Welcome to Celebrity Trials - True Crime and Justice coverage updated daily.!
Aug. 25, 2026

The Lindsay Clancy Jury Gets It This Week, a Murder-for-Hire Trial With No Gun and No DNA, and Seven Years to Find Morgan Bauer

The Lindsay Clancy Jury Gets It This Week, a Murder-for-Hire Trial With No Gun and No DNA, and Seven Years to Find Morgan Bauer

Judge William Sullivan denied a defense motion for a mistrial Monday in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial, as Kevin Reddington finished a contentious cross-examination of the Commonwealth's rebuttal psychiatrist, Dr. Avram Mack — at one point asking, "What are you smiling for? This is not funny, sir." Mack has testified Clancy suffered a major depressive episode but was not psychotic, and that she recalled telling her children "go to God" as she killed them. Reddington challenged his credentials and pressed him on the DSM's four-week postpartum window; Mack acknowledged the World Health Organization uses a different one. Prosecutors also called forensic psychologist Dr. Kirk Heilbrun. Closing arguments are now expected Wednesday, after which 18 jurors will be reduced to 12 for deliberations. Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months. Also: in Jacksonville, the state's effort to trace the gun in the Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire trial stalled when a longtime friend of defendant Mario Fernandez Saldana denied giving him the weapon. And in Newton County, Georgia, jury selection began for Katelyn Goble in the 2016 killing of 19-year-old Morgan Bauer.

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
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:08.640
Caalaroga Shark Media.

2
00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:10.800
Good morning.

3
00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:15.279
This is Daily Crime Injustice from Calaroga Shark Media powered

4
00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:15.880
by AI.

5
00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:17.800
I'm Garrett Fisher.

6
00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:22.440
It's Tuesday, August twenty fifth, twenty twenty six. After twenty

7
00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:26.039
two days of testimony, more than forty witnesses, and five

8
00:00:26.120 --> 00:00:28.519
weeks of a Plymouth County jury sitting in a room

9
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:31.920
listening to psychiatrists disagree with each other, it is finally

10
00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.679
almost over. Closing arguments in the Lindsay Clancy trial are

11
00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:39.200
expected today and then twelve people go into a room

12
00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:41.960
and decide whether a woman who killed her three children

13
00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:46.359
is criminally responsible for it. In Jacksonville, the second week

14
00:00:46.359 --> 00:00:50.039
of testimony opened in the trial of Mario Fernandez Saldana

15
00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:52.600
for the murder for higher killing of Jared Bride again,

16
00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:55.719
and the state spent Monday trying to trace a gun.

17
00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:59.679
It did not entirely go their way, and in a

18
00:00:59.719 --> 00:01:03.159
court house in Covington, Georgia, lawyers began picking a jury

19
00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:05.560
in a case about a nineteen year old named Morgan

20
00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:09.079
Bauer who vanished in twenty sixteen and whose family spent

21
00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:12.599
seven years being told there was nothing to find. Let's

22
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:19.120
get into it. On the evening of January twenty fourth,

23
00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:22.760
twenty twenty three, Lindsey Clancy strangled her three children with

24
00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:26.680
exercise bands in the basement of their house in Duxbury, Massachusetts,

25
00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:29.959
while her husband was out picking up takeout and a prescription.

26
00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:34.760
Cor was five, Dawson was three, Callen was eight months old.

27
00:01:35.239 --> 00:01:39.280
Clancy then cut herself, went out a second story window, survived,

28
00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:42.359
and has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since.

29
00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:45.239
She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first

30
00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:48.760
degree murder. Nobody in that courtroom disputes that she did it.

31
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:52.200
The only question is whether the Commonwealth can prove she

32
00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:57.519
was criminally responsible. The defense rested Friday after ten witnesses.

33
00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:01.640
Clancy never took the stand, and since Friday afternoon, this

34
00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:06.000
trial has belonged entirely to one man, doctor Avra Mac,

35
00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:09.960
the prosecution's forensic psychiatrist. Let me tell you what Mac

36
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.840
has actually told this jury, because it is more careful

37
00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:16.520
than the headline suggests. Mac does not say Lindsey Clancy

38
00:02:16.639 --> 00:02:19.960
was fine. He says she was severely mentally ill. What

39
00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:22.479
he says is that what she had was a major

40
00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:26.759
depressive episode, not psychosis, and that it was a continuation

41
00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:28.960
of the depression she had been living in for months.

