Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam it’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope you’re all well. Oh, boy, we have a doozy of a case for you today. It’s a two parter and it’s one you won’t soon forget. So, I usually listen to our episodes while I work out, either in the gym or on a walk outside. Because even though I’m doing the final editing pass, I like to listen like all of you might listen, which is often while you’re doing something else, right? And oh my God, I got so many sideways glances from other hikers while I was listening to this episode because I kept muttering obscenities at my phone as I trudged up the hill.

Today’s case comes to us from Detective Robert. It’s no accident that Robert has been our most frequent guest over the years. He is a consummate storyteller. But more importantly, Robert is a dogged, passionate investigator. So, you can be sure no stone was left unturned once he took over this case. And thank goodness, because the suspect in this story is intimately familiar with the justice system and uses that knowledge to abuse his power profusely.

Oh, I could go on and on about how much this episode pissed me off from start to finish, but I’m going to leave it right here. Buckle up, Small Town Fam. I have no doubt that you’ll agree this episode lives up to its title. Here is Blood Boiler, Part 1.

Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks. 

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins- 

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA. 

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool. 

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder. 

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime. 

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families. 

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved- 

Dave: –out of respect for what they’ve been through. 

[unison]: Thank you. 

[Small Town Dicks theme] 

Yeardley: Today on Small Town Dicks, we have, guess what? The usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hey there.

Yeardley: Hey there. Hey there husband.

Dan: Wife, Honey.

Yeardley: [laughs] We have Detective Dave.

Dave: Hello.

Yeardley: Hello, brother-in-law.

Dave: Hello, sister-in-law/supervisor. [laughs]

Yeardley: I know it’s complicated. God its complicated. And we have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: Hi, Yeardley, how are you?

Yeardley: Oh, PH, I’m always so happy to see you.

Paul: It’s great being here.

Yeardley: And Small Town Fam, Oh my God, it’s such a good day because we have actually our most returning guest on the microphone today and also Robert has been here so often and he’s so great that I made him an honorary cohost, I think, a few recordings ago. Please welcome back detective Robert.

Robert: Thank you. Good to be back.

Yeardley: It’s so great to have you, Robert. You just always bring a smile to our faces. So, this is nice.

Robert: Well, thank you. It’s always fun to see your smiling faces.

Yeardley: Thank you.

Dan: I have to say, at one of our live shows, Robert got a shoutout from us and it was pretty impressive applause.

Yeardley: It was like the audience went, “Oh, Robert’s in the house,” that was so fun. That was really great.

Dave: It’s funny, I think I had brought up like being the warrants bitch.

Robert: That was it.

[laughter]

Robert: Yes, it was.

Dave: And there’s spotlights in your face so you can’t see a whole lot, but I remember looking up and I just see this hand go in the air and I’m like, there he is.

[laughter]

Yeardley: There’s our Robert.

Dave: There’s Robert right there.

Robert: Yeah, that was a really fun event and very well attended. I was greatly surprised. We had a team of dispatchers that went and they all had like sweatshirts made with funny things, apparently, I say on the radio reportedly. So that was very, very wonderful of those dispatchers. Super fun.

Yeardley: So, dispatchers from your agency?

Robert: Yeah, yeah, they were.

Yeardley: Oh, I love it.

Robert: They were there in force and they were all decorated.

Dave: He had a whole crew.

Robert: Yeah, it was really cool. It was a nice surprise.

Yeardley: That’s so great. I love that stuff. Robert, are you a sergeant now? Have I mislabeled you as a detective?

Robert: Well, we’re all deputies first, but no, I am a sergeant now and I have a new assignment since we last spoke.

Yeardley: Do tell.

Robert: So, I currently supervise a team of 12 that does background investigations for our agency. And so, I’ve been doing that since March and it’s a lot of fun, a lot of fun.

Yeardley: [laughs]Talk about having to unveil your secrets, eek.

Robert: We find a lot of secrets, yes, [laughs] these people wish that they were hidden better.

Yeardley: Sure.

Robert: But yeah, we find a lot of secrets. And our agencies, like so many others, we’re on a hiring push and we got a couple dozen deputy positions to fill. And so, every day, lots of work to do.

Yeardley: How is the influx of applicants? Has it gone up or is it status quo since a couple of years ago?

Robert: We’re pretty lucky. We have a fulltime recruiting team. Also, we have the TV show Cops writing with us right now. We’re on social media. We’re doing lots of good things to hopefully get a lot of people. But about every Monday we have somewhere between 20 and 50 new names to go through. So, it keeps us very, very, very busy.

The numbers aren’t good as far as number of applicants versus people actually hired. I think went through 1,175 candidates to hire 35.

Yeardley: Holy shit.

Robert: So, it takes a lot of applicants to get a good hire. But yeah, we’re trying. We’re sure working hard every day.

Yeardley: That’s amazing. I would say, you guys are held to an exceptionally high standard. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it is a real thing. I feel like you have three times as many boxes to check in order to make it through the gauntlet.

Robert: There’s so many steps and there’s so many places along the way where people get disqualified that it kind of segues nicely into this story we’re going to talk because people still get through. They still pass the written psychological screening. They pass the in person psychological screening. They pass all the different steps along the way, and then they get into the business and things still go south. So, no matter how much effort we put in on the front end of things in the hiring process, there’s still a few bad cops out there, unfortunately.

Yeardley: Yeah, of course. In that case, please tell us how this case came to you.

