Welcome to Celebrity Trials - True Crime and Justice coverage updated daily.!
Sept. 4, 2026

'One Juror Who Refuses to Listen to the Law': the Clancy Defense Wants Them Removed, Forty-Two Years to a Conviction in the Killing Fields

'One Juror Who Refuses to Listen to the Law': the Clancy Defense Wants Them Removed, Forty-Two Years to a Conviction in the Killing Fields

The foreperson of Lindsay Clancy's jury sent a note saying one juror "refuses to listen to the law" on reasonable doubt, defense attorney Kevin Reddington told the court — and asked Judge William Sullivan to remove that juror. Sullivan declined: "I don't feel that it is proper for me to side with one side or the other of the deliberations. I don't feel it's appropriate for me to say I agree with one juror or 11." He questioned each juror individually at sidebar, with Clancy wheeled up to the bench, then reread the instruction on reasonable doubt and sent them back. Reddington objected: "If we come back in a half hour with a mistrial because of a juror that has just spurned the instructions of this court, it's a shame." A sixth day ended without a verdict, roughly 36 hours in; Sullivan can send them back once more before declaring a mistrial. Clancy has pleaded not guilty in the deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. Also: in Galveston County, Texas, a jury convicted James Elmore in the 1984 death of 16-year-old Laura Miller, whose father founded Texas EquuSearch after her murder and testified against him. And in Colorado, a judge confined Barry Morphew to his home after a private citizen emailed her about a hit-and-run.

Join our new FB groups page here. Take the poll!

Join the Daily Crime & Justice community on social media! We're building a passionate group of true crime enthusiasts who love diving deep into the most shocking cases in America.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "Daily Crime & Justice" on either platform.


You'll get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, breaking news updates on cases we're covering, and early alerts when new episodes drop. Our social media is where Garret Fisher's hottest takes live, including reactions that don't make it into the show.

But more importantly, it's where YOU come in. Share your theories, debate the verdicts, and connect with fellow listeners who are just as obsessed with justice as you are. Did the jury get it right? What questions do you still have? Your comments and insights often shape future episodes.


We cover the trials that matter, but our community makes the conversation unforgettable. Come for Garret's signature cynical commentary, stay for the incredible discussions with thousands of true crime fans who get it.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:09.289 --> 00:00:12.810
Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga

2
00:00:12.859 --> 00:00:17.140
Shark Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Friday,

3
00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:23.079
September 4th, 2026. Yesterday afternoon in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the foreperson

4
00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:25.620
of Lindsay Clancy's jury sent the judge a note saying

5
00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:27.809
that one of the 12 people in that room is

6
00:00:27.929 --> 00:00:30.989
not following the law. What happened next was one of

7
00:00:31.010 --> 00:00:34.770
the strangest scenes of this entire trial. Lindsay Clancy was

8
00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:37.009
wheeled up to the judge's bench for the first time

9
00:00:37.049 --> 00:00:40.409
in five weeks. And then, one at a time, each

10
00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:43.170
of the 12 jurors was brought in and asked a question,

11
00:00:43.340 --> 00:00:45.640
in front of her, in front of both legal teams,

12
00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:49.079
in front of the court officers. Her lawyer then stood

13
00:00:49.140 --> 00:00:51.640
up and demanded that the judge throw that juror off

14
00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:54.880
the case. The judge refused, and he gave a reason

15
00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:57.009
that I want you to hear, because it is the

16
00:00:57.049 --> 00:01:01.030
whole ballgame. In Galveston, Texas, a man named Tim Miller

17
00:01:01.090 --> 00:01:04.650
spent 42 years looking for the truth about his 16-year-old daughter.

18
00:01:05.269 --> 00:01:07.930
He founded a search organization that has recovered more than

19
00:01:07.930 --> 00:01:11.709
400 bodies for other families. And on Wednesday, a jury

20
00:01:11.750 --> 00:01:15.680
finally convicted somebody. And in Colorado, a private citizen sent

21
00:01:15.739 --> 00:01:19.519
an email to a judge. As a direct result, Barry Morphew,

22
00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:21.599
who is awaiting trial for the murder of his wife,

23
00:01:22.099 --> 00:01:24.180
is now not permitted to leave his house for any

24
00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:31.000
reason short of an ambulance. Let's get into it. On

25
00:01:31.019 --> 00:01:35.920
the evening of January 24th, 2023, Lindsay Clancy strangled her

26
00:01:36.019 --> 00:01:38.819
three children with exercise bands in the basement of their

27
00:01:38.859 --> 00:01:43.939
home in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Cora was five. Dawson was three.

