Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Fam, it’s Yeardley. I want to remind you that if you want access to bonus episodes and regular episodes a day early and ad free, and our community forum and other behind-the-scenes goodies, you got to go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam. And then in the top right-hand corner, hit that little tab that says join. And then listen to the end of today’s episode for a sneak peek at today’s new bonus episode.

 Hey, Small Town Fam. it’s Yeardley. How are you guys? Where are you guys? Wherever you are, I’m so happy that you’re here with me right here, right now. I am also overjoyed to tell you that we have detective Bre front and center today. So, if you’re all caught up on Small Town Dicks episodes, you’ll remember that Bre gave us a case at the beginning of this season that we called “Superstar.” And I called it that because she is one, and so was the victim in that case.

 In today’s episode, a woman is raped by a man who’s right in her backyard. This man is out on parole despite having a lengthy criminal record for a litany of violent crimes. And the victim is terrified to come forward and report the sexual assault. You’ll hear the reasons why.

 You’ll also hear about a myriad of constraints put in place by the justice system that hamstring Bre and make it open season on the victim when her case goes to trial. And you’ll hear my frustration as I try to wrap my head around that even when there’s mounds of evidence to support a violent, gritty description of the suspect’s character, but all of that is inadmissible because it’s determined in a suppression hearing that those details could prejudice the jury against the accused. Meanwhile, it’s okay to call the victim a liar and shame her despite a solid police investigation and DNA evidence corroborating her complaint. Err, don’t even get me started on that, here is Heinous.

Yeardley:  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.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

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

Yeardley:  Today, on Small Town Dicks, we have the usual suspects. Thank goodness, we have Detective Dave.

Dave:  First.

Yeardley:  [laughs]

Dave:  First one mentioned Paul and Dan.

[laughter]

Yeardley:  Hello. Hello, Dave.

Dan:  Good for you, Dave.

Yeardley:  [laughs] We have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul:  Hi again. You’re catching me off guard, but I beat out Dan.

Yeardley:  [laughs] I was going to say I have so little jurisdiction, really, among you and do what I can. And we have my beloved husband, Detective Dan.

Dan:  Saving the best for last. Thank you.

Yeardley:  [laughs] Thank you for being here. And Small Town Fam, we are so pleased to welcome back to the podcast Detective Bre.

Bre:  Hi, guys.

Yeardley:  Hi, Bre. It’s great to see you again.

Bre:  It’s good to see you guys.

Yeardley:  Thank you so much for spending one of your very precious days off with us. I know now from hanging around for the last decade with these knuckleheads that it’s not really a day off because you’re basically on call 24×7, but it’s a day off in name only. So, thank you for spending it with us.

Bre:  Of course. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Yeardley:  So, Bre, you have a really interesting case for us today. Please tell us how this case came to you.

Bre:  So this case came to me when I was working an on-call shift. So, we have detectives that take like a rotation. And so that shift is 02:00 P.M to 02:00 A.M. So, while I was working this shift, I was contacted by my supervisor, and he asked me to respond to one of our hospitals in regards to a sexual battery of an adult female. Luckily for me, sex crimes is in my wheelhouse. So, on this shift we can get any kind of case. So, it was always kind of a relief when you got something that you knew how to work.

 So, I went out to this hospital, and I made contact with Tiffany. And Tiffany is an adult, but she’s young. She’s 19 years old and she had reported to the hospital staff that she was sexually abused by her boyfriend’s brother. So, this is James.

Yeardley:  James is the boyfriend’s brother?

Bre:  Correct. So, Tiffany is dating Tony, and Tiffany and Tony are living together at Tony and James’ house. So, Tony and James live with their mother Debbie, and they all reside at this residence along with Tony and James’ sister Monica. And later we find out maybe that there was another guy named Ivan living there.

Yeardley:  God, how many Bedrooms. I’m assuming this isn’t like a 10-bedroom house.

Bre:  No, it’s a four bedroom. So, they converted a garage into a room and that’s where James lived. And then Tiffany and Tony shared a bedroom. And then Debbie and Monica each had their own room. So, it was more or less a four-bedroom house. So, Tiffany moves in with Tony and she’s living there for a very short time before Tony gets arrested and he goes to jail.

Yeardley:  Is Tony’s going to jail not his first time in jail? Is this sort of par for the course or is this the first offense?

Bre:  No, this isn’t Tony’s first offense. Tony is in his mid-20s and he’s been arrested a lot of times. I think on this particular time it was for robbery. The whole family has a pretty lengthy history, starting at the very top. There’s lots and lots of family members. I think Tony and James have a total of like 13 siblings. The family tree just goes far and wide. They’ve all been arrested. If you run the last name, the whole family tree comes up.

Dave:  And what’s the age difference between Tony and James?

Bre:  So Tony and James are only four years apart. James is in his early 20s and Tony’s in his mid-20s.

Yeardley:  So Tiffany moves into a house with a bunch of other people she may or may not know at all well. And then the guy she moved into the house with, Tony, immediately gets arrested and goes to jail.

Bre:  Correct. So now she’s there with Tony’s family. So, Tiffany and James actually met each other prior to Tiffany meeting and dating Tony. So, Tiffany and James were friends prior. And so, Tiffany is introduced to Tony by James. So, I sit down with Tiffany and started talking to her about what happened. And she is not uncooperative, but she’s not super cooperative either. She is very much afraid and is worried about how this investigation will proceed. But she does give me a full account of what took place and what she tells me. What I learned while we’re talking in the hospital is that Tiffany is at home on this particular day in December of 2022. And Tiffany is working from home. Tiffany does customer service at a call center, and so she’s using her computer, and she’s got her headset, and that’s how she’s working from home.

 So Tiffany tells me that Debbie and Monica were– And remember, Monica is Tony’s sister. So, Debbie and Monica also live in the house. And she says Debbie and Monica are really good about letting her know when they’re coming and going.