Robert: So I’d been a detective about seven years at this point, and this case is one that just came in through the patrol side of the house. So, someone calls into dispatch, they make a report, patrol goes out and takes the initial report. And then it was assigned to me. And so, this came into a patrol deputy at the end of May, and this particular person, Victoria, she ended up calling our agency specifically. And she started off by talking to one of our sergeants. And after the sergeant heard a little bit of the story, he sent her to a patrol deputy. And this deputy went out and met with her and did a really good job.

And this is a case where we knew from the get go that this alleged crime did not occur in our jurisdiction. And so that’s kind of unusual and I’m going to talk a little bit more about that because obviously I work for a county sheriff’s office. And even though all of our deputies and detectives and everyone has statewide jurisdiction, we can make an arrest anywhere in the state. We can take a report anywhere in the state. We can do traffic enforcement anywhere in the state. Typically, we don’t do that, we only are concerned about crimes and incidents that occur in our own jurisdiction.

But there was a good reason Victoria came to our agency instead of the responsible agency, and the reason for that is where this crime occurred, the suspect in this case, Darren, is a deputy sheriff in that jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction is our county next door to us. So, Victoria came into our station and the deputy conducted an interview with her.

Now, I want to go into just a little bit real quick. At the time this case was recorded, Darren is 47 years old. And Darren is a certified corrections deputy, again with the agency next door, the county next door, a very large sheriff’s office, and he is assigned to court security. So, he works in the courthouse every day, kind of has the function of a bailiff, keeps order in the court, takes people into custody if they’re remanded, transports prisoners to and from the courthouse, that kind of stuff, and responds to any kind of emergency that happens in the courthouse.

Darren is over 6 feet tall. He’s about 200 pounds. And Victoria is a year older than him. She’s about 5’5 and about 50 pounds lighter than Darren. And she is a kindergarten teacher. And she’s an absolutely lovely individual. Very kind, very nice, very loved, and very well respected by everyone, and just probably one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, which I don’t get to say that very often doing the work that I do.

I also want to talk just real briefly about what we call conflict cases. And I want to talk about how DA’s offices in my state handle conflict cases and also how law enforcement agencies handle them. So, a conflict case is where maybe an agency knows or is familiar with someone who is involved in the case. So, whether as a victim or as a suspect or something like that and we definitely want to avoid those kind of cases. So, we don’t want to investigate someone who’s worked for us or someone we have some kind of connection to or maybe their family member, so we want to avoid those. And how we avoid those is we ask another law enforcement agency to just handle the investigation from the very beginning, hopefully.

So, if a case comes in and we know someone involved, we’ll call up another agency and say, “Hey, could you do us a favor and just take this case? We have a conflict,” and they will do that. And it doesn’t have to be a nearby agency. Sometimes it’s the state police, sometimes it’s an agency three or four cities or counties away. It just depends on what the situation is.

Yeardley: Is that different than an internal investigation?

Robert: Same principle applies, although most agencies have internal affairs investigators and they’re kind of used to that. But similarly, let’s say you’re an internal affairs investigator and it’s your best friend who is under the microscope, they would also have a conflict and they would need that to be assigned to someone else.

Yeardley: But how would an IA investigation, internal affairs investigation, proceed? Like Dave, you used to be on the IA team. Did you only investigate things that were not part of your specific agency or did you investigate things within your agency?

Dave: So, if you’re working IA, you are investigating your own people, but it’s internal. So, there’s not this criminal penalty that’s hanging over your head. It’s when you get internally investigated, usually it’s a policy violation. You haven’t broken a law, you might have. But the main complaint, and the only thing I’m really looking at as an IA investigator is what policies did you break and what are the remedies to make sure that doesn’t happen again. So, on the criminal side, you do come across during an IA, criminal matters, and I would not handle those because I’m just looking at one aspect of this. I would pass the criminal investigation off to somebody outside of our agency.

Yeardley: Got it. Okay.

Robert: And then similarly, a prosecutor’s office is going to do the same thing too. If it’s someone they know, the ideal thing for them to do is to ask another prosecutor’s office to handle that. So, on this case, because Darren was a county employee, his county decided not to be the one to make charging decision in this case. And we’ll talk more about that as this case goes along. So, they could have asked my agency, my DA’s office also declined. And so, they asked the State Department of Justice to step in and act as the prosecutor. And their employees, they’re called Deputy Attorneys General. There were three of them involved in this case just due to high turnover and I guess staffing issues and it was kind of a mess, so that was not ideal in this case. Plus, I was dealing with attorneys that I had never dealt with before versus my DA’s office. I was on a first name basis with all the felony attorneys. And even at this other county’s DA’s office, I knew several of their felony attorneys. So, I would have preferred to work with them.

So, working with prosecutors that you’re not familiar with, it was a challenge in this case.

Paul: Hey, Robert?

Robert: Yeah?

Paul: Darren is 47 years old. He’s working in the courts. Is he like a long-term deputy or is he relatively new?

Robert: No, he is also very close to retirement. I would say a year or two away from retirement at this point. He’s been there a long time. He’s worked his way up.

Paul: So, he’s well known in the jurisdiction.

Robert: Yes, and that’s a great question too, because it presented its own set of challenges because Darren is on a first name basis with all the players at the courthouse, all the judges, all the prosecutors and defense counsel. Even in a large jurisdiction, if you’re hanging out at the courthouse every day, you rub shoulders with everyone. So, he knows all the parties even though this is a very large county, very large courthouse, he knows all the players.