28
00:01:44.349 --> 00:01:47.370
Callan was eight months old. Nine women and three men

29
00:01:47.390 --> 00:01:50.769
have been deliberating since a week ago Thursday. They are

30
00:01:50.829 --> 00:01:53.989
past 36 hours. They have told the judge twice that

31
00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:56.980
they cannot agree. And on Wednesday, he read them the

32
00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:01.170
dynamite charge, the last resort instruction Massachusetts judges use before

33
00:02:01.219 --> 00:02:07.269
declaring a mistrial. And then yesterday, this happened. Around mid-afternoon,

34
00:02:07.370 --> 00:02:10.810
the foreperson sent Judge William Sullivan a note. The note

35
00:02:10.889 --> 00:02:12.949
said that one of the 12 is not following the

36
00:02:12.990 --> 00:02:17.150
law as it pertains to reasonable doubt. Sullivan called a sidebar,

37
00:02:17.430 --> 00:02:19.189
and then he did something I have not seen in

38
00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:22.110
this trial. He had Lindsay Clancy wheeled up to the

39
00:02:22.150 --> 00:02:24.939
bench so she could participate. She has sat at the

40
00:02:24.979 --> 00:02:27.960
defense table for five weeks. This time she was there

41
00:02:28.099 --> 00:02:31.099
in her wheelchair at the judge's elbow. Then he brought

42
00:02:31.139 --> 00:02:34.159
the jurors in one at a time, 12 people one

43
00:02:34.219 --> 00:02:37.620
after another, each one walking into a courtroom containing the defendant,

44
00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:40.599
both legal teams and court officers, to be asked a

45
00:02:40.689 --> 00:02:43.810
single question at the bench. Can you follow the law

46
00:02:43.909 --> 00:02:47.430
as I have instructed you? By all accounts, every one

47
00:02:47.469 --> 00:02:50.789
of them said yes. Sullivan then brought the whole panel

48
00:02:50.870 --> 00:02:54.340
in and re-instructed them on reasonable doubt. He told them

49
00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:56.879
they are required to follow his instructions on the law.

50
00:02:57.319 --> 00:02:59.699
He reminded them the burden is on the Commonwealth to

51
00:02:59.759 --> 00:03:03.409
prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He walked them through

52
00:03:03.509 --> 00:03:07.509
moral certainty, the highest degree of certainty possible in human affairs,

53
00:03:07.969 --> 00:03:11.150
based solely on the evidence. And he told them again

54
00:03:11.210 --> 00:03:14.750
that if they evaluate everything and a reasonable doubt remains,

55
00:03:15.189 --> 00:03:17.740
the defendant is entitled to the benefit of it and

56
00:03:17.860 --> 00:03:21.819
must be acquitted. Then he sent them back out. And

57
00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:26.969
Kevin Reddington came unglued. Reporters described him gesticulating and banging

58
00:03:27.009 --> 00:03:31.110
papers down at Sidebar. Then, in open court, he said

59
00:03:31.150 --> 00:03:33.789
it out loud. He told the judge the court has

60
00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:36.800
an instruction from the foreperson of a jury that has

61
00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.460
been working for a week saying there is one juror

62
00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:42.439
who refuses to listen to the law on reasonable doubt.

63
00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:46.919
He argued that the soft question Sullivan asked at Sidebar, essentially,

64
00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:50.150
can you follow my instructions, did not focus the issue

65
00:03:50.289 --> 00:03:52.789
and did not build any foundation for removing that juror.

66
00:03:53.460 --> 00:03:55.539
And then he said that if they come back in

67
00:03:55.580 --> 00:03:58.560
half an hour with a mistrial because a juror spurned

68
00:03:58.580 --> 00:04:02.360
this court's instructions, it is a real shame. He moved

69
00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.539
to have the juror removed. Jennifer Sprague opposed it, and

70
00:04:05.580 --> 00:04:08.870
her argument was short and correct. There is no way

71
00:04:08.909 --> 00:04:12.789
to determine what is happening inside those deliberations. No way

72
00:04:12.849 --> 00:04:15.389
to know who is right and who is wrong. And

73
00:04:15.669 --> 00:04:18.089
nobody should be trying to find out, because that is

74
00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:23.009
what deliberation is. Sullivan refused. And here is the line,

75
00:04:23.290 --> 00:04:26.029
and it is the most important sentence anybody has said

76
00:04:26.089 --> 00:04:28.949
in that courthouse this week. He said he does not

77
00:04:28.990 --> 00:04:31.069
feel it is proper for him to side with one

78
00:04:31.129 --> 00:04:35.000
side or the other in deliberations. Now, let me explain

79
00:04:35.069 --> 00:04:37.139
why that is not a dodge, because it would be

80
00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.139
very easy to hear it as one. A judge can

81
00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:43.720
remove a juror. It happens. If a juror is drunk

82
00:04:43.819 --> 00:04:46.040
or has been researching the case at home or has

83
00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:49.399
talked to a reporter or is refusing to deliberate at all,

84
00:04:49.819 --> 00:04:53.449
That is misconduct and off they go. And a judge

85
00:04:53.490 --> 00:04:56.769
can remove a juror who genuinely refuses to apply the law,

86
00:04:57.029 --> 00:04:58.949
a person who says out loud that they do not

87
00:04:59.009 --> 00:05:02.910
care what the instruction says. But a judge absolutely cannot

88
00:05:02.949 --> 00:05:05.430
remove a juror for reaching a conclusion the lawyers do

89
00:05:05.490 --> 00:05:08.949
not like. And here is the problem, which is one

90
00:05:08.970 --> 00:05:13.050
of the genuinely unsolvable problems in American criminal law. From

91
00:05:13.170 --> 00:05:16.759
outside that room, those two things look identical. A holdout

92
00:05:16.819 --> 00:05:19.980
who has honestly applied reasonable doubt and landed somewhere the

93
00:05:20.139 --> 00:05:23.279
other 11 have not is doing exactly what a juror

94
00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:26.579
is supposed to do. That person is the entire reason

95
00:05:26.670 --> 00:05:30.930
we have 12 instead of 1. And to the other 11, exhausted,

96
00:05:30.930 --> 00:05:33.990
7 days in, that person looks like somebody who will

97
00:05:34.110 --> 00:05:38.310
not follow the law. The 4-person's note is not a finding.