Yeardley:  Why is that?

Bre:  I don’t know, I think just maybe out of respect and just to kind of let– You know, everybody’s communicating about what they’re doing and who’s going to be home when.

Yeardley:  But they don’t sense fear from Tiffany and that’s why, like, “Okay, you’ll be alone in the house with, say, James or anybody else.”

Bre:  Well, it certainly could be in hindsight, maybe that was some of that reason. It’s a good point. So, Tiffany believes that she’s at home alone at this particular time and it is in the afternoon, and the power goes out in the house, so her computer shuts down and she’s unable to work. So, Tiffany sends a text to her boss and says, “Hey, my computer just went down, so I’m going to be out for a little bit, and I’ll let you know once the power goes back on, and I can get logged back on.” So, Tiffany’s boss is like, “No problem.”

 And just a few minutes later, she hears somebody outside of her bedroom door. She said they were making lots of noise. They were slamming some doors. And she thought it was unusual because Tiffany shares this floor with Debbie and Monica. So, nobody else is living or has a bedroom on this particular floor. So, there wouldn’t be any reason for anybody else to be up there.

 So, Tiffany is listening and she’s trying to figure out who’s outside of her bedroom door. And James comes and knocks on the door. Well, she and James have had some issues since Tony got arrested. According to Tiffany, James is telling other people in the neighborhood that Tiffany is sleeping around. Basically, that Tiffany’s being unfaithful to Tony while he’s incarcerated, and this is causing some problems. Of course, Tiffany says that’s not true.

 So, Tiffany and James have a spat, an argument, roughly one week prior to this particular incident. So, James knocks on Tiffany’s door and he says, “Hey, I want to talk.” And Tiffany says, “What do you want?” And James says, “Well, I need to borrow your vacuum cleaner.” And she’s like, “There’s no power in the house. What do you need to borrow the vacuum cleaner for? You’re just trying to get me to open the door, and I’m not opening the door for you.” And James says, “Come on, just open up the door. Let’s talk. Let’s squash these issues that we’ve been having from last week.” So, Tiffany decides, “Okay, I’ll open the door, and we’ll have a conversation.”

 So, Tiffany opens the door, and everything initially is going well. It’s going fine, they’re communicating, and Tiffany tells James to get out of her room. And James says, “I don’t have to get out of this room because this is my house.” And Tiffany says, “Well, actually, it’s not your house, James, it’s Debbie’s house, it’s your mother’s house.” Well, that was all she needed to say and she totally set James off. He becomes angry. He starts yelling. He pulls a gun from his waistband, and he actually pushes the barrel of the gun into her forehead. And he is just on a rage at this point.

 So, she immediately stops talking. She’s kind of in survival mode at this point, and he’s just continuing to kind of hype himself up, and he’s getting angrier and angrier, and he rocks the gun. And she says, “A bullet flies out of the chamber.” And she said, she was in so much fear, she literally stumbled back and knocked over, her ring light and her desk chair and her TV.

 So, James then goes over, picks her up off the floor and takes her to the bed, where he lays her down on the bed. And James goes back to Tiffany’s bedroom door and locks it. Tiffany is terrified at this point, and so she tries to start recording with her phone, but the flash was on. And so as soon as she hit the record button, the flash turned on, and it alerted him. He was irate. He took the phone from her, he smashed it, made sure that the little bit that was recording was deleted. And she’s screaming at him. She’s in fear for her life. And he’s telling her, “Shut up. Shut up.” And now he’s pushing her by her throat onto the bed. And she says, “he’s squeezing.” And she’s clear that she’s not losing air, but he’s using her throat as a way to control her on the bed. So, he puts a pillow over her face because she’s still screaming at this point for help. And at this point in the story, Tiffany really starts to get emotional and she’s having a hard time telling the story and recounting these events.

 So, Tiffany takes a moment, she gathers herself, and then she continues on to essentially say that James rapes her on the bed at gunpoint. James is not wearing a condom. And after the sexual assault, James leaves Tiffany’s room. So, Tiffany does not report this right away. About a day goes by, Tiffany was feeling bad, physically bad, and she was vomiting, and so she took herself to the hospital to get checked out. So, after I talked to Tiffany, I ask her, “Are you willing to move forward? There’re some things that I’d like to do with this investigation, but that’s going to take your cooperation.” And she says, “I can’t. I really can’t do this.”

Yeardley:  Tiffany says she doesn’t want to move forward with this investigation.

Bre:  Correct.

Yeardley:  Who called you? Did the ER nurse or the nurse at the hospital call you because of the sexual assault or did Tiffany call you?

Bre:  The nurse at the hospital?

Dave:  So, Yeardley, I can explain kind of how that works. When victims go to the hospital, they can be admitted anonymously if they’re there to describe or be evaluated for a sexual assault. So, knowing that victims will talk when they’re ready to talk, I think the power is to be recognized kind of hole in sexual abuse investigations that we’re going to lose our opportunity to get physical evidence by some of these victims who don’t want to come forward at this point.

 So, what we’ve done, what the system has done, is make it possible for people to come in, and if they’re not ready to speak to the police, at least they can have a rape examination done. We kind of get the evidence. The evidence is lodged under an anonymous name, but we have all the case numbers that can tie back. You can correlate all these things.

 So, it’s really a protection for those who aren’t ready to speak to the police or understand that there’s a dynamic where police involvement might not be really great for their life at that point. Later on, we can connect it to them. So, they have two options. Sexual assault victims are in control when they’re at the hospital. We make it very clear, like, “We’re here to take care of you. Tell us what you want to do with this.” So that’s really the approach that Bre is taking here, is “Are you ready to talk? If not, I’m guessing there are some circumstances here where we’ve got a day that’s gone by,” which you can get rape kits out too. I think it’s over 100 hours now. You can go several days, but thinking about this from a victim’s perspective, you think, I would want to shower immediately after some interaction like this with somebody, and we lose evidence. So, these are all things that investigators have to take into account when you show up hours or days after a crime has occurred.