Break 1

Okay, so like I mentioned, Victoria met with one of our patrol deputies who did a great interview. And I’ll run through here the initial statement. Victoria tells us that her ex-boyfriend is named Bob. And Bob’s a firefighter. He works for the city fire bureau and he’s a longtime firefighter. Bob’s a veteran there. And Victoria says that she and Bob had a relationship, but they’ve been broken up now for a few months at this time that this case comes in, but she and Bob have remained close friends.

Victoria mentions that Bob has been friends since childhood with Darren, and so they go way back and they’re thick as thieves. So, while Victoria’s making her statement to this deputy, Victoria mentions that Bob has gone out of town. And while Bob’s out of town, Victoria and Darren have agreed to take turns watching Bob’s house and feeding Bob’s dog while Bob’s out of town. And they kind of tag team it because one can do one night and then one can do two nights. So, they’re taking turns taking care of Bob’s house, and it’s very nice of them to take care of his house and his dog.

So Victoria says that one night when it’s her turn, and this is two and a half weeks before she calls law enforcement, so again, she’s taking turns watching the house. Well, Victoria says that one night she goes to the house to take care of Bob’s house and Bob’s dog, and she takes her dog with her. Victoria’s planning on staying the night that night, and it’s her night to watch the house, so she’s just going to stay there. Spend a little more time with Bob’s dog.

So, Victoria settles down for the evening. She changes into pajamas. She decides she’s going to sleep on the couch. And she reports that it would be weird for her to sleep in Bob’s bed since they’re not together anymore. So, she’s going to stay on the couch. So, a couple hours go by Victoria’s still there, and she goes out to her car to get something. And while she’s out on the street there, she sees a car that she’s never seen before parked on the street, it draws her attention, so Victoria is looking at the car, and it’s then when Darren gets out of the car and says hello to her. He comes up to her, says hello.

She recognizes Darren because she has met him a few times before over the years because of her relationship with Bob. Darren comes up. He’s overly friendly. He embraces her in a big hug, which she thought was very unusual because they were acquaintances. And Victoria says that Darren’s hug is tighter and longer than what she would have expected. They kind of have the conversation back and forth. “What are you doing here?” “What are you doing here? It’s my night.” And Darren doesn’t really have a good answer, but he suggests that he come in and be with her and that they watch a movie together.

Yeardley: Oh, no.

Robert: Yeah. So, Victoria later says, against her better judgment, she let Darren into the house, agrees with him to watch a movie. And she points out that it’s a very large couch, and they do not sit close together on the couch. She leaves plenty of room. Again, she doesn’t know him very well, so they do not sit close together on the couch. And at one point, she complains that she had a particularly tough exercise class that day, and she’s a little sore, in a little bit of pain, And Darren is right there. He’s there to help. He’s offering to give her a back rub and a neck rub to help alleviate some of her pain from this exercise class.

So, they start watching a movie. And a little bit into the movie, Victoria recounts that Darren violently grabs her head and forces his tongue down her throat. And she says that this is nothing that she was expecting. There wasn’t anything that was even suggesting that this evening would go this way. Victoria pushes him away forcefully. She’s yelling at him, “no.” She’s explaining that this is wrong and that they shouldn’t be doing that and she becomes very upset and starts to cry. And Darren doesn’t skip a beat here. He tells her, “Hey, it’s okay. We’re just two consenting adults. And by the way, your ex, Bob, he slept around all the time while the two of you were together. And by the way, Victoria, even more recently, Bob’s sleeping with someone that you don’t know about.”

So, this causes her to be upset, obviously. And she’s continually crying and trying to understand everything that’s going on. And this time, Darren becomes more forceful. He’s kissing her again against her will and literally ripping her clothing off her body. Victoria is trying to get away. She is 50 pounds lighter than Darren, who’s a bigger guy and athletic. Without going into all the details, Darren removes her clothing and rapes her. Victoria eventually is able to push Darren off of her. She’s crying this whole time, yelling at him to stop screaming. And she creates some distance by going into a different room to get away from him. Victoria reports to our deputy that she immediately becomes concerned about many things. One of them about contracting a sexually transmitted infection because Darren is not wearing a condom when he attacks her.

Now, remember, her things are there because she’s planning to spend the night. Her dog is there. It’s not like she can just run out the front door. She wants to get her things so she can leave. So, as Victoria is gathering her things to leave, Darren pulls his penis out of his pants. He grabs Victoria’s hand and forces her to masturbate his penis and give him oral sex.

Yeardley: Jesus, God.

Robert: And she cannot pull away. His hand and grip on her are very strong and he ejaculates on her face. This whole time, she’s still crying, she’s still yelling, “no.” The whole time just trying to get away, gathering her things to leave. So, after that happens, Victoria is able to get her belongings and get her dog and leave the house.

Yeardley: Can we pause for one second because Paul, I’m thinking about Victoria crying and saying, “no, no, no,” through all of this, sexual assault and Darren persists and there’s a name for that, right? Something, power something.

What is that?

Paul: Yeardley you’re bringing up gross rapist typologies. So different rapists, you know, are broadly classified by category. And this is where you have your power reassurance, power assertive. That’s what you’re referring to. You have your sexual sadist. And what I’m hearing Darren doing to Victoria, I’m thinking, well, Darren’s done this before. He’s 47 years old. And I don’t want to step on Robert’s story. However, I’m now thinking, okay, Darren has gotten away whether he’s done something similar with acquaintances or he has committed a series of rapes where he’s a stranger to the victim. He is performing these forced sexual acts. This is feeding into his fantasy. This idea of forcing masturbation and ejaculating onto her face, this is something that he sexually enjoys and gets off on. And Victoria’s demeanor during that process is something that Darren enjoys. Darren is enjoying the fear, the crying, and the forced aspect. Darren is not NorCal rapist, which I’ve talked about before, the power reassurance offender who likes to cuddle and whisper sweet nothings into your ear and stroke your hair. Darren is that power assertive, rapist. He wants to dominate his victim.