98
00:05:38.689 --> 00:05:41.740
It is one juror's characterization of an argument they are

99
00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:45.459
losing or cannot win. That is not a criticism of

100
00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.459
the foreperson. It is just what a note like that is.

101
00:05:49.319 --> 00:05:51.680
So when a judge starts pulling jurors off a panel

102
00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:54.399
because the majority reports that the minority will not get

103
00:05:54.459 --> 00:05:57.889
in line, you have not fixed a deadlock. You have

104
00:05:57.949 --> 00:06:01.389
replaced the unanimity requirement with a vote. Sullivan will not

105
00:06:01.430 --> 00:06:03.970
do that, and he is right not to. Now, I

106
00:06:04.029 --> 00:06:06.990
want to be careful about something because it is everywhere

107
00:06:07.029 --> 00:06:10.709
this morning. There is reporting of an alleged 11 to

108
00:06:10.709 --> 00:06:14.240
1 split. Nobody outside that room knows that. Not me.

109
00:06:14.660 --> 00:06:19.220
Not Court TV. Not anybody. It is an inference drawn

110
00:06:19.259 --> 00:06:22.939
from a note about one juror. It might be exactly right.

111
00:06:23.379 --> 00:06:25.639
It might also be that two or three people are

112
00:06:25.779 --> 00:06:29.060
unpersuaded and one of them is simply the most vocal.

113
00:06:29.750 --> 00:06:33.250
Deliberations are secret for a reason. And everything we think

114
00:06:33.290 --> 00:06:36.069
we know about what is happening inside is guesswork built

115
00:06:36.129 --> 00:06:39.170
on a piece of paper. What I will say is this.

116
00:06:39.629 --> 00:06:42.230
If it is one person, that person has now sat

117
00:06:42.250 --> 00:06:45.120
in a room for seven days while 11 others push,

118
00:06:45.620 --> 00:06:47.560
has been the subject of a note to a judge,

119
00:06:47.860 --> 00:06:50.079
has been called into a courtroom to be asked in

120
00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:52.680
front of the defendant whether they can follow the law,

121
00:06:53.250 --> 00:06:55.829
and has had a defense attorney demand their removal in

122
00:06:55.910 --> 00:06:59.189
open court. And they went back in and kept going.

123
00:06:59.870 --> 00:07:02.490
Whatever you think this case should come out to, that

124
00:07:02.550 --> 00:07:05.180
takes a spine. And I want to be equally fair

125
00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:08.040
to the other 11, because they are not villains in

126
00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:11.540
this either. If 11 people have genuinely worked through five

127
00:07:11.579 --> 00:07:14.470
weeks of testimony and arrived at the same place, and

128
00:07:14.670 --> 00:07:16.790
one person will not engage with the law as the

129
00:07:16.829 --> 00:07:19.550
judge gave it to them, that is a real and

130
00:07:19.629 --> 00:07:23.870
maddening thing to sit inside for seven days. Their frustration

131
00:07:23.990 --> 00:07:28.089
is legitimate. A foreperson who writes that note is not scheming.

132
00:07:28.529 --> 00:07:31.699
They are asking for help. Both of those things can

133
00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:34.579
be true, which is exactly why Sullivan cannot referee it.

134
00:07:35.110 --> 00:07:38.209
There is also a practical reality here that nobody enjoys

135
00:07:38.250 --> 00:07:41.209
saying out loud. This jury has been at it for

136
00:07:41.410 --> 00:07:45.189
seven days. They are not sequestered, but their lives have

137
00:07:45.209 --> 00:07:48.839
been on hold for six weeks. On Tuesday afternoon, they

138
00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:51.699
asked to go home early, which they had not done before.

139
00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:56.339
Reporters have described them walking in looking down, stoic, not

140
00:07:56.379 --> 00:07:58.500
talking to each other the way they had earlier in

141
00:07:58.519 --> 00:08:01.910
the trial. One juror winced and shook her head when

142
00:08:01.949 --> 00:08:05.050
told to keep going. That is what exhaustion looks like

143
00:08:05.089 --> 00:08:09.509
from a press bench. And exhaustion is precisely the condition

144
00:08:09.629 --> 00:08:13.149
under which a dynamite charge does its work. It is

145
00:08:13.209 --> 00:08:16.029
not designed to change a mind. It is designed to

146
00:08:16.089 --> 00:08:21.430
make holding out feel unreasonable. Massachusetts wrote its version specifically

147
00:08:21.490 --> 00:08:24.569
to soften that pressure. And Sullivan paired it with a

148
00:08:24.610 --> 00:08:28.269
reminder that the Commonwealth carries the burden and that doubt

149
00:08:28.389 --> 00:08:32.230
means acquittal. He has handled this carefully. But there is

150
00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:35.769
no version of an instruction like that which does not

151
00:08:35.870 --> 00:08:41.250
lean on the person standing alone. Where it stands. Sullivan

152
00:08:41.309 --> 00:08:44.389
has read the dynamite charge once. He can read it

153
00:08:44.470 --> 00:08:48.990
one more time. After that, a mistrial. And a mistrial

154
00:08:49.070 --> 00:08:52.049
is not an acquittal. It is not a finding of anything.

