Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Support Us
Our SuperFam members receive exclusive bonus content for $5/mo Support Us

Subscribe

Police get a 911 call from a man named Brad who says he fears for his safety after an older man, William, has hit the back of his truck. While Brad is still on the phone with police, he claims William is advancing on him and pulls the trigger on his rifle. The bullet strikes William in the head and kills him. When Sgt. George is called out to the scene, he learns that Brad is a 30-something, UFC-trained fighter, and former military sniper, while William, ‘Brad’s aggressor,’ is a boozy 60-year-old. Something doesn’t add up.

Special Guest: Sergeant George 

Sgt. George has been in law enforcement for over 20 years. Before his recent promotion to Sergeant, he spent 12 years as a detective in the Violent Crimes Unit of his town’s police agency. George has been a member of SWAT for 17 years. He has also served on Bike Patrol and as a Field Training Officer.

Read Transcript

Yeardley: [00:00:01] Hey, super podcast fam, it’s Yeardley. I just wanted to pop in with a quick announcement about Small Town Dicks, Season 12. It drops on April 21st. April 21st. Mark your calendars. We will see you there.

William: [00:00:20] I just had a guy hit me on purpose with his vehicle.

911 Operator: [00:00:22] Okay. So, you involved in an accident?

William: [00:00:24] Yeah, I’ve got my firearm out. He hit me on purpose with his vehicle crushed into my brand-new truck. And now he’s over by my truck. And I’m backing away from him. I’m backing away from him. Back away. Get back from me, sir. Get back from me.

Yeardley: [00:00:41] When a serious crime is committed in a small town, a handful of detectives are charged with solving the case. I’m Yeardley, and I’m fascinated by these stories. So, I invited my friends, detectives Dan and Dave, to help me gather the best true crime cases from around the country, and have the men and women who investigated them, tell us how it happened.

Dan: [00:01:06] I’m Dan.

Dave: [00:01:07] And I’m Dave.

Dan: [00:01:08] We’re identical twins.

Dave: [00:01:09] And we’re detectives in small town USA.

Dan: [00:01:11] Dave investigates sex crimes and child abuse.

Dave: [00:01:14] Dan investigates violent crimes. And together, we’ve worked on hundreds of cases including assaults, robberies, murders, burglaries, sex abuse, and child abuse.

Dan: [00:01:23] Names, places, and certain details, including relationships have been altered to protect the privacy of the victims and their families. Though we realize that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we hope you’ll join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved out of respect for what they’ve been through. Thank you.

[music]

Yeardley: [00:01:55] Today on Small Town Dicks, we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: [00:02:01] Happy to be here.

Yeardley: [00:02:02] Happy to have you. And we have Detective Dave.

Dave: [00:02:06] Good morning.

Yeardley: [00:02:06] Good morning. And we are so pleased to welcome back one of our very favorite guests, Sergeant George.

George: [00:02:14] Good to see you again.

Yeardley: [00:02:15] So, George, you have a really interesting case for us today. Tell us how this case came to you.

George: [00:02:24] This is a very interesting case. Number of different levels. This is another one of those calls that came in 8 o’clock at night. I was at home along with all the detectives that work here. We get a call to respond to the scene of an accident involving two vehicles, as well as a shooting that occurred after that accident. I initially was going to head to the scene, but ended up going directly to the police station. I didn’t make it out to the scene right away. Other detectives made it out there first.

Yeardley: [00:02:53] Were you diverted by your command staff?

George: [00:02:55] Yes. It’s an initial thing to decide who goes where. Somebody goes to the hospital, someone goes to the scene, someone deals with the witnesses, someone goes to the suspect, that type of thing. So, my role was to go speak with the suspect in the case or the person that fired the gun to determine if they were a suspect of a crime, or what the status of the incident was. So, the officers at the scene had transported the suspect from the scene down to the police station. So, I made my way down there and had a really brief conversation with him at the police station. Almost immediately, the suspect invoked his right to remain silent.

Yeardley: [00:03:29] Oh. And what’s his name?

George: [00:03:31] His name is Brad.

Yeardley: [00:03:32] Brad. Okay.

George: [00:03:34] So, I go to contact Brad. I’ve had contact with Brad before. I’ve met him one or two other occasions, lives in town. So, I immediately recognized him as somebody I’d spoken within the last year.

Yeardley: [00:03:45] What was Brad doing that you crossed paths with him before? Drugs, theft? What was his thing?

George: [00:03:51] No, I think the dealing I had with him had to do with report of threats involving somebody else. He had an ex-wife that had some issues, but he was a local martial arts instructor in town, and had several run ins with people over the years. I recognized the name immediately knowing. We live in a small town, there’s not a whole lot of martial arts studios going around. So, you keep track of certain people.

Yeardley: [00:04:14] Here’s a question for you. I’ve always heard that if you actually are a black belt in the less meditative martial arts– How do I phrase this?

Dan: [00:04:23] Are you asking if there’s a registry for lethal weapons?

Yeardley: [00:04:26] Yes.

Dan: [00:04:27] No, you don’t have to register your hands as lethal weapons.

George: [00:04:30] But interestingly enough, I think the more training somebody has in something like that, whether it’s firearms, martial arts, military, that training in history can come into play later. If there’s some kind of incident that takes place, there’s almost an expectation of a higher degree of responsibility with the knowledge of what you can do and can’t do and what’s lethal and what’s not, that type of thing.

Dave: [00:04:53] Say, we do a traffic stop, and we come across somebody with that sort of discipline and their background, when we run their name, dispatch will look up their local law enforcement contact page, and it’ll list special notes about people. And so, if we come across somebody with a martial arts background or an MMA background, they’ll say, “Hey, by the way, that person has mixed martial arts background.” You know, if things turn sideways, I do not want to go to the ground with this guy.

Yeardley: [00:05:24] Right. I see. George, so you come to the station and he invokes his right to remain silent?

George: [00:05:32] Correct.

Yeardley: [00:05:32] What do you do then?