Yeardley:  So here’s a question. If you can wait as long as 100 hours to get a rape kit, can you still do that if they have showered?

Bre:  Yeah, you can. Ours is five days, so whoever’s good at math, 120 hours, I think. Clearly, not a mathematician, but five days is our cutoff. Our nurse examiners will perform a sexual assault kit on a victim up to five days from the incident, even if they’ve showered.

Yeardley:  Interesting. Okay. And I’m sorry, did you say that Tiffany had, in fact, showered after this assault by James?

Bre:  She had. So, Tiffany tells me, again, “I can’t do this. I’m in fear for my life.” And I really, at that point in time, I was not familiar with this family or these people. And so, I really didn’t grasp the severity and the true fear that she was experiencing. But what I did tell her was exactly what Dave said. I told “Tiffany, please just go get this exam. You don’t have to do anything with it. You’ve got a year.”

Yeardley:  Meaning Tiffany has a year before the statute of limitations runs out on this type of crime.

Bre:  Yes. But if you do change your mind in a week or a month or six months, then we have at least preserved evidence. And so, I really encouraged Tiffany to go and get this sexual assault exam, even though she was not, at that time, willing to pursue anything criminally.

 So, this also complicates things a little bit for the investigation, because without a cooperating victim, you can’t write search warrants and go into houses and take evidence because you already have a victim who said, “I don’t want to do anything.” So, our state attorney’s office would not sign off on us going into someone’s home and taking things out of there if we don’t have a cooperating victim.

Yeardley:  Let’s say Tiffany had said, “Yes, I’ll cooperate.” What sort of things would you be looking for in James’ house, or rather Debbie’s house, where James lives?

Bre:  So we would go in. We would take overalls of the entire house.

Yeardley:  What’s an overall?

Bre:  Overallphotos.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Bre:  so, we would take overall photos of the whole house. So, we’d start large, and then we’d move our way through the home. We’d take photos specifically in Tiffany’s room what we would be looking for is bedding, the pillow that she said he put over her face. We would be looking for the bullet that James ejected out of his firearm for evidence to corroborate what she was saying. I would also be looking to see, if there was damage to the TV when she fell and broke it. All of the kind of standard things that you would expect to find in sexual assault, like I said, the bedding, things of that nature, any clothing that she might have taken off.

Yeardley:  And maybeeven James’ gun.

Bre:  And maybe James’s gun. So, James was a convicted felon and on felony probation. So, he should not have had a firearm in his home at all.

Dave:  Wait a minute. You’re saying he’s not allowed to have a gun and he had one. [Yeardley laughs]

Bre:  Shocker. Surprise, surprise.

Dave:  Okay.

Bre:  Criminals committing crimes. So, we lose all of that. We do not get to write a search warrant and collect any of that evidence, unfortunately.

[Break 1]

 So, I actually met up with Tiffany. I wanted to just give her a little bit of time to think about what she wanted to do and encouraging her to go get the sexual assault kit. So, we actually didn’t meet up until the next day so that she could sign a waiver of prosecution.

Yeardley:  What is that?

Bre:  So, a waiver of prosecution is just an in-house form that we use at our agency to say that the victim is satisfied with the way that the investigation was conducted and does not wish to move further. It’s something that we can tear up and throw away if they change their mind, but it’s just kind of a confirmation. It holds us responsible too when you have detectives who are saying, “Oh, yeah, they didn’t want to prosecute, this is just to confirm. Yes, she’s signing this paper saying she does not want to move forward.” And so, we attach it to our reports if victims, at the time, don’t want to move forward.

Dave:  it’s the cover for this. Later on, you see on social media or on Facebook and say, “Dan’s got a burglary case and the victims are posting about it nonstop.” And then they say something like, “Yeah, and the cops didn’t do shit about it.” It’s like, “Well, we have this waiver form where you told us not to do anything.”

Yeardley:  It protects everyone.

Dave:  Yep.

Yeardley:  Okay, so you meet with Tiffany and she signs this waiver, now what?

Bre:  So, she told me that she did go get the sexual assault kit, which I was very happy about, but she did not sign to allow law enforcement to take possession of that as evidence. So, when you go and have a sexual assault kit, you, as the victim, have to say, “Yes, I am consenting to law enforcement taking this evidence.” So, she told me, she did not sign the form, and she wanted to be in control of if she changed her mind when that was going to happen, she would have to go and sign the release for us to take that sexual assault kit. But I was happy she had it. I was like, “That’s fine, no problem.”

 So, I start digging into James and his family, and I was kind of shocked at the level of criminal history that the entire family had. James alone was a suspect in three homicides.

Yeardley:  Oh my god.

Bre:  Those are still active, so I can’t get into the details on those, but he’s a bad dude. He’s a really bad dude. He’s violent, and he’s gotten away with a lot, a lot. Our neighboring jurisdiction liked him for two homicides. They just haven’t gotten enough to prove that it was him. But I spoke with those detectives, and they’re like, “Yeah, he did it. He was the one. We just got to prove it.” So, I was getting a little bit of a better picture of this family and why Tiffany was so afraid to move forward with charges.

Yeardley:  Tony is still in jail right when Tiffany is going through all of this and gets the sexual assault kit done. So, Tony, I mean, are there any jail calls where Tiffany says, “Your brother did this to me?” And what’s his reaction to that if so?

Bre:  Yes. So, this was probably one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that we had when this case went to trial, because Tony happened to call Tiffany less than 30 minutes after this incident took place. And what you hear on this jail call is bone chilling. Tiffany is screaming, she’s hysterical. Tony can barely understand what it is that she’s saying. And she just keeps sobbing and she’s saying, “Your brother. Your brother.” And Tony’s like, “What happened? Did he hurt you?” And she screams, “He fucking raped me.”

