurry. Somebody eventually makes you show

528
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:10.720
your work tomorrow. We'll be back with more. Until then,

529
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:17.279
do better. I'm Garrett Fisher. This is Daily Crime and Justice. Disclaimer.

530
00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:22.920
This podcast draws on reporting from Internet sources, tabloids, court documents,

531
00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:27.599
and AI assisted research. It is entertainment, not legal fact.

532
00:33:28.359 --> 00:33:31.599
Some claims reported here come from published interviews with family

533
00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:36.440
members and attorneys and have not been independently verified. Details

534
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:41.359
may be incorrect, incomplete, or superseded by later reporting. Where

535
00:33:41.400 --> 00:33:44.759
we could flag uncertainty, we did where we couldn't. Assume.

536
00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:47.359
We're telling you a story shaped by the records available

537
00:33:47.359 --> 00:33:51.440
to us at the time of taping. Allegations are allegations

538
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:55.799
until proven otherwise. If any of this matters to you, personally,

539
00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:58.240
consult a lawyer, not a podcaster.