George: [00:05:33] It got really complicated right after that. So, going back to the scene, when the officers responded there, they immediately upon arrival see a person laying dead in the roadway, and basically, his head had been blown off by a firearm. And Brad was on scene, and Brad had his hands in the air, standing there in the curb saying, “Here I am,” type of thing. So, the officers confronted Brad, detained him not knowing what had happened yet. He had set down a rifle next to him. So, the conclusion was, at some point Brad had shot this man laying in the roadway. His name’s William.

[00:06:05] When the officers got there, William’s wife, Sally, was by his side on her knees, sobbing, crying, upset about what happened. Initially, I didn’t get a whole lot of statements from her, basically, because she was overwhelmed with emotion. But the initial statements that Brad had made, the officers were along the lines of, “I was driving down the roadway. This guy crashed into me. We got out of our cars. I grabbed my rifle to defend myself, and I shot him.” Not a whole lot of information initially how it came together, how it got from point A to point B.

[00:06:38] So, then it became an information gathering session. We tried to speak with Sally about what happened. Sally was a little bit intoxicated. She had been a passenger in the vehicle that William was driving. So, on top of just being emotional, upset, throw intoxication on there, and trying to get some statements from her initially were pretty tough.

Yeardley: [00:06:56] So, remind me again. After Brad clams up, you go out to the scene to see what’s up?

George: [00:07:01] I made my way out there. Yes. Brad stayed at the station for a little while, but initially, we’re unable to determine what kind of crime even happened. So, we consulted with the district attorney to say, “Here’s what we have so far. Very little information except Brad saying this guy came at him, he defended himself with a gun, and he had been crushed into at the scene.” So, based on the little evidence we had and very little statements from anybody at that point, Brad was held for a short period of time at the police station, and then released, and sent home. So, then it became gathering historical information, seeking witnesses, speaking with William’s wife, and then relying on some technology try to figure out what happened to support or refute the statements made by Brad and or Sally.

Dave: [00:07:47] One of the other major pieces of evidence we’ve got here is a 911 call, correct?

George: [00:07:53] We have a couple of 911 calls. One from Brad himself.

911 Operator: [00:08:00] 911, what’s the address of the emergency?

William: [00:08:02] I just had a guy hit me on purpose with his vehicle.

911 Operator: [00:08:04] Okay. What is your name? [crosstalk]

William: [00:08:06] William.

911 Operator: [00:08:07] Okay, so, you involved in an accident?

William: [00:08:09] Yeah, I’ve got my firearm out. He hit me on purpose with his vehicle crushed into my brand-new truck and now he’s over by my truck. I’m backing away from him. I’m backing away from him. Back away.

911 Operator: [00:08:18] Okay. Is he trying to fight you?

William: [00:08:21] Yes, he’s coming at me. I’ve got a loaded weapon on him, he’s coming–[crosstalk]  

911 Operator: [00:08:23] Get in your vehicle and lock the door.

William: [00:08:25] I can’t. He’s at my vehicle. He ran up on my vehicle and hitting on purpose.

911 Operator: [00:08:30] Okay, hold on.

William: [00:08:32] Get back from me, sir. Get back from me. Ma’am, I can’t see his hands. He’s dark. Get back.

911 Operator: [00:08:38] Stay calm.

George: [00:08:44] He’s almost narrating a play by play of what’s going on over 911. It’s strange, and near the end of the phone call, you hear a loud bang, and then the phone disconnects.

Yeardley: [00:08:54] Does that kind of detail sound suspicious to you?

George: [00:08:58] It sounded suspicious to me only, because I was aware a little bit of Brad’s history. Besides the jiu-jitsu, he was a former marine. He had some firearms training, and I had heard some stories unofficially about Brad being short-tempered. It was just initially a little suspicious the way he was saying it.

Yeardley: [00:09:16] So, he’s short-tempered and he can handle himself. And how old is the victim, the man who’s dead in the road?

George: [00:09:21] He was in his early 60s.

Yeardley: [00:09:23] Oh. And Brad is?

George: [00:09:25] Brad would have been about early 30s at the time.

Yeardley: [00:09:28] So, this man who’s an ex-marine and is well versed in martial arts, who can truly handle himself as being menaced by a 60-year-old man?

George: [00:09:36] Essentially, yes. At no point during the call, did he articulate that William had a firearm or was doing anything except walking towards him. So, that I don’t know, it raised the hairs on my back of my neck a little bit.

Dave: [00:09:47] What else do we know about Brad’s background in the military?

George: [00:09:50] He was a sniper in the Marine Corps.

Yeardley: [00:09:52] Oh, shit.

George: [00:09:53] So, he was competent with a firearm. So, then it became crime scene processing time to try to figure out where everybody was when this happened and how we can use some technology to determine what happened, aside from measurements and photographs of the scene and trying to figure out where people were sitting that way, where a shell casing was found, where the blood pool was. Not just going by, just what Brad had said, we enlisted the help of some investigators that can download data from the vehicles.

[00:10:22] All modern vehicles have, what’s called, an EDR, or an event data recorder. Underneath your steering column of your car, there’s a port where you can plug into and download data. When your little alert light comes on in your car, it tells you something’s up. A mechanic can plug in there, it’ll tell you what’s wrong with the vehicle.

Yeardley: [00:10:36] But it doesn’t have a camera, does it?

George: [00:10:38] It doesn’t have a camera, but it has information, everything about what the motor is doing, engine, braking, acceleration, things like that. The event data recorder is set up different ways in different cars. Both these cars are relatively newer, modern cars, both built and sold within the last couple of years before the incident happened. So, they were able to plug into both vehicles and try to determine what had happened leading up to the accident to either corroborate or refute what Brad had said about somebody intentionally crashing into them.

Yeardley: [00:11:05] And also, did either of the cars have damage on the exterior to corroborate what Brad was saying?

George: [00:11:12] They did. It did somewhat corroborate what Brad was saying. His truck had damaged to the bumper, and William’s car had damaged to the front of the car, which would indicate Brad’s car was struck from behind by William’s car. Looking at the damage, it appeared just to the naked eye that Brad had intentionally stopped blocking the lanes of travel at angle, and William’s car had tried to get past Brad’s car because there’s drag marks and along the side. It wasn’t just an impact. It was a drag from left to right, which almost indicated he was trying to work his way around Brad’s vehicle.