Yeardley: Disgusting. Okay, I’m sorry for interrupting, Robert, but I think that’s important.

Robert: No, it’s very important. Okay, so Victoria gets her belongings and dog, she leaves the house. Victoria mentions that as she’s leaving Bob’s house to get away from Darren this night, that Darren says, “Hey, by the way, please don’t mention that anything happened between us tonight. Please don’t tell Bob what happened tonight.” So, quite the gentleman. She goes home and the first thing she does is wash her clothing. And that is related to the shame and embarrassment that she feels.

Yeardley: Even though it’s not her fault.

Robert: Exactly. And it’s one thing that she has control over as she washes her clothing to, I guess, get rid of this memory and this thing that has happened to her. And then one thing that’s important for the criminal investigation side. I’m reading this report. She has not had any contact with Darren since this happened. So, two and a half weeks have gone by. They haven’t texted, they haven’t called, they’ve had no contact.

So, as they go through this interview, she provides a lot of details. And Victoria wants our deputy to know that Darren works at the courthouse, that he is a deputy sheriff. And the deputy asks, “You know, has there been any issues at work?” And Victoria reports that Darren has had sex with a judge in the judge’s chambers while at work and that Darren sleeps around with all the women at the courthouse.

Yeardley: How does Victoria know that?

Robert: So, she knows this through her relationship with Bob, and she’s reporting it because she feels it is relevant to kind of like the person who Darren is.

Yeardley: And Bob knows because Bob and Darren are good friends. And so, in gossiping, Darren has said, “Guess what I’m doing.”

Robert: Well and the bragging thing that men do sometimes. So, Darren’s bragging to Bob, “You know, here’s what I do at work,” and here’s this conquest and this conquest and this conquest, and it kind of goes on and on. Well, Bob shares that information with Victoria, and she’s reporting it here just to kind of show who he is and what his character and work ethic is.

Yeardley: Yeah, like pattern of behavior.

Robert: Exactly.

Paul: Yeah. Well, there also is a lack of, what do you want to call it? Male loyalty. So, Bob and Darren, no dirt on each other, and yet each of them are spilling dirt to sort of this mutual girlfriend. It’s almost like they’re trying to undermine each other.

Yeardley: Interesting.

Robert: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: And, Robert, I’m curious. You mentioned that Victoria reports this about two weeks after the initial assault. So, has Victoria talked to Bob about what happened at this point?

Robert: No, not at this point. She has called a sexual assault hotline and spoken to a counselor over the phone a couple times. Those are anonymous, and you kind of get advice. And those hotlines are a wonderful resource, they’re available 24/7, and they don’t pressure someone to talk to law enforcement. Sometimes people just want to be heard. But these hotlines also explain the option of, “Hey, there may be some forensic evidence available within a certain timeframe,” and they just want to educate the caller, like, “You might want to go to a hospital.” Or sometimes people call in and the crime has happened years and years ago, where it’s more of an advice, “Let’s listen to you or let’s get you hooked up with local resources.” And so, Victoria had called that hotline and spoken to a couple people.

And in my experience investigating sex crimes, a lot of times people don’t know what is a crime and what is not a crime. And so, they kind of doubt themselves, and they’re not quite sure. And so that’s one of the things that Victoria told me later, after I met her in person, is she said, “I always thought there had to be some kind of physical violence, that I would beat up or that I would have bruises all over me before it would be considered a crime.” And so, by her talking to these helplines, they let her know, like, “No, that is a crime. You don’t have to have any extensive injuries or anything,” and so that kind of increased her confidence to come forward.

Paul: Maybe speaking to that, as I was listening to you describe Darren’s actions with Victoria there on the sofa, he’s grabbing her by the head and forcing a kiss on her. In your state, what kind of charge would that command?

Robert: So anytime there’s a forcible compulsion involved, it elevates it to a pretty high crime. It’s called sex abuse in the first degree. And so, we’re definitely in that arena already. So even just a quick read of the patrol report, I knew we were looking at felony crimes.

Paul: Darren escalates the sexual activity from that point on. And I think what I’m trying to underscore to people who may be unaware of what a crime actually is, that simple act of that forced kiss is a major crime in your state.

Robert: Yes, definitely.

Yeardley: That’s a really good point. And Robert, in this case, Victoria, because she’s reaching out to law enforcement two weeks after the event, she did not get a sex assault kit, did she?

Robert: You’re correct. Yeah, it’s too late. We are typically asking our survivors to come in, even if it’s up to 84 hours after a known event because of how good the technology and the medicine is now. But yeah, we’re well past that. I think Victoria’s report was two and a half weeks after the incident occurred and so that’s another challenge in this case is that we don’t have any forensic evidence. And I also want to highlight too, with Darren being a law enforcement officer, even though he is not on patrol, he obviously sits through trials every day where he is hearing what has worked for criminals and what has not worked for criminals, so he sat through who knows how many sex assault trials where he knows what to say, what to do, what to avoid.

Being in law enforcement what do I have to anticipate when I try to go talk to him? I have to anticipate that he’s not going to say a word. Because just being a part of the system, you know that good things don’t happen after you’ve heard the Miranda Rights. Good things do not happen if the police are knocking on your door and you are being read the Miranda Warning. Smart people stop talking when they hear those words.

