On January 18, 2015, family of then 40 ear-old Todd Schumacher went to his home to check on him, because he had not been feeling well and he was distraught over his missing dog. When they arrived, they found themselves in a horrific crime scene.
While one person was knocking on the front door of the house, another saw a person look out the window at the top of the door that appeared to be Todd’s boyfriend, Matthew. They knocked on the front door and the back door, but nobody answered. They went to the carport door, through which they could see splatters of blood inside. After they broke into the house through the back door, they found "blood everywhere' in the kitchen.
They went to the bedroom and saw the "Please send to heaven Todd + Matt." written in blood on the bedroom wall. Todd was lying naked on the floor "with chunks of flesh taken out of his body." They felt Todd's neck for a pulse and found that he was dead. Matthew was lying on the bed and fidgeting with something silver in his hand.
Join The Murder Police Podcast as lead homicide detective Rob Wilson details the investigation of this brutal domestic violence homicide, with curious ties to animal cruelty.
The Murder of Todd Schumacher | Part 1 | Tuesday January 10, 2023
The Murder of Todd Schumacher | Part 2 | Tuesday January 24, 2023
The Murder of Todd Schumacher | Part 3 | Tuesday February 7, 2023
Shop for Murder Police Podcast swag by clicking HERE today! 10% of ALL swag and merch proceeds are donated to the DNA Doe Project.
See what you have been missing on YouTube!
On January 18, 2015, family of then 40 ear-old Todd Schumacher went to his home to check on him, because he had not been feeling well and he was distraught over his missing dog. When they arrived, they found themselves in a horrific crime scene.
While one person was knocking on the front door of the house, another saw a person look out the window at the top of the door that appeared to be Todd’s boyfriend, Matthew. They knocked on the front door and the back door, but nobody answered. They went to the carport door, through which they could see splatters of blood inside. After they broke into the house through the back door, they found "blood everywhere' in the kitchen.
They went to the bedroom and saw the "Please send to heaven Todd + Matt." written in blood on the bedroom wall. Todd was lying naked on the floor "with chunks of flesh taken out of his body." They felt Todd's neck for a pulse and found that he was dead. Matthew was lying on the bed and fidgeting with something silver in his hand.
Join The Murder Police Podcast as lead homicide detective Rob Wilson details the investigation of this brutal domestic violence homicide, with curious ties to animal cruelty.
The Murder of Todd Schumacher | Part 1 | Tuesday January 10, 2023
The Murder of Todd Schumacher | Part 2 | Tuesday January 24, 2023
The Murder of Todd Schumacher | Part 3 | Tuesday February 7, 2023
Shop for Murder Police Podcast swag by clicking HERE today! 10% of ALL swag and merch proceeds are donated to the DNA Doe Project.
See what you have been missing on YouTube!
00;00;01;25 - 00;00;32;02
Rob Wilson
I have a great respect for the criminal justice system and the jurors that have to sit through, they got this one wrong. They believed his story that he was the victim, that the true victim was mean and abusive and attacked him and he was only acting in self-defense. And, you know, the arrogance like, okay, if you're acting in self-defense, maybe five stab wounds and then run out the back door, you know, stabbing him over 100 times, dragging him into bed, writing in blood, send us to heaven.
00;00;33;04 - 00;00;39;11
Rob Wilson
You know, just they just bought his act this morning.
00;00;39;16 - 00;00;58;02
Wendy Lyons
The podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police podcast, The murder of Todd Schumacher. Part three and.
00;01;13;04 - 00;01;22;03
David Lyons
Is a Where do we go now if pretty pretty quick investigation Get some things back some lab work. You got your autopsy reports on everything. What happens next?
00;01;22;11 - 00;01;50;03
Rob Wilson
Well, we just everybody out there is not familiar with the court system. I place a charge of murder Within a week. We go to district court and have what's called a felony preliminary hearing, where I will give up, give testimony probably 4 to 5 minutes. The defendant's attorney gets to ask me some questions. And then at that point, the judge in district court decides that there's probable cause for an arrest and at that point, it's sent up to the circuit court level and goes to grand jury.
00;01;50;18 - 00;02;12;15
Rob Wilson
Now, grand jury has to be done within 60 days of the arrest. So as soon as we get the probable cause hearing over with, I make contact with the Commonwealth Attorney's office, find out who my prosecutor is. We'll go over the case and then set a date for the grand jury. And the grand jury is just 12 individuals and the prosecutor is in there.
00;02;12;15 - 00;02;32;25
Rob Wilson
And then they call the witness, which will be me in this case. And I basically just tell a story. There's no defense attorney in there to cross-examine me. It's just to present the information to the grand jury. And their job is to decide if there is enough evidence there for a trial jury to hear the case. And it takes Nana to 12 of those jurors to get it passed over to trial.
00;02;33;16 - 00;02;49;17
Rob Wilson
So once that 60 days is over and you get the indictment, it could be anywhere from a year to three years to four years before this case hits a trial. And I believe this one was fairly quick. So we went to trial probably within 18 months.
00;02;50;01 - 00;02;50;09
David Lyons
Of the.
00;02;50;09 - 00;02;50;22
Rob Wilson
Murder.
00;02;50;22 - 00;02;51;06
David Lyons
Yes.
00;02;51;14 - 00;02;54;21
Rob Wilson
So yeah. So and then then we had a trial.
00;02;54;21 - 00;02;56;24
David Lyons
Yeah. And tell us about that experience.
00;02;57;16 - 00;03;31;26
Rob Wilson
Well, like I said, Don, I had gone with the self-defense claim. And again, just the for me, the inconsistencies in the scene, he said that he fought with his £220 man who honestly outweighed him by £85. And if you've ever fought anybody, you know what the difference of £85 is and that he only had a couple of nicks on his hands and he wrestled and got the knife back, he's going to have some I'm not saying he can't do it, but he's going to have some severe injuries in obtaining that knife back from that six foot two, 220 man.
00;03;32;14 - 00;03;55;00
Rob Wilson
Um, but this is one of those and Dave and I have talked like I have a great respect for the criminal justice system and the jurors that have to sit through, they got this one wrong. They believed his story that he was the victim, that the true victim was mean and abusive and attacked him and he was only acting in self-defense.
00;03;55;18 - 00;04;17;19
Rob Wilson
And, you know, the arrogance like, okay, you're acting in self-defense, maybe five stab wounds and run out the back door, you know, stabbing him over 100 times, dragging him into bed, writing in blood, send us to heaven. You know, just they just bought his act and, you know, so this is the only time one or two times I'd say just the jury got it wrong.
00;04;17;29 - 00;04;20;00
Rob Wilson
They saw he was convicted of manslaughter.
00;04;20;06 - 00;04;29;04
David Lyons
That happens. I always said that there's two times of the year that you don't want to go to a jury trial and that's a couple of weeks for Thanksgiving and a couple of weeks for Christmas. Am I right or wrong?
00;04;29;06 - 00;04;30;02
Rob Wilson
You're absolutely.
00;04;30;02 - 00;04;56;11
David Lyons
Right. I in a super compassion. I remember I had an assault first where a young man had been beat severely, his head pounded on the concrete and he his neurological deficit was incredible. He couldn't even testify. He lived in a different state. And I'll never forget that they came back with a misdemeanor version of guilt and in to listen to everything in the end, it was like you have to have the mental agility of a small soap dish to go there.
00;04;56;11 - 00;05;11;03
Rob Wilson
Yeah, I mean, so yeah, in that example, they knew that he was guilty of attacking this man or assaulting him, but it wasn't severe enough to make it a felony. You know, if he did it, he did it. And then the injuries are what they are that almost takes it out of your hands.
00;05;11;04 - 00;05;11;22
David Lyons
He was if you.
00;05;11;22 - 00;05;14;09
Rob Wilson
Believed he did it, then he's guilty of a felony assault.
00;05;14;09 - 00;05;20;25
David Lyons
He had this kid had lost vision and one eye and everything. It it was horrible. So, yeah, I respect the system, too.
00;05;20;26 - 00;05;21;26
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
00;05;21;26 - 00;05;41;23
David Lyons
But I'll tell you, I told you before and I'll just give a recommendation if anybody wants a good book on this. It's called Guilty in the Collapse of Criminal Justice by Judge Harold Roth Whacks. Go get the book and read it. And he told you before, too, that he was a defense attorney? I think in New York. He was a chapter president for the president, for the ACLU for years.
00;05;42;06 - 00;06;03;13
David Lyons
And he got on the bench and had a 180 degree turn because he got to he got splashed with all of that reality. And for example, he doesn't believe in unanimous jury verdicts in criminal trials anymore because he said a holdout juror in Judge Rothwell said this, and he cites Kentucky cases where he says they the holdout juror, never decides on the case facts in the case.
00;06;03;24 - 00;06;12;16
David Lyons
He cites a Kentucky case where when they polled the jury, the one woman that wouldn't go with it on a robber said he just looked too handsome to be a robbery suspect.
00;06;13;02 - 00;06;15;03
Rob Wilson
And they were amazing.
00;06;15;09 - 00;06;37;25
David Lyons
They were so guilty. The collapse of criminal justice. He's deceased. I wish I got to I think where the D.A. spoke to him one time. Oh, really? Yeah, but pretty impressive guy. But a we have a fantastic system. Anyway, now people are talking about reforming the criminal justice system and in different ways. But boy, there's a lot of victims are left without justice, too.
00;06;38;03 - 00;06;42;17
Rob Wilson
Yeah, and I know it's set up to it's best to let ten guilty man go for his.
00;06;42;19 - 00;06;42;29
David Lyons
First.
00;06;42;29 - 00;06;46;05
Rob Wilson
One. And I do believe that I could change that.
00;06;46;05 - 00;06;46;25
David Lyons
I'd go with that.
00;06;46;25 - 00;07;08;19
Rob Wilson
Yeah, but it's especially in today's climate, getting 12 people to agree on any topic. All right. Is darn near impossible. Yeah. You know, and then you throw in situations where, again, you're appealing to people's compassion and stuff like that. They don't want to be responsible for sending someone away for 40 years.
00;07;08;20 - 00;07;12;18
David Lyons
It's tough, especially in a death penalty case. Yeah. To meet a juror after that and what they thought.
00;07;12;18 - 00;07;39;05
Wendy Lyons
But I think what's frustrating about that is that it is hard to send them away. However, I just wish they put their feet in the victim's family shoes. That's what that does to the victim's family, who knows? It's just a misdemeanor. No, it's just a manslaughter when it's clearly was a murder. And in that case, overkill for for Todd.
00;07;39;05 - 00;08;02;26
Wendy Lyons
And it's frustrating. And I always say, you know, when they when they say and of course, it's, you know, people's opinion on death penalty or on how they choose the jury to go or their decisions. But I just think if people would think if that were their family or their loved one, would you be okay with that small of a sentence?
00;08;03;01 - 00;08;17;01
David Lyons
Well, and it comes back to to the same people that we have an immense amount of respect for the defense attorney. Sure. And that that is what they get paid the big bucks for sometimes. No bucks at all. Yeah. And the ones we do agree that we go out and have a drink with, you know, in a minute.
00;08;17;01 - 00;08;20;20
David Lyons
And I love them to death. That's how the system works. Yeah.
00;08;20;20 - 00;08;29;23
Rob Wilson
And it's when I was young and naive, I was like, how, how do defense attorneys convince 12 people that this person's innocent and you really don't need to do that?
00;08;29;24 - 00;08;30;11
David Lyons
No, you don't.
00;08;30;12 - 00;08;47;08
Rob Wilson
You just have to get one person to believe you. And it's a hung jury. And then there's going to be a plea or, you know, you try it again and hope for a better jury pool. But yeah, now they just have to convince one person on there that there's reasonable doubt. And I think that reasonable doubt gets abused a lot.
00;08;47;08 - 00;08;50;25
David Lyons
Well, it's it's like everything else that it's. Yeah.
00;08;51;03 - 00;08;56;19
Rob Wilson
Reasonable doubt isn't anything's possible. That's it. You know aliens could have come down to. Can you disprove that?
00;08;56;29 - 00;08;57;15
David Lyons
That's true.
00;08;57;16 - 00;09;03;02
Rob Wilson
So it's people take that beyond a reasonable doubt way to literally, I believe.
00;09;03;07 - 00;09;04;25
David Lyons
Do you remember what the jury came back with on.
00;09;05;16 - 00;09;07;01
Rob Wilson
I think the ten years on Main.
00;09;07;01 - 00;09;09;04
David Lyons
One, which that's nothing in Kentucky.
00;09;09;05 - 00;09;13;12
Rob Wilson
Yeah I believe he's out or he's not he's in a in a hospital somewhere.
00;09;13;12 - 00;09;17;04
David Lyons
Yeah it yeah they just don't stay in very long Now.
00;09;17;04 - 00;09;22;04
Wendy Lyons
Did you have contact with Todd's family or his sister who found him after that?
00;09;22;09 - 00;09;46;25
Rob Wilson
Yeah, we stayed in contact with him. But we have a great program with at the police department now. But also it started with the Commonwealth Attorney's office because the victims advocate and they are responsible with keeping the victim's family in the loop about court dates. And so we're kind of freed up to do investigative work, but we certainly make sure that the victims families are taken care of and informed.
00;09;46;25 - 00;09;51;29
Rob Wilson
We update them what's progress is on the case and such. So whether we stay in touch with them.
00;09;54;08 - 00;09;59;12
David Lyons
In the aftermath. Thinking back on on this case, is there anything that you would have done differently or.