42
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:31.759
He found no evidence of the mania you would need

43
00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:35.599
to support a bipolar diagnosis, and critically, he told the

44
00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:38.520
jury she retained the ability to understand right from wrong

45
00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:42.199
and to control her behavior. Then he gave the prosecution

46
00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:46.400
the single most devastating piece of testimony in this entire trial.

47
00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.319
Clancy told Mack what she said to her children while

48
00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:53.759
she was killing them, three words go to God. And

49
00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:57.319
Mac's reading of that was this, it is a way

50
00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:00.759
of thinking about those children as innocents, as people who

51
00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:03.840
had done nothing wrong, while what she was doing was

52
00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:08.080
the opposite. It was wrong, and she knew it. I

53
00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:10.840
want to be careful here because that is one psychiatrist

54
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:13.319
interpretation of three words spoken by a woman in the

55
00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.159
worst moment of her life, and a different expert read

56
00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:18.280
the same words as a mother in a dream state

57
00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:21.400
trying to send her children somewhere safe. But you can

58
00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:24.599
see why the Commonwealth built its closing around it. Mack

59
00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:27.800
also told the jury Clancy described hearing a loud male

60
00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:30.639
voice that night telling her to kill the children so

61
00:03:30.759 --> 00:03:34.080
that she could then kill herself. He does not dispute

62
00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:37.159
she reported that His position is that hearing it does

63
00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:39.960
not settle the legal question, because, in his view, she

64
00:03:40.039 --> 00:03:42.479
was still able to conform her conduct to the law.

65
00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:46.439
And then came Monday, and Monday got ugly. Kevin Reddington

66
00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:49.759
spent the morning on cross examination, and he went after

67
00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:53.280
the framework rather than the man. His line of attack

68
00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:55.879
was that Mack was working from a definition that is

69
00:03:55.960 --> 00:04:01.439
too rigid. The American Diagnostic Manual defines postpartum onset as

70
00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:05.520
four weeks after birth. Reddington got Mack to acknowledge that

71
00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:09.280
the World Health Organization uses a different window, and that

72
00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.599
a proposed revision to the American manual would extend it

73
00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:16.560
to six weeks. Callan Clancy was eight months old, so

74
00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:19.160
you can see the shape of the argument. If the

75
00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:22.800
official cutoff is four weeks, then by definition, nothing that

76
00:04:22.879 --> 00:04:26.000
happened to Lindsay Clancy in January of twenty twenty three

77
00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:30.439
was postpartum anything. Reddington's point is that the calendar is

78
00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:34.920
a bureaucratic convenience, not a biological fact, and that the

79
00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:38.360
experts themselves cannot agree on where to draw the line.

80
00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:42.360
Here's the part that tells you how tense that courtroom got.

81
00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.240
According to reporters, in the room, Mack at times simply

82
00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:50.439
refused to answer Reddington's questions, and Judge William Sullivan had

83
00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:54.240
to intervene more than once to get the witness to respond. Look,

84
00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:56.120
I'm going to be honest with you. When a paid

85
00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:58.839
expert starts fighting the lawyer instead of answering the question,

86
00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:03.160
Jury's notice they may not follow the argument about diagnostic windows.

87
00:05:03.720 --> 00:05:07.040
They absolutely notice a man on a witness stand who

88
00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:09.600
does not want to say a word out loud. Whether

89
00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:12.560
that helps Reddington or just makes everyone tired. By day

90
00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:16.160
twenty two, I do not know, but it happened, and

91
00:05:16.199 --> 00:05:18.759
it happened in front of the people who decide this.

92
00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:23.199
Prosecutors are calling three medical experts in rebuttal in total.

93
00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:27.600
Mack was the first. The rest were expected to be short.

94
00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:29.759
So let me tell you what you're going to hear today.

95
00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:33.720
Because both closings are already visible in the record. The

96
00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:36.759
Commonwealth is going to argue planning. Their whole case has

97
00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:40.040
been that Lindsey Clancy engineered the window. She was the

98
00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.399
one who asked her husband to go pick up medicine

99
00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:45.439
for Cora and food from a restaurant. That is what

100
00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:47.800
created the twenty five minutes she was alone in the

101
00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:51.879
house with those children. Jennifer Sprague will walk that jury

102
00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:55.319
through the phone data, the searches, the Apple watch logging

103
00:05:55.319 --> 00:05:58.240
her moving through the house, and she will argue that

104
00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:00.959
a woman who can order takeout and time an errand

105
00:06:01.079 --> 00:06:04.720
is a woman executing a plan. Matt gave her the

106
00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:08.199
closing line, and she will use it. Go to God.

107
00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.920
Reddington is going to argue that the entire frame is wrong.