Robert: We’re going to have to cut this all out.

[laughter]

Robert: I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

Yeardley: But your point is so well made, Robert. Darren is the perfect student of the system. I mean, like DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer, starting out as a cop. And he knows all about what the burglary do’s and don’ts are when he starts out as the– What is it? The East Bay burglar? the Visalia Ransacker.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Got it.

[laughter]

Yeardley: [00: 29:06] Just trying to keep up here, people.

Paul: I just want to address the time window of physical evidence in sexual assault cases, the human body naturally cleanses itself when there’s foreign substances put into, let’s say, the oral cavity, the rectal cavity, vaginal. Vaginal, even though it cleanses itself, evidence such as semen, some sperm can last longer in the vaginal cavity than the other orifices. And so, Robert mentioned in his state, 84 hours, you’re now talking what three and a half days after the deposition of that sperm that they’re still willing to collect it.

I’ve seen with the modern DNA sensitivities that even seven to ten days later, they can find foreign DNA off of the vaginal swabs. But in the event, let’s say the window has passed. One of the things that I want to underscore to any investigators out there is, okay, the internal aspects of the victim’s body is eliminated the evidence. However, you need to ask, do you still have the clothing that you were wearing when the assault occurred? Do you still have the underwear you haven’t washed yet? Can you find that underwear even if you’re not sure which one it is grab all the underwear out of the laundry that’s still dirty. In a situation like with Darren and Victoria, they don’t have a consensual relationship. His DNA and her underwear from drainage, etc., is significant evidence.

Dan: I’m thinking about that sofa too and I’m sure Robert is as well.

Yeardley: Oh.

Dave: Robert’s got a smile on his face like he got to cut up somebody’s couch.

[laughter]

Robert: No, not this time. Not this time.

Break 2

Robert: All right, so we’re still in the point where Victoria is speaking to the patrol deputy. And so, this is the initial report.

Yeardley: Robert, I’m assuming that Victoria took as long as she did go to the police because of the shame and the guilt that she was feeling, even though none of what happened is her fault.

Robert: Exactly. Victoria felt embarrassed for what happened. She was blaming herself, why did I let this guy in? I barely know him. I have met him a couple times over the years, which helped Victoria feel a little bit safer because she knew he was friends with Bob. But at the same time, she was very embarrassed. And again, she had called the hotline. She also asked several trusted people what she should do and got their advice. And so, there’s this whole process where Victoria is thinking about, what should I do? Is anyone going to believe me? This guy’s a police officer. So, there’s kind of this concern about if there’s a credibility test, how does her word stand up against someone who’s a sworn police officer who is also bragging about having had a sexual relationship with a judge in the courthouse.

So she’s really just questioning the whole system entirely at this point, which is unfortunate. And then what she has done after talking to the hotline and after talking to some trusted people, Victoria decides that she wants to tell Bob. She feels like she needs to tell Bob because Darren is a mutual friend and she wants Bob to know what happened. So, Victoria goes down to the fire station while Bob is working because firefighters get paid to sleep and hang out-

[laughter]

-play video games at the fire station. And so–

Dave: I love you, Robert. [laughter]

Robert: She arranges to have one of Bob’s coworkers there so that Bob can have support because she knows she’s going to go over and drop this news and then Bob’s going to probably continue working. So, she arranges to have a coworker that Bob trusts there. Victoria sits down with Bob and Bob’s coworker and she just lays it out. She explains exactly what happened. And Bob is, of course, crushed. And he believes Victoria. He tells her, “I know Darren’s reputation over the years. I know that he’s seen as a player. I know that he is rumored to have had sex with every woman at the courthouse, practically including the judge.” And so, Bob instantly believes Victoria and he lets her know that he supports her. And as difficult as it’s going to be, he will support her in any way that he can.

So, Victoria mentions her reason for coming forward at this point was the more she reflected on it, Victoria realizes that she felt that Darren was stalking her that night. Darren knew that it was her night to watch Bob’s house and dog, yet he showed up anyway. So, she thinks now that this is a planned attack, that Darren shows up and has planned everything that happened. He had no reason to be at Bob’s house. Her other main reason, and I love this one, and I hear this with certain survivors, they’re coming forward even though it’s difficult because if they can do anything to prevent additional victims, they want to prevent additional victims. I really like that as far as looking out for others, that’s just amazing.

And finally, she has had great trouble sleeping. She’s been very stressed. She’s had a lot of anxiety. She says when her phone rings or someone knocks at the door, it just sets her off. And she decided that this is something that she needs to confront and that’s why she decided to meet with our deputy.

Dan: Robert, quick question. So, Victoria and Darren are trading off dog sitting and checking on the house. How long is Bob gone for? And how many more days after this assault are days needed to be accounted for at Bob’s house?

Robert: So Bob’s gone a total of two weeks, and this is right at the tail end of that period.

Dan: Okay.

Dave: And Victoria never saw Darren outside Bob’s house leading up to this one night. Finally, she sees a suspicious vehicle and Darren pops out.

Robert: Correct. Yeah. She didn’t know what kind of car he drove. She’d never seen him outside of the context of just him kind of stopping by or Bob mentioning him.

Dan: I’m just thinking about the alternative here, that presumably Darren’s got a key to Bob’s house, and Victoria just happens to walk outside that night. And if she wouldn’t have walked outside, what was going to happen?

Yeardley: You’re wondering, Dan, if–

Dan: Darren’s just going to walk into the house.