00;10;00;10 - 00;10;06;16
Rob Wilson
I don't think we could have. It was a pretty straightforward, I thought, a simple case of murder.
00;10;06;17 - 00;10;08;00
David Lyons
And you remember who you worked with on it.
00;10;08;21 - 00;10;09;15
Rob Wilson
B.J. Carter.
00;10;09;21 - 00;10;10;16
David Lyons
Okay, good news.
00;10;10;16 - 00;10;30;00
Rob Wilson
Yep, absolutely. Red Bulls was out there. The patrol officers did a really good job. I believe Officer Taylor was out there. They did really good preliminary interviews and did excellent right up to where I could refresh my memory going back on the case file about what he told them as opposed to what he told me. So, yeah, just yeah, good work all around.
00;10;30;00 - 00;10;33;00
Rob Wilson
And it's it's not odd for the election police department to do good work.
00;10;33;06 - 00;10;45;02
David Lyons
I know people would think we're in a war and everything, but I never in the entire time, I never had a bad experience. I had never like I hear her. I travel a lot to hear horror stories and I'm like, What? You know, Yeah, it's got great people.
00;10;45;06 - 00;11;09;10
Rob Wilson
I had a commander will say, Commander Matt Brotherton again, we're talking just the other day about our travels where our cases led us in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Tampa, Washington, Baltimore, New York. When we're starting now, it's like we're pretty good agency. But when you get to visit these other agencies, you realize how good Lexington has it.
00;11;09;11 - 00;11;15;14
Rob Wilson
I know we are one of the best police departments in the country, and I say that with complete confidence.
00;11;15;14 - 00;11;24;12
David Lyons
Yeah, I remember back in the day I went in, I won't say where. I mean, Schoon went to another agency and we had the start of the murder book, and I looked over and said, What's that? Yeah, okay.
00;11;24;17 - 00;11;29;07
Rob Wilson
Some of it's like terrifying. Like, But you run a murder investigation.
00;11;29;20 - 00;11;51;17
David Lyons
You know, in their defense, it's because there's an we can just hit this little, little spot with it. Is that it so much? And law enforcement is is learning at the coattails of my own. Yes. So I give a wide breadth. I'm not being critical of it. But it the reality of it is, is that if there's one thing in law enforcement that just universally needs is training, training, training, training.
00;11;51;17 - 00;12;14;24
David Lyons
And it's incredible, especially when people talk about impacting budgets and police departments, which is kind of the thing last few years. It's like, okay, I mean, the first thing that goes when the money gets tight in a police department is training. Yeah, it's it's an la carte. It's you get the minimum you need and everything. But when the budget gets tight, the very thing we need to probably be better and more confident is the first thing you go, Yeah.
00;12;14;24 - 00;12;22;12
Rob Wilson
And then after that overtime gets tossed and you try working a murder on 40 hours a week, it just doesn't get done.
00;12;22;19 - 00;12;29;10
David Lyons
Oh, he's just a if anybody. Another book was a David Salman homicide. He was. Yes.
00;12;29;11 - 00;12;32;01
Rob Wilson
Homicidal all year on the killing store. Like, great.
00;12;32;01 - 00;12;37;16
David Lyons
Oh, good. Yeah. The ten rules of Homicide. And yeah, one of them is that a an open murder case is a.
00;12;37;26 - 00;12;38;13
Rob Wilson
Monetary.
00;12;38;14 - 00;12;53;08
David Lyons
Monetary. But I remember back in the day in a unit that a major or and I think Fran Root in come in one day and say okay guys and girls we've got to cut the overtime back and it's like you just whistled for the Grim Reaper. Yeah, it was like as soon as I'd say that and I'm. I'm making light of it.
00;12;53;08 - 00;13;03;03
David Lyons
It was, yeah. If you want to bring tragedy into your community, just talk about that. Because it was like it rained every night that night. So. Yeah. Did this stuff cost money?
00;13;03;05 - 00;13;21;08
Rob Wilson
Yeah, but you're right about the just riding on the coattails of the ones that came before you. I mean, think about how far back that goes. You use mentioned frame rate. Mm hmm. There's a train route, then there's Danny Gibbons, then there's you guys and James Careless and Paul Williams. Chris going over. Then I come along. So that's you getting close to 40 years of just good quality.
00;13;21;15 - 00;13;45;09
David Lyons
And one thing we're working on a little bit is I want to go back even further to Barney Kimmelman. Oh yeah. And keep going back that the people that Barney and and their names are zipping right out my head. I love dropping names on here because they're fantastic people. But Barney in them really go back another generation and the holy cow, they can talk about that murder or that family guy killed that preacher's family.
00;13;45;09 - 00;13;49;00
David Lyons
That's a long time ago. Yeah. And, well, dang, all that one for now.
00;13;49;01 - 00;13;51;08
Rob Wilson
Oh, is that the one out Russell Cave Growing cell?
00;13;51;08 - 00;13;51;17
David Lyons
Yeah.
00;13;52;11 - 00;13;53;29
Rob Wilson
That's probably one of the worst ones I've heard of.
00;13;54;00 - 00;14;02;11
David Lyons
Yeah. Oh, just brutal. Awful. But we're going to leave alone because somebody that's in this business that we respect a lot, I think is taking a peek at that. And we'll leave it at that.
00;14;02;12 - 00;14;04;23
Rob Wilson
Good. Yeah, I'll be I'll be listening in on it.
00;14;04;23 - 00;14;06;24
David Lyons
Yeah. And I'll tell you, I just. I want a hat tip.
00;14;06;29 - 00;14;07;20
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
00;14;07;20 - 00;14;25;06
David Lyons
And put the pressure. But they will knock it out of the park when they do it. Great. And they know I'm talking about problems. So they do. I'll tell you after we're done here. So he goes, Probably out. Wouldn't look probably out. I mean, the reality of it is, is that it doesn't take long. Doesn't take long, especially on those things.
00;14;25;26 - 00;14;44;27
David Lyons
What if if somebody was going to be interested in getting into the murder cop business, what's a few things that you would suggest them? Let's say, like they're a patrol officer and they're out earning their bones because in Lexington, as a matter of fact, you can't go to a specialized assignment by contract until three years, which makes all the sense in the world, actually.
00;14;44;28 - 00;14;45;28
Rob Wilson
Absolutely does.
00;14;45;28 - 00;14;48;02
David Lyons
What would what would you tell somebody? Yeah.
00;14;48;16 - 00;15;12;26
Rob Wilson
Well, first off, those people that are in college thinking about entering into a career in law enforcement, you don't necessarily need to major in criminology or police administration. Election police department will teach you what they think you need to know. Um, we've told people to get a degree in English. Learn how to articulate your thoughts in paper in testimony.
00;15;12;27 - 00;15;13;05
Rob Wilson
Here we.
00;15;13;05 - 00;15;13;12
David Lyons
Go.
00;15;14;00 - 00;15;31;12
Rob Wilson
But once you're on the department, which again, when I decided I wanted to be a police officer, I wanted to be a homicide detective right off the get go. And I was really bummed that I knew I was going to have to do three years of patrol looking back, I wouldn't trade those three years for anything. I learned so much.
00;15;32;17 - 00;15;52;24
Rob Wilson
But for new patrol officers out there that are wanting to get into homicide investigation, go up there and introduce yourself, tell them that this is what you want to do. Ask if they could hang out. And it's like I already O's starts Friday. Do you mind if I come up Shadow you guys, we just never had that happen.
00;15;53;06 - 00;15;55;08
Rob Wilson
No, I mean, I did. Um.
00;15;55;16 - 00;15;58;16
David Lyons
It was very rare. It really was. It was very.
00;15;58;16 - 00;16;10;06
Rob Wilson
Rare. But I mean, Gough, I'm a veteran detective in some 26 year old kid on patrols, spending time on his day off to watch me and ask me questions. He's already got the battle. Have one.
00;16;10;10 - 00;16;10;25
David Lyons
There we go.
00;16;11;02 - 00;16;31;22
Rob Wilson
You know, just that initiative and that drive and making it known that that's what you want to do. And then make sure I don't care if it's a stolen lawnmower report that you're taking. Make it a good one, because we read all these reports and we may not recognize if it's great or really good, but we will recognize if it's crappy.
00;16;32;20 - 00;16;51;15
David Lyons
We are told that day one right. And I even was told that on really crappy reports that they would hang them up and investigations. And I remember thinking, nobody does that. And and I got up there. Yeah. And it was like it was like a mural. Yeah. And it's like the wall of shame kind of. Yeah. So that that's a driver.
00;16;52;17 - 00;17;14;12
David Lyons
Before we close to one more thing too, because you did cold cases and this is a sad passion of mine. I'm pretty interested in. What would you tell a citizen detective, a lay detective, a an Internet sleuth? Because I personally believe there's space for them in this whole game. It's just frustrating as the finding it because the time and I've seen some beautiful work done.
00;17;14;29 - 00;17;24;13
David Lyons
What would you tell somebody who is was doing lay investigations like that on the side? What advice would you have them for improving a relationship with a detective? That's work in a case.
00;17;24;27 - 00;17;29;05
Rob Wilson
That's touchy because, as you know, a lot of detectives are very territorial.
00;17;29;06 - 00;17;29;20
David Lyons
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
00;17;29;21 - 00;17;48;16
Rob Wilson
I don't want anybody looking over my shoulder second guessing what I've done. But you have to make contact with that primary detective if you're like, Well, call them grassroots detectives and citizen detectives make contact. And it's like, Hey, I'm really interested in this. I found some stuff I'm going to if you'd like, I'll forward it to you. And if I can be of any further assistance, please let me know.
00;17;48;22 - 00;18;17;24
Rob Wilson
And there's starting to be specialty fields like genealogy. Sure. I mean, that's I worked with one or two of those, and that's a lot of work that they put in that I don't know how to do, nor do I have the time. So if they're in that type of field, please reach out to your local police department or homicide unit and let them know that you're you know, your skills are available and more than likely free of charge because the department's not going to offer up, you know, pay money to basically private investigators.
00;18;18;09 - 00;18;28;07
Rob Wilson
The department has its own investigators and expects them to do the job. But there's a certain skill set that citizens in certain fields can have that I don't possess.
00;18;28;12 - 00;18;29;01
David Lyons
And time.
00;18;29;01 - 00;18;29;24
Rob Wilson
And time, I.
00;18;29;24 - 00;18;35;05
David Lyons
Think the biggest thing is time. It's a it's a that their imagination and time can do wonderful thing.
00;18;35;05 - 00;18;55;26
Rob Wilson
And I say make contact with the primary investigator. One thing out of courtesy but to spend some time talking to him so he doesn't think you're a nut job because there are those out there that give other citizen investigators a bad name and you have to wade through those. If my phone rings, I'm going to pick it up and listen to somebody.
00;18;55;26 - 00;19;16;28
Rob Wilson
I always will, because I'll take any information anybody wants to give me if if it turns out to be not useful, then I wasted a little bit of time. But you got to turn over every stone and just, you know, present yourself in a professional manner and let them know that you're there to assist. Because, I mean, good detectives will take whatever help that you can provide.
00;19;17;17 - 00;19;20;03
David Lyons
100%. When do you got anything? Because we just.
00;19;20;03 - 00;19;41;00
Wendy Lyons
I was just going to say it's no different than someone who has a tip on a cold case or an active, active case. You know, we always say it may be that one little piece of information. And we said that on David Crumbs. Someone knows something and it may only be something. So my nut yeah, that one little piece may break it wide open.
00;19;41;00 - 00;19;41;10
Wendy Lyons
Yeah.
00;19;41;17 - 00;19;56;09
David Lyons
You know, sometimes it's a phone call after the event that you can't connect and it can be so simple. Hold this bag. Yeah. Do me a favor and go to my house and get this. Or can I borrow your car? How many times have we seen that with a borrowed car and. Yes. Can I park my car here?
00;19;56;09 - 00;20;05;22
David Lyons
We went with that. With the one with Billy and Paul. Is it gay? Can I stop this car here? Well, it's a go for salvage style. Little things like that just. Just can make a big difference.
00;20;05;22 - 00;20;13;15
Rob Wilson
Yeah, And people out there don't know. It's like I heard this, but it's probably nothing. Please take the time and call because you do not know.
00;20;13;24 - 00;20;15;08
David Lyons
Assuming somebody else has done it.
00;20;15;09 - 00;20;33;07
Rob Wilson
That's a big thing in cold cases. Yeah. Um, and it's no fault of him that I've done it myself. I like. I'll read through. Sounds like. Huh? Why wasn't this person interviewed in I'll go back and interview the persons like now some detective came to me about nine years ago and talked to me, but they didn't document it because it wound up being nothing.
00;20;33;23 - 00;20;38;07
Rob Wilson
But you still have to document because it's a box that needs to be checked.
00;20;38;07 - 00;20;43;26
Wendy Lyons
I always say in my line of work, it's not written down. It didn't happen with anything.
00;20;43;29 - 00;20;44;16
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
00;20;44;16 - 00;20;46;27
Wendy Lyons
You know, it's so important to to document those.
00;20;46;27 - 00;20;55;10
David Lyons
Yeah. Get on a stand with one of these really good defense attorneys in town, the ones that have got a couple that are interested in coming and doing the show. Really, Which would be neat.
00;20;55;13 - 00;21;01;17
Rob Wilson
That'd be a fun one to do a roundtable. Yeah, With a prosecutor or a defense attorney. A detective, you know.
00;21;01;22 - 00;21;03;19
David Lyons
Yeah. We'll just get a ring. Yeah.