108
00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:15.720
His case has never been that Lindsey Clancy was confused.

109
00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:19.800
It is that she was failed methodically by people whose

110
00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:24.560
job it was to catch this. She reported anxiety, insomnia,

111
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:28.600
intrusive thoughts about harming her children. She was prescribed and

112
00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:32.600
re prescribed, and had her medications changed. Her husband went

113
00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.279
to a doctor the week before and said his wife

114
00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:38.959
was being turned into a zombie. Reddington's version is that

115
00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:42.720
a system watched a woman deteriorate in real time, kept

116
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:47.079
adjusting the dosage, and then acted shocked. And both of

117
00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:49.879
those things can be true at once, Which is the

118
00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:54.120
actual problem this jury has, which brings us to today

119
00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:57.160
and to the question this jury actually has to answer,

120
00:06:57.519 --> 00:07:00.519
Because almost every version of this story you will gets

121
00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:04.439
it slightly wrong. The question is not whether Lindsey Clancy

122
00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:09.360
was mentally ill. Everybody agrees she was. Both sides every

123
00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:12.879
expert that is not in dispute, and it never was.

124
00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:17.000
Massachusetts uses a two part standard, and the defense only

125
00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:20.120
has to get there on one of them. Either Clancy

126
00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:23.360
was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of what she was doing,

127
00:07:23.879 --> 00:07:26.079
or she was unable to conform her conduct to the

128
00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:29.319
requirements of the law, unable to know it was wrong,

129
00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:33.560
or unable to stop herself one or the other, and

130
00:07:33.639 --> 00:07:38.000
the burden is on the commonwealth. Once criminal responsibility is

131
00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:41.319
genuinely in play, it is the prosecution that has to

132
00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:44.439
prove she was responsible, not the defense that has to

133
00:07:44.439 --> 00:07:47.720
prove she was not. If the jury finds her guilty

134
00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:50.519
of first degree murder, it is life in prison with

135
00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:55.480
no possibility of parole. If they find her not criminally responsible,

136
00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:58.759
she goes to a state psychiatric facility and she does

137
00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:01.480
not simply walk out. That is a commitment with its

138
00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:04.199
own review process that can last the rest of her life,

139
00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:06.959
and there is still the open question of what else

140
00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:10.319
goes on that verdict. Slip Reddington has been pushing for

141
00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:15.399
an involuntary manslaughter option built on involuntary intoxication. The argument

142
00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:18.519
that Clancy was over prescribed and that abruptly changing her

143
00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:22.360
medications altered her mind in a way she did not choose.

144
00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:26.399
Prosecutors have fought it. If Sullivan allows it, this jury

145
00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:29.360
gets a middle option. If he does not, they are

146
00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:32.360
choosing between prison and a hospital with nothing in between.

147
00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:35.399
One more thing worth noting, and then I want to

148
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:39.399
close this segment properly. Rusty Yates, who was married to

149
00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:42.399
Andrea Yates when she drowned their five children in two

150
00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:45.799
thousand and one, has spoken publicly in recent days about

151
00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:49.360
Patrick Clancy, and his message was that the blame being

152
00:08:49.399 --> 00:08:53.440
aimed at Patrick is baseless. He would know he spent

153
00:08:53.559 --> 00:08:56.919
years being told he should have seen it coming. And

154
00:08:57.039 --> 00:08:59.879
that is worth sitting with, because there is a version

155
00:08:59.879 --> 00:09:03.600
of this conversation happening online right now that has decided

156
00:09:03.639 --> 00:09:06.879
Patrick Clancy is the villain here. He went to a

157
00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:09.279
doctor of the week before and said his wife was

158
00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.080
being turned into a zombie.

159
00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:12.600
He came home from a.

160
00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:15.799
Twenty five minute errand to find his entire family destroyed.

161
00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:19.960
Whatever the failures were in that house, and there were failures,

162
00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:22.360
that man is not the person who has to answer

163
00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:26.080
for them. Coret Clancy was five and in kindergarten. Dawson

164
00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:30.039
Clancy was three. Calan Clancy was eight months old. Their

165
00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.120
mother killed them in their own basement, and today twelve

166
00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:36.919
strangers start deciding what the law says about that. However,

167
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:39.879
this comes back. They were real children who liked real

168
00:09:39.960 --> 00:09:44.320
things and had names. Someone has to say them when

169
00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:47.200
we come back. A man who has known Mario Fernandez

170
00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:50.559
Saldona for years took the stand in Jacksonville and told