155
00:08:52.549 --> 00:08:55.330
And Reddington has already said he would absolutely try this

156
00:08:55.389 --> 00:08:59.049
case again. Lindsay Clancy would stay committed to the state

157
00:08:59.110 --> 00:09:01.769
hospital where she has been for over three years while

158
00:09:01.809 --> 00:09:06.350
the district attorney decides. Cora Clancy was five and in kindergarten.

159
00:09:06.750 --> 00:09:10.350
Dawson Clancy was three. Callan Clancy was eight months old.

160
00:09:10.820 --> 00:09:13.620
Twelve exhausted people go back in this morning. Someone has

161
00:09:13.659 --> 00:09:17.139
to say their names. When we come back, a father

162
00:09:17.179 --> 00:09:19.960
spent 42 years looking for the truth and the man

163
00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:34.519
who had it called his phone. Segment two 42 years

164
00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.320
Laura Lynn Miller was 16 years old on September 10th

165
00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:42.110
1984 in League City, Texas She was wearing a blue

166
00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:46.490
one-piece jumpsuit flip-flops and a gold cross necklace Before her

167
00:09:46.529 --> 00:09:49.090
father left for work. She asked whether her boyfriend could

168
00:09:49.149 --> 00:09:51.809
come over that night. He told her he would see

169
00:09:51.850 --> 00:09:55.169
her later When he came home that evening, she was gone.

170
00:09:55.809 --> 00:09:58.809
Her father's name is Tim Miller. He is 79 years

171
00:09:58.830 --> 00:10:02.860
old now, and this week, he sat on a witness

172
00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:06.039
stand in Galveston County and told a jury that Laura

173
00:10:06.100 --> 00:10:09.899
was Dad's girl. He described what happened next, and he

174
00:10:09.940 --> 00:10:12.820
called it the place where the nightmare started. He said

175
00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:15.399
he had the worst time of his life. That he

176
00:10:15.500 --> 00:10:18.240
begged and pleaded for somebody to do something. That he

177
00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:20.990
knew something had happened to Laura. He just did not

178
00:10:21.029 --> 00:10:25.379
know what. Seventeen months later, in February of 1986, he

179
00:10:25.419 --> 00:10:28.279
was reading the Houston Post and saw that the remains

180
00:10:28.340 --> 00:10:30.679
of two women had been found in a field off

181
00:10:30.740 --> 00:10:34.480
Calder Road in League City. Testing determined one of them

182
00:10:34.539 --> 00:10:37.360
was his daughter. That field became one of the most

183
00:10:37.460 --> 00:10:40.929
notorious places in this country. Four young women were found

184
00:10:40.970 --> 00:10:47.419
there between 1984 and 1991. Laura Miller, Haida Fai, Donna Prudhomme,

185
00:10:47.879 --> 00:10:50.379
and a fourth woman who lay unidentified for more than

186
00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:53.990
three decades until DNA technology finally gave her name back

187
00:10:54.429 --> 00:10:57.610
in 2019. She was Audrey Lee Cook, and she was

188
00:10:57.610 --> 00:11:02.149
30 years old. People started calling it the Texas Killing Fields,

189
00:11:03.009 --> 00:11:07.230
and Tim Miller could not leave it. In December of 1986,

190
00:11:07.230 --> 00:11:09.700
a week before Christmas, he went out to that field

191
00:11:09.750 --> 00:11:11.539
to dig a hole and set a cross in the

192
00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:14.870
ground for his daughter. While he was digging, he found

193
00:11:14.950 --> 00:11:17.809
one of her bones. He testified that he asked her

194
00:11:17.850 --> 00:11:21.169
to forgive him. He said that place made him crazy,

195
00:11:21.549 --> 00:11:24.269
that he almost lived out there in that damn field.

196
00:11:25.110 --> 00:11:28.500
In the year 2000, Tim Miller founded an organization called

197
00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:33.100
Texas EquiSearch to go find other people's missing children because

198
00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:36.759
nobody had come to find his. He testified about what

199
00:11:36.820 --> 00:11:39.559
it has done. Searches in 42 states and 11 countries.

200
00:11:41.009 --> 00:11:44.549
More than 400 deceased people recovered and returned to their families.

201
00:11:45.210 --> 00:11:48.710
Many more found alive who he says would otherwise be dead.

202
00:11:49.289 --> 00:11:53.539
He described the organization as Laura's legacy. Now here is

203
00:11:53.580 --> 00:11:58.059
where this story becomes something almost impossible to believe. In

204
00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:02.860
April of 2022, a man named James Elmore called Texas EquiSearch.