00;21;03;25 - 00;21;05;18
Wendy Lyons
Let them all go at it, because they will.
00;21;05;18 - 00;21;20;06
David Lyons
They can hit the bar outside and we can load everything up, and it'll be. And thank God we'll have video of it. Yeah. But the reality of it is, is that I'd like to get them to come on and talk about just like you talked about your job is to defend somebody. And let's for argument's purposes, you know they did it.
00;21;20;11 - 00;21;28;24
David Lyons
Yeah. And because a lot of people are like, how can you how can you do that? Well, somebody has to. Yeah, right. I mean, it's how this it separates us from across the world.
00;21;28;25 - 00;21;40;13
Rob Wilson
And a lot of people don't get that. They think the defense attorney's job is to get a guilty person off. You know, their job is to make sure that their client receives a fair trial. And here it's.
00;21;40;13 - 00;21;41;03
David Lyons
It. They're all there.
00;21;41;05 - 00;21;43;29
Rob Wilson
And you have to have that. I'm in complete support of that.
00;21;43;29 - 00;21;44;05
David Lyons
Yeah.
00;21;44;08 - 00;21;48;19
Rob Wilson
So that's not their job is to get guilty people off. They just have to defend their client.
00;21;48;24 - 00;22;01;08
David Lyons
That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what it's all about. Well, good to you. That was fantastic. I think we got too many prayers to Todd's family absent, especially with the extra anguish of dealing with with the discovery and everything.
00;22;01;08 - 00;22;03;13
Wendy Lyons
Just as well. And this sister walking in on that.
00;22;03;13 - 00;22;03;29
Rob Wilson
Horrible.
00;22;04;03 - 00;22;15;04
Wendy Lyons
Had the misfortune of walking walking and Angie's and that as I said on that podcast I did on her. And that's something that I'm sure his sister sees every time she closes her eyes.
00;22;15;04 - 00;22;39;22
Rob Wilson
I couldn't imagine seeing a loved one in your state. And we had issues. I'm sure you dealt with this. Suicides were big like Vegas. Like I want to I want to see the pictures. I'm like, No, you don't. You don't know what I because they were so adamant. A lot of times I'll be like, I understand. And I certainly can't stop you from looking at these, but give me four months.
00;22;40;10 - 00;22;57;02
Rob Wilson
Let all this go by and if you want in four months, come back and you're still adamant about Want to see it, I'll show you. But please take that time. And about 75% would be like, Thank you so much. It was just I don't know why I wanted to see my son in that condition, but I think.
00;22;57;02 - 00;22;57;11
David Lyons
It said.
00;22;57;15 - 00;23;06;15
Wendy Lyons
I think it's that accepting it that you to wrap your mind around it. And I think it's just seeing, you know, it really happened. But did it really happen?
00;23;06;19 - 00;23;17;23
Rob Wilson
Yeah, just like I'd just like, please remember your loved one the last time you saw him. Not not this end of the 25, that percent that did want to see the pictures regretted it immediately.
00;23;18;10 - 00;23;33;25
David Lyons
It's just awful. I just real quick, an anecdotal story. When I first started on patrol years ago, you know, we we found people. Yeah. But that's part of policing is these are some I hadn't answered the door we got the mail and you know so you hike in through a window and everything. But I'm not going to go into too much detail because it's personal.
00;23;33;25 - 00;23;54;11
David Lyons
Some I mean, I remember one day discovering two decedents, one of them very young. And I just I'll never forget the idea that before the other family member got up the hallway, I successfully got that door closed and got him outside and it was like there it did. That was a blessing because what was inside the room was awful.
00;23;54;11 - 00;24;05;23
David Lyons
Yeah. And in just fractions of a second making a difference. It was bad enough that you and me have to wear it, right? Yeah. And, but I remember thinking, Oh my God, how it can be worse.
00;24;05;24 - 00;24;13;24
Rob Wilson
Oh, yeah, it's. Yeah, I'm glad you were able to spare those people. It just because you can't ever get it out of your head once you see it, it's there forever.
00;24;13;25 - 00;24;17;01
David Lyons
Exactly. Exactly. Well, fantastic. Fantastic.
00;24;17;06 - 00;24;20;16
Wendy Lyons
Thank you, Rob, for coming again. You always have the best stories to share with me.
00;24;20;16 - 00;24;22;12
Rob Wilson
Any time. I love hanging out and talking with you guys.
00;24;22;12 - 00;24;34;26
David Lyons
Especially with the cold case thing that that that had such a flavor. So we do have a lot more. We're going to talk about for sure that we want to get on board with you and line up and we'll definitely hit it up. So thanks again for coming.
00;24;34;27 - 00;24;38;16
Rob Wilson
Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you.
00;24;39;27 - 00;25;12;24
David Lyons
The Murder Police podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform as well as at Murder Police podcast ABC.com, where you will find Shownotes transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of murder police podcast swag.
00;25;13;09 - 00;25;36;28
David Lyons
We are also on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, which is closed captioned for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police podcast and you will find us. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcasts, make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop.
00;25;37;09 - 00;29;48;13
David Lyons
And please tell your friends lockdown duty.
00;29;52;03 - 00;29;57;22
Wendy Lyons
Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast, The murder of Todd Shumaker. Part one.
00;29;57;28 - 00;29;58;06
David Lyons
Yeah.
00;29;59;04 - 00;31;34;00
Wendy Lyons
Welcome to the Murder Police podcast, the murder of Todd Shumaker Part two. Welcome to the Murder Police podcast. The murder of Todd Shumaker Part three. Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast, the murder of Todd Shumaker. Part four.
00;31;40;03 - 00;31;42;28
Wendy Lyons
Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast. I am Wendy.
00;31;42;29 - 00;31;43;21
David Lyons
And I'm David.
00;31;44;08 - 00;31;48;26
Wendy Lyons
Well, David, we have with us today retired detective Rob Wilson. How are you, Rob?
00;31;48;27 - 00;31;49;22
Rob Wilson
I'm doing very well.
00;31;49;27 - 00;31;52;10
Wendy Lyons
Thank you for coming back on our show.
00;31;52;11 - 00;31;53;15
Rob Wilson
Absolutely. Any time.
00;31;53;25 - 00;32;04;14
Wendy Lyons
You know, we've had Rob here with us before on the case of Alex Johnson and Meghan leaving. Good. And now we have Rob here with this on the 2015 murder of Todd Shumaker.
00;32;05;19 - 00;32;06;29
David Lyons
Is it Shumaker or maker?
00;32;07;13 - 00;32;08;12
Rob Wilson
I think it's Schumacher.
00;32;08;13 - 00;32;49;09
David Lyons
Okay. Got you. We're good. Yeah. I just want to make sure because it's kind of tricky on the spelling a little bit.
00;32;51;29 - 00;32;53;26
Wendy Lyons
Rob, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
00;32;54;13 - 00;33;14;10
Rob Wilson
Absolutely. Was on Alexa and Police department for 23 years, I believe. Spent two and a half to three years on patrol. Then moved into homicide, where I believe was close to 17, 18 years in active homicide and then finished the last two or three years of my career run in the Cold case unit.
00;33;14;23 - 00;33;16;28
Wendy Lyons
Nice. Are you enjoying your retirement days?
00;33;16;29 - 00;33;18;04
Rob Wilson
Very much so, yes.
00;33;18;07 - 00;33;19;24
Wendy Lyons
I'm sure they miss having you.
00;33;19;26 - 00;33;22;12
David Lyons
Do you miss doing cold casework? Yeah, I.
00;33;22;12 - 00;33;51;00
Rob Wilson
Found that really? Well, it's really challenging because those cases are cold for a reason and typically those are the more difficult cases because they wouldn't. They're cold for a reason. And as you know, we've had some really good detectives in the unit and it's fun on a couple of different levels. Just the challenge to try to find a suspect after so long, but also going back and reading case files that belonged to Paul Williams or David Lyons.
00;33;51;00 - 00;34;11;15
Rob Wilson
And just always impressed with those people, you know, that meticulous documentation that the really good ones do that actually learned a lot of stuff like reading through yours and Paul's and Chris's and James Karlis. So I'd always pick up little tidbits like, that's an interesting question they asked. I never would have thought of that.
00;34;11;16 - 00;34;24;25
David Lyons
It's funny when you look at older work, because I was the same way with John Busiek. I would read his and Dave Gibbons and things like that, and you pick that up too. And of course, the challenge with Paul Williams is it's all in stone. Nelson. Yes. Having to carry around it.
00;34;25;00 - 00;34;27;25
Wendy Lyons
Forever isn't too far behind. So he's probably.
00;34;27;25 - 00;34;30;01
David Lyons
Chalk or some kind of a burnt wood, I think, as well.
00;34;30;17 - 00;34;36;27
Rob Wilson
We always joked that if Paul and Chris Goon over their search warrant, they were the first detective to do a search warrant in Panga.
00;34;37;08 - 00;34;52;21
David Lyons
There we go. Exactly it. Well, aside from that, too. Just do you have a rough idea of. Not that it's a contest, but do you have a rough idea how many cases you either echo cases you laid down or felt like the ball moved significantly forward before you left any kind of it?
00;34;52;26 - 00;35;12;00
Rob Wilson
Yeah. I believe I put down three cold case murders before I left and one kidnaping and rape and I believe another assault first. So, yeah, I feel really good about the work that I did in that short time period. But that was one of the hard parts about leaving because I think there were a couple more that I could have done.
00;35;12;24 - 00;35;16;20
Rob Wilson
And it was Matt Brotherton who just got promoted to Commander.
00;35;16;21 - 00;35;19;27
David Lyons
Congratulations to Matt. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
00;35;20;18 - 00;35;40;03
Rob Wilson
And Matt and I went through the academy together and spent over a decade together as partners in Homicide. In this opportunity came up to retire or whatever. I struggled with it. And he told us, like, Rob, you're not going to be able to solve them all. That's why we have other detectives. You go, This is a good opportunity.
00;35;40;16 - 00;35;59;20
Rob Wilson
And it really did it just because, man, I could have stayed there for a long time, that challenge. You know, it's fun to wake up in the morning and know that you've got a chance to. Right. Or wrong that's been left undone for maybe a decade, two decades. So. Still got one in the works. And I'm working with the Commonwealth on that.
00;35;59;29 - 00;36;03;13
Rob Wilson
Maybe we do a direct indictment that's been unsolved for over 20 years.
00;36;03;13 - 00;36;05;06
David Lyons
So incredible.
00;36;05;06 - 00;36;21;10
Wendy Lyons
Stuff. And I do have to say you, I think, began working the early stages of another episode that we covered, the ex-husband of my best friend who also was murdered this year, Angela Wooldridge. David Kelm I think you started with that.
00;36;21;11 - 00;36;27;25
Rob Wilson
Yes, I touched base with the family on that one. I spoke with him several times. Very nice family as you.
00;36;28;02 - 00;36;28;17
Wendy Lyons
That one.
00;36;28;17 - 00;36;30;14
Rob Wilson
Year? Yeah.
00;36;30;14 - 00;36;36;17
Wendy Lyons
Yes. So they they spoke so highly of you and they, they were hoping that they were going to keep you here.
00;36;36;17 - 00;36;57;26
Rob Wilson
It came down to those were one of the that was one of the cases that I had trouble with leaving because they were such a nice family and I think they had bad feelings towards a previous detective that handled the case. But he did a very good job of there was only so much to go on in one.
00;36;58;03 - 00;37;10;17
Rob Wilson
I have my own feelings about what happened in that case, but could never, ever prove anything. And again, that was one that was still on the on my desk when I left. So that those are the ones that it hurts to walk away from.
00;37;11;07 - 00;37;31;03
David Lyons
In their pain that those families are going through. You know, hopefully none of us ever, ever experienced that. So I got used to the idea and I thought it was part of the obligation to to be that board for them if they were frustrated and let them take some of that frustration out. I can't imagine the pain of the so difficult thing, so good deal it.
00;37;31;08 - 00;37;58;01
David Lyons
Well, maybe we can come back on some of those that you laid down. Sure, you can get the files and do some shows on those, especially again, the art of pulling. Like you said, one or two decades. We've done some other things on the show of late where we interviewed Karen Binder with the DNA. No project. An amazing thing is my fact that's our our charity of choice and the work that they do, just simply identifying unidentified human remains as beautiful work out there in and of itself.
00;37;58;01 - 00;38;06;13
David Lyons
So it. Well, what are we going to talk about today? Give us a give us just like a like a couple of sentences on what this case is going be about.
00;38;06;13 - 00;38;26;29
Rob Wilson
Yeah, it's just going to be basically it's a domestic violence murder. The victim, Todd Schumacher, and his boyfriend, Matthew Dunn High. They had lived together for approximately 5 to 6 months and things went really, really bad on the night of January 18, 2015.
00;38;27;19 - 00;38;32;10
David Lyons
Gotcha. Was there anything else that stood out about it or the violence?
00;38;33;10 - 00;38;58;06
Rob Wilson
Mr. Schumacher was stabbed over a hundred times. That's by far the most stab injury ones that I've come across in over 20 years of investigating murders a hundred times. Think about how difficult that is or how long that takes for listeners out there. Just smack your hand against a table a hundred times. See how long that takes.
00;38;58;19 - 00;38;59;07
David Lyons
Exactly.
00;38;59;07 - 00;39;04;09
Rob Wilson
And just to have the energy and the anger to keep going that long.