171
00:09:50.639 --> 00:10:07.200
the jury he did not give him a gun. We

172
00:10:07.279 --> 00:10:09.759
covered this case back in July when it was still

173
00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:12.840
a fight over subpoenas and phone records. It is a

174
00:10:12.879 --> 00:10:15.559
trial now and it is one of the most consequential

175
00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:18.759
murder cases in the country this year. On the night

176
00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:22.840
of February sixteenth, twenty twenty two, Jared Bride again dropped

177
00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:24.960
his nine year old twins at their mother's house in

178
00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:28.360
Jacksonville Beach after a dinner out and started driving home

179
00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:31.559
to Saint John's County. His two year old daughter, Bexley,

180
00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:34.399
was in the back seat. On a dark one way

181
00:10:34.440 --> 00:10:37.679
street called Sanctuary Boulevard, there was a tire lying in

182
00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.039
the road. Bride again stopped and got out to move it.

183
00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:45.399
He was shot multiple times and killed. One round passed

184
00:10:45.399 --> 00:10:47.960
through the vehicle near where his daughter was strapped into

185
00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:48.759
her car seat.

186
00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:50.240
She was not hit.

187
00:10:50.639 --> 00:10:53.200
She was two years old, and she was there for

188
00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:57.200
all of it. Jared bride Again was thirty three. He

189
00:10:57.240 --> 00:11:00.679
was a design manager at Microsoft, a father of four, and,

190
00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:04.759
by every account of the investigation, a man with no enemies.

191
00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:09.360
Police looked for a robbery motive, and there was not one.

192
00:11:09.399 --> 00:11:13.000
His wallet and his watch were untouched. Prosecutors say the

193
00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:16.159
tire was placed there deliberately to make him stop, and

194
00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:19.720
they say the reason was a custody fight. Bridgin and

195
00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:23.200
Shanna Gardner divorced in twenty fifteen after five years of marriage.

196
00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:26.559
They shared twins and reached a joint custody agreement, and

197
00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:29.879
then spent years fighting in family court about custody, about

198
00:11:29.960 --> 00:11:34.120
child support, about which schools the kids would attend. Prosecutors

199
00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:36.759
have put that grinding conflict at the center of the case.

200
00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:40.879
Assistant State Attorney Christina Steifler told the jury that Gardner

201
00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:44.080
wanted full custody and that the only people who stood

202
00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.200
to gain anything from Jared Bridegan's death were his ex

203
00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:51.600
wife and her husband. Steifler also told the jury about money.

204
00:11:52.039 --> 00:11:54.720
Gardner came from a wealthy family, and her parents had

205
00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:58.399
set up a trust with Fernandez Saldana as the trustee.

206
00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:00.720
The state's account is that this was a marriage of

207
00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:04.159
convenience from the start, that Fernandez Saldona married her to

208
00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:07.399
help her with her bridegin problem, and that after the killing,

209
00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:10.000
he moved fifty thousand dollars out of that trust into

210
00:12:10.039 --> 00:12:12.960
his own account and sold off what they had acquired together.

211
00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:17.120
Gardner left Florida, he moved to Orlando. The defense pushed

212
00:12:17.159 --> 00:12:20.879
straight back on that. James Hill told jurors his client

213
00:12:20.919 --> 00:12:23.960
had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars and an

214
00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:26.480
army background, and that if he were a man running

215
00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:29.000
from a murder he had orchestrated, he would have left

216
00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:32.399
the country. Instead, he took a road trip to Pennsylvania

217
00:12:32.440 --> 00:12:36.519
and came back. Mario Fernande Saldana is thirty eight, an

218
00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:39.840
army veteran and the estranged husband of Bridegan's ex wife,

219
00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:43.399
Shanna Gardner. He is charged with first degree murder and

220
00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:47.519
solicitation to commit a capital felony. He has pleaded not guilty,

221
00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:51.440
and he is presumed innocent. Two other people are charged.

222
00:12:51.679 --> 00:12:54.559
Shanna Gardner has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder

223
00:12:54.559 --> 00:12:58.399
and related charges. Jury selection in her trial begins August

224
00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:02.200
thirty first, one week from two. And Henry Tennen, the

225
00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:05.480
man the state says pulled the trigger, is also charged

226
00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:09.200
and has a trial set for March of twenty twenty seven. Now,

227
00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:11.320
the ten In piece is delicate, and I want to

228
00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:14.360
handle it the same way we did in July. Tenan

229
00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:17.519
originally pleaded guilty to second degree murder in twenty twenty

230
00:13:17.559 --> 00:13:20.399
three under a deal that required him to testify against

231
00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:23.879
the other two. Then he backed out. He told the

232
00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:27.039
court his statements under that agreement were false. A judge

233
00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:29.879
let him withdraw the plea, and he is now going

234
00:13:29.919 --> 00:13:33.080
to trial. So the man the state calls the shooter

235
00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:35.799
is a person who admitted it and then took it back.