205
00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:06.220
He had two reasons. The first was that his own

206
00:12:06.259 --> 00:12:09.620
daughter was missing and he needed help finding her. The

207
00:12:09.669 --> 00:12:12.440
second was that he wanted to talk about Laura Miller

208
00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:15.700
and get something off his chest. Tim Miller helped him

209
00:12:15.740 --> 00:12:19.120
with his daughter. That got sorted out quickly. And then,

210
00:12:19.379 --> 00:12:22.309
over a series of meetings, James Elmore started telling Tim

211
00:12:22.330 --> 00:12:26.129
Miller what happened to Laura. Miller testified he was skeptical

212
00:12:26.169 --> 00:12:29.360
at first. He had spent almost 40 years getting false leads.

213
00:12:29.779 --> 00:12:32.980
But Elmore drove him to the field. And then Elmore

214
00:12:33.059 --> 00:12:36.330
pointed at a nearby cemetery and said that was where

215
00:12:36.379 --> 00:12:39.389
a man named Clyde Hedrick used to hide and watch

216
00:12:39.450 --> 00:12:42.669
Laura when she came down there. Hedrick had lived two

217
00:12:42.710 --> 00:12:45.950
houses from the Miller family. He had been publicly identified

218
00:12:46.009 --> 00:12:49.070
as a possible suspect for years, and Tim Miller had

219
00:12:49.110 --> 00:12:53.590
long believed he was responsible. And Elmore knew things. Prosecutors

220
00:12:53.629 --> 00:12:56.549
say he described details that had never been made public,

221
00:12:56.950 --> 00:12:59.570
including a shirt found with Laura's remains and the truck

222
00:12:59.629 --> 00:13:03.269
allegedly used to move her body. Miller testified that Elmore

223
00:13:03.309 --> 00:13:06.809
eventually described the night she died. In that account, Hedrick

224
00:13:06.850 --> 00:13:10.440
sexually assaulted Laura, and Elmore prepared cocaine and handed it

225
00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:13.899
to Hedrick, who administered it to her. Elmore said he

226
00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:16.419
told Hedrick not to do it, and then he described

227
00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.370
watching her stop breathing. I am going to leave the

228
00:13:19.419 --> 00:13:21.769
rest of what Elmore said out of this show, because

229
00:13:21.909 --> 00:13:24.269
it is genuinely one of the more repellent things I

230
00:13:24.309 --> 00:13:26.389
have read in a transcript this year, and it does

231
00:13:26.490 --> 00:13:31.429
not add anything you need. James Elmore, 61, of Backliff, Texas,

232
00:13:31.789 --> 00:13:34.970
was charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence in Laura

233
00:13:35.009 --> 00:13:38.220
Miller's death and with a separate count of tampering involving

234
00:13:38.269 --> 00:13:43.220
Audrey Cook. He pleaded not guilty. His trial started Tuesday.

235
00:13:43.740 --> 00:13:46.419
Tim Miller was the state's first witness. The defense did

236
00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:48.820
not submit a witness list and did not call anybody.

237
00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:51.870
And on Wednesday, a jury of six men and six

238
00:13:51.889 --> 00:13:54.509
women convicted him. And I want to stop on the

239
00:13:54.570 --> 00:13:57.149
thing that makes this story different from every other cold

240
00:13:57.169 --> 00:13:59.720
case we cover. The break in this case did not

241
00:13:59.779 --> 00:14:03.000
come from DNA. It did not come from a database

242
00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:06.279
or a genealogy match or a detective reopening a file.

243
00:14:06.860 --> 00:14:09.399
It came because a man built an organization to find

244
00:14:09.590 --> 00:14:13.389
other people's missing children. And 22 years later, the one

245
00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:15.850
person who knew what happened to his own daughter needed

246
00:14:15.889 --> 00:14:20.710
that organization's help. James Elmore called Texas EquiSearch because his

247
00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:23.940
daughter was missing. He got Tim Miller on the phone

248
00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.879
because Tim Miller answers those calls. That is the only

249
00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:31.460
reason any of this happened. If Laura Miller's father had

250
00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:34.440
done what almost anybody would do after burying a 16-year-old,

251
00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:36.750
which is to grieve privately and try to survive it,

252
00:14:37.190 --> 00:14:40.110
there is no trial this week. There is no conviction.

253
00:14:40.809 --> 00:14:43.809
Elmore has no reason to ever pick up a phone. Now,

254
00:14:43.909 --> 00:14:46.289
I want to be honest with you about the complications here,

255
00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:49.500
because there are two, and they matter. The first is

256
00:14:49.539 --> 00:14:53.460
that Tim Miller paid James Elmore money. roughly $ 33, 000 in

257
00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:56.879
cash over the years, which he described as reward money

258
00:14:56.940 --> 00:15:00.299
for information about his daughter. A father paying a man

259
00:15:00.340 --> 00:15:03.360
for the truth about his dead child is a completely

260
00:15:03.419 --> 00:15:06.059
human thing to do. And it is also exactly the

261
00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:09.610
kind of fact a defense attorney lives for. That jury

262
00:15:09.659 --> 00:15:14.289
heard it and convicted anyway. The second is Clyde Hedrick.