00;39;04;12 - 00;39;11;14
David Lyons
I was skimming through some news articles, and I'll be honest with you, I didn't read them in depth either. I like kind of getting caught up code with you all. I've I've.
00;39;11;15 - 00;39;28;02
Wendy Lyons
Learned, you know, I ask you the other two nights ago, I said, Well, well, tell me about this. We were driving to dinner and he said, Nope, I want you to be surprised. And I hate the element of surprise because I love knowing a little bit of detail. So I'm glad. Well, I'm not glad in a way, because I still wanted the detail.
00;39;28;02 - 00;39;38;10
Wendy Lyons
But why don't we just dig in, tell us. You know, I always love asking, what were you doing when this call came? Who who found out about this To make the call. How did you get involved?
00;39;38;16 - 00;40;04;17
Rob Wilson
Yeah, the. The patrol units were dispatched. Like I believe I said, the January 18, 2015, around 7:00 at night, they were called to the residence. The victim's sister had gotten worried that she hadn't spoken to her brother in a while. He wasn't answering his phone, so she went over there. Nobody answered. She went in and saw the bloody mess that was all over the house, found her brother in the bedroom and Matthew?
00;40;04;29 - 00;40;31;14
Rob Wilson
Yeah. Matthew Dawn, I believe he was in the bedroom as well. She immediately called 911. The officers responded quite quickly and I believe Mr. Schumacher was pronounced dead at the scene. So at that point, obviously the homicide unit is called out. I was not on call, but I was next up for the primary and the homicide investigation. So it's 730.
00;40;31;22 - 00;40;49;14
Rob Wilson
I remember exactly where I was. I was at BW Three's the playoffs were going Green Bay was getting ready to play. I had just ordered my first beer and my phone starts buzzing. I looked down, See, it's read bowls and it was a detective in the unit at the Times, like reading our friends. But he shouldn't be calling me at 7:00 on a Sunday.
00;40;50;06 - 00;40;54;14
Rob Wilson
So I just kind of side and I know what this is because I was like, Hey, read.
00;40;54;14 - 00;40;55;14
Wendy Lyons
Across the table.
00;40;55;21 - 00;41;18;24
Rob Wilson
And he's like, Sorry, buddy. And I was like, Yeah. He goes, We have one. It's over. Lamont Which was odd because that's probably just a half mile from where I lived at the time. So at first I was worried, like, we don't know what kind of murder this is. Was it a shooting, you know, a drive by? Like, do I need to tell my kids to get in the basement or something like that?
00;41;19;12 - 00;41;45;24
Rob Wilson
But he told me that it was a stabbing. We didn't know a whole lot right now. So they requested I respond to the scene. So I paid for my one beer that I didn't drink and responded to the scene. And they had already taken Matthew to the hospital. At that point. He was, I guess, having trouble breathing or saying he had heart issue and he had minor wounds on his hand, so he was taken to the hospital.
00;41;46;04 - 00;42;06;20
Rob Wilson
I learned from officers at the scene that he had stated that he and Todd were at home alone when two people entered through the back door and started yelling at Todd and attacked one of them attacked him with a knife. Um, so I was given that brief synopsis but looked around at the scene and it didn't add up.
00;42;06;20 - 00;42;31;22
Rob Wilson
There was no knocked over furniture where, you know, I've mentioned that Schumacher was a large guy, six to over £200. So there would have been tables turned over, chairs knocked over. But really all there was was a lot of blood and there was a pathway from the living room down the hallway to the bedroom where it was. You could see where as literally a body was dragged, a bloody body was dragged.
00;42;31;22 - 00;42;40;22
Rob Wilson
So we knew more than likely that the attack took place in the living room slash kitchen area. And Mr. Schumacher was taken drug to his his bedroom.
00;42;41;04 - 00;42;57;04
David Lyons
If we can go into the technical aspects a little bit too, we talked about the responding officers and starting there, if you're in the homicide unit, what what is the expectation you have when you arrive? What what what's the general things that you prefer patrol to be doing or have done by the time you get there?
00;42;58;16 - 00;43;27;04
Rob Wilson
If there's any witnesses, they don't need to do a thorough, detailed interview, but just get a basic story from whatever witnesses are around. Start a neighborhood canvass. If that's the type of situation, you know, where that could be useful. Um, and for them to have already contacted Forensic Services Unit to respond to the scene, we want them there as fast as we can because they have to process it before we can really get in there and start our investigation.
00;43;27;22 - 00;43;29;14
David Lyons
Gotcha. And I guess the coroner comes.
00;43;29;14 - 00;43;30;12
Rob Wilson
Yes, absolutely.
00;43;30;12 - 00;43;33;05
David Lyons
What did the coroner come to this one? Because he was transported to the hospital?
00;43;33;11 - 00;43;37;10
Rob Wilson
Well, no, the suspect, Matthew Donahue, was transported to the hospital.
00;43;37;10 - 00;43;38;08
David Lyons
Thanks for starting it out.
00;43;38;08 - 00;43;48;20
Rob Wilson
Yeah, but, yeah, the coroner arrived and and and as you know, they they were on the scene until they decide to hand it over to us. They're the primary investigators at any death scene in the in Fire County.
00;43;48;28 - 00;43;53;23
Wendy Lyons
Excellent. And then also, did you still have the sister there? Yes, her sister.
00;43;53;23 - 00;43;54;22
Rob Wilson
And some friends.
00;43;54;22 - 00;44;04;22
Wendy Lyons
Probably a very upsetting scene for for her, naturally. And so you had that to contend with as well as as Todd, it's.
00;44;04;22 - 00;44;20;20
Rob Wilson
Always tough to deal with family members of victims, but it's especially difficult when they're on the scene and see their loved one in the state that they're in. It takes it up several notches about the grief, the anger, the sadness and.
00;44;20;20 - 00;44;23;22
Wendy Lyons
The confusion was, why did this even happen?
00;44;23;27 - 00;44;40;05
Rob Wilson
Yeah, it's one thing when we knock on a mother father's door in the middle of the night and sit them down and calmly explain things to them. But when you see your loved one basically butchered like that, it's it's an image you're never, ever going to get out of your head. And I really feel sorry for the family members that have to go through that.
00;44;41;04 - 00;44;50;13
Wendy Lyons
So did you kind of have a feeling at that moment that his partner was the suspect? Did your gut kind of tell you that that was the case here?
00;44;50;13 - 00;45;10;26
Rob Wilson
It was certainly a possibility. You know, you never want to let your theory get ahead of the evidence. Sure, you're allowed to have a gut instinct, but don't pay too much attention to it. We've all had gut instincts and been wrong. So, you know, you just you can't help but develop a feeling. But never, ever let your theory get ahead of the evidence.
00;45;12;02 - 00;45;22;07
Wendy Lyons
So at that point, I guess you you dive into your investigation. Do you go ahead and interview the boyfriend at that point or where? Well, first.
00;45;22;21 - 00;45;44;19
Rob Wilson
We're dealing we know it would be different if we didn't know where the potential suspect would be. We knew he was at the hospital with Lexington police officer, so we knew he wasn't going anywhere. So we coordinated with Forensic Services Unit to make sure that we got a lot of pictures, got a lot of things swabbed or photographed or fingerprints that we thought we might need.
00;45;45;05 - 00;46;08;01
Rob Wilson
And we did quite a bit of that in this case, only because Mr. Donahue, his version, was that two unknown subjects came in. So obviously, in that situation, DNA is very, very important. You know, if we can get a you know, a DNA hit off skin cells on a doorknob that don't belong to the victim, the residents of the house, that's very useful.
00;46;08;13 - 00;46;31;26
Rob Wilson
But as it turned out, when it turns into a domestic violence murder inside the residence, DNA is almost useless because you could expect to find victim suspects, blood, DNA, hair, skin cells anywhere and everywhere in that house. So but you always want to, you know, be take caution and collect all the evidence you need because you only get a crack at that crime scene once.
00;46;33;12 - 00;46;40;10
David Lyons
That that makes a good point, too, about keeping DNA in context, because a lot of people look at it as the magic bullet. And it is in some cases in some.
00;46;40;11 - 00;46;41;18
Rob Wilson
Cases it's fantastic.
00;46;41;19 - 00;46;55;13
David Lyons
But but in cases like this, too, just just like back in that crime scene to that that it enforces the reason why you don't want people traipsing through that because of the transfer theory. Yeah. Especially if they had that much blood. Yes. I'm going to imagine that you could almost walk through there with that.
00;46;55;13 - 00;47;08;15
Rob Wilson
Now, this is one of those where we were dressed up like CSI. We had the booties on and all that because there was just it was everywhere. You couldn't help but come into contact with some blood on the floor, on a table or desk or chair.
00;47;10;09 - 00;47;13;00
Wendy Lyons
So at what point do you begin questioning Matthew?
00;47;13;25 - 00;47;21;17
Rob Wilson
He is released from the hospital and he was only there for a short time. So we had him transported to headquarters where I was able to speak with him.
00;47;23;01 - 00;47;26;17
Wendy Lyons
And so what was he stuck to? His story of the two intruders.
00;47;26;22 - 00;47;47;25
Rob Wilson
Initially, yes. In that first go around in an interview, if they're willing to talk, you let them talk. You let them tell whatever they're going to say. We call that a baseline statement. We'll just let them speak, run on for 30 minutes if they want, because in the back of our minds, we already know what the physical evidence is telling us at the scene.
00;47;48;05 - 00;48;14;14
Rob Wilson
So we're making mental notes and writing down notes as they're talking that either supports their theory or contradicts their theory or reasoning of what happened. So right from the get go, he was just it was fairly easy to pick up that he was making this stuff up on the fly about two invaders. So we let him tell his story and then point out a couple of inconsistencies.
00;48;14;14 - 00;48;33;05
Rob Wilson
And at that point he asks for a lawyer. So on his you know, when when they say that it's done so. But I always end the interview when they do that, it's like, listen, we're going to respect this. We're going to terminate the interview. You're going to be taken back to an holding cell. An officer will be behind probably 20 minutes, and we're going to transport you to the jail.
00;48;33;21 - 00;48;53;02
Rob Wilson
And he like, so I'm being arrested. I was like, Absolutely. You answer on what I was like, Well, your story does not match the physical evidence at the scene. There's no way two unknown intruders came into your home and did this. You already said that it was only you and Todd in the house in these fabricated. So that just leaves you.
00;48;53;18 - 00;49;11;24
Rob Wilson
And this is your time. If you want to talk to us, I want to hear your side of the story because maybe it will benefit you. But this story about two intruders is nonsense. You need to help yourself. I'm going to put you back in that holdover cell. And if you decide you want to talk to me, you can knock on the door and I'll certainly listen.
00;49;12;18 - 00;49;24;27
Rob Wilson
So that's what we did. We'll put them in the hold over cell. And probably about 10 minutes later, there's an officer back there. He knocked on the door and said, I want to talk to the Detective Wilson again. I want to tell him what really happened.
00;49;25;09 - 00;49;46;23
David Lyons
Let me go to the lay out a little bit just so people can picture this. When you're talking about interviewing them and hold over ourselves and talk about the hold over ourselves, what they're like and then the interview rooms and what they're like and are they close to each other in things like they walk. Like if somebody had never been on the fourth floor as what we called it, what's that look like and what's the procedure for that?
00;49;46;26 - 00;50;07;24
Rob Wilson
Yeah, it's a the Bureau of Investigations is on the fourth floor of Lexington Police Department's headquarters, and you get off the elevators and you can make a right into an office. And that's where the homicide unit is. You can make a left and you will go into general investigations where there's cubicles that probably about 40 desks of detectives up there, probably about.
00;50;07;25 - 00;50;08;01
David Lyons
Right.
00;50;08;07 - 00;50;34;17
Rob Wilson
And then we have some administrative offices. And along the back wall, we have three interview rooms, which are there's a table, a couple of chairs carpeted, fairly nice. But then you go further down the wall and we have three holding cells, which is basically like a jail cell. There's a bench, nothing else in there. And it's a large steel metal door that will lock.
00;50;35;09 - 00;50;48;04
Rob Wilson
We do have an eye hole for observation of the suspects, and basically they each stay there for a short period of time until an officer arrives to transport them to the Fair County Detention center.
00;50;48;04 - 00;50;54;21
David Lyons
Good. That way people can picture what this looks like when you're just talking instead of sitting around at in a lobby or anything like that.
00;50;54;25 - 00;50;59;11
Wendy Lyons
So an officer hears him knocking saying he wants to speak to you.
00;50;59;15 - 00;51;23;16
Rob Wilson
Yeah. So we bring him back into the interview room, start the recording again, and the first thing I do in a situation like that is, did I promise you anything? Did I threaten you? Did I coerce you in any way to make a statement, make sure that they're on tapes on. No, absolutely not. So you wanting to talk to me is completely you wanting to do this?
00;51;23;16 - 00;51;33;01
Rob Wilson
There was no contact. I made no contact and get them to agree to that, that they want to make a voluntary statement, because if you don't do that, it's going to get tossed in a suppression hearing.
00;51;33;01 - 00;51;35;23
Wendy Lyons
Especially as he had already said he wants to. Exactly.
00;51;36;15 - 00;51;47;15
Rob Wilson
So, yeah, you had to be really careful in making that perfectly clear on audio or video that they weren't promised anything or coerced in any way. And it was a voluntary statement on their behalf.
00;51;48;15 - 00;51;50;08
Wendy Lyons
So how does he open it up with you?