236
00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:38.840
That does not make him innocent and it does not

237
00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.679
make him guilty. What it means is that his word

238
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:44.639
is not doing any work in this trial, and prosecutors

239
00:13:44.679 --> 00:13:47.399
are not asking it to. So what is the state's

240
00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:51.759
case without him? It is three checks. Prosecutors say Fernandez

241
00:13:51.799 --> 00:13:55.360
Saldana paid ten and roughly ten thousand dollars after the murder.

242
00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:59.919
The checks were written for landscaping, roof repair, and an investment.

243
00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:01.000
A business idea.

244
00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:04.480
One of them, written weeks after the killing, carries a

245
00:14:04.519 --> 00:14:08.559
note in the memo line kickstarter and then good luck

246
00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:12.879
around those checks. The state has built a circumstantial structure.

247
00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:16.480
Tenon was a tenant in a property Fernandez Saldana owned.

248
00:14:17.039 --> 00:14:20.039
Investigators found a tire at that same rental property that

249
00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:24.000
matched the tire in the road, same manufacture date, same plant,

250
00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:28.480
same identifying numbers. Tennant's DNA was on the tire at

251
00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:32.360
the scene. Phone records showed dozens of contacts between the

252
00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:36.279
two men, and GPS data shows Tenen driving Bridegins exact

253
00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:39.240
route twice in the weeks before, which prosecutors have called

254
00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:42.799
a practice run. An attorney not involved in the case

255
00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:45.720
put it plainly last week, and I think he is right.

256
00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:49.360
This entire trial hinges on what the jury decides those

257
00:14:49.440 --> 00:14:52.720
checks were for, because the defense has a real answer

258
00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:55.879
and it is not a stupid one. James Hill told

259
00:14:55.960 --> 00:14:59.200
the jury that Henry Tennan was a workhorse, that there

260
00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:02.639
is video of him tilling a front yard, cutting down trees,

261
00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:06.919
unloading tile from his truck, at that property. His argument

262
00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.200
is that Fernanda Saldana hired that man to do work,

263
00:15:10.519 --> 00:15:16.120
not murder, tree work, roofwork, landscaping, tile, and Hill has

264
00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:19.840
been hammering something the state cannot fix. There is no

265
00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:24.159
forensic evidence putting his client anywhere near this. Fernando Saldana's

266
00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:27.480
DNA was not on a single item submitted for testing.

267
00:15:27.919 --> 00:15:32.000
The lead detective acknowledged there is no surveillance, no fingerprints,

268
00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:35.360
no hair placing him in Tennant's truck or at Jacksonville

269
00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:38.639
Beach that night. Hill also pointed out that a man

270
00:15:38.679 --> 00:15:41.840
supposedly paid to commit a homicide apparently could not afford

271
00:15:41.879 --> 00:15:43.440
to fix his own truck afterward.

272
00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:44.879
That is the case.

273
00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:47.799
Money that the state says is a murder payment and

274
00:15:47.879 --> 00:15:51.039
the defense says is a paycheck, which brings us to

275
00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:54.320
Monday and the gun. There has never been a murder

276
00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:56.919
weapon recovered in this case, so the state has been

277
00:15:56.960 --> 00:15:59.639
trying to establish where a gun came from, and that

278
00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:02.480
effort ran into a wall Monday, when a longtime friend

279
00:16:02.519 --> 00:16:05.679
of Fernande Saldana took the stand and denied giving him

280
00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:08.840
the firearm investigators believe was used to kill Jared Bride. Again,

281
00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:11.759
I want to be precise about what that does and

282
00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:15.000
does not mean. It does not mean the state's theory

283
00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:18.240
is wrong. Witnesses deny things for all kinds of reasons,

284
00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:21.679
and the jury gets to weigh that. But the state

285
00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:23.960
needed that link and did not get it on the

286
00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:27.080
record Monday. And in a case with no murder weapon,

287
00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:32.279
no defendant, DNA, and no eyewitness, every failed link matters

288
00:16:32.320 --> 00:16:35.679
more than it would in an ordinary trial. There's a

289
00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:38.919
playbook for this, and prosecutors are running it. When you

290
00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.960
cannot put the defendant at the scene, you put his