Yeardley:  Wow.

Bre:  And, I mean, this was not an act. It’s very clear that something bad had just happened to Tiffany. And really, at this point, there’s not a whole lot I can do, period, because she’s not on board. But the more digging I did into the family, the more I was just infuriated because James has gotten away with a lot. Murders, robberies, shootings, you name it. He’s been listed in one of our reports. So, I kind of tuck it away in the back of my mind and I actually didn’t close the case out. I left it open, even though I had this waiver of prosecution. But I just kind of felt like maybe Tiffany will reach back out, she does. Less than a week later, she calls me up from a different number. And Tiffany tells me, “Hey, I’m, I’m ready. I think I can do this.”

 So, Tiffany goes to the crisis center and she signs the release so that we can take the sexual assault kit. And I go ahead and send that off to our state lab so that we can try to get some evidence, because remember, it’s been days and she showered. So, we’re crossing our fingers and hoping that we’re going to get something from this exam. I also collected the clothing that she was wearing she told me at that time that she had set aside the clothing that she put on after the sexual assault and so I took that as well. So, we had a little bit of evidence, and I was hopeful that we might be able to get something from that. So, the very first email that I get is an email from our state lab, and it’s a case-to-case hit in CODIS.

Yeardley:  Explain what that is.

Bre:  So a case-to-case hit is when you have– Your suspect DNA is hitting on other cases that are also in CODIS and other items of evidence that other detectives have submitted for their cases, and it’s basically saying, “Hey, you have a match to these other cases.” So now these homicides are popping up, these robberies. There was a kidnapping that James has all been a part of all of these. And I’m getting these hits back. So, I then get the sexual assault kit information back. And there was James’ sperm on the vaginal swabs.

Yeardley:  From Tiffany.

Bre:  From Tiffany. So, James did not use a condom. He left his sperm on Tiffany’s vagina, and we were able to collect it even though she had showered, which was amazing. So, at this point, I need to talk to James. And both of my supervisors at that time had been homicide detectives, and they were very familiar with James and his family. And so, they told me, “Look, when you go talk to James, don’t do it at his house. He’s a bad guy. We have serious safety concerns. So, you need to figure out a way to talk to him. Not on his turf.” So, of course, James is on probation, so I reach out to his probation officer, and I try to coordinate and schedule a meeting where James can come in for his probation office check in, and then, surprise, here we are to ask you about this incident with Tiffany.

Yeardley:  Bre, are you not allowed to arrest James for violating his probation because he has a firearm?

Bre:  So we could, yes, but we would have to be able to prove it. And we’re still here with Tiffany’s word versus James’. Now, the probation officer has a right to just enter the home whenever they want. They can go in, they can do warrantless searches, and they can check to see if James has a firearm within his home, and then they can violate him as well, which I was hoping that the probation officer was going to do, unfortunately, that did not happen. That’s out of my control.

Yeardley:  Disappointing. Okay, so you’re hoping that this meeting between James and his parole officer, you’re just a surprise visitor.

Bre:  Surprise. Yep. I’m going to catch in there so that hopefully he’s not brought a firearm to his probation office check in. It just makes the playing field a little bit safer for law enforcement.

Yeardley:  Yeah, but also, he’s not allowed to have a firearm. You’d think he wouldn’t take that kind of a risk?

Dan:  You’d be surprised.

Yeardley:  Really? I mean, the guy would be automatic handcuffs, when you go back to prison, right?

Dan:  Some of these guys, they carry wherever they go, they’re always carrying a gun, no matter what.

Dave:  People on probation for drugs, and they show up to their PO knowing they have to take a UA, a piss test, and they have drugs in their pockets.

Yeardley:  Wow. I’m kind of floored that seems like poor strategy, anywho.

Bre:  So, before were able to make this visit happen with a probation officer, James gets arrested for. Does anybody want to take a guess?

Yeardley:  Possession of a firearm?

Bre:  You got it.

Yeardley:  Ah, finally.

Bre:  So, James is in a car, and he gets pulled over, and he’s got a firearm on him, which matches the description of the firearm that Tiffany says James used during the sexual assault. So, James goes to jail. And so now I know he’s in jail, and that’s a safe place for us to talk to him.

 So, in addition to my supervisors telling me, “Hey, James is a bad dude. You need to be careful, they also tell me, James is not going to talk to you. James is going to give you two middle fingers, and he’s going to tell you what you can do to yourself.” So, I was like, “Meh, okay,” you know, we got to check the box anyway. We got to go see.

 So, I grab one of the guys that I work with, and I’m like, “Hey, can you take a ride across the street?” The jail is right across the street from our office. And I said, “Hey, can you come take a ride with me across the street? It’s going to be quick, I’m sure, but I want to see what this guy has to say.” So, we go across the street and we approach James in the pod. Because pro visit, which is our professional visitation, it’s a place where they will bring the inmates to have a personal conversation. A lot of times it’s with attorneys, but the jail deputies will go and get the inmate, and they’ll bring them to this room, and then we can have a private conversation.

 Well, for whatever reason, on this particular day, the jail deputies were extremely busy, and they said, “Hey, it’s going to probably take us over an hour just to go get James and bring him to pro visit.” And I said, “No, I’m not waiting an hour. He’s not going to talk to us anyway, so we’ll just go to the pod.”

Yeardley:  And the pod is, I’m guessing, like a general rumpus room for the prisoners.