263
00:15:14.990 --> 00:15:17.789
In Elmore's account, Hedrick is the one who assaulted Laura

264
00:15:17.889 --> 00:15:20.870
and gave her the drugs. Hedrick died in March of

265
00:15:20.909 --> 00:15:23.750
this year. He was never tried for Laura Miller's death

266
00:15:23.870 --> 00:15:26.789
and he never will be. And everything just described about

267
00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:29.620
him comes from the account of a man now convicted

268
00:15:29.639 --> 00:15:32.399
in the same case. So that is not settled and

269
00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:34.279
it is never going to be settled and I am

270
00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:37.440
not going to pretend otherwise. I would also note what

271
00:15:37.500 --> 00:15:42.590
the charge actually was. Manslaughter, not murder. The state's theory

272
00:15:42.629 --> 00:15:45.490
was never that James Elmore killed Laura Miller with his

273
00:15:45.629 --> 00:15:48.769
own hands. It was that he supplied the drugs and

274
00:15:48.830 --> 00:15:52.960
helped conceal what happened. 42 years on, with the man

275
00:15:53.059 --> 00:15:56.860
Elmore blames now dead, a manslaughter conviction and a tampering

276
00:15:56.899 --> 00:16:01.419
conviction may be the entire available accounting. That is what

277
00:16:01.480 --> 00:16:04.769
justice looks like when it arrives four decades late. It

278
00:16:04.830 --> 00:16:08.450
is partial. It comes with an asterisk. And it is

279
00:16:08.490 --> 00:16:11.649
still enormously better than nothing, which is what this family

280
00:16:11.690 --> 00:16:15.720
had for most of my lifetime. What is settled is this.

281
00:16:17.059 --> 00:16:20.940
On Wednesday, 42 years after his daughter disappeared, Tim Miller

282
00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:24.320
sat in a courtroom and heard a guilty verdict. He

283
00:16:24.399 --> 00:16:27.559
said afterward that it has been a long 42 years

284
00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:30.039
and that in the last two days, he did not

285
00:16:30.100 --> 00:16:32.649
think they were going to get there. From the witness

286
00:16:32.669 --> 00:16:36.330
stand looking at the defendant, he said two words, damn you.

287
00:16:36.970 --> 00:16:39.690
Laura Lynn Miller was 16 years old. She had a

288
00:16:39.750 --> 00:16:42.509
boyfriend and a gold cross necklace and a father who

289
00:16:42.549 --> 00:16:46.750
never once stopped. Audrey Lee Cook was 30. She lay

290
00:16:46.789 --> 00:16:50.519
in the ground without a name for 33 years. Nobody

291
00:16:50.559 --> 00:16:53.419
was paying attention to any of them. Four women in

292
00:16:53.539 --> 00:16:56.100
one field in Texas, and it took a grieving father

293
00:16:56.179 --> 00:16:59.139
building a national search organization out of his own grief

294
00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:03.129
to get one conviction four decades later. Someone has to

295
00:17:03.169 --> 00:17:07.410
say their names. When we come back, a citizen sent

296
00:17:07.430 --> 00:17:10.049
an email and Barry Morphew got locked in his house.

297
00:17:17.789 --> 00:17:20.990
Suzanne Morphew was 49 years old. She was a mother

298
00:17:21.009 --> 00:17:23.750
of two daughters, and she disappeared on Mother's Day in

299
00:17:23.789 --> 00:17:27.289
May of 2020 after reportedly going for a bike ride

300
00:17:27.329 --> 00:17:31.670
near Salida in Chaffee County, Colorado. Her remains were found

301
00:17:31.710 --> 00:17:35.349
in September of 2023, 45 miles from her home, by

302
00:17:35.390 --> 00:17:39.349
investigators searching for something else entirely. Her death was ruled

303
00:17:39.410 --> 00:17:42.750
a homicide, caused by unspecified means in the setting of

304
00:17:42.809 --> 00:17:47.680
intoxication by three drugs commonly used as animal sedatives. Her husband,

305
00:17:47.700 --> 00:17:53.299
Barry Morphew, 58, was arrested and charged in 2021. That

306
00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:57.890
case was dismissed in 2022. After her remains were found,

307
00:17:58.069 --> 00:18:01.170
a grand jury indicted him again. He is pleaded not

308
00:18:01.230 --> 00:18:04.849
guilty to first-degree murder, he denies any involvement, and he

309
00:18:04.930 --> 00:18:10.319
is presumed innocent. His trial is set for July of 2027.

310
00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:13.059
He was released on a $ 3 million bond over the

311
00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:16.559
objection of prosecutors who argued he had the means to run.

312
00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:20.140
The conditions were that he stay home except for medical

313
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:24.240
appointments and emergencies, work, meetings with his lawyers, and court.

314
00:18:24.829 --> 00:18:29.970
He wore GPS monitoring. His monitoring reports had shown no violations.

315
00:18:30.849 --> 00:18:34.230
And then on Wednesday, District Court Judge Amanda Hopkins got

316
00:18:34.250 --> 00:18:37.299
an email. It was from a private citizen, telling her

317
00:18:37.380 --> 00:18:39.619
about a hit and run in Denver on August 26th.

318
00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:43.500
Hopkins pulled up the news report about it, which included

319
00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:46.140
cell phone video shot by one of the drivers. And

320
00:18:46.180 --> 00:18:48.589
in her order, she wrote that she watched it and

321
00:18:48.650 --> 00:18:51.309
identified the man in that footage as a person who

322
00:18:51.390 --> 00:18:54.589
is very clearly the defendant. Here is what the court

323
00:18:54.650 --> 00:18:58.890
says that video shows. A truck driving aggressively, then striking

324
00:18:58.950 --> 00:19:03.029
two vehicles. The man refusing to give his name or identification.