Dave: [00:11:44] It could be helpful to describe the roadway in this area where the shooting occurs. It’s a parkway. One side is coming into town, the other one is leaving town. They were heading out of town. So, there’s two lanes that eventually merge and become one lane. In between each side of this parkway, there’s a median. So, it’s got a curb. There’s probably about 10ft to 15ft of, like, it’s a bark bed with trees planted all along the middle of it. And then to the shoulder of the road, there’s a couple of feet of pavement, and then there’s a ravine that goes down, it’s like a ditch. Where Brad stops, didn’t leave a whole lot of options for William as far as avoiding some sort of confrontation with Brad.

George: [00:12:30] Narrows down to a one lane roadway at that point.

Yeardley: [00:12:32] Right. To try to get around him on the steep shoulder that dropped off to this ravine was pretty treacherous to begin with.

Dave: [00:12:40] You kind of leave William no options.

Yeardley: [00:12:42] Right. There’s hazards on both sides, a curb or this ravine.

Dave: [00:12:45] Or, he’s got to back up. It’s a fairly well traveled roadway. So, there’s going to be traffic coming up behind you.

George: [00:12:50] You’ve got cars that are going 50, 55 miles an hour at that stretch too.

Yeardley: [00:12:55] I can’t believe they didn’t both get hit by other cars also heading out of town coming up behind them?

George: [00:13:01] Well, it’s funny you mentioned that, because that’s what helped us determine what led up to the crash. We started contacting witnesses, and one witness had seen what had occurred prior to the crash about a half mile away at a previous intersection at a stoplight. That witness, in fact, saw William’s car and Brad’s truck stopped at a stoplight at the intersection. They saw William’s car drive away southbound on this parkway, and then Brad’s truck rapidly accelerate, chasing after William’s car. So, we’re trying to figure out what happened here.

[00:13:32] So, that person saw the acceleration, saw Brad’s truck pass William’s car. Another witness had seen Brad’s truck suddenly veer over and cut off William’s car. William was being chased by Brad at a certain point, and Brad had pulled in front of William, slammed on his brakes, and that’s how the collision occurred. It took speaking to a couple of different witnesses about that, but one in particular was really helpful.

Yeardley: [00:13:54] Did those witnesses hang around until the cop showed up?

George: [00:13:57] This particular witness happened to be living nearby the area. So, when he saw the initial chase happen– He didn’t see the crash. He just saw this truck chasing after a car, and then he went home around the corner. He’s at home. He sees lights, hears the sirens, comes walking out and says, “Hey, I think I saw what happened right before this.” The other witness happened to call 911.

911 Operator: [00:14:20] 911, what’s the address of the emergency?

Witness: [00:14:22] Someone has an assault rifle out, and he’s pointing it at another guy on parkway.

911 Operator: [00:14:28] Are you stopped at the location?

Witness: [00:14:30] No, I went past because I have a little guy with me. I’m not going to stay where someone’s got an assault rifle out.

911 Operator: [00:14:35] Do you know which vehicle the male that has the assault rifle is from?

Witness: [00:14:38] Yes, it’s from the pickup in front, I believe.

George: [00:14:41] The 911 calls, not only to the operator is really helpful, but while she’s on hold because multiple people had called and she got put on hold at one point. She’s talking to a friend at home describing everything that happens. It’s great. It’s a narrative of what’s going on. An uninterrupted narrative from her just telling a friend.

911 Operator: [00:14:58] I’m going to have you hold, just one second, please.

Witness: [00:15:01] There’s a guy out here on the highway with an assault rifle. We went around it. I came here to call 911. He’s got all the [unintelligible [00:15:08] with an assault rifle and the car rammed into it. The guy’s backing up and he’s going, “Get away from me. Get away from me.” And he goes, “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you.” “Get away from me.” He’s go with his assault rifle. So, I around and then came here. So, his pickup slammed on his vehicle. So, his pickups like this, just right out here, back a little ways, and the car slammed into him. The car guy says, “This crazy guy slammed on his brakes and I’m getting out the car to talk to him.” He pulls out of his car with an assault rifle, and he’s over in the other lane. [indistinct talk] I’m on 911. I got to get out of here. That guy’s crazy with the assault rifle.

Yeardley: [00:15:48] So, 911 is still recording her while she’s on hold?

George: [00:15:51] Correct.

Yeardley: [00:15:51] Oh, fascinating. I didn’t know that.

George: [00:15:53] So, I started digging into Brad a little bit. And that night, this course happens at 8 o’ clock at night. Maybe a couple of hours later, we hop on Facebook. And I see a couple things on Brad’s Facebook page that really bothered me.

Yeardley: [00:16:08] Like what?

George: [00:16:08] There was a post, just a written statement. I can read it for you. It’s chilling in hindsight. It says, “If you like to drive slow, guess what? You should be in the slow lane. If you want to drive greater than the speed limit, guess what? You should be in my lane. If you get this confused somehow, guess what? I will strike hard and fast like a cobra, should an opportunity present itself.”

Yeardley: [00:16:30] Oh, God.

George: [00:16:32] That type of statement tells me some kind of road rage issues going on. There was other posts with rifle leaned up against a table in a bedroom, basically saying, “Please, somebody try to break into my house tonight. I dare you,” that type of “bring it on” mentality. So, that helped articulate his comfort with guns, his comfort with confrontations. So, then we started digging some more. After we spoke with the witnesses who saw what happened, one witness seeing William basically standing 20ft, 30ft away saying, “Hey, I just want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you.” And hearing Brad yell at the man, “You better back up. Better back up. Get back now. I’ve got a gun.” She thought it was odd that conversation was taking place. In her mind, William wasn’t posing any kind of threat to Brad.

Dave: [00:17:20] It’s quite an escalation.