00;51;50;23 - 00;52;23;20
Rob Wilson
He apologized for lying. He was scared. And then he went to what typically anybody will do in that situation, went to a self-defense strategy, basically bad mouth. Mr. Schumacher. He was violent, mean all the time, attacked him and he was scared. And that evening they got into an argument and Mr. Donahue went to the kitchen to grab a knife and held it behind his back in case Mr. Schumacher came back to confront him.
00;52;24;10 - 00;52;48;06
Rob Wilson
He stated Mr. Schumacher did came at him and he pulled the knife in self-defense, saying, Don't come near me, don't come near me. And he said, Mr. Schumacher took the knife from him and then they wrestled for about 5 minutes and Mr. Donahue got the knife back and stabbed him once, maybe twice. So we know that's a lie because we know how many times he was stabbed.
00;52;48;06 - 00;53;09;24
Rob Wilson
But a Davis, you know, it's like it's sometimes you don't get full on confession, just those admissions, right? Yeah. You've got to you've So now we've got him admitting on tape that I did stab Todd. Doesn't matter if it was 100 times or one time. We've got him putting a knife into our victim. And from that story, also, we get rid of the two intruders.
00;53;09;24 - 00;53;28;16
Rob Wilson
So Mr. Donna High admits to us that I'm the only one in the house, and I stabbed him once. Who did? The other 99 stabbings, you know, So that was an important step, getting over that hurdle to admitting that he put a knife in his hand and then stabbed Mr. Schumacher.
00;53;28;22 - 00;53;32;00
David Lyons
Did he have any injuries through this five minute wrestling match?
00;53;32;00 - 00;53;44;22
Rob Wilson
Yeah, he did. They would be what we call defensive wounds. Um, but that's what he stated. But what they were were slices along the hand knife.
00;53;45;05 - 00;53;45;16
Wendy Lyons
Yes.
00;53;45;16 - 00;54;07;07
Rob Wilson
As I'm sure a lot of people know, once you stab somebody a couple of times that blood gets on the handle, it makes it very slick. So when you repeatedly stab someone, your hand will slide down over the blade calling, causing these lacerations on your hand. A true defensive wound is if you're putting your hands up and an attacker is coming with a knife, you're going to have deep puncture wounds.
00;54;07;18 - 00;54;33;05
Rob Wilson
You know, we see them sometimes go through the hand. These were lacerations. So just do to experience and, you know, previous murder investigations with sharp instrument objects. They'll typically if there's multiple stab wounds, the the suspect will have on his hands from that hand sliding down across the blade. And there were also injuries to his wrists which look to be attempted suicide.
00;54;33;06 - 00;54;34;10
Rob Wilson
Oh, strikes.
00;54;34;10 - 00;54;35;11
David Lyons
How old were those?
00;54;36;13 - 00;54;38;13
Rob Wilson
I think he tried to do them that night.
00;54;38;13 - 00;54;38;29
David Lyons
Oh, wow.
00;54;39;00 - 00;54;58;24
Rob Wilson
Yeah, he was what we found out later was we believe that the the attack took place in the living room and Mr. Schumacher was drug into the bedroom and up on the bed. And Mr. Donahue, I played with him in the bed for several hours while he was dead.
00;54;59;26 - 00;55;13;15
David Lyons
Did he have blood on his clothing? Yes, That too. And another thing, too, comes back to his own estimation of 5 minutes. Of course, that's an estimate. Sure. Of a wrestling match like that. You're right. In one 5 minutes, just like a hundred stab wounds is a long time.
00;55;13;15 - 00;55;15;28
Rob Wilson
When you're fighting someone, it's an eternity.
00;55;15;28 - 00;55;27;29
David Lyons
Yeah, we know that. Yes. Experience. And then the idea that in 5 minutes, you're right, that house, parts of that house were had been wrecked. Yes. There's no way you do that like withdrawal circle and fight it. It's going to be all over the house.
00;55;28;05 - 00;55;50;05
Rob Wilson
Yeah. In what we tended to believe, strangely enough, there was blood all over the floor and on the carpet and the walls. But it was like spatter and pooling. But just a little bit of pooling. We I remember when we flipped the cushions over on the couch, the couch was fine. There was no blood on the couch seats.
00;55;50;12 - 00;56;02;06
Rob Wilson
We flipped them over. There was a ton of blood, like a substantial amount of pooling on those cushions. I believe that he attacked him right there. And that's where the majority of blood loss came.
00;56;02;06 - 00;56;04;05
Wendy Lyons
Flipped the cushions back. Yes. Yep.
00;56;04;08 - 00;56;04;18
Rob Wilson
Yeah.
00;56;05;01 - 00;56;11;01
Wendy Lyons
Did he ever or did you ever at any point tell him it's not one or two stab wounds, it's in fact 100.
00;56;11;01 - 00;56;17;29
Rob Wilson
I didn't know at that time how many it was. It was only till after the autopsy that we learned. But you could tell it was.
00;56;18;13 - 00;56;19;19
Wendy Lyons
More than one or two.
00;56;19;19 - 00;56;23;04
Rob Wilson
Yeah, At least three dozen that I could see just visually.
00;56;23;10 - 00;56;39;13
David Lyons
And that comes back to that thing we've talked about before, where you go in that room sometimes with like that much and, and the struggle with that is, is is what can you do with that much. Yeah. The big thing like you said is that I don't think I ever got told the real truth you probably have never.
00;56;39;13 - 00;56;39;22
Rob Wilson
Heard of.
00;56;39;27 - 00;56;56;22
David Lyons
But man, if you can make that window where they do something as simple as is, start the process and everything, but you're really you don't have everything like they have on TV, Right? Right. And CSI hasn't done 28 minute DNA test yet and indefinitely. The autopsy is not going on down in the garage. We know that's not happening.
00;56;56;22 - 00;57;00;05
Rob Wilson
So we're not getting DNA hits in 5 minutes an Exactly.
00;57;00;06 - 00;57;03;04
David Lyons
Did they have a history? Well, first of all, any idea how long they'd been?
00;57;03;04 - 00;57;08;14
Rob Wilson
A couple about half a year, according to relatives and Mr. Donahue himself.
00;57;08;15 - 00;57;12;18
David Lyons
Any legal history of domestic violence? And you know what I was always curious about?
00;57;12;18 - 00;57;31;09
Rob Wilson
There was an interesting issue about this case. The couple shared a dog. It was primarily Mr. Schumacher's named Munro, and there was an argument this was a couple of weeks before the murder, Mr. Donahue. I had gotten angry at Mr. Schumacher, taken his dog and put it in the oven and turned the oven on.
00;57;32;11 - 00;57;33;09
Wendy Lyons
Oh, wow.
00;57;33;09 - 00;57;34;23
Rob Wilson
Yeah. Um.
00;57;35;05 - 00;57;36;07
Wendy Lyons
So he killed the dog.
00;57;36;13 - 00;57;49;03
Rob Wilson
Now they got the dog out in time. Um, then the animal control got involved and, oddly enough, worked with us on the homicide. I'd never work with animal control in a murder assignation.
00;57;49;03 - 00;57;49;15
David Lyons
Yes.
00;57;50;02 - 00;57;51;01
Rob Wilson
I know their stuff. Yeah.
00;57;51;01 - 00;57;56;10
Wendy Lyons
So did Matthew stab the dog in the same time as he was stabbing Todd was? Or was the dog.
00;57;56;23 - 00;57;58;09
Rob Wilson
We we never found Monro.
00;57;59;08 - 00;58;00;06
Wendy Lyons
Oh, wow.
00;58;00;06 - 00;58;03;03
David Lyons
So do you remember who you work with? With animal control?
00;58;03;07 - 00;58;23;15
Rob Wilson
No. Um, she was fairly new. Um, and I was super impressed because we had a suppression hearing in this case, like we always do. I forget what evidence they tried to suppress, but she showed up at the suppression hearing, and I was like, Hey, what are you doing? Like, I know I just want to learn because I may have to go through one of these one time.
00;58;23;15 - 00;58;34;24
Rob Wilson
And it's rare that people will take time out of their current job and assignment to go watch something else in hopes of learning something to maybe advance their career. So it was a very I was very impressed with her.
00;58;35;11 - 00;58;56;06
David Lyons
I'm trying to think of how to pronounce her first name, and I feel awful about this because she's probably listening or J and yes, yeah, yeah. And I feel awful about that because I've actually been in communication with her on the case. Oh, really? And where my do is I think she's agreed to do it is to come in and do an epilog on it on animal abuse and how that translates.
00;58;56;06 - 00;58;57;00
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
00;58;57;00 - 00;59;08;09
David Lyons
Because she is really sharp. The author a little bit when there were some conversations when I was on the command staff about warrants or something like that when we were trying to coordinate. And in your right, she's she's a detective.
00;59;08;09 - 00;59;30;29
Rob Wilson
Yeah she I remember she I think gave me a call on down the road after that, just asking for advice and very impressed with her because heck, at the time, we we try to get young detectives to come watch testimony, you know, like, I'm busy. I can't make it. But for her to certainly not obligated in any way that was just her own self to learn things and become better at her job.
00;59;30;29 - 00;59;47;11
David Lyons
Yeah, hopefully we get her on here. Yeah, it would be a great epilog to this to kind of fold into that because there are relationships between people who do very evil things to animals and and what they might do to people. So and I think she'd be the ideal person from animal control to come and speak of that.
00;59;47;11 - 00;59;51;28
Wendy Lyons
So yeah so Monroe was never found, did you did you ever ask Matthew about Monroe?
00;59;52;00 - 01;00;17;08
Rob Wilson
Yeah, he, he made a comment about the dog. Must have gotten out at some point, but like I say, he, he was there alone with after the victim was deceased for several hours. I mean, we're talking a long time. Just laid him in bed with him. And we also found written in blood. Please send to heaven Todd and Matt.
01;00;17;08 - 01;00;18;07
David Lyons
Oh, Lord. Where was that?
01;00;18;07 - 01;00;20;03
Rob Wilson
Written it on the bedroom wall.
01;00;21;20 - 01;00;22;09
Wendy Lyons
Wow.
01;00;22;16 - 01;00;53;27
Rob Wilson
Yeah. So, Mr. Donoghue has had some real issues. Um, as Dave and I were talking before the podcast started, that he had a juvenile record that was sealed that I couldn't get into. And when they're sealed like that at such a young age, typically it's something really bad. And I wound up of course this made the news is most homicides in Lexington do.
01;00;53;27 - 01;01;11;02
Rob Wilson
I ran into a schoolteacher that asked if I was the one handling that case, and I said, yes, I was. I was like, well, how do you what's your interest? She's like, Well, I was a teacher of Matthew, don't I? And she's like, Yeah, I had to give statements about something that he did that I'm still not allowed to talk about.
01;01;11;19 - 01;01;22;07
Rob Wilson
And she said that as a young child or student, this is elementary school. She was scared of him. Wow. So he had some severe mental issues.
01;01;22;22 - 01;01;37;08
David Lyons
He's he had mental issues. But to keep it straight a little bit, yeah. They he was evaluated because we'll get to this in a minute. But I just want to make sure we're clear on the idea that that was sorted out in court before he actually stood trial.
01;01;37;08 - 01;02;05;11
Rob Wilson
Obviously. Yeah. As Sister and Dave, we dealt with people with mental issues and you can be a full blown paranoid schizophrenic. Those are pretty easy to spot. But it's the sociopaths, the borderline personality disorders that you start to pick up on if you dealt with them enough. And just an immature guess, I'd say he has borderline personality disorder, very manipulative, very intelligent.
01;02;06;04 - 01;02;29;02
Rob Wilson
He played the victim role very, very well. And luckily we had the evidence at the scene because, again, you do this for 50 years and get a read on somebody and be wrong. That's why we need evidence to convict people. You know, I don't ever want to go on my gut and I don't like not believing individuals I'm interviewing because I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.
01;02;29;10 - 01;02;44;09
Rob Wilson
But it's so nice to have that evidence tucked away from the scene that, you know, that you can, you know, poke holes in their story with. But now he was very convincing. He played the victim well, very, very well. But I just knew he was lying.
01;02;45;16 - 01;02;54;04
Wendy Lyons
Wow. So you get your confession from him and I'd say admission. Yeah, admission. And then and well.
01;02;54;04 - 01;02;58;02
David Lyons
In the interim, too, after that, you talked about the autopsy. Did you attend the autopsy?
01;02;58;03 - 01;03;15;06
Rob Wilson
I did not. We were still doing stuff with the investigation. That's typically the next day. So forensic service detectives go up and that's when they told me the count was over 100. So I was I was floored at that. And he had all over his body from the top of his head to his feet.
01;03;15;14 - 01;03;26;11
David Lyons
Did they have any information in this goes back away. So if you don't remember, that's okay. Do they have any information about death or did knife help make contact? You know what I'm talking is it? Yeah, a lot of times no serrated sense.
01;03;26;13 - 01;03;39;23
Rob Wilson
Yeah, it was. We believe the murder weapon was just a regular kitchen steak knife, probably like five inches long. And several of the the stab wounds, especially to the abdomen, were very, very deep.
01;03;40;01 - 01;03;43;01
David Lyons
Was the murder weapon at the scene? It was. Okay, cool.
01;03;43;14 - 01;03;52;08
Wendy Lyons
And also, you know, I was wondering with that many, you know, how long did Todd endure this before he passed?
01;03;54;18 - 01;03;57;07
Rob Wilson
There's no way of knowing because hopefully the first one was.
01;03;57;07 - 01;03;57;25
Wendy Lyons
You would have.
01;03;57;25 - 01;04;04;06
Rob Wilson
Got an artery and he bled out quickly because if not, you know, that's that's a horrible, horrible, torturous.