325
00:19:03.509 --> 00:19:06.859
Saying he does not have insurance. Offering one of the

326
00:19:06.890 --> 00:19:10.019
drivers $ 300 in cash for the damage to her car.

327
00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:14.140
her refusing it, him then trying to buff the scratches

328
00:19:14.339 --> 00:19:16.700
out of the paint with his hand and his t-shirt.

329
00:19:17.349 --> 00:19:19.650
And then when she told him she was calling the police,

330
00:19:19.970 --> 00:19:23.630
he left. According to the judge's order, he nearly struck

331
00:19:23.670 --> 00:19:25.869
another person on his way out and drove over a

332
00:19:25.910 --> 00:19:28.990
curb to do it. Prosecutors also noted that the truck

333
00:19:29.029 --> 00:19:32.410
carried the same Indiana license plate that Morphew is alleged

334
00:19:32.430 --> 00:19:35.650
to have used on more than one vehicle across multiple states,

335
00:19:36.150 --> 00:19:38.180
which is a detail they had already raised when they

336
00:19:38.339 --> 00:19:41.339
argued against his release in the first place. Their line

337
00:19:41.380 --> 00:19:43.960
in the filing is the sharpest thing in this whole story.

338
00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:47.390
They wrote that his driving appears to put others at risk,

339
00:19:47.710 --> 00:19:50.650
that fleeing would be a new consideration for community. safety,

340
00:19:51.250 --> 00:19:54.079
and that driving away in direct response to impending police

341
00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:59.039
involvement indicates a willingness to flee police specifically. Hopkins did

342
00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:03.079
not revoke his bond, she revoked everything else. Barry Morphew

343
00:20:03.140 --> 00:20:05.799
may not leave his house at all. No medical appointments,

344
00:20:06.140 --> 00:20:10.069
no work, no exceptions. If he has a medical emergency,

345
00:20:10.269 --> 00:20:13.589
he calls 911 and goes out in an ambulance. She

346
00:20:13.730 --> 00:20:16.869
also ordered his GPS monitoring company to hand over its

347
00:20:16.970 --> 00:20:19.910
monthly report and any record of permission he had to

348
00:20:19.950 --> 00:20:22.769
be away from home that evening. According to the court,

349
00:20:22.930 --> 00:20:26.890
the company did not comply. Sit with that one. A

350
00:20:26.970 --> 00:20:29.710
man is on a $ 3 million bond in a first-degree

351
00:20:29.750 --> 00:20:33.609
murder case, wearing a device paid for by a private contractor,

352
00:20:34.049 --> 00:20:36.910
and when a judge orders that contractor to produce records,

353
00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:41.009
They simply do not. That's not a mistake. That's a choice.

354
00:20:41.569 --> 00:20:44.470
Somebody made a business decision about a court order. And

355
00:20:44.509 --> 00:20:48.029
this is not a small thing procedurally. Electronic monitoring is

356
00:20:48.069 --> 00:20:51.930
the entire justification for releasing people charged with serious violent

357
00:20:51.970 --> 00:20:55.970
crimes before trial. The argument judges make, and it is

358
00:20:56.190 --> 00:20:59.220
often a good argument, is that a defendant does not

359
00:20:59.259 --> 00:21:01.339
have to sit in a cell for two years awaiting

360
00:21:01.420 --> 00:21:06.009
trial because technology can watch them instead. That argument only

361
00:21:06.049 --> 00:21:09.369
works if the technology actually watches them, and if the

362
00:21:09.430 --> 00:21:13.210
company running it answers a judge. In this case, prior

363
00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:17.309
monitoring reports had reportedly shown no violations at all. Whatever

364
00:21:17.349 --> 00:21:20.569
happened in Denver on August 26th, the system that was

365
00:21:20.609 --> 00:21:23.759
supposed to flag it did not flag it. A stranger

366
00:21:23.859 --> 00:21:26.940
with an email address did. A hearing on the alleged

367
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.059
bond violation is expected next week, and I want to

368
00:21:30.099 --> 00:21:35.029
be precise. Barry Morphew is presumed innocent of murdering his wife,

369
00:21:35.210 --> 00:21:37.509
and as far as the public record shows, he has

370
00:21:37.609 --> 00:21:41.690
not been charged with anything arising from the August 26th incident.

371
00:21:42.309 --> 00:21:45.730
What happened this week is a judge tightening release conditions,

372
00:21:46.109 --> 00:21:49.089
not a conviction of anything. But here's the part I

373
00:21:49.130 --> 00:21:53.890
keep turning over. The GPS said nothing. The monitoring company

374
00:21:53.930 --> 00:21:58.180
said nothing. The bond, all $ 3 million of it, said nothing.

375
00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:01.349
What worked was a woman with a phone who filmed

376
00:22:01.420 --> 00:22:04.049
a man who hit her car and a stranger who

377
00:22:04.089 --> 00:22:06.960
watched the news and decided to email a judge about it.