George: [00:17:21] So, we can’t be one sided about this. We got to figure out a little bit about William and Sally. Sally had mentioned, they had been at a bar down the street drinking that night, having a good time, hanging out for a few hours. So, we went to the bar, verified that. And in fact, both William and Sally had been consuming alcohol. The bartender articulated that William had, I think, three to four drinks. Sally had a few also. William was the driver of the car. Like any other homicide, there was an autopsy performed. Blood alcohol content was evaluated, and William was, in fact, intoxicated. He was above the legal limit for driving. So, all that has to be disclosed as part of the investigation. We don’t want to hide something, cover up something, make it seem like we’re just doing one sided investigation.

Yeardley: [00:18:15] Now it’s looking very much like what Brad said happened didn’t actually happen the way he says it did. At what point do you go back and get him and bring him in for questioning again?

George: [00:18:25] It actually never really got to questioning. He invoked his right to remain silent, wanted a lawyer, went out, got a lawyer. Lawyer contacted DA’s office and us and said, “I represent this guy. Don’t talk to him.”

Yeardley: [00:18:38] So, if he lawyers up right away, at some point, somebody has an opportunity to ask him questions. Is that a deposition?

George: [00:18:46] No, there was no deposition. He never really said what happened throughout this whole process. It’s one of the more frustrating parts of this case.

Dave: [00:18:53] He’s relying on that 911 call to be his, “This is my statement.”

George: [00:18:57] There’s an upside and a downside for him to lawyering up, and he relied on that, like, Dan just said on his initial brief statement and the 911 call to do all the speaking for him. There’s a risk associated with talking and saying something contrary to what happened on 911 call. If you’re being dishonest and deceitful, there’s a risk of saying something contrary to what you said earlier, it makes it look like you’re lying to cover something up.

Dave: [00:19:20] If memory serves, Brad’s attorney starts a little mini–PR campaign shortly after the shooting, basically released their version of events.

Yeardley: [00:19:30] To who?

Dave: [00:19:31] To the press.

George: [00:19:32] This incident really almost tried the media for quite a while before it became a legal case, before we went to grand jury, before we presented evidence. At one point, the judge in charge of the case put a gag order on everybody.

Yeardley: [00:19:43] I was going to say, isn’t that frowned upon how do you get an untained jury if they’ve been reading about it in the paper?

Dave: [00:19:49] Well, that’s the preemptive strike. Let’s get our version of events out there, let’s get it on the record, and then we’ll back away, and we don’t make any more statements about it. So, he can talk. We’ve got the victim, clearly, who can’t speak, and now we’ve got a gag order.

Dan: [00:20:05] So, really what you’re doing at this point is you’re going to try to gather as much background as you can.

George: [00:20:10] Now it comes down to background. There’s only so much physical evidence. The event data recorder articulated what happened, shows the speeds of the vehicles driving. Based on the scene investigation measurements, we could tell that Brad pulled in front of William, slammed on his brakes. William put on his brakes, and then accelerated, and turned the wheel. It’ll actually show you everything from what degree the wheel was turned to how much acceleration was put in. It drew a picture for us showing that after Brad had cut off William, William had stopped and then turned the wheel at a certain angle and tried to drive around and that’s where the point of impact was on the vehicles. So, we could see that part. Then it was like, “Okay, other than the Facebook post, what kind of stuff has Brad done?”

[00:20:51] People had actually started calling us, including Brad’s ex-wife, a fellow coworker of Brad’s, former friends, people from around the state, quite frankly, called us and said, “Hey, by the way, there’s some stuff you ought to know about him. He’s said that he’s been looking for a road rage type thing and an opportunity to shoot somebody someday.” But that’s not evidence we could directly use in a case, because it’s really [unintelligible [00:21:14] information.

Yeardley: [00:21:15] It’s hearsay.

George: [00:21:16] It really is hearsay, and it’s tough to bring that statement itself into a court case. But it came down to trying to compile as much as we could from various people who called us. There was a guy in town who said, he was driving home one day, Brad’s driving behind him, tailgating him, Brad passes him. So, this guy happens to be going the same exact way Brad’s going, and in fact lives next door to him or his girlfriend friend did. He was going to his girlfriend’s house. As he pulled in, Brad hopped out of the truck and started yelling and screaming at him, “Why are you following me? What’s your problem?” that type of thing.

[00:21:49] There were other incidents in which he had a gun in his car, and he had threatened to use the gun to harm somebody. With regularity, Brad would have road rage incidents in which he’d yell and scream, tailgate, try to get into fights with other drivers. At one point, we presented all our evidence to a grand jury. Grand jury voted to indict him and charge him with murder. So, he was arrested and put in jail.

Dan: [00:22:09] That happened on a traffic stop, correct? The arrest?

George: [00:22:11] The arrest happened on a traffic stop. Yeah.

Dan: [00:22:13] You get the warrant, and now you’re going to go set up on his house because you probably don’t want to go knock on the door.

George: [00:22:17] No. A traffic stop is the safest way to contact him.

Yeardley: [00:22:21] Oh, I see. Once he’s been indicted, in order to get him into custody, you decide not to walk up on his house, because you don’t know what he might do to you.

George: [00:22:27] Yeah, it’s easier to just get him out and about. He was with his girlfriend friend.

Dan: [00:22:30] Is it a high risk stop or do you guys walk up to the window and say, “Hey, Brad, come with us”?

George: [00:22:36] I think we treated as a high risk stop. I think there was a couple of guys doing surveillance looking for him until he finally had an idea where he was driving. I think he was a passenger in the car. I think the girlfriend was actually driving. So, we treated it as a somewhat high risk stop. He complied. He wasn’t resisting arrest or violence in that traffic stop or anything like that. He was just taken into custody and brought to the jail.

Yeardley: [00:22:55] So, just quickly, what is the difference between a high-risk traffic stop and a regular traffic stop?

Dan: [00:23:03] Say, you’re watching LAPD, and they stop some car that they’ve been pursuing, and you see the two patrol cars pull up behind the suspect vehicle, and they’re even with each other. You see the police car doors fly open, and the officers stand right where the door and the car meet, that little v there and give orders to the driver and the passengers, “Show me your hands. Get out. Spin around, walk to the sound of my voice.” That’s a high-risk traffic stop.