291
00:16:42.120 --> 00:16:47.159
money there instead. Sometimes that works. Jury's convict on paper

292
00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:50.120
trails all the time. But it asked twelve people to

293
00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:52.720
take a longer walk than a fingerprint does, and the

294
00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:56.519
defense only has to make them stumble once. Jared Bride

295
00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.679
Again was thirty three years old. He was a devout

296
00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:02.679
member of his church. He had four children, and the

297
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.279
youngest one watched him die on a dark street over

298
00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:10.880
what prosecutors say was a fight about custody. His widow, Kirsten,

299
00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:14.400
has sat in that courtroom through all of it, including

300
00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:17.119
the moment they played the video of an evidence technician

301
00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.359
walking up to the scene in the dark. Four years

302
00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:23.200
and six months. That is how long it took to

303
00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:25.799
get a first trial. Someone has to say his name

304
00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:30.680
when we come back. Morganbauer was nineteen years old when

305
00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:33.759
she disappeared in twenty sixteen, and it took seven years

306
00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:51.960
to find her. This is a new case for us,

307
00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:54.759
so let me start at the beginning. Morgan Bauer was

308
00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.200
nineteen years old. She was from Aberdeen, South Dakota, and

309
00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:01.440
she had recently moved to the Atlanta air In February

310
00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:02.240
of twenty.

311
00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:03.480
Sixteen, she disappeared.

312
00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:06.359
The last confirmed sightings put her at a gas station

313
00:18:06.440 --> 00:18:09.480
on Highway two seventy eight in Covington, Georgia, and a

314
00:18:09.480 --> 00:18:12.920
social media post from Yellow River Park in Porterdale, and

315
00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:16.599
then nothing. The two people last seen with her, her

316
00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:20.720
friend Caitlin Goebel, and Goebel's then boyfriend Jonathan Warren, told

317
00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:24.720
investigators and told Morgan's mother directly, that they had dropped

318
00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.039
her off at a gas station and that was the

319
00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:30.440
last they saw her. That story held for seven years,

320
00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:33.640
seven years of a mother in South Dakota not knowing

321
00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:37.519
seven years of a missing person's case that friends were

322
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:42.839
openly afraid would turn into a homicide investigation. Seven years

323
00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:46.599
of Morgenbauer being officially a girl who walked away from

324
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:50.200
a gas station. In July of twenty twenty three, the

325
00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:53.839
FBI helped Porterdale police search a property on Broad Street

326
00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:58.240
near the Yellow River. They found remains they were Morgan's.

327
00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:02.240
A month later, Warren was arrested in Los Angeles and

328
00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:07.039
Goebel was arrested in Peoria, Illinois. In October of twenty

329
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:10.359
twenty three, a Newton County grand jury indicted them both.

330
00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:14.200
The indictment alleges Morgan was strangled and that both of

331
00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:17.359
them put their hands on her neck. It further alleges

332
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:20.680
that afterward they cut up and burned her remains to

333
00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:24.440
hide what had happened. In January of twenty twenty four,

334
00:19:24.599 --> 00:19:27.880
Jonathan Warren pleaded guilty at his arraignment, not to a

335
00:19:27.960 --> 00:19:31.960
lesser charge to all of it, including malice, murder, and

336
00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:35.240
an additional count involving the abuse of Morgan's body after

337
00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:38.839
she was dead. Prosecutors say he asked for the death penalty.

338
00:19:39.079 --> 00:19:42.119
At sentencing, he asked for life with the possibility of parole.

339
00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:45.599
The judge gave him life without so One of the

340
00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:49.680
two people in that house is convicted sentenced and finished.

341
00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:54.640
The other is on trial starting now. Caitlin Goebel is thirty.

342
00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:59.200
She is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault,

343
00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:03.319
tampering with evidence, and concealing the death of another. She

344
00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:06.680
has not been convicted of anything, and she has presumed innocent.

345
00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:11.240
Jury selection began Monday in Newton County before Judge Joe Bishop.