Dave: Like, she goes to bed. He sees the lights downstairs turn off, and he’s like, “Oh, she’s going to bed. Perfect, I’ll wait an hour and then surprise.”

Paul: I would suggest it’s even possible that Darren has been sitting outside that house on multiple nights prior to this. He is now trying to evaluate Victoria’s life pattern inside Bob’s house. And it just so happens that one night, Victoria presented herself out front, and he probably, in a spur of moments, said, “Here’s my opportunity. I don’t have to sneak in. I can walk right in with her.”

Robert: Yeah.So, Victoria, this was her report made to the patrol deputy. And so that deputy took that report, submits it, and it kind of makes its way through the internal bureaucracy at my office and the records, processes that report, finally makes its way to detectives, makes its way to a sergeant’s inbox, and then is waiting for assignment. And I don’t get it till a full week after Victoria has made this report. So that’s also disappointing. It puts me behind the curve, and it also gives me less chance for any beneficial forensic evidence.

One of the first things I think of is the couch, right? And the clothing. Now, clothing had been covered in the patrol deputies report, the couch, not. So, when I reach out to Victoria, she tells me that after she tells Bob, the first thing that Bob does is get rid of the couch because he doesn’t want Victoria to suffer when she comes over and see that same couch and it was sold to some stranger. It was like a Facebook marketplace type thing. He has no idea where it is at this point.

So, I do my normal way that I start a criminal case. I look up Darren. I look up Victoria. I notice neither of them have criminal history. I ask Victoria lots of follow up questions, I ask about Victoria’s relationship with Bob, and she said that they’d been together about three years, kind of on and off. It’s kind of tumultuous, kind of ups and downs. But again, their friendship is strong, even if they’re not in a relationship anymore. And again, Victoria tells me that she’s seen Darren a few times over the years, just two or three times, enough where she would recognize him if she saw him in a store, but really not too much else about him.

Yeardley: That’s sort of curious to me because I thought at the beginning you said that Bob and Darren had been friends since childhood and they were quite close.

Robert: Yeah. Victoria’s only been in the next door for three years. And so, during that time, she’s just seen him a couple times at Bob’s house.

Yeardley: Right.

Robert: So I learned that Darren had been divorced multiple times and has multiple kids from multiple women. And I learned that Bob always talked to Darren about Victoria, telling Darren very personal things about Victoria. So again, we talked about this three-person dynamic, this triad, and everyone’s getting kind of insider information about the other in that group and so that kind of came up here.

The next thing I ask about in these kinds of cases where we know there’s not going to be DNA evidence is I ask about disclosure witnesses. And what I mean by that is, who did you tell? Exactly as you can remember and in order, ideally, who did you tell, how did you tell them, when did you tell them? And fortunately, Victoria saved the day here because she talked to a lot of people. And even though she was embarrassed, even though she was ashamed, she reached out to lots of people.

So again, the idea of a disclosure witness is, you know, I have a text message, I have a voicemail, I have something that has a date stamp and a timestamp on it that says in the victim’s own words what happened. And those disclosure witnesses are real people. They can come to a grand jury, they can come to a trial, and they can testify as to what the survivor told them. And some states have a hearsay exception specifically for these people so that they can come in and talk about that.

Yeardley: With those disclosure conversations include the hotline people that Victoria spoke to?

Robert: No.

Yeardley: Even if she gives consent to say “Yes, I give you permission to get that conversation.”

Robert: No, those hotline people, how do I say this? They take confidential to the next level. They will not say anything.

Yeardley: Even if the victim is like, “I need you to say that I called.”

Robert: Yeah, no, great question. They feel that would create concerns about confidentiality. However, we have phone records of a survivor calling the hotline number on dates and times. And, we can show that the call lasted 8 minutes or 14 minutes or whatever, so that can be helpful that way.

One of the people that Victoria reached out to right away was her sister. And because her sister was working and Victoria was also working within this time period, they had a long text message history where they’re talking about this and discussing. And so, one of our things to look at is, you know, is Victoria’s report consistent with what was reported to law enforcement? And it was.

Yeardley: And then reiterated in these text messages with Victoria’s sister.

Robert: Exactly. And in her text messages to her sister, she reports that she’s had conversations with the sex assault hotline. So further corroboration there. A week after this happens, Victoria tells me that she’s over at Bob’s house and Darren just happens to stop by because he’s friends with Bob. So, he just happens to stop by. She is instantly panicked. She leaves right away. And she says that this increases her nightmares and fears for her safety. So, this is all consistent with a situation that obviously wasn’t consensual that causes this kind of response in a person.

Yeardley: Do you think that Darren stopped by not because he’s friends with Bob, but because he wanted to get eyes on Victoria?

Robert: It’s hard to know. Yeah, it’s really hard to know. I know that Bob and Darren had that close friendship up until this point. And remember, at this point, Bob still doesn’t know what happened.

Yeardley: Oh, he doesn’t?

Robert: At this point, he doesn’t know yet.

Yeardley: Oh, okay.

Robert: So anyway, it’s obviously bothering her.

Break 3

Robert: So, at this point in the case, again, this is day one or day two of me having the case, because I know there’s criminal allegations involved. I call Darren’s employer, I call and I speak to internal affairs, and I talk to a captain and let them know what’s going on. And they had exactly the kind of response that one would want. They said, “Okay, we’re not going to do anything to jeopardize the investigation. How can we help? What do you want us to do?” And so, at this point, I don’t have anything solid about what had been alleged to have occurred at the courthouse and so I asked if they wouldn’t mind to let him continue working and let things just run its course.

Yeardley: Let Darren keep doing his thing?