[00:23:34] The reason why we do that is because it allows us to control them. We can control their movement. They have to telegraph any move that they make. If we walk up to the car with Brad, and we know that he travels with weapons, say, Brad just decides, “You know what? I think I’m about to get arrested and I’m not going to jail today,” and he decides to shoot it out.

Yeardley: [00:23:59] Right. Reach behind him and shoot you or God knows what else.

Dan: [00:24:02] Yeah. Right when you get to the door, he pulls a gun. Or, when you’re pulling him out of the car, he pulls a gun and shoots you. So, this way we’re able to control him.

Yeardley: [00:24:11] Right. Okay. Interesting. Can you tell me how much time has passed between your initial questioning of Brad and your actual arrest of him based on the grand jury indictment?

George: [00:24:23] It’s months. It’s many months. It had been a long time. I think our DAs office was initially hesitant on how to move on this case, how to prove murder versus self-defense. So, it became our role as detectives to present all this evidence to the DA and say, “I don’t know where this stands either. I think there’s probable caused arrest him for murder. Let’s present it to a grand jury and let a grand jury decide.”

Dave: [00:24:46] If you think about it in terms of a reasonable person, early on, just introducing Brad and his background, I was watching you, Yeardley, and you’re like, “Okay, why is this 30 something so worried about this 60-year-old? Why does he have a gun? He’s a marine. He’s got this MMA background, he’s got a sniper background. What reasonable person would go, ‘Oh, yeah, I bet you he was afraid of that 60-year-old who’s just walking towards him?”‘ So, you get a glimpse into Brad and how he operates. One is via his attorney. They released that press release, but Brad has already started his PR campaign with the 911 call. He gets his story out.

Yeardley: [00:25:25] Right. I dare you to take that on.

Dave: [00:25:27] Right. We got a dead guy who can’t tell his story–

George: [00:25:29] And we can’t ask follow up questions of Brad, because he’s refusing to talk. I believe his attorney was contacted prior to grand jury and was told, “If Brad wants to come in and tell his side of the story to the grand jury, he’s welcome to come in.” And attorney wouldn’t agree to that. So, we can only go by the number one tape and the evidence. We can’t question or confront Brad about anything that happened.

Dave: [00:25:48] But it was interesting during this whole in between the crime and him getting arrested and beyond is so many people contacting our agency to give stories about how Brad is when he’s driving, what his demeanor is, what his triggers are. When George says it was from all over the state, it was from all over the state, we’re getting stories about the way Brad acts when he’s behind the wheel.

Yeardley: [00:26:13] And you can’t bring any of that into grand jury either.

George: [00:26:16] Actually, we did bring all that into grand jury.

Yeardley: [00:26:18] So, that can come into grand jury, but not into an actual trial. Should there be a trial?

George: [00:26:23] We had hearings to determine if it could be used in trial, and the judge actually ruled we can use that information.

Dan: [00:26:28] What you’re trying to establish is a pattern of behavior.

Yeardley: [00:26:31] Right.

Dan: [00:26:31] If he’s got a pattern of behavior, then yes, it’s relevant. It’s admissible into trial.

Yeardley: [00:26:35] Okay. So, to clarify, he has a history of road rage, and you can use things related to that in court. But for instance, if he had a habit of getting into bar fights, that would not be admissible in this situation because bar fights don’t have anything to do with his road rage.

George: [00:26:55] Exactly. We later found out that Brad was implicated in a murder for hire case in another state, a very complicated case as well, in which he was asked to commit a murder for a friend or an acquaintance of his. That’s a lot of sticky details in that case. It ended up with him not getting charged with anything and somebody else going to prison.

Yeardley: [00:27:13] Holy shit.

George: [00:27:14] We knew of this during our investigation, but it just didn’t have any real relevancy directly to our case. It just gave some background. He’s not unfamiliar with shady characters.

Dan: [00:27:25] This guy’s a shit magnet.

George: [00:27:26] Yeah, that’s a way to put it.

Dave: [00:27:29] So, there was a story over on the western edge of our state. He had a kind of creepy interaction with a guy. The guy looks in the rear-view mirror and he’s acting like he’s pointing a rifle at him.

George: [00:27:40] Yeah, there was one of those. He confronted a sex offender somewhere in the southern part of the state. There was another incident where, actually, we got contacted by at least two different law enforcement agencies saying, they’ve had run ins with their officers on traffic stops, which he had been really volatile, and angry, and enraged during traffic stops and threatening towards the officers then.

Dave: [00:28:01] Even one of our own employees had a road rage incident with him.

George: [00:28:05] Yeah. She was one of our dispatchers, and she was initially hesitant to talk about it, because she was afraid. She lived nearby where Brad lived, and she was really afraid of some kind of retribution. It was a road rage incident involving her and her husband in the car, and yielding for an ambulance or a fire truck coming down the roadway. He followed them home, and yelled and screamed at him. He knew exactly where she lived. She was quite scared about that. He wasn’t afraid of confronting anybody. He had made statements to his coworkers downtown at the jiu jitsu studio.

[00:28:36] One night, somebody had broken into some cars downtown, so he told his coworkers, he was going to lie and wait for somebody to come out and attack them if they came into the truck. He was just not afraid of confrontation with anybody.

Dave: [00:28:47] He sought it out.

George: [00:28:48] He did. There was an incident, an older gentleman called. It was a year prior to this that had happened, and he had called the police when it happened. He was at a small rural town kind of southwest of here. Pulled into a Dairy Queen parking lot. He was trying to get by, and Brad was parked in the middle of the roadway, talking to another car alongside the roadway. This gentleman, I think he was late 60s, was driving by. He was trying to squeeze past Brad’s truck. As he was doing that, he gave the little courtesy beep of the horn to the– beep-beep, and waved at him, let him know, “Hey, I’m trying to pass by here.”