346
00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:14.440
And here is the strange thing about how this case

347
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:16.839
broke open, because it did not break the way you

348
00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:20.839
would expect. Prosecutors say, Caitlin Goebel is the one who

349
00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:24.400
went to investigators in twenty twenty three and told them

350
00:20:24.519 --> 00:20:27.920
she had information about a murder. They say she did

351
00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:31.720
not initially implicate herself and instead pointed at Warren as

352
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:37.880
the person solely responsible. Investigators concluded otherwise. The state's position

353
00:20:38.119 --> 00:20:40.880
is that she was just as culpable as he was,

354
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:46.359
and in interviews with police, prosecutors say Goebel eventually acknowledged

355
00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:49.039
being present when Morgan was killed and helping cut up

356
00:20:49.079 --> 00:20:52.240
her body afterward, putting the remains in a suitcase and

357
00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:55.480
setting it on fire in a backyard. Her defense has

358
00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:59.039
said she was under Warren's control, but her attorney told

359
00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:01.519
the court on Friday that she will not be pursuing

360
00:21:01.559 --> 00:21:05.079
a battered person syndrome defense and will not be pursuing

361
00:21:05.119 --> 00:21:08.599
an insanity defense. So whatever the argument is going to

362
00:21:08.599 --> 00:21:10.559
be at this trial, it is not going to be

363
00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:12.880
that she was legally incapable of choosing.

364
00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:14.319
The fight that got this.

365
00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:16.920
Case into the headlines is about what the jury is

366
00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:20.359
allowed to hear. The state moved to introduce Goebel's social

367
00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:23.400
media activity from around the time of the killing, material

368
00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:28.400
about satanism, about serial killers, about death. Prosecutors say it

369
00:21:28.559 --> 00:21:32.880
establishes motive. The defense argued it is inflammatory, that its

370
00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:36.440
prejudicial effect swamps whatever it proves, and that a jury

371
00:21:36.519 --> 00:21:39.759
shown that material will convict on vibes rather than evidence.

372
00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:43.640
The judge sided with the state that evidence is coming

373
00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:47.039
in and the post prosecutors have highlighted made the Knight

374
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:51.920
Morgan died reads this is Bob. Bob kills people. I

375
00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:54.119
have thoughts about this, and I am going to give

376
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:57.480
them to you straight. Occult evidence in a murder trial

377
00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:00.200
makes me nervous, and it should make you nervous. Two,

378
00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:04.480
this country has a genuinely embarrassing track record here. We

379
00:22:04.599 --> 00:22:06.920
ran a moral panic in the eighties and nineties that

380
00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:09.839
put people in prison over dungeons and dragons and heavy

381
00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:13.720
metal albums, and some of those convictions have since fallen apart,

382
00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:16.680
being a weird twenty year old who posts about the

383
00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:20.359
Satanic Bible is not evidence of murder. It is evidence

384
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:22.880
of being a weird twenty year old. But that is

385
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:25.440
not quite what this is, and I want to be

386
00:22:25.519 --> 00:22:29.079
fair about the distinction. A post made the same night

387
00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:32.079
a person died. Referring to a named object as something

388
00:22:32.079 --> 00:22:35.640
that kills people is not a general statement about someone's taste.

389
00:22:36.119 --> 00:22:39.599
It is a specific thing said at a specific moment.

390
00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:42.400
Whether it means what the state says it means is

391
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:45.799
exactly what a jury is for. The judge also went

392
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:47.920
the other way on some of it. He granted the

393
00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:51.240
defense's request to strip out references to Goebel's drug use

394
00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:54.759
from her police interviews, and both sides agreed to redact

395
00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:58.559
material about Warren's past. So this is not a judge

396
00:22:58.599 --> 00:23:01.839
letting the state throw everything at the wall. The other

397
00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:05.720
thing to watch is that Jonathan Warren is expected to testify.

398
00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:09.039
The man already serving life without parole is going to

399
00:23:09.079 --> 00:23:11.440
take the stand against the woman he was living with

400
00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:15.279
and you should hear that with both eyes open. A

401
00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:19.400
convicted murderer with nothing left to lose is not automatically

402
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:22.799
a liar, but he is not automatically anything else either.

403
00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:26.559
Morgan Bauer was nineteen years old. She had moved across

404
00:23:26.599 --> 00:23:28.319
the country to a place where she did not know

405
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:31.519
many people. When she disappeared. The two people who saw

406
00:23:31.559 --> 00:23:34.599
her last told everyone, including her mother, that she had

407
00:23:34.599 --> 00:23:37.079
been dropped off at a gas station and was fine.

408
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.039
She was in the ground the whole time. Nobody was

409
00:23:40.039 --> 00:23:43.359
paying attention to her. A nineteen year old woman new

410
00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:46.279
in town vanishes, and it takes seven years and a

411
00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:48.480
federal search team to find out what happened in a

412
00:23:48.519 --> 00:23:52.079
house on Broad Street. Her mother spent those seven years

413
00:23:52.119 --> 00:23:55.559
pushing her friend spent those seven years afraid of exactly

414
00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:59.480
what turned out to be true. Morgan Bauer. Someone has

415
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.119
to say her name, and for seven years, almost nobody did.