Robert: Yeah.

Dave: That’s a huge ask.

Robert: It is. [laughs] It is a very huge ask.

Dave: But I understand why you’re doing it, Robert.

Robert: Okay. And that changes in the near future, that changes. I will say that any criminal investigation, it is better that the suspect not know that law enforcement is involved. So, the longer you can operate in that kind of arena, the better. If the suspect knows that law enforcement is involved, then they can disappear, they can reach out to all their friends and tell them not to talk to us, they can interfere in so many different ways. So, we wanted this just to run its course. As the case continues, I’m investigating, Victoria calls, and she tells me that she’s been to the doctor, and unfortunately, she’s been diagnosed with a couple different STIs.

Yeardley: Oh, no.

Robert: And she tells me that the only partners she’s had in recent history are Bob and Darren. So, as the investigation continues, four days after I get the case, I sit down with Victoria and Bob together, and we do a recorded phone call where Victoria calls Darren. And it takes several attempts to get him on the phone, but once we do get him on the phone, we talk for about a half hour. So, Victoria and Darren talk for about a half hour, and she asks Darren, “Hey, have you told Bob what happened?” And he says, “No, of course not.” And Darren laughs and he wonders out loud why they went there that day. And he kind of just is thinking out loud. And Darren says, “Boy, yeah, humans do crazy things sometimes, don’t they?” And he advises her not to tell Bob.

Yeardley: So, Robert, when Darren says jokingly, “I can’t imagine why went there that day,” he’s painting this picture of this assault as though it was fully consensual and everybody was in on it, and that “Hooray, what a great time.”

Robert: Absolutely.

Yeardley: Fuck that guy.

Robert: He kind of laughs it off, “Yeah, why’d we do that?”

Yeardley: Oh.

Robert: Yeah. So, Victoria, she’s very strong, and she lays out to him that what he did was wrong and he shouldn’t have done it, and why was he doing that? If she’s crying, if she’s telling him repeatedly not to and to stop. And Darren just goes back to, “Yeah, you know, crazy things happen. And by the way, I wouldn’t tell Bob about this if I were you.” And as Victoria continues confronting him, Darren finally apologizes and said he was sorry it happened. He said, “I don’t want to blame you and I don’t want you to blame me. All that happened that night was I stopped by the house to get some of my things that were at Bob’s house, and everything else that happened after that was just the perfect storm.”

So, then Victoria confronts him about these new STIs that she’s been diagnosed with. And Darren replies, “Yeah, I got to admit, I’ve had one of those since high school.” And Darren says, “Hey, I didn’t tell you about it because of how fast everything happened and because, we, ‘hardly did anything.’”

Victoria is livid at this point, as you can imagine and she asks, “Why would you knowingly infect me?” And Darren just laughs and says that he shouldn’t have. Victoria tells this creep that she was crying the whole time, told him several times repeatedly to stop. And Darren responds, “Hey, I guess we’re just kind of looking things differently. I don’t feel like I forced you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

He then starts educating her on our state law and he says, “Hey, what you’re describing is rape, and that’s a very serious allegation.” And Darren tells her, “Hey, I consider what happened a lot more mutual than what you did.” And Victoria yells back at him, “Even though I was crying.” I was very proud of her, but she goes after him, and Victoria asks him, “How does a woman cry in equal consent in your mind?” And she just gives it to him. And it was a very strong and powerful statement in that recorded phone call.

Darren is a condescending a-hole and he pretty much just dismisses everything that she brings up and laughs it off, which is just really insulting.

Yeardley: Is that also a form of grooming? Let me put my thoughts into your head. Let me see if that works. Let me see if I can change your perspective. Maybe I could bring you over to my side and then I’ll be all right.

Robert: Absolutely. I think there’s this hierarchy, look you’re going to do what I want you to do, and then if you object to it, I’m going to explain it away, or I’m going to laugh it off, or I’m going to reframe it in a way that’s not true, but I’m going to reframe it in a way that makes me look good and you look dumb.

Dave: Yeah. Darren is trying to marginalize. And you think of how many phone tricks Darren might have heard in court. He knows when a victim calls out of nowhere that they might be asking for admission. So, he’s going to play the, “Eh, she’s kind of overreacting, don’t you think, detective? Like, look at this. I see things one way, she sees things the other.” He’s building his defense already.

Yeardley: Right. He said, she said.

Robert: Yeah.And let’s be honest, in the criminal justice system, what is the requirement for a conviction? It is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And if you have one person saying something, the other person saying the opposite, we don’t get there. You don’t get there at all. It’s a very, very high burden. And Darren knows that better than most people.

Dave: which is also why Robert is doing so much work to corroborate Victoria’s statements throughout. And that’s how you overcome some of these gaps, is to corroborate contemporaneous with this. This statement was made and here’s the person that they said it to, and they confirm.

You’re kind of stuck with trying to do that to make your case than having a, you know, a smoking gun like bedsheets.

Paul: And Darren, I imagine internally after this call with Victoria, he’s recognizing what is going on. There is going to be maybe a level of panic on Darren’s part. And I imagine Darren’s going to go, “Well, this could cost me my career. How do I not let Victoria come forward and disclose what happened that night?” I can see him going through multiple scenarios on how he could prevent Victoria from accusing him of this sexual assault.

Robert: And I think that this is a battle involving Darren’s ego. And this can be generalized to other offenders and other cases. But I think especially here is he has an ego and he knows himself better than anyone. So, Darren knows, here’s how I’ve conducted my life the last 47 years, and here’s what I’ve gotten away with. And we haven’t even got to any of that yet, but he knows what he’s done and what he’s got away with. And so, I think his ego is so strong that he probably feels he’s untouchable.