01;04;04;06 - 01;04;07;17
Wendy Lyons
Way to to it's something to endure that's awful.
01;04;07;17 - 01;04;25;26
Rob Wilson
Well, and again, I do believe just because of the size difference between the two, he attacked him while he was laying on the couch or sleeping. So that's where he got in probably several devastating wounds. And then the rest was all just rage it.
01;04;25;27 - 01;04;33;18
David Lyons
Coming back to the interview, did he ever move off that last point of self-defense and a couple hits? Did he ever handle anything?
01;04;33;18 - 01;04;56;26
Rob Wilson
So it wound up when we were starting to confront him about the multiple stab wounds, like where did this happen and why Why was the back of his calf stabbed? Um, he again, like, I'm just so exhausted. I probably do need an attorney at this point. So he lawyered up for the second time. And at that point, yeah, he didn't want to talk anymore.
01;04;56;26 - 01;05;04;13
Rob Wilson
So we respected his constitutional rights and shut the interview down, filled out the paperwork for murder, and sent him down to the Fair County Detention center.
01;05;04;15 - 01;05;08;14
David Lyons
Now, before you sent him to the. Did you all see his clothing or anything? Is that a practice?
01;05;08;14 - 01;05;31;22
Rob Wilson
Yeah, we did that. And during the interview you can hear he's complaining because we have bags over his hands that are taped. So he can't wash off any blood or anything like that. So we took precautions with that. Once he got to the hospital, his hands were were bagged by FSU and yeah, we certainly we had a jumpsuit for him, got him in a jumpsuit and took all his clothes for forensic examination.
01;05;32;07 - 01;05;32;21
David Lyons
Gotcha.
01;05;33;01 - 01;05;36;21
Wendy Lyons
Did he ever say why he dragged tired all the way back to the bedroom?
01;05;37;22 - 01;06;09;18
Rob Wilson
He loved him, just wanted to be with him. So is a moment where he just snapped for whatever and we'll never know. But then reality sets in after the his five minute version of a struggle and he probably realized that I can't lie my way out of this. So he went back there, laid with him, and probably did some thinking about how can I concoct a story around this in the best he could come up with, you know, to unknown intruders.
01;06;09;18 - 01;06;15;17
Rob Wilson
There is no way he could clean that house, get rid of the body and say, Now, Todd, he just left to go get Cigarets. And I never saw him again.
01;06;15;17 - 01;06;26;13
David Lyons
Yeah, because the couch cushion flip was kind of a modest attempt, as it is. Kind of. Yeah, right. It. Yeah, probably that, too. Is that the idea of laying with him for that long, too?
01;06;26;28 - 01;06;37;21
Wendy Lyons
Well, I'm just thinking the schematics of it with the size difference. How did he drag him that far and get him up in the bed. Yeah. That's six, seven inches difference in height. Mm hmm.
01;06;37;25 - 01;06;57;27
Rob Wilson
Well, dragging him wouldn't have been too hard, but getting him on the bed probably would have been a struggle because horrible to say. But dead weight is difficult to to move around. But it's and that's where I think he probably did a halfhearted attempt to take his own life, too. He saw there was he's probably there's no way he's getting out of this.
01;06;58;19 - 01;07;04;13
Rob Wilson
But then I think he was surprised by the family showing up and had to go with that, that that story.
01;07;04;13 - 01;07;06;14
Wendy Lyons
That's true that he concocted. Yeah. Yeah.
01;07;06;24 - 01;07;09;15
David Lyons
So he had handed that story to the family, I guess. Yeah.
01;07;09;15 - 01;07;11;29
Rob Wilson
To the family and then to the initial officers at the scene.
01;07;13;17 - 01;07;22;21
David Lyons
It So the autopsy gets completed, you get that new information. I wasn't surprised because of the amount of damage there and whatnot. Neat that you recovered the knife at the scene.
01;07;23;00 - 01;07;30;10
Rob Wilson
Yeah, it's Again, I just think I would imagine he was just overwhelmed with trying to figure out a way out of it.
01;07;30;10 - 01;07;40;25
Wendy Lyons
Well, I'm sure the knife was probably the least of his thinking. Where is he going to? Put it or hide it? I mean, unless he's going to vacate the the residence to take it somewhere. I mean, there's only so many places you can hide that night.
01;07;40;25 - 01;08;05;13
David Lyons
Yeah, it, it, yeah. They don't think that through too good. I've only seen one time we had a murder of a Willard Street I think one time and they actually called a guy and he reminded me of a wolf in Pulp Fiction. He was a cleanup artist, and he. He had cleaned the apartment. It was a stabbing so well that the first run through FSU really didn't detect anything until they got a statement, then went start pulling the toenail rolls out and stuff.
01;08;05;13 - 01;08;05;27
Rob Wilson
Yeah.
01;08;06;16 - 01;08;21;29
David Lyons
But I remember Craig Sorrell interviewed him and it was like a it was like talking to Wolfram Fox and he's like, he goes, First thing I told him, Get all the silverware. And they're like, Why do I have to draw all the silverware? He goes, Because there's one piece missing. You get all the silverware and it's funny, but not funny.
01;08;21;29 - 01;08;28;07
David Lyons
But that's a real life thing too. So it anytime you do that, you have to be willing to take those extra steps, I guess.
01;08;28;10 - 01;08;48;15
Rob Wilson
Yeah. Now that's I remember I think it was the Alex Johnson case where he was in the garage. That's where they put him in the barrel to transport him down to the river. And we did some swabs to see if we could find any blood. And there was such a small amount on the railing of the garage door.
01;08;48;29 - 01;08;57;13
Rob Wilson
And I think Marcy Adkins at the lab, who you all on before, who's fantastic, who's amazing, she solved a lot of murders for me that I take credit for.
01;08;57;18 - 01;08;58;05
David Lyons
Sure. Yeah.
01;08;58;19 - 01;08;59;16
Rob Wilson
As all cops do.
01;08;59;16 - 01;08;59;23
David Lyons
Yeah.
01;08;59;24 - 01;09;01;28
Wendy Lyons
She's like, love hearing that.
01;09;01;28 - 01;09;02;18
David Lyons
And she will.
01;09;02;21 - 01;09;03;07
Rob Wilson
Yes, she.
01;09;03;07 - 01;09;03;14
Wendy Lyons
Will.
01;09;03;14 - 01;09;18;13
Rob Wilson
Marcy, Marcy in the lab has been so good to me over the course of my career. So many people. Matthew Clements, who's in ballistics, you know, I could call them at any time. And if it was legit enough reason, they jumped me to the it's close to the front of the line as I could.
01;09;18;16 - 01;09;32;21
David Lyons
That's a relationship that you give people and it makes it, Yeah, he's going to be back and Bill Breslin will be back and we're going to try to get him through when we're done and cry or weep. And in. But Bill and Marcy have agreed to do one, and I'm not going to disclose what it's about, but it's a serial offender.
01;09;32;27 - 01;09;34;04
Rob Wilson
Yeah, a very scary guy.
01;09;34;04 - 01;09;45;13
David Lyons
We have a very spooky and she is brilliant. Yes. She has the ability to I think for our audience especially, she can take into layman's terms so quickly and make people understand what Marcy was.
01;09;45;19 - 01;09;53;15
Rob Wilson
She's one of those where she could have easily translate transferred from the lab. She could have been a homicide detective and a very good.
01;09;53;15 - 01;09;57;09
David Lyons
Absolutely. Yes. So her linear and analytical thinking is right? Yes.
01;09;57;09 - 01;09;58;25
Rob Wilson
She would have been fantastic at that job.
01;09;59;10 - 01;10;01;20
Wendy Lyons
She's patting her back right now, and she should be.
01;10;01;24 - 01;10;03;09
Rob Wilson
Yeah, sure. Absolutely she should.
01;10;03;09 - 01;10;19;14
David Lyons
Yeah, exactly. So we get we get to the autopsy, we recover the knife and everything, and and he's done making no statements that. Correct. Yeah. And they get tricky. A lot of people don't know. Maybe we'll do an educational show on Fourth Amendment and then moves in your first reinforcement of Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, all that kind of.
01;10;19;14 - 01;10;37;24
David Lyons
It's it's kind of convoluted as to how it gets more difficult to interview somebody longer. They're in in their first couple of weeks. I guess what we're talking about now is what what kind of things went on in the aftermath after he goes to jail? What walk us through what the investigation looks like in the things that you're doing to tie this up.
01;10;37;24 - 01;11;02;11
Rob Wilson
Well, this one is actually really short and simple. Those domestics typically are you're not having to run down alternative suspects or anything like that, like I mentioned before, we swab the heck out of the house. Turns out once he admitted that it was just he and Todd and he was the one that stabbed him, all that blood and swabbed kind of became useless because we know the blood belongs to the victim.
01;11;02;11 - 01;11;09;18
Rob Wilson
Todd. And if there's fingerprints on things belonging to Matthew donor eye, then that doesn't tell us anything. He lived there.
01;11;10;04 - 01;11;18;23
David Lyons
Useless until you get on the stand. Yeah, right. Yeah. And then when you get cross-examined as to why you didn't do it. Yes. So it's perfunctory to some degree. Yeah.
01;11;19;02 - 01;11;42;13
Rob Wilson
Do it. And you're always. I had a murder case where we only collected 15 items and only sent off two or three items to be tested because it was a domestic as well. And I got grilled on the stand for cross-examination. I didn't send enough off to the lab, already had my mind made up, stuff like that, and it doesn't matter if I sent off 99 things to the lab, they'd say, Why didn't you send off a hundred?
01;11;43;01 - 01;11;53;14
Rob Wilson
You know, it's just a tactic that they use. And I understand they've got a job to do, but Absolutely. Yeah. As long as you can articulate why you sent something off or why you didn't, you're fine.
01;11;53;18 - 01;12;24;24
David Lyons
Right? It's it's funny to how we're talking about a quick case because it's it's so isolated. And we were just listening to the the culpable podcast there. Right, Wendy? And season two, we're talking about the murder of Brittney's strikes in Ohio and really good investigators. You can tell it's an unsolved case, but I think they'll get there. But one of them was talking about the challenge on it, who done it when, what people think or tips or conjecture in theory once that lands because they're talking in that case about thousands of tips.
01;12;24;24 - 01;12;36;14
David Lyons
Yeah, the guy that killed they allegedly killed, the four kids in Idaho. I think they when they when they talk about having thousands of tips, I don't think some people understand that that's a thousand things that's.
01;12;36;14 - 01;12;37;17
Rob Wilson
A thousand interviews.
01;12;37;18 - 01;12;53;05
David Lyons
That's it at least. Yeah. And every one of them has to have a beau around them. Yeah. And that that's a big deal that I always try to get across to people is a tip is something that might move But geez or Pete don't ever confuse that for a theory you have. Yeah I mean don't don't don't paint that in a different way.
01;12;53;05 - 01;13;12;27
Rob Wilson
Well I'm sure you had some cases. I've had several where you get to a point in the investigation where you kind of hit the end of the road and it's like, should we take this public, you know, put it on the news because you need their help, but you only want the viable tips because once it goes out there, you will you'll get 100, 200 leads.
01;13;12;27 - 01;13;15;19
Rob Wilson
And you have to follow up on every single one.
01;13;15;19 - 01;13;16;26
David Lyons
Yeah. They've all got to be wrapped up.
01;13;16;26 - 01;13;29;15
Rob Wilson
Yeah. Because if you don't that one, if you have 200 tips and you only do 199, by the time it gets to trial, those defense attorneys will be convinced that that one person you didn't do was the real killer in we've wrongly arrested their client.
01;13;29;24 - 01;13;45;12
David Lyons
That's even if it's an unequivocal yes. I mean, it'd be neat for people to experience that, to be on the stand when that happens. But even if it's an unequivocal I did it and the evidence is there, that's their job. And, you know, we've got great ones in town. I'm sure I'll write down our defense attorneys than once and I'll continue.
01;13;45;13 - 01;13;51;18
David Lyons
Yeah, they're amazing people, but it needs stuff. So in that case, yeah, wraps up pretty quick then.
01;13;51;27 - 01;14;01;16
Rob Wilson
So yeah, the investigation part is actually in this one's probably done in 4 to 5 days and that's all the paperwork and everything, sending stuff off to the lab.
01;14;03;03 - 01;14;10;24
David Lyons
So you get to kick your feet up on the desk because like, obviously there's nothing else going on in town, right? Absolutely. That's it. Like maybe two or three years, you'll have it. I'm being facetious.
01;14;10;24 - 01;14;11;20
Wendy Lyons
Of course you are.
01;14;11;20 - 01;14;12;08
David Lyons
Exactly.
01;14;12;10 - 01;14;38;05
Rob Wilson
That is a then, you know, there's the gallows humor up in homicide. You have to have it. But it's a good feeling when like you're next up and you finally get one, it's like, okay, this isn't a whodunit. I can solve it, wrap it up pretty quickly. And then I go to the back of the line, you know, that's maybe you get lucky and your numbers not called again for three months, four months.
01;14;38;18 - 01;14;46;20
Rob Wilson
So, you know, you're not bust in your butt on this unsolved murder because those are the worst when you get an unsolved and you're still killing yourself and then you get another one.
01;14;47;00 - 01;15;00;07
David Lyons
Which is the nature. Yes, that's it. That's where all that loose ends, I think by land speed record for one was a derby day where a guy got beat to get death with a two by four, a third straight. And I think I was able to be back home in about 4 hours.