378
00:22:07.890 --> 00:22:11.809
Accountability doesn't have a legal department. Sometimes it is just

379
00:22:11.869 --> 00:22:16.569
a person who paid attention. Suzanne Morphew was 49 years old.

380
00:22:17.029 --> 00:22:19.609
She has been dead for six years. Her body spent

381
00:22:19.650 --> 00:22:22.349
three of those years in the ground before anyone found her.

382
00:22:22.849 --> 00:22:25.309
And the man charged with killing her will not go

383
00:22:25.349 --> 00:22:28.339
to trial until the summer after next. Someone has to

384
00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:35.299
say her name. That's the show for Friday, September 4th.

385
00:22:35.779 --> 00:22:38.710
If this was useful, send it to one person. That

386
00:22:38.769 --> 00:22:41.750
is the whole engine on a show like this. And

387
00:22:41.789 --> 00:22:45.170
if you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment because I

388
00:22:45.210 --> 00:22:47.990
want to hear you on the juror. If 11 people

389
00:22:48.029 --> 00:22:50.740
are convinced and one is not, is that one person

390
00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:52.900
a problem to be solved or the entire point of

391
00:22:52.940 --> 00:22:57.069
the system? I have a view. Tell me yours. That

392
00:22:57.130 --> 00:22:59.390
Plymouth jury is back in the room this morning, and

393
00:22:59.450 --> 00:23:02.650
Judge Sullivan has one card left. When it breaks, we

394
00:23:02.670 --> 00:23:08.859
will be here. I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. A few

395
00:23:08.900 --> 00:23:12.220
notes on sourcing and timing. This episode was recorded before

396
00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:15.660
court opened Friday morning. The Lindsay Clancy jury ended a

397
00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:19.529
sixth day of deliberations Thursday without a verdict at roughly

398
00:23:19.529 --> 00:23:23.190
36 hours. If a verdict or a mistrial came after

399
00:23:23.230 --> 00:23:26.849
we recorded, this episode does not reflect it. Outlets have

400
00:23:26.890 --> 00:23:31.509
counted deliberation hours differently throughout, ranging from 35 to 36

401
00:23:31.509 --> 00:23:34.730
as of Thursday evening. The contents of jury notes and

402
00:23:34.789 --> 00:23:38.230
what individual jurors said at sidebar were not made public.

403
00:23:39.049 --> 00:23:41.609
Our account of the foreperson's note and of the request

404
00:23:41.650 --> 00:23:44.450
to remove a juror comes from what attorneys said in

405
00:23:44.670 --> 00:23:48.650
open court and from reporters present in the room. Reports

406
00:23:48.710 --> 00:23:51.579
of an 11 to 1 split are inferences drawn from

407
00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:54.000
that note and have not been confirmed by the court,

408
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:57.369
and we are not treating them as fact On the

409
00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:00.809
Galveston case, James Elmore has been convicted of the charges

410
00:24:00.849 --> 00:24:04.569
he faced and remains entitled to appeal. The account of

411
00:24:04.609 --> 00:24:07.569
what happened to Laura Miller in 1984 comes from statements

412
00:24:07.690 --> 00:24:11.670
Elmore made to Tim Miller, relayed in Miller's testimony. Clyde Hedrick,

413
00:24:11.759 --> 00:24:15.160
who Elmore's account identifies as responsible for the killing, died

414
00:24:15.180 --> 00:24:17.779
in March of this year, was never tried for Laura

415
00:24:17.819 --> 00:24:20.660
Miller's death and never had the opportunity to answer these

416
00:24:20.740 --> 00:24:24.440
allegations in court. Tim Miller testified that he paid Elmore

417
00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:29.150
roughly $ 33, 000 over several years as reward money. On the

418
00:24:29.190 --> 00:24:33.289
Colorado case, Barry Morphew has pleaded not guilty to first-degree

419
00:24:33.349 --> 00:24:37.109
murder and is presumed innocent. He has not, on the

420
00:24:37.170 --> 00:24:40.650
public record, been charged in connection with the August 26th

421
00:24:40.710 --> 00:24:44.289
incident in Denver. The description of that incident comes from

422
00:24:44.329 --> 00:24:48.470
the judge's written order and from a prosecution filing. The

423
00:24:48.529 --> 00:24:51.359
judge's identification of him in the video is her own

424
00:24:51.450 --> 00:24:55.220
statement in that order. His bond was not revoked, his

425
00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:58.119
conditions of release were tightened, and a hearing on the

426
00:24:58.180 --> 00:25:04.309
alleged violation is expected. This episode discusses child deaths, suicide,

427
00:25:04.630 --> 00:25:08.750
postpartum mental illness, sexual assault, and the killings of young women.

428
00:25:09.609 --> 00:25:13.250
If you are struggling, you can call or text 988

429
00:25:13.250 --> 00:25:16.890
in the United States to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifelines.

430
00:25:17.990 --> 00:25:21.650
For postpartum mental health specifically, the National Maternal Mental Health

431
00:25:21.690 --> 00:25:29.859
Hotline is available by call or text at 1-833-TLC-MAMA. If

432
00:25:29.900 --> 00:25:32.880
you or someone you love has experienced sexual violence, the

433
00:25:33.009 --> 00:25:35.779
National Sexual Assault Hotline is available at 1-800-656-4673.