Yeardley: Right.

Robert: So, their phone call continues. And Darren, even though he’s had one of these STIs from high school, he said he expresses great surprise that Victoria contracted this STI from one contact with him. Darren acknowledges, “Man, I should have just driven away that night when I saw your car there, because I already have a girlfriend. I’m in a relationship right now. I should have just driven away that night when I was showing up at Bob’s house.”

So again, this to me, not that it goes into my objectivity or my professionalism, but I just hate the guy. You just hate some of these people the more you hear about him.

Yeardley: But also, he’s just contradicted himself because before, he said he only showed up at Bob’s to get his stuff. And therefore, if that was true, you knock on the door, you get your stuff, and you actually do leave, so, fuck you Darren, fuck you.

Robert: Well, he’s a liar. He’s a liar.

Dave: Yeah. We’ll take Yeardley on the jury. Thank you.

[laughter]

Robert: Exactly.

Yeardley: Now I actually can’t wait to be on a jury. I feel like I have so much information, they probably would Google me out. [laughs]

Robert: So, at the end of the phone call, Victoria tells Darren, “I want no more contact with you. Do not call me, do not text me, I don’t want to see you, I want nothing to do with you, don’t do it.” And we go through that with our callers on these, because we also have a crime in our state where if you continue communicating with someone after you’ve told them that, then that’s its own crime. And so that gets us something. It’s a misdemeanor. But basically, if you tell someone not to call or text and they continue doing that, then we could arrest him just for that. So, we like having options.

So, again, part of the corroboration and verifying everything that Victoria told us was I go through the messages that she texted her sister, and again, in those, she goes into detail that she was sexually attacked by Darren and how ashamed she was and kind of all the steps that she took after that. Victoria later emails me and says, “Hey, I don’t remember if I told you this, but Bob told me that Darren has had sex with at least a dozen women at the courthouse where he works and a judge.” And I said, “Yes, you have mentioned that.” And so, we needed to look into that too.

I interviewed Victoria’s sister as a disclosure witness. She provided a very consistent account of everything Victoria had told her and the fact that Darren was a deputy sheriff. I talked to Victoria’s beautician, who remembered Victoria telling her about everything that had happened. That was also very consistent and very timely. Victoria, again, is a teacher in elementary school. She has a teaching partner. And the next morning, after this incident, he asks her, “Hey, you’re not yourself today. What’s going on?” And so, she opened up to him. They had a kind of relationship where she could tell him what had happened. And of course, that stood out in his mind and he was a great witness also, because he remembered this as it stood out. And then finally, Victoria had told one of her ex-boyfriends who now lived out of state, and he remembered receiving a phone call from Victoria where she was crying and told him everything about what had happened. So, we have this rare case where there’s lots of good disclosure witnesses and lots of good disclosure evidence with the text messages.

So now, a couple weeks into this investigation, I strategize and I think that it would be good to have a phone call between Bob and Darren. And so, I get Bob to call Darren because, again, he might say something different than what he said to Victoria, and any kind of inconsistency there would reflect negatively on Darren’s honesty. So, what happens is my partner, Detective Chuck, and I, we go out to Bob’s house, and Bob calls, and he gets Darren on the phone, and they end up talking for 45 minutes, which is a long time. And throughout the call, Darren offers to drive over to Bob’s house so they can talk in person. Now, obviously, we don’t want that because we’re there, and we definitely don’t want Darren to show up, but he keeps offering, “Hey, I’m just going to drive over.” And so, Bob thinks on the fly really well. He goes, “No, I don’t want you to. If you come over here, I’ll probably punch you in the face. I’m really mad about what happened, so don’t come over to my house. It’s not going to end well for you,” which I thought, “Good job. Good job.”

Yeardley: Go, Bob.

Robert: Yeah. So, Bob explains that he wants to hear Darren’s version of events before he makes a judgment call, “Hey, there’s two sides to every story. I know what Victoria told me. It makes you sound terrible, but I want to hear what you have to say about it.” Again, a great strategy here. So, Bob keeps repeating– when Darren wants to come over. Bob keeps repeating, “No, I don’t want to see you right now.” And Darren agrees that Bob is justified in being upset with what happened between Darren and Victoria, as this is a clear betrayal to Bob.

So, Bob asks Darren, “Why did you tell Victoria not to tell me what had happened? If this is all consensual, why did you tell her not to tell me?” And then Bob puts Darren on the spot. He says, “Why’d you even come to the house that night? That was a night that Victoria was going to watch the house, so why did you even show up?” And it’s at this point in the conversation that Darren announces, “Hey, I’m just pulling up in your driveway right now. We’ll just talk in person.”

Yeardley: Fuck.

[music]

All right, Small Town Fam, here’s the deal. We’re ending Part 1 right here. I know, I know. It’s so mean. It’s so, so mean because we’ve left you on red. But next week is Thanksgiving here in the US, so we’re taking the week off from our regular episodes. But to tide you over, we’re sharing a bonus nugget from our paid Super-Fam feed. There’s great stuff over there. And then the following week on December 5th, we will be back with the Season 17 Finale and the season stunning conclusion to Robert’s case.

You guys are awesome. Stay safe. If you live in the US or out of the US and you’re still celebrating Thanksgiving, have a wonderful time. You guys are the best. We’ll see you on the other side.

[music]

Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave.The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith.Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor.Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell.And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

[music]

Ooh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com.Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

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