01;15;00;11 - 01;15;01;02
Rob Wilson
Yeah, those are nice.
01;15;01;02 - 01;15;14;05
David Lyons
Yeah, exactly. Had some some stuff to do afterwards. But I had somebody in custody, I had statements, I had the physical evidence recovered and we got to it. But yeah, that never happened again. And you're right, that's their raking leaves on a windy day yet always coming in.
01;15;14;05 - 01;15;20;18
Rob Wilson
It's a really good analogy because it it just doesn't stop. You just hope for a breather from time to time in it.
01;15;20;19 - 01;15;36;01
David Lyons
And I think if somebody gets into the business, I think it's a mistake they might make it. Don't ever think you're going to be done and kind of take it just it's the nature of the beast. But when you do leave to this day and I've been gone a long time, I still will be out doing something and I'll think about one of them that didn't lay down.
01;15;36;02 - 01;15;39;19
David Lyons
You just always like, if I could get back and do this, they'd never leave you.
01;15;39;25 - 01;16;06;22
Rob Wilson
I'm pretty lucky in that. I think I've only have two unsolved in my career. And I put them. I worked them to exhaustion. Yeah. Like it's just so I'm at peace with that. But I still get I've been gone over a little over a year now, and there's still some PTSD. Like when I hear a certain phone, a ring type that that was my ring when I was in Homicide at 3 a.m., I'd hear the ring.
01;16;07;03 - 01;16;12;16
Rob Wilson
And if I hear that exact ring, it's just like it takes me back. And I'm not happy about it exactly.
01;16;12;27 - 01;16;31;24
David Lyons
But I will say this I kind of miss it enough to where, like when we're talking about David Callum's family or we've met the Hastie family, which is south, a beautiful that have a an adult son. We covered Michael Gourley that went missing and hasn't been seen. And there's foul play all over that. There's also a part that makes you sure work.
01;16;32;06 - 01;16;32;22
Rob Wilson
You never.
01;16;33;02 - 01;16;33;18
David Lyons
Know gets.
01;16;33;18 - 01;16;34;01
Rob Wilson
Away.
01;16;34;01 - 01;16;50;04
David Lyons
And that that's an inside thing that you're just thinking wired or like if I'm listening to a good podcast myself again, I'm going to pitch because it's really good. The entire time. I'm thinking, Boy, I would probably think about this. Yeah, it would be an avenue. So it's it's fun to think about, but you don't have to go in and do it.
01;16;50;04 - 01;16;51;16
David Lyons
And you're not, but you're I getting paid for it.
01;16;51;18 - 01;17;13;11
Rob Wilson
I think Travis Holt, who's a really good detective, I think he's running cold case now. Right. Very sharp guy. And I'm sure he'll do great at it. But I've seen other departments have former homicide detectives come on as consultants. And if Florence Weathers is out there listening, you know, I'd be certainly happy to come back and review some cases because it is fun being part of it.
01;17;13;20 - 01;17;19;06
Rob Wilson
I just wouldn't be the main one responsible. I'd just give some ideas and maybe some guidance and see where it goes.
01;17;19;06 - 01;17;37;13
David Lyons
Yeah, I won't name any names, but I did get hit up by somebody several months ago and got to love him to death and he's not there anymore. But he had an idea of having a an event where a lot of us going back as far back as we could get together, spent an entire day and just talk about what's on that shelf.
01;17;37;15 - 01;17;43;16
David Lyons
Yeah. And I was like, brilliant. Well, that won't happen. No, Right. It's like but it was a neat, neat concept.
01;17;43;18 - 01;18;07;23
Rob Wilson
Well, when they asked me to take over the Cold Case unit, I had the idea that because I think at the time we had 50 maybe unsolved murders going back to the seventies or eighties, what I wanted to do was take six weeks, not do a damn thing, but read every case file and put them in categories. It's like, okay, these are potentially DNA cases, right?
01;18;07;23 - 01;18;37;27
Rob Wilson
Okay, we'll set these aside and when I get to them, I'll go through all the evidence and send a ton of stuff off to the lab. These are pounding the pavement cases like need to reinterview some people, maybe some new ones that they missed. They go over here and then there's some that no fault of any detective. Sometimes the bad guy, they get the breaks and there's just hardly any solve ability to those and set those aside so you can work on the ones that actually have a chance of getting solve.
01;18;37;27 - 01;18;57;19
Rob Wilson
And first thing you do is you send all those off to the lab and hopefully you get a phone call or two and six months and say, okay, now this, this belongs to so-and-so, you know, and there's the low hanging fruit, as they say. Sure. You know, it's like, give me those any day of the week. I don't need to beat my chest and say how great of an investigator I am saying, Now you give me a DNA hit and I'll go put the cuffs on.
01;18;58;05 - 01;19;07;20
David Lyons
That and look at what it does for the family. Absolutely. At that end, it it yeah. Whether it's low hanging fruit or hanging fruit, I think that the name of the game is a game is to see how many doubles you can get.
01;19;07;20 - 01;19;37;09
Rob Wilson
Yeah. We just I just finished up a couple pled guilty to a cold case murder that happened in 2010. Um, but, yeah, that's when I made contact with the victim's daughter. I knocked on her door and told her who I was, and she was like, Don't get me involved unless you believe you can solve this. Because I'd already come to a certain amount of peace with it, right?
01;19;37;11 - 01;19;56;16
Rob Wilson
I don't want to live through it again if nothing's going to happen. And that's tough because I had it, it was like, I can't promise anything at all. I can promise you this. I'm going to give it my all and I'll keep you in the loop every step of the way. And I was I was fairly confident. I knew who did it.
01;19;56;16 - 01;20;05;16
Rob Wilson
You know, we had some avenues to go to get some some information, and luckily we were able to make it happen. But yeah, she was she was scared that I was opening up the case again, actually.
01;20;05;16 - 01;20;10;18
David Lyons
But everybody metabolisms metabolizes that a different way. And I could see that I could see where that.
01;20;10;18 - 01;20;13;11
Rob Wilson
Yeah, she's like, don't make me go through it again if nothing's going to happen.
01;20;13;12 - 01;20;13;21
David Lyons
Right.
01;20;14;01 - 01;20;25;19
Rob Wilson
So that was a real relief off my shoulders when we finally got the the arrest of the two individuals. And yeah, she was very grateful and, and also frustrated that it took 13 years, you know, Absolutely crazy.
01;20;25;23 - 01;20;38;29
David Lyons
Well, let's go back to this one shirt. It didn't take 13 it thank God for the family on that is where do we go now if a pretty, pretty quick investigation get some things some lab work, You got your autopsy reports and everything. What happens next?
01;20;39;07 - 01;21;02;12
Rob Wilson
Well, we just everybody out there, it's not familiar with the court system. I place a charge of murder Within a week we go to district court and have what's called a felony preliminary hearing, where I will give up, give testimony probably 4 to 5 minutes. The defendant's attorney gets to ask me some questions. And then at that point, the judge in district court decides that there's probable cause for an arrest.
01;21;02;27 - 01;21;22;21
Rob Wilson
And at that point, it's sent up to the circuit court level and goes to grand jury. Now, grand jury has to be done within 60 days of the arrest. So soon as we get the probable hearing over with, I make contact with the Commonwealth Attorney's office, find out who my prosecutor is. We'll go over the case and then set a date for the grand jury.
01;21;22;21 - 01;21;44;28
Rob Wilson
And the grand jury is just a it's 12 individuals and the prosecutor is in there. And then they call the witness, which will be me in this case. And I basically just tell a story. There's no defense attorney there to cross-examine me. It's just to present the information to the grand jury. And their job is to decide if there is enough evidence there for a trial jury to hear the case.
01;21;44;28 - 01;22;06;15
Rob Wilson
And it takes 9 to 12 of those jurors to get it passed over to trial. So once that 60 days is over and you get the indictment, it could be anywhere from a year to three years to four years before this case hits a trial. And I believe this one was fairly quick. So we went to trial probably within 18 months.
01;22;06;29 - 01;22;07;07
David Lyons
Of the.
01;22;07;07 - 01;22;07;20
Rob Wilson
Murder.
01;22;07;20 - 01;22;08;27
David Lyons
Yes. So yeah.
01;22;09;19 - 01;22;11;06
Rob Wilson
So and then then we had a trial.
01;22;11;19 - 01;22;14;14
David Lyons
Yeah. And tell us about that experience.
01;22;14;14 - 01;22;48;22
Rob Wilson
Well, like I said, Don, I had gone with the self-defense claim. And again, just the for me, the inconsistencies in the scene, he said that he fought with this £220 man who honestly outweighed him by £85. And if you've ever fought anybody, you know what the difference of 85 is and that he only had a couple of nicks on his hands and he wrestled and got the knife back, he's going to have some of I'm not saying he can't do it, but he's going to have some severe injuries in obtaining that knife back from that six foot two, £220 man.
01;22;49;10 - 01;23;12;16
Rob Wilson
Um, but this is one of those. And Dave and I have talks like I have a great respect for the criminal justice system and the jurors that have to sit through they got this one wrong. They believed his story that he was the victim, that the true victim was mean and abusive and attacked him and he was only acting in self-defense.
01;23;12;16 - 01;23;34;12
Rob Wilson
And, you know, the argument like, okay, you're acting in self-defense, maybe five stab wounds and then run out the back door, you know, stabbing him over 100 times, dragging him into bed writing in blood, Send us to heaven. You know, just they just bought his act and, you know, so this is the only time one or two times I'd say just the jury got it wrong.
01;23;34;21 - 01;23;36;23
Rob Wilson
They saw he was convicted of manslaughter.
01;23;36;29 - 01;23;45;28
David Lyons
That happens. I always said that there's two times of the year that you don't want to go to a jury trial and that's a couple of weeks for Thanksgiving and a couple of weeks for Christmas. Am I right or wrong?
01;23;45;29 - 01;23;46;25
Rob Wilson
You're absolutely.
01;23;46;25 - 01;24;08;12
David Lyons
Right. You're right. And a super compassion. I remember I had an assault first where a young man had been beat severely, His head pounded on the concrete and he his neurological deficit was incredible. He couldn't even testify. He he lived in a different state. And I doubt I'll never forget that they came back with a misdemeanor version of the world and in to listen to everything.
01;24;08;12 - 01;24;13;06
David Lyons
In the end, it was like you to have the mental agility of a small soap dish to go there.
01;24;13;06 - 01;24;27;26
Rob Wilson
Yeah. I mean, so yeah, that example, they knew that he was guilty of attacking this man or assaulting him, but it wasn't severe enough to make it a felony. You know, if he did it, he did it. And then the injuries are what they are that almost takes it out of your hands.
01;24;27;28 - 01;24;28;15
David Lyons
He was if you.
01;24;28;15 - 01;24;31;03
Rob Wilson
Believed he did it, then he's guilty of a felony assault.
01;24;31;03 - 01;24;49;21
David Lyons
He had this kid had lost vision in one eye and everything. It was horrible. So, yeah, I respect the system, too. Absolutely. But I'll tell you, I told you before and I'll just give a recommendation if anybody wants a good book on this. It's called Guilty in the Collapse of Criminal Justice by Judge Harold Roth. Whacks. Go get the book and read it.
01;24;49;21 - 01;25;20;06
David Lyons
And he told you before, too, that he was a defense attorney? I think in New York. He was a chapter president for the president for the ACLU for years. And he got on the bench and had a 180 degree turn because he got to he got splashed with all that reality. And for example, he doesn't believe in unanimous jury verdicts, criminal trials anymore because he's in a holdout juror in judge, We're all SWAC said this and he cites Kentucky cases where he says they the holdout juror never decides on the case facts in the case.
01;25;20;17 - 01;25;29;09
David Lyons
He cites a Kentucky case where when they polled the jury, the one woman that wouldn't go with it on a robber said he just looked too handsome to be a robbery suspect.
01;25;29;24 - 01;25;31;25
Rob Wilson
And they're amazing.
01;25;32;02 - 01;25;54;19
David Lyons
They're so guilty. The collapse of criminal justice. He's deceased. I wish I got to I think where the I spoke to him one time. Oh, yeah, but pretty impressive guy. But a we have a fantastic system. And I know right now people are talking about reforming the criminal justice system and in different ways. But boy, there's a lot of victims are left without justice, too.
01;25;54;25 - 01;25;59;12
Rob Wilson
Yeah, and I know it's set up to it's best to let ten guilty men go for his.
01;25;59;12 - 01;25;59;22
David Lyons
First.
01;25;59;22 - 01;26;03;01
Rob Wilson
One. And I do believe that I could change that.
01;26;03;01 - 01;26;03;21
David Lyons
I'd go with that.
01;26;03;21 - 01;26;25;10
Rob Wilson
Yeah, but it's especially in today's climate, getting 12 people to agree on any topic. All right. Is darn near impossible. Yeah. You know, and then you throw in situations where, again, you're appealing to people's compassion and stuff like that. They don't want to be responsible for sending someone away for 40 years.
01;26;25;12 - 01;26;29;11
David Lyons
It's tough, especially in a death penalty case. Yeah. To meet a juror after that and what they thought.
01;26;29;11 - 01;26;55;28
Wendy Lyons
But I think what's frustrating about that is that it is hard to send them away. However, I just wish they put their feet in the victim's family shoes. That's what that does to the victim's family, who knows? It's just a misdemeanor. No, it's just a manslaughter when it's clearly was a murder. And in that case, overkill for for Todd.