416
00:24:06.599 --> 00:24:09.519
That's the show for Tuesday, August twenty fifth. If this

417
00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:12.920
was useful, send it to one person. Word of mouth

418
00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:15.720
is genuinely the whole engine on a show like this.

419
00:24:16.319 --> 00:24:20.519
And if you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment. I

420
00:24:20.599 --> 00:24:22.640
want to know what you think. That Plymouth jury does

421
00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:26.000
with Lindsay Clancy because the lawyers I trust are split

422
00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:28.599
down the middle, and so am I. We'll be back

423
00:24:28.599 --> 00:24:31.759
tomorrow with Las Vegas, where the Tupac Shakur murder trial

424
00:24:31.799 --> 00:24:34.680
has now had two more days of testimony, and with

425
00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:40.519
whatever Plymouth County decides. I'm Garrett Fisher do better. A

426
00:24:40.519 --> 00:24:43.920
few notes on sourcing and timing. This episode was recorded

427
00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.559
before court opened Tuesday morning. Closing arguments in the Lindsay

428
00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:51.440
Clancy trial were expected Tuesday, but Judge Sullivan had indicated

429
00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.000
the schedule could shift depending on how long the remaining

430
00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:57.640
rebuttal witnesses take, and he had offered the attorney's additional

431
00:24:57.640 --> 00:25:00.559
time to prepare closings if they needed it. He also

432
00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:04.359
had not ruled, as of recording on whether involuntary manslaughter

433
00:25:04.440 --> 00:25:07.359
will be included as a verdict option. Nothing in this

434
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:09.839
episode should be taken as a report on what actually

435
00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:13.920
happened in that courtroom today. Our account of Monday's cross examination,

436
00:25:14.119 --> 00:25:17.559
including the description of the witness declining to answer questions

437
00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:21.880
and the judge intervening, comes from reporters present in the courtroom,

438
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:25.240
rather than from a transcript we have reviewed on the

439
00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:29.920
Jacksonville trial. Mario Fernandez Saldana has pleaded not guilty and

440
00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:33.839
is presumed innocent, as our Shanna Gardner and Henry Tennan,

441
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:35.960
who face separate trials.

442
00:25:36.599 --> 00:25:37.680
Henry Tennan entered.

443
00:25:37.559 --> 00:25:41.079
A guilty plea in twenty twenty three and later withdrew it,

444
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:44.839
telling the court his statements under that agreement were false.

445
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:48.640
Because that plea was withdrawn, we do not treat anything

446
00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:51.519
he said under it as established fact, and we have

447
00:25:51.599 --> 00:25:55.359
not used it as evidence against anyone. Reporting on the

448
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:59.599
specific charges filed against Fernandez Saldana has varied between outlets,

449
00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:04.039
with some listing first degree murder and solicitation and others

450
00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:08.359
listing a different combination, including conspiracy and second degree murder.

451
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.559
We have used the charges as described in the trial

452
00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:15.400
coverage on the Georgia case. Caitlin Goebel has been indicted

453
00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:18.960
and has not been convicted of anything. She is presumed innocent,

454
00:26:19.079 --> 00:26:22.279
and the account of what she told investigators comes from prosecutors,

455
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:26.000
not from a finding by any jury. Jonathan Warren's guilty

456
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:27.920
plea and life sentence are a matter of record.

457
00:26:28.200 --> 00:26:28.920
We describe the.

458
00:26:28.839 --> 00:26:31.559
Additional offense he pleaded guilty to in general terms rather

459
00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:32.480
than naming.

460
00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:34.599
It out of respect for morgen Bauer's family.

461
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:37.960
Warren is expected to testify for the state, and listeners

462
00:26:37.960 --> 00:26:41.920
should weigh testimony from a convicted code defendant accordingly. This

463
00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:46.200
episode discusses child deaths, suicide, and postpart of mental illness.

464
00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:48.920
If you are struggling, you can call her Tax nine

465
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:50.839
to eight eight in the United States to reach the

466
00:26:50.839 --> 00:26:54.880
suicide and crisis lifeline for postpart of mental health. Specifically,

467
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:58.359
the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is available by caller

468
00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:02.319
tax at one eight three three TLC M A m A.

469
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:06.559
Postpartum psychosis is rare. It is a medical emergency, and

470
00:27:06.599 --> 00:27:09.960
it is treatable when it is caught. The overwhelming majority

471
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.039
of people who experience postpartum mental illness never harm anyone.