[00:29:19] Brad took exception to this, ran up to the truck and punched out the side view mirror of the truck, broke it, knocked it off the truck. This guy was with his wife and she says, “Just go. Pull over, get out of here.” So, he pulled into the Dairy Queen parking lot, called the police and told him what had happened. Brad took off, was pulled over. Short time later, 10 or 15 minutes later on another rural highway by the police. This gentleman was so scared that he goes, “I don’t want to press charges against him, but he’s going to find out where I live and he’s going to come get me.” So, Brad had a way of intimidating people into not pressing charges on a lot of different incidents.

Yeardley: [00:29:50] That is fucked up.

George: [00:29:51] That’s exactly what it is.

Yeardley: [00:30:38] So, you go to grand jury and do you get your indictment?

George: [00:30:42] Yes.

Yeardley: [00:30:42] Okay. And then what?

Dan: [00:30:44] There’s a bail hearing.

George: [00:30:44] Yeah, and we won the bail hearing. Then there was a hearing about what evidence could be used. His attorney filed a motion about numerous parts of my investigation about what could be used, what statements, phrases, trying to pick apart every part of the report. And that’s you know what? Quite frankly, it’s what a good attorney should do. I don’t fault him for that at all. It seemed a little petty at times, some of the things he was doing, but he’s advocating for his client. You can’t fault him for that.

[00:31:10] We had this hearing, and we talked everything from language about the word, assault rifle and being used about whether certain statements were admissible based on intoxication, like, on Sally’s part, whether her statement should be admitted, because she was intoxicated. The relevancy to all the historical stuff about people saying what they had observed and seen.

Yeardley: [00:31:29] How do you argue that’s irrelevant?

Dave: [00:31:31] You’re trying to see what you can get eliminated, because it all looks bad for your client. So, it’s just a defense attorney being thorough.

George: [00:31:38] Seeing what sticks and what doesn’t. So, we won that hearing. We won every element of that. I think he’d filed at least 10 different motions on that trying to say what could or couldn’t be allowed.

Dave: [00:31:47] So, this defense attorney starts hiring his team of investigators, and he puts together a pretty impressive team as far as personnel wise, numbers. There were times where he had sent out people just to stand on the side of the road where the shooting occurred with signs saying, “Were you here on this night? Please contact us,” stuff I’ve never seen before, they were doing. I remember there was contention over which investigators and which attorney should have visibility into evidence that we had secured in our evidence locker here. I remember having to coordinate with their defense investigators to show them the rifle, which is fine. We’re not hiding anything. But everything in this case and historically with this law firm, they’re thorough, everything’s a fight. Everything is contentious.

Yeardley: [00:32:38] This is not a court appointed attorney for Brad?

George: [00:32:41] He hired him. But this attorney, I believe, actually sought Brad out and said, “I will represent you.” He’s a pro 2nd Amendment, for the most part, attorney, as well as other things. He’s not just pigeonholed into that category. I think he tried to take the angle of this is a lawful use of this man’s gun. We shouldn’t be prosecuting a man for defending himself with his gun. This is an AR 15 style rifle, commonly referred to as an assault rifle. Right or wrong, that’s how people describe that type of rifle.

Yeardley: [00:33:09] How many shots were fired in Brad’s case?

George: [00:33:12] One shot.

Yeardley: [00:33:13] Because I think people think an assault rifle fires like a machine gun, or at least I, as a layperson, think that.

Dan: [00:33:20] The technical definition of an assault rifle is one trigger pole and multiple rounds coming out. I think what law enforcement and people who are a little more familiar with guns is, we look at the AR-15 style rifle, and we call it a military style rifle. It’s not an assault rifle. It doesn’t meet the definition.

Dave: [00:33:39] It’s one trigger pull one bullet comes out. But one shot from this gun, and where’d the round impact this gentleman?

George: [00:33:47] In the forehead, and it exploded the left-hand side of his head, for lack of a better term. He was instantly killed. It wasn’t a long range shot by any means. I want to say 35ft or so.

Dave: [00:33:58] But you think about it, 35ft. 35ft, 60-year-old man, 30-year-old MMA fighter with a sniper background. Just on its face, would any reasonable person go, “Okay, I see why you did that.” I mean, it’s absurd. No mention of weapons in the victim’s hands?

George: [00:34:17] No.

Yeardley: [00:34:17] Does your state have stand your ground protections?

George: [00:34:20] I wouldn’t call it a stand your ground protection. We have a legal offense that you’re allowed to defend yourself by any reasonable means. And sometimes, an AR-15 style rifle isn’t a reasonable means. Sometimes, it’s not reasonable. That’s what this case was going to be, was he has the right to stand his ground to a certain point and say, “Back off, don’t come near me.” But would the more reasonable, prudent thing to do either get back in your truck, or maybe if you had to get into a physical pushing match, or use your MMA skills to do something with this drunk 60-year-old man, or was it most appropriate to use your rifle to stand your ground? I think that term got used a lot during that time frame. Self-defense in general is the term we use.

Yeardley: [00:34:59] So, you have all this pretty strong evidence, certainly contradicting Brad’s version of events?

George: [00:35:06] Yes.

Yeardley: [00:35:06] And you’ve shot down all 10 motions that Brad’s attorney has put forth for things that he thinks should not be admissible in court?

George: [00:35:15] Right.

Yeardley: [00:35:16] Does this case go to trial?

George: [00:35:18] We’re set for trial. We’re ready to go. We got a trial date. But prior to any trial, there’s always conferences, which the judge mandates, the DA and the defense attorney get together and say, “Can you resolve this without going to trial?” So, I think we met for a couple of days. Typically, how these conferences work is the DA will go in and meet with the judge and say, “Here’s my case, here’s what I have.” He’ll leave. Then the defense attorney goes in with or without his client, typically without the DA or police being present saying, “Here’s what we think we have.” And a negotiation takes place back and forth over a period of day or two. The judge doesn’t give legal advice though. They have to remain impartial and saying, “Well, here’s the evidence the state has,” and later tells the DA, “Well, here’s the evidence that the defense has.”