01;26;55;28 - 01;27;19;18
Wendy Lyons
And it's frustrating. And I always say, you know, when they when they say and of course, it's, you know, people's opinion on death penalty or how they choose the jury to go or their decisions. But I just think if people would think if that were their family or their loved one, would you be okay with that small of a sentence?
01;27;19;24 - 01;27;35;21
David Lyons
Well, and it comes back to to the same people that we have an immense amount of respect for the defense attorney. Sure. And that is what they get paid the big bucks for. Sometimes. No bucks at all. Yeah. And the ones we agree that we go out and have a drink with in a minute. And I love them to death.
01;27;35;21 - 01;27;37;12
David Lyons
That's how the system works. Yeah.
01;27;37;12 - 01;27;46;16
Rob Wilson
And it's when I was young and naive, I was like, how the defense attorneys convince 12 people that this person's innocent. And you really don't need to do that.
01;27;46;17 - 01;27;47;04
David Lyons
No, you don't.
01;27;47;04 - 01;28;04;04
Rob Wilson
You just have to get one person to believe you. And it's a hung jury. And then there's going to be a plea or, you know, you try it again and hope a better jury pool. But yeah, now they just have to convince one person on there there's reasonable doubt. And I think that reasonable doubt gets abused a lot.
01;28;04;04 - 01;28;07;19
David Lyons
Well, it's it's like everything else that it's a. Yes.
01;28;07;28 - 01;28;10;19
Rob Wilson
Reasonable doubt isn't. Anything's possible.
01;28;10;21 - 01;28;11;04
David Lyons
That's it.
01;28;11;04 - 01;28;13;04
Rob Wilson
You know, aliens could have come down to. Can you disprove.
01;28;13;04 - 01;28;13;13
David Lyons
That?
01;28;13;23 - 01;28;19;25
Rob Wilson
That's true. So if people take that beyond a reasonable doubt way to literally, I believe.
01;28;20;00 - 01;28;21;18
David Lyons
Do you remember what the jury came back with on.
01;28;22;09 - 01;28;23;23
Rob Wilson
I think the ten years on Main.
01;28;23;23 - 01;28;25;27
David Lyons
One, which that's nothing in Kentucky.
01;28;25;28 - 01;28;30;05
Rob Wilson
Yeah, I believe he's out or he's not he's in a in a hospital somewhere.
01;28;30;06 - 01;28;33;26
David Lyons
Yeah great. Yeah. They just don't stay in very long Now.
01;28;33;26 - 01;28;38;27
Wendy Lyons
Did you have contact with Todd's family or his sister who found him after that?
01;28;39;02 - 01;29;03;19
Rob Wilson
Yeah, we stayed in contact with him. But we have a great program with at the police department now. But also it started with the Commonwealth Attorney's office because the victims advocate and they are responsible with keeping the victim's family in the loop about court dates. Um, so we're kind of freed up to do investigative work, but we certainly make sure that the victims families are taken care of and informed.
01;29;03;19 - 01;29;08;23
Rob Wilson
We update them with progress on the case and such. So yeah, they're we stay in touch with them.
01;29;11;03 - 01;29;16;07
David Lyons
In the aftermath. Thinking back on on this case, is there anything that you would have done differently or.
01;29;17;06 - 01;29;23;12
Rob Wilson
I don't think we could have. It was a pretty straightforward I a simple case of murder.
01;29;23;12 - 01;29;24;26
David Lyons
And you remember who you worked with on it.
01;29;25;17 - 01;29;26;10
Rob Wilson
B.J. Carter.
01;29;26;16 - 01;29;27;11
David Lyons
Okay. Good news.
01;29;27;11 - 01;29;46;25
Rob Wilson
Yep, absolutely. Rebels was out there. The patrol officers did a really good job. I believe Officer Taylor was out there. They did really good preliminary interviews and did excellent right up to where I could refresh my memory, going back on the case file about what he told them as opposed to what he told me. So, yeah, just yeah, good work all around.
01;29;46;25 - 01;29;50;01
Rob Wilson
And it's it's not odd for the Lexington Police Department to do good.
01;29;50;01 - 01;30;01;27
David Lyons
I know people would think we're in a war and everything, but I've never in the entire time, I never had a bad experience. I had never like I hear her. I travel a lot. I hear horror stories, and I'm like, What? You know? Yeah, it's got great people.
01;30;02;02 - 01;30;32;07
Rob Wilson
I had a commander will say, Commander Matt Brotherton again, we're talking just the other day about our travels where our cases led us Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Tampa, Washington, Baltimore, New York. When we're starting out, it's like we're pretty good agency. But when you get to visit these other agencies, you realize how good Lexington has it. I know we are one of the best police departments in the country, and I say that with complete confidence.
01;30;32;07 - 01;30;41;04
David Lyons
Yeah, I remember back in the day I went in, I won't say where. I mean, Schoon went to another agency and we had the start of the murder book, and I looked over and said, What's that? Yeah, okay.
01;30;41;10 - 01;30;46;00
Rob Wilson
Some of it's like terrifying site, but you run a murder investigation.
01;30;46;00 - 01;31;08;12
David Lyons
But, you know, in their defense it's because there's and we can just hit this little little spot with it is that it so much and law enforcement is is learning at the coattails of somebody and yes so I give a wide breadth. I'm not being critical of it. But yet the reality of it is, is that if there's one thing in law enforcement that just universally needs is training, training, training, training.
01;31;08;12 - 01;31;31;18
David Lyons
And it's incredible, especially when people talk about impacting budgets and police departments, which is kind of the thing last few years. It's like, okay, I mean, the first thing that goes when the money gets tight in a police department is training. Yeah, it's it's a la carte. It's you get the minimum you need and everything. But when the budget gets tight, the very thing we need to probably be better and more confident is the first thing you go, Yeah.
01;31;31;18 - 01;31;39;05
Rob Wilson
And then after that overtime gets tossed and you try to work in a murder on hours a week, it just doesn't get done.
01;31;39;12 - 01;31;46;03
David Lyons
Oh, he's just a if anybody. Another book was a David Salman homicide. He was just.
01;31;46;04 - 01;31;48;03
Rob Wilson
Homicidal. You're on the killing streets.
01;31;48;10 - 01;31;48;16
David Lyons
Like.
01;31;48;16 - 01;31;49;00
Rob Wilson
Grateful.
01;31;49;00 - 01;32;07;09
David Lyons
Good. Yeah. The ten rules of homicide. And one of them is that a an open murder case is a monetary. Monetary. But I remember back in the day in a unit that a major or I think Fran wrote in come in one day and say, okay, guys and girls, we've got to cut the overtime back. And it's like you're just whistled for the Grim Reaper.
01;32;07;09 - 01;32;19;25
David Lyons
Yeah, it was like as soon as I'd say that and I'm. I'm making light of it. It was, yeah. If you want to bring tragedy into your community, just talk about that. Because it was like it rained night that night. So. Yeah, but this stuff cost money.
01;32;19;28 - 01;32;38;01
Rob Wilson
Yeah, but you're right about the just riding on the coattails of the ones that came before you. I mean, think about how far back that goes. Use mentioned Fran root. Mm. There's Fran root, then there's Danny Gibbons, then there's you guys and James Curtis and Paul Williams, Chris going over there and I come along. So that's you getting close to 40 years of just good quality.
01;32;38;08 - 01;33;00;24
David Lyons
And one thing we're working on a little bit is I want to go back even further to Barney Kimmelman. Oh yeah. And keep going back that the people that Barney and and their names are zipping right out of my head. And I love dropping names on here because they're fantastic people. But Barney and them really go back another generation and the holy cow, they can talk about that murder or that family guy.
01;33;00;24 - 01;33;05;26
David Lyons
Yeah, that preacher's family. That's a long time ago. Yeah, well, dangle one for now.
01;33;05;26 - 01;33;08;04
Rob Wilson
Oh, is that the one out Russell Cave Growing cell?
01;33;08;04 - 01;33;08;12
David Lyons
Yeah.
01;33;09;05 - 01;33;10;24
Rob Wilson
That's probably one of the worst ones I've heard of.
01;33;10;25 - 01;33;19;04
David Lyons
Yeah. Oh, just brutal. Awful. But we're going to leave it alone because somebody in this business that we respect a lot, I think has taken a peek at that. And we'll leave it at that.
01;33;19;06 - 01;33;21;16
Rob Wilson
Good. Yeah, I'll be I'll be listening in on it.
01;33;21;16 - 01;33;23;17
David Lyons
Yeah. And I'll tell you, I just don't want a hat tip.
01;33;23;22 - 01;33;24;13
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
01;33;24;13 - 01;33;41;29
David Lyons
And put pressure. But they will knock it out of the park when they do it. Great. And they know who I'm talking about. Probably. So they do. I'll tell you after we're done here. So he goes probably out. We didn't look probably out. I mean, the reality of it is, is that it doesn't take long. It doesn't take long, especially in those things.
01;33;42;20 - 01;34;00;27
David Lyons
What if if somebody was going to be interested in getting into the murder cop business, what's a few things that you would suggest them? Let's say, like they're a patrol officer and they're out earning their bones in Lexington. As a matter of fact, you can't go to a specialized assignment by contract until three years, which makes all the sense in the.
01;34;00;27 - 01;34;02;23
Rob Wilson
World, actually. Absolutely does.
01;34;02;23 - 01;34;04;14
David Lyons
What would what would tell somebody?
01;34;05;11 - 01;34;29;19
Rob Wilson
Well, first off, those people that are in college thinking about entering into a career in law enforcement, you don't necessarily need to major in criminology or police administration. The election police department will teach you what they think you need to know. We've told people to get a degree in English. Learn how to articulate your thoughts in paper and testimony.
01;34;29;20 - 01;34;29;28
Rob Wilson
Here we.
01;34;29;28 - 01;34;30;05
David Lyons
Go.
01;34;30;23 - 01;34;59;16
Rob Wilson
But once you're on the department, which again when I decided I wanted to be a police officer, I want to be a homicide detective right off the get go. And I was really bummed that I knew I was going to have to do three years of patrol looking back, I wouldn't trade those three years for anything. I learned so much, but four new patrol officers out there that are wanting to get into homicide investigation, go up there and introduce yourself, tell them that this is what you want to do.
01;34;59;28 - 01;35;11;08
Rob Wilson
Ask if they could hang out. And it's like I starts Friday. Do you mind if I come up? Shadow You guys, we just never had that happen. No, I mean, I did.
01;35;12;11 - 01;35;15;21
David Lyons
It was very rare. It really was. It was very rare.
01;35;15;24 - 01;35;26;28
Rob Wilson
But I mean, if I'm a veteran detective in some 26 year old kid on patrols, spending time on his day off to watch me and ask me questions, he's already got the battle have won.
01;35;27;03 - 01;35;27;19
David Lyons
There we go.
01;35;27;26 - 01;35;48;15
Rob Wilson
You know, just that initiative and that drive and making it known that that's what you want to do. And then make sure I don't care if it's a stolen lawnmower report that you're taking. Make it a good one, because we read all these reports and we may not recognize if it's great or really good, but we will recognize if it's crappy.
01;35;49;12 - 01;36;08;10
David Lyons
We are told that day one, Right. And I even was told that on really crappy reports that they would hang them up and investigations. And I remember thinking, nobody does that. And then I got up there. Yeah, it was like it was like a mural. Yeah. And it's like the wall of shame kind of. Yeah. So that that's a driver.
01;36;09;11 - 01;36;31;05
David Lyons
Before we close to one more thing, too, because you did coach cases and this is a sad passion of mine. I'm pretty interested in. What would you tell a citizen detective, a lay detective, an Internet sleuth? Because I personally believe there's space for them in this whole game. It's just frustrating as the fan in that because the time and I've seen some beautiful work done.
01;36;31;21 - 01;36;41;05
David Lyons
What would you tell somebody who was was doing late investigations like that on the side? What advice would you have them for improving a relationship with a detective work in a case.
01;36;41;21 - 01;36;45;27
Rob Wilson
That's touchy because, as you know, a lot of detectives are very territorial.
01;36;45;28 - 01;36;46;13
David Lyons
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
01;36;46;14 - 01;37;02;20
Rob Wilson
I don't want anybody looking over my shoulder second guessing what I've done. But you have to make contact with that primary detective if you're like, Well, call them grass roots detectives and citizen detectives make contact and just like, Hey, I'm really interested in this. I found some stuff I'm going to if you'd like, I'll forward it to you.
01;37;02;23 - 01;37;34;18
Rob Wilson
And if I can be of any further assistance, please let me know. And there's starting to be specialty fields like genealogy. Sure. I mean that's I worked with one or two of those, and that's a lot of work that they put in that I don't know how to do, nor do I have the time. So if they're in that type of field, please reach out to your local police department, your homicide unit, and let them know that you're you know, your skills are available and more than likely free of charge because the department's not going to offer up, you know, pay money to basically private investigators.
01;37;35;02 - 01;37;45;01
Rob Wilson
The department has its own investigators and expects them to do the job. But there's a certain skill set that citizens in certain fields can have that I don't possess.
01;37;45;05 - 01;37;45;25
David Lyons
In time.
01;37;45;25 - 01;37;46;11
Rob Wilson
And time.
01;37;46;14 - 01;37;51;27
David Lyons
I think the biggest thing is time. It's a made up that their imagination and time can do wonderful thing.
01;37;51;27 - 01;38;12;21
Rob Wilson
And I say make contact with the primary investigator. One thing out of courtesy but to spend some time talking to him so he doesn't think you're a nut job because there are those out there that give other citizen investigators a bad name and you have to