Bre:  Correct. So, we go into the pod and we’re clearly identifiable. Badges, and dressed clothes and the jail deputy asks James to come over and speak with us. So, the jail deputy who was in charge of that pod gives us like a little room closet, if you will, kind off to the side of the pod and says, “Hey, you guys can use this room for privacy to talk.” So, we’re standing in this room closet and we literally didn’t even sit down. We were all standing. And I tell James, “Hey, I’d like to talk to you about a crime, your name has come up and have some questions I’d like to ask you. I’m going to go ahead and read you Miranda, because right now you’re in jail, you’re not free to go.”

 So I get through all the Miranda and at the very end it says, you know, “Are you willing to answer questions or make a statement without an attorney being present?” And James goes, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Wait, yes?” “Oh, of course, yes.” So, the other detective is like, “I guess I should go get some chairs for us to sit in.” So, we scrounge up some chairs and we sit down and James gives an hour-long interview.

 Now, of course, he denies ever having any kind of sexual relationship with Tiffany at all. He says one time, one year prior to this. So, In December of 2021, James says he and Tiffany had a drunken night of sex and that’s it. It was a one-time thing and Tiffany started dating his brother, and they haven’t had any kind of sexual relationship since that one time.

 And I was very clear about the dates. When did this happen? How long has she lived with you? We go through the whole thing. James definitely thought that he was smarter. He has gotten away with a lot of crimes. This was his first sex crime. So, I don’t think he really knew what to say and what not to say. So, at this point, I have James’ semen on Tiffany’s vaginal swabs from this sexual assault kit. And he’s telling me, “No sex, nothing like that.”

Yeardley:  Provable lies.

Bre:  Provable lies and negative statements, they’re sometimes just as good, if not better as confessions. So, at this point, I know James is lying and so, we leave, and I write a search warrant for his buccal swab. So, we get his DNA swab, we send that to the lab, because even though there was a CODIS hit, we still have to do a direct comparison. So just in case there’s a mistake, we want to make sure that we’re extra thorough, so we always do a direct comparison. So, I went back out to the jail with my search warrant and I said, “I need your swab.” And I sent that swab off to the lab to directly compare with the semen that was found on Tiffany’s vaginal swabs, and of course it matched.

 So, James then gets arrested and he’s charged with armed sexual battery, false imprisonment, and he just stays in jail because at this point, he’s already in jail. So, this is just a little aside I thought was funny. So, I get back to the office after conducting this interview with James, and the inmates have access to texting and calling. They have tablets that they can use. And I get a text message from James because I had given him my card with my number. And he says, “I need you to come back to talk to me. I have some homicides that I want to talk to you about.”

Yeardley:  Oh, Dave’s throwing up his hands like, “Well, there you have it.” I don’t know Dave, what was that?

Dave:  For me it’s– When you have lots of detectives who say, “That guy will never ever give you even one answer to one of your questions.” I always took that as a challenge because I don’t know what the detective’s kind of general affect was when that detective is speaking to that suspect. So, we can all say it’s unlikely that somebody who’s had that amount of interaction with police is ever going to give us a statement. But criminals like James love them some James. And James is probably a narcissist. James loves the attention. James gets to speak to a female in his pod. Everyone’s going to be asking questions in that pod about his interaction with a female detective.

 I mean, it’s all of those things that go into why James might say something is because in that pod he’s the center of attention and everyone knows that he just talked to the police and later on he’s talking about wanting to give more information on homicides. Does he realize, “Oh, this sex crime has got me kind of hemmed up and I’m going to need some leverage on some other things that might be coming down the pike.” He’s playing the game.

Paul:  I also can see from James’ perspective, he’s in jail, general population. At some point he’s going to get out that he’s being charged with a sexual assault of a 19-year-old girl. He becomes a target within that inmate culture. And now possibly he’s thinking, “Well, to save my life, I need to be housed, because I’m now charged with these several homicides, and they recognize I need to be in protected custody within the jail system itself.”

Yeardley:  So interesting.

[Break 2]

Yeardley:  Okay, so James just texts you and says, “Hey, I want to talk to you about some murders, Bre.”

Bre:  Right. And I said, “Well, I’m not a homicide detective, but I’ll go talk to you, sure, why not?” You know, at the time, I was still in sex crime, so I let the homicide detectives know that James wanted to talk, and our neighboring county actually had more cases involving James than we did. So, I got those detectives information, and I reached out to them as well, and I said, “Hey, you guys might have an interest in this as well.” And they were like, “Can you meet there in an hour?” And I was like, “Well, I can’t, but I can definitely meet you there first thing tomorrow morning.”

 So, James was pretty adamant that I needed to be the one to come back, which I thought was a little bit strange, and I think, to Paul’s point, he probably was trying to figure out what kind of leverage he could use or what he could do to save his own skin. So, we went back the next day and I sat for three hours and listened to the homicide detectives talk with James about what they had. And again, I hope that they end up solving that and that they can do something with those cases.

Yeardley:  So, Bre, you didn’t actually ask the questions of James. He just required you to be present while the other homicide detectives actually had the interview with James.  

Bre:  Correct. Yeah, I didn’t know anything about the homicides. They weren’t my cases. I wasn’t a homicide detective. And I didn’t have the intimate knowledge of those cases. But I was like, “I’ll come. I’ll take notes for you. I’ll record it for you. Whatever you need. I’ll just sit here and smile if that’s what it takes.” So, the neighboring jurisdiction was the one who pulled James over and arrested him for the felon in possession of a firearm. And so, I got with them. The gun was already at our state lab being tested for some other things. So, I asked that they request a swab of the barrel of the gun be completed to see if Tiffany’s DNA was on the front sight or the barrel of the gun.

Yeardley:  Because James had put the gun to Tiffany’s head when he raped her.

Bre:  Correct. So, unfortunately, we did not get any DNA back from Tiffany on the gun. Now, it could just be that the gun was similar. She described it as a black gun with a silver slide. I’m sure there are probably a lot of those, but I just thought it was curious that she had described the exact gun that James then several months later is arrested for being in possession of, so we did test it, unfortunately, we didn’t get anything back.

 So, this case goes to trial. James’ defense is now that he and Tiffany had consensual sex and that she’s mad because he was telling her boyfriend Tony all of the shenanigans that she was up to while Tony’s incarcerated and that Tiffany was mad and that Tiffany and James had been engaged in this month-long sexual relationship while Tony was incarcerated. So this is what James’ defense team brings to trial.

 They bring Ivan in, and Ivan is probably in his late 50s, early 60s. And Ivan testifies that he was living in the house as well, that James’ mother allowed him to come move in. And when the defense actually asks Ivan, what’s James’ mother’s name? He says, “I don’t know.”

Yeardley:  Okay, all right.

Bre:  So already I’m like, “Well, we’re not off to a great start on the defense side, are we?” So, what Ivan says is that “On multiple occasions, three in fact, he walks in and observes James and Tiffany engaged in consensual sex.” And I’m listening to this part of the testimony and I’m furiously texting the state attorney, like, “Is this serious? Are they actually serious?” Like, I’ve never walked in on anybody in my whole life having sex. Nobody’s ever walked in on me. And this man happens to walk in three times on Tiffany and James engaged in consensual sexual activity, it was just so ridiculous.

Yeardley:  But also, Ivan doesn’t even know Debbie’s first name, the woman he says allowed him to move into the house. So, if I’m on the jury, he doesn’t have a lot of credibility with me.

Dave: And the defense is totally telegraphed because when Bre was talking about her initial interview with James and she’s asking about timelines, have you ever had sexual contact with Tiffany? And if so, when? And it’s a year prior to this assault, which Bre is getting all of this out in front and locking James into a story. And then once the arrest happens and the defense has an opportunity to speak to their client, they have to come up with an explanation for this semen and sperm found in the rape exam. And the only way to do that is to say it was consensual, and this is an ongoing thing. So, lots of times we see these defenses and they are crafted during pre-trial meetings with the client and the defense attorney. And it’s a surprise to us, but we’re all like, “Of course they went this way because that’s really their only avenue out of this.”

Dan:  That’s one of the things that I like about the UK’s version of Miranda is a part of that admonishment is they say, “If you fail to mention something during this interview and you bring it up later at trial, that can be used against you as well.” Because it basically says we kind of know what your defense team is going to do and it’s not going to look good at trial when you do it.

Yeardley:  Right. You’re on the hook for future embellishments as well.

Dan:  Yeah. And it just, to me, it’s so telegraphed, like Dave said, we’re so used to it in law enforcement that we see these crafted defenses after an offender starts talking, A, to his lawyers and B, to the jailhouse lawyers.

Yeardley:  What do you mean?

Dan:  Like cellmates, and they say, “Oh, there’s an easy way you can get around this.” And they have a brainstorming session on how they can either discredit a witness or they can explain away circumstances.

Yeardley:  Jail is criminal college basically.

Dan:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  Hmm. Okay. So, ugh, I hate Ivan. He’s saying he’s walked in on James and Tiffany no less than three times having sex.

Bre:  Correct. So, Ivan is currently incarcerated as well. So, there was a big back and forth between the state and the defense about whether or not they were going to walk Ivan in in shackles and set him up at the witness stand. And ultimately the judge ruled that he would be seated so that the jury did not see that he was in shackles so that there wouldn’t be a bias. But then the defense has to disclose that Ivan is a 16-time convicted felon and one of those charges is for dishonest testimony.

Yeardley:  I mean, enough said.

Dan:  That’s the defense’s star witness.

Bre:  Right. So, I testify. And it’s frustrating sometimes when the defense is saying things like, “Well, why didn’t you serve a search warrant? Wasn’t there potential evidence that you could have collected to either support or deny the victim’s testimony?” And you can’t say, “Well, she was terrified that James was going to murder her, so she didn’t want to move forward with criminal charges, so she signed a waiver.” There are certain things that they won’t allow you to talk about while you’re in a criminal trial.

Yeardley:  Why can’t you say that? Does that not bolster Tiffany’s case as well as the reason why you didn’t service a search warrant?

Bre:  I don’t really know exactly legally why they wouldn’t let something like that in, except maybe that it sounds prejudicial because Tiffany’s afraid for her life, and that’s why she’s not willing to move forward with criminal charges.

Dave:  I could see the case for hearsay as well. The first thing I thought was the prejudicial, that it’s cumulative. If witness after witness after witness comes in and says, “This is a horrible guy, and he held a gun to my head.” And then another witness comes in and says the same type of thing, that at some point, it becomes cumulatively prejudicial to the defendant, they can’t get a fair trial.

 There’s other situations where defense attorneys will say, “Objection, that’s hearsay. The detective wasn’t present for this comment made between James and Tiffany or those types of things.” So, there’s all sorts of legal hoops that you have to jump through. And the defense knows this, so they will ask very targeted questions like, “Why didn’t you do this?” Even though it might be an investigative technique that has no relevance to the case you’re investigating. It’s all to show the jury, “Look, these cops did incomplete work, and there’s all kinds of holes. And how do we even know if the right defendant is sitting at the table?”

Dan:  The defense teams are very good at trying to sterilize these cases enough to cause reasonable doubt or discredit your victim in these situations. I think the curious legal question here is if they have a suppression hearing before where Bre talks about certain things that she can’t say during trial, and these defense attorneys are asking targeted questions to me, the defense has now opened the door to, now, I can give you all the context regarding why Tiffany didn’t sign a waiver.

Yeardley:  Right. But I would venture to say that Tiffany’s being afraid for her life and not wanting to press charges is not prejudicial, it’s part of the scope of the whole case. Like, I can’t– Paul, you’re going to save me here? Help me.

Paul:  No. I don’t know if I’m going to save you, but I remember back in the day in California where what we called these Jane Doe sex kits, which is kind of what Bre is talking about related to Tiffany opting not to move forward with prosecution or the investigation, but wanted to have the evidence preserved. And there may be something statutorily in a way to protect these women who have opted to sign this waiver where their decision not to move forward at that moment in time is going to be used against them down the road during the criminal proceedings.

 Because if that was something where, as you could see, it’s hard enough for women to come forward and say, “I’ve been sexually assaulted,” and have their bodies processed for evidence and then be subjected to the criminal proceedings, but if women aren’t sure they want to do that, but the decision to not move forward at that moment in time is going to be something that will be brought up down the road.

 A lot of women would not want to even do these Jane Doe sex kits. So, I think there may be something, statutorily that is also a reason why Bre cannot bring Tiffany’s decision not to move forward at the beginning of reporting this crime. There may be a reason legally, along those lines.

Yeardley:  Ugh, my heart breaks.

Bre:  The defense had a field day with Tiffany too. I was not present for her testimony, but I was there right after, and she came out into the lobby of the courtroom, and she was just sobbing, and she was saying, “I can’t do this. I need this to be over.” And I know that there’s a place for defense, but I feel like sometimes we’ve gone grossly off course where we’re just bashing victims.

 Everybody knows this guy’s a bad dude, right? I mean, Tiffany has no criminal history. She’s not part of this. She’s gotten herself wrapped into this family, but she’s a victim. So that was hard for me to see her. And of course, I have to testify, and so I’m trying not to interact with her because I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding about what I’m saying to her, what’s going on. But, man, my heart was breaking for her after I saw her testify. I know that the defense was not kind to her.

Yeardley:  Does James take the stand in his own defense?

Bre:  He sure does.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Dan:  Kind of has to.

Yeardley:  He does?

Dan:  Yeah, he has to. He’s claiming that it was consensual.

Yeardley:  So how does that testimony go? Is he good on the stand? You know, like, pulls it together and like, “I’m the victim. It was consensual, blah.” [laughs]

Bre:  So, unfortunately, I did not get to hear James’ testimony in real time because they were worried that they may need me for rebuttal, so I had to sit it out. But I did get a copy of his testimony from the state, and so I got to listen to it afterwards. But what James ultimately says is that he got his dates mixed up, and that what he actually meant when he said December of 2021 was December of 2022. So, December of 2022 is when the rape occurs, and he’s saying that he had consensual sex with her at that time. So, when he told me during the interview that he had sex with her in December of 2021, he actually meant December of 2022.

Dave:  Only off by a year.

Bre:  Only off by a year. So, James testifies. He tells this ridiculous story. The defense and the state rested at that time. And I went back the next day for closing arguments, and I just have to pat our state attorney’s office on the back, because the two women that were our state attorneys that held this trial did a phenomenal job. They just absolutely brought the whole thing together. It was really very, very well done. They played the jail call between Tiffany and Tony less than 30 minutes after this happened, where she’s screaming and sobbing and telling Tony that, “Your brother just raped me.” She’s screaming, “He tried to kill me.” And the state did an amazing job with their closing arguments. Jury goes out for a lunch break and to deliberate and less than two hours, they had a guilty verdict.

[Break 3]

Bre:  So, because James was on probation at the time, he was a felon on probation and in possession of a firearm and carried out this sexual assault with a firearm, he is looking at a minimum of 50 years in prison.

Yeardley:  Wow.

Bre:  Yeah. He got some enhancements because of the probation.

Dan:  I’m a little interested. Tony and Tiffany are a couple, and you’ve got James, who perpetrates this crime against Tony’s girlfriend, who I’m assuming that they’re serious if Tiffany moved in with them, they have to be somewhat serious. And Tony calls Tiffany 30 minutes after this rape occurs. I’m just curious on what that relationship kind of– How it progresses between Tony and James. Did you ever get any insight to that?

Bre:  I did. So, we recovered some text messages as well on our jail tablet, and we were able to get some messages that Tiffany and James exchanged with each other that Tiffany then screenshotted and sent to Tony while he was in jail. And James apologizes to Tiffany and says, “It was just a nerf gun. Nothing really happened.” But he’s apologizing and saying, “No, this was just a nerf gun.” And then he goes on to say, “My brother is going to handle me and my brother is going to kick my ass. And so just let my brother handle me. Just let him handle me.”

 Believe it or not, according to James in his testimony, he and Tony never had a conversation about any of this. About the fact that according to James and his statement, he was having consensual sex with his girlfriend, that’s not brought up. James never tells Tony, “Yeah, I was having sex with your girlfriend while you’re locked up.” And they never talk about the rape.

Yeardley:  Do you believe that, though? Do you believe that James and Tony never actually had a conversation about any of it? You don’t think that Tony would confront James at the least?

Bre:  No, I don’t think that that’s true. I think that they definitely had a conversation about it. And quite frankly, based on the family’s history, I’m kind of surprised that Tony didn’t whack James. I mean, the family is known for its extreme violence. So, I was really kind of surprised that James made it to his trial.

Yeardley:  Yeah. So, James is found guilty at trial, but sentencing happens at a separate time, right?

Bre:  Correct.

Yeardley:  I’m curious if you were there for that and what James’ sentence actually was.

Bre:  Yes. So, we went to sentencing. James was there. He saw, I guess, a buddy of his also waiting to talk to the judge. And he was just smiling and cutting up and trying to have a conversation like across the courtroom with this other guy that was there getting ready to face the judge for something he had been arrested on. So, James is waiting for his sentencing knowing that he’s looking at a hefty sentence and he’s just cool as a cucumber, he’s laughing, he’s cutting up. James clearly has no regard. He just doesn’t care at all.

 So, it comes time for his case to be heard, and one of the mothers of his children with a nine-month-old baby showed up to basically say, “This child needed their father,” which I thought was kind of comical. Like, this man has never seen his child. And even if he was out of jail, I doubt he’d be a participating father.

Yeardley:  This woman is advocating for James not to go to prison because he needs to spend time with his nine-month-old who he’s basically never met.

Bre:  Correct. She said he had never met this child. This was the first time that James had seen his daughter who was in the courtroom this day.

Yeardley:  My hair is on fire.

Paul:  I bet somebody got to that woman. Somebody via James connections got to her and scared her.

Yardley:  Really?

Bre:  I’m sure.

Dave:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  I feel so naive.

Bre:  Well, and Tiffany wasn’t there. She refused to come and give a victim statement. And what I found out afterwards after speaking to the state attorney, was that James’ family had still been harassing her and threatening her. And so, she just said, “Look, I came, I testified, I did what I had to do. I really just can’t do anymore. I’m done. Call me if you need me, but I won’t be there.” So, she was too scared to even show up to give a victim impact statement.

Yeardley:  Wow.

Bre:  So while the judge was talking to him, I think I started counting because it was just crazy. He was yawning, bored, like, actually yawning in front of the judge [unintelligible ] two, three, four. My goodness, this guy really just doesn’t care. So, the judge sentenced him to the full 50 years. He got 15 for the armed false imprisonment and 15 years for the violation of probation. And those were all set to be served concurrent. So, he’ll do 50 years. He’s listed as a dangerous sexual offender and he will get no gain time at all.

Yeardley:  What does that mean?

Bre:  So gain time is if they are on good behavior, they do certain things within the jail, they’re contributing, they’ll get some time off of their sentence. Typical gain time requires you to serve at least 85% of your sentence. But in this case, because he’s considered a dangerous sexual offender, under this enhancement, he will get no gain time. He’ll have to serve all 50 years, which is amazing.

Yeardley:  Yeah, amazing.

Dave:  Was James yawning after that?

Bre:  He was, believe it or not. I was floored at his lack of care. He really just didn’t care, like he was bothered that we had brought him there that day. I don’t know if it just didn’t set in or–

Yeardley:  I was going to ask though, I wonder if that is a kind of show of bravado, like, “Fuck you. This doesn’t ruffle me at all.” Because we know James has at least somebody he knows in the courtroom. And prison seems to be a place of gossip where it gets around fast.

Bre:  Certainly.

Dave:  I think the benefit of having an open court with multiple other future prison inmates being sentenced alongside James is the biggest risk to James, because all these guys are going to know the facts and circumstances around James’ conviction and why he was sentenced to what he was sentenced to. And that information will be spread widely. Everyone’s going to know what James did.

Yeardley:  Right.

Bre:  Well, he also told the judge that he was unhappy with his attorney and the way that he was represented. And his biggest hang up was that he didn’t get a copy of the police report. And he was very, like, set on that. Like, he needed to have a copy of the police report, and because he didn’t get that somehow, he had an unfair trial. Of course, the attorney was like, “We don’t give copies of police reports to suspects in sexual assault cases for a various number of reasons, but you’re not entitled to have a copy of it.” It was, I think, his just last-ditch effort to grasp at straws. I mean, 50 years, you know you’re pretty much smoked at that point.

Yeardley:  Right. And had James been to prison before.

Bre:  He had done little bits of time in and out. I don’t think he’d ever been to prison. It was all little stuff in the county jail for a little bit of time here and there, but he’s young, he’s in his early 20s.

Yeardley:  So this is significant, this 50-year sentence.

Bre:  This is extremely significant. I mean, we have murderers that don’t even get this kind of time. And I love that, not that he’s convicted, that he was involved at least in some of these other homicides. And it was this one, and this woman who had the courage to stand up and say, “You know, I’m not going to let him do this to me,” that put him where he needs to be. And, I’ve thought about the amount of lives that she potentially saved from standing up and being brave and doing what she was afraid to do to put this guy where he needed to be.

Yeardley:  Yeah. Hats off to Tiffany. James has a right to face his accuser. It also means that the person who is the victim has to face the person they’re accusing and I should think it’s just terrifying.

Bre:  It is terrifying. She’s a rockstar, man.

Yeardley:  Yeah. Incredible.

Dave:  Nice work, detective.

Bre:  Thank you.

[laughter]

Yeardley:  Absolutely.

Bre:  You love it when the good guys win.  

Yeardley:  Yes.

Dave:  Yep. Take your victories where they come.

Bre:  That’s right.

Yeardley:  How’s Tiffany now?

Bre:  I think she’s happy to have this behind her. She and Tony actually had a baby. Tony got out and they have a child together now. Like I said, I think she’s happy to have this behind her. This was pretty grueling for her.

Yeardley:  I think about the many constraints that were put on you and the other investigators while you were connecting the dots in this case, just legally and still you were able to get her some justice. The healing, of course is, I’m sure ongoing and comes later, but that’s a job well done.

Bre:  Thank you.

Dan:  Yeah. Good work.

Paul:  Another Interesting story. Thanks a ton, Bre.

Dave:  Great work as Dan said.

Yeardley:  Yeah.

Bre:  Thanks, guys.

[music]

Yeardley:  Now for a sneak peek at today’s new bonus episode.

Dan:  I’m missing all this stuff, so I’m a victim of theft, I’m thinking at this point, and I don’t really know what’s going on. I have no idea who took it. I go contact the owner of our team, I talk to them, and these people are great to me. They treat me very well. They tell me, “Hey, we have cameras around the stadium.” And I said, “Oh, that’s great.”

Yeardley:  To listen today’s bonus episode and access hundreds more, go to smalltowdicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button.

[music]

Yeardley:  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 editors are Christina Bracamontes and Erin Phelps. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Gary Scott is our executive producer, and Logan Heftel is our production manager.

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 Oh, 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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