Yeardley: [00:36:00] So, each side gets a little preview of what the other one is going to put on?

George: [00:36:03] A little bit. The judge doesn’t share a lot of information except to say, “How much time would you ask out of this?” So, the state will initially say, for instance, we want 15 years for this. The defense will come in and say, “He should get probation for this.” And then they have to try to meet somewhere in the middle. If they don’t agree to meet somewhere in the middle, we go to trial. In this case, what had happened is they came to an agreed upon resolution of time served in prison. The charge was dropped from murder to a lesser charge.

Yeardley: [00:36:29] Okay.

George: [00:36:30] And–

Yeardley: [00:36:32] Oh, no, you’re shaking your head.

Dave: [00:36:35] Well, part of this negotiation also involves William’s family, and part of going to trial is what you’re going to expose the victim side too.

George: [00:36:46] People are going to be drugged through the mud here.

Dave: [00:36:48] Right. In particular with this defense team, they’re going to go after the victim. They’re going to go after Sally, because she was intoxicated that night. Even though she’s out having a few drinks with her husband, they’re going to make it about the victims and they’re going to smear them. Victims have varying tolerance levels for that kind of scrutiny. In this particular case, my understanding is Sally and family did not want to go through that process, and I don’t blame them.

Yeardley: [00:37:16] I agree. But one could hardly argue that Sally had any recourse whatsoever with a rifle being pointed in their direction. This 30-year-old guy who has multiple ways to defend himself and she’s going to, what, step in front of her husband and take the bullet?

Dave: [00:37:32] Right. It just goes to show you never know who you’re going to come across. Can you imagine being out 8 o’clock at night, dark road heading out of town, it’s rainy, it’s cold, and some guy does a road rage incident right in front of you, slams on his brakes, you’ve got no path to get around him to avoid this confrontation. And now the guy pops out with a rifle in his hands. Holy shit, what do we do?

Dan: [00:37:59] The picture that’s being painted by the defense in this is that this man is just defending himself against an enraged drunk person who’s coming at him. The DA’s office has to come to a decision about the risks and rewards of going forward with the trial. Also, is there a risk of losing it all? This sharp attorney and his polished client with a marine corps veteran history, they’re going to parade this person up to say, “This is the most upstanding person you’ve ever met to a jury and he’s just defending himself.” Does a jury buy that? There’s a risk associated with going to trial.

Yeardley: [00:38:32] But even with all of that, since you’ve been allowed to bring in his pattern of behavior.

Dave: [00:38:38] The wild card here is juries.

Dan: [00:38:41] You just never know. Maybe they’re afraid of gun rights being compromised because of a case like this. So, there’s no chance they’re ever going to vote guilty.

Dave: [00:38:49] Right. There’s just, in my opinion, screwball decisions by juries that you’re like, “Huh?”

George: [00:38:55] They’re real head scratchers. And, yeah, I think as a cop, it’s easier to say, “We want to go to trial. We want to put it all out there and let them decide.” There’s a responsibility to the public at a certain point to say, “Well, we tried, we lost, this guy’s out and about. And now he feels empowered to do whatever he wants because he just won his trial and he’s going to drive around with his rifle and this type of thing may happen again.” Or, what the DA ended up doing is making him an offer where he goes to prison, he gets convicted of a felony, he has to surrender all his guns, he can no longer ever own a firearm again.

Yeardley: [00:39:21] As if that actually happens. As we know, they don’t usually play by the rules.

George: [00:39:25] True.

Dave: [00:39:25] Correct.

George: [00:39:26] But there’s some accountability, at least if he does violate the rules.

Yeardley: [00:39:29] Understood.

Dave: [00:39:30] And the victim side of this is represented in this decision.

Yeardley: [00:39:46] So, what did Brad get?

George: [00:39:47] He ended up serving about three years in prison.

Yeardley: [00:39:49] [gasps] No.

George: [00:39:51] He had been in jail for about a year by the time this came to trial. So, he got his year in jail plus three and a half years or something like that. So, I think he was totally sentenced to, like, a total of five years, but with the time served in good time, eligible for release at about three and a half years, which is how much time he served.

Yeardley: [00:40:08] Oh, my God. I mean, understanding that the witness doesn’t want to go through it, surely the maximum five-year sentence doesn’t feel right when you’ve lost your husband.

Dan: [00:40:18] This is pretty polarizing too. I mean, if you were on Facebook in our little town, our little hamlet that we have here, you’d see Facebook posts of friends of friends of friends that would show up on your feed and it would be completely in support of Brad. And then you’d see other posts where people are totally against Brad. It was kind of polarizing in this town.

George: [00:40:41] People took sides on it.

Yeardley: [00:40:42] Really?

George: [00:40:43] They’ll lack the facts to make a fully informed decision. They see what’s in the paper, what’s on the news.

Dan: [00:40:47] Yeah, that Brad was the victim and that he was just defending himself when they don’t know all these other facts.

Dave: [00:40:52] Right. And so, going back to this road rage incident that precedes the shooting is that this other major intersection, after William and Sally had left the bar they were at, they go to drive home. They’re on a well-traveled thoroughfare, two lanes each way, center turn lane, approaching a major intersection controlled by a light. To go southbound, you take this parkway. To go northbound, you access the freeway and then head to the west. So, it heads north, and then it veers off to the west. My understanding is Brad is in the turn lane to access the freeway. William and Sally are in three lanes over in the right turn lane to go southbound. When they make that turn to go southbound, Brad adjusts, punches it, and crosses the three lanes to follow them southbound.

George: [00:41:47] To this day, we don’t know the real reason why he chased after him. The way to set the intersection reported exactly what Dave said is they were set to go different, opposite directions. When William turned, he decided to divert and chase after William.

Dan: [00:41:57] I think a lot of people don’t understand that fact, that little tidbit right there.

Dave: [00:42:01] Brad was looking to kill somebody.

George: [00:42:03] I’m convinced that’s exactly what it was. He looking for an opportunity to kill somebody. Whatever excuse he had in his head to do it, that’s what he was going to hang his hat on to justify why he did what he did. He had actually told a friend years before something along the lines of, “If you’re ever going to shoot somebody, make sure you’re on the phone with 911 when you do it.”

Yeardley: [00:42:19] [gasps]

George: [00:42:19] He had told his friend that, and the friend called us and told us, “Hey, by the way, Brad told me this years ago. If you’re ever going to shoot somebody, make sure you’re on the phone 911 when you’re doing it.” He’s smart and savvy enough to at least have that recorded statement of his. It’s memorialized at that point. He says whatever he says, and that’s it. He doesn’t have to say anything afterwards. Is it premeditated murder to do it that way? I thought so.

Dan: [00:42:41] I think a lot of us did.

George: [00:42:42] Yeah. I still work with the district attorneys who make the decisions on these type of cases. I can’t sit here and completely second guess what decisions they made and whether it’s right or wrong. They have a constituency to report to and say, “I’m trying to do what’s best for the community and this is what I felt was best,” was some accountability. And the DA came out and made a statement saying that exact thing. There’s some accountability, but there’s risks here, and we have to live with it now and to say, “Hey, he got his time, he went to prison, he’s out.” Well, he was out.

Dan: [00:43:14] [laughs]

Yeardley: [00:43:15] Do tell. This seems like it’s not quite the end of the story.

Dan: [00:43:18] You can’t even write this stuff.

George: [00:43:20] So, as part of this investigation, in addition to all the road rage incidents and all the stuff that happened, this guy ran a jiu jitsu studio. There was an allegation while we were investigating this case that he had inappropriate sexual relations with a minor that he was training for his martial arts class. The initial report was made. Then there was some backtracking by the victim, some lack of cooperation, not wanting to move forward to a certain extent. It’s completely understandable. I know Detective Dave can speak more to this and how victims of sexual crimes can at a certain point say, “I don’t want anything to do with this. It’s done. I’m not talking anymore.” So, that happened during our investigation.

[00:43:57] Well, after he got out of prison, he worked for another martial arts studio and had another juvenile student, and he was alleged to have sexually abused her.

Dave: [00:44:08] He’s a groomer. Checked a lot of boxes on the grooming checklist, and this victim separate from his previous case, he’s a trusted coach. He’s got access to this juvenile and he starts grooming her, which eventually turns into him getting his hands on her. This one comes forward, and this case culminates in him getting arrested, and he’s back in prison.

Yeardley: [00:44:35] And now he’s a sex offender.

Dave: [00:44:37] Weird, right?

George: [00:44:38] There’s accountability on that front, at least now.

Yeardley: [00:44:40] God. So, he goes to prison for being a sex offender, he gets out. Any more contact with Brad?

George: [00:44:46] He’s still there.

Yeardley: [00:44:47] Oh.

George: [00:44:47] He’s going to be there for a little bit.

Yeardley: [00:44:48] So, does he get a harsher sentence for being a sex offender than for committing murder?

George: [00:44:53] I think he may have a similar amount of time, if not a little bit more, for the sex offense case.

Dave: [00:44:58] Part of what gives him more time is because of his previous case.

Yeardley: [00:45:03] I see. So, you’re saying that the fact that Brad had been accused of sexual contact with a minor previously, even though that girl ultimately didn’t want to press charges that that factored into the sex abuse case where the minor did press charges, and the combination of those two things got him a longer sentence.

Dave: [00:45:23] Yeah. So, he’s got some aggravating circumstances about his past, which lands him in a different box on the sentencing grid.

George: [00:45:30] If it wasn’t for those people coming forward and give us some history, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to move forward in this case to a grand jury indictment, let alone a conviction of any kind.

Dave: [00:45:38] George, my recollection is, after Brad was released from prison for the shooting, he paid you a little visit, didn’t he?

George: [00:45:46] He did. He had come down to the police department a couple of times. I missed him. I was out and about for whatever reason, working. About the third or fourth time, he had come down, I happened to be here, and record staff said, “Hey, that guy, he’s in the lobby. He wants to talk to you.” “All right.” So, I went out there and met with him and had a very cordial, professional conversation with him. [chuckles] I can only speculate why he came down there. To me, it almost seemed like a way to rub my face, and “Ha-ha, here I am. I only served a little bit of time, and I’m out now.” It was just an attempt to, I think, maybe ruffle my feathers a little bit.

Dan: [00:46:22] Like, “You didn’t affect my life at all.”

George: [00:46:24] Yeah, it was maybe a speed bump in his life. I didn’t take the bait on it. I just kept professional. Shook his hand, had a brief, cordial conversation with him, and we parted ways.

Yeardley: [00:46:34] Damn. George, it is always, I don’t know if one can use pleasure when referring to murder and sex offense, but you, George, are a pleasure, and we so appreciate how you do what you do. What an incredible case.

George: [00:46:49] Thank you. It’s fun to talk to you about it.

Yeardley: [00:46:50] Thank you.

Yeardley: [00:46:55] Small Town Dicks is produced by Gary Scott and Yeardley Smith, and coproduced by Detectives Dan and Dave. This episode was edited by Soren Begin, Gary Scott, and me, Yeardley Smith. Our associate producers are Erin Gaynor and the Real Nick Smitty. Our music is composed by John Forest. Our editors extraordinaire are Logan Heftel and Soren Begin, and our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell.

Dan: [00:47:23] If you like what you hear and want to stay up to date with the show, visit us on our website at smalltowndicks.com. And join the Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @smalltowndicks. We love hearing from you.

Dave: [00:47:38] And if you support us on Patreon, your subscription will give you access to exclusive content and merchandise that isn’t available anywhere else. Go to patreon.com/smalltowndickspodcast.

Yeardley: [00:47:51] That’s right. Your subscription also makes it possible for us to keep going to small towns across the country-

Dan: [00:47:57] -in search of the finest-

Dave: [00:47:58] -rare-

Dan: [00:47:59] -true crime cases told as always, by the detectives who investigated them.

Dave: [00:48:04] So, thanks for listening, Small Town Fam.

Yeardley: [00:48:06] Nobody’s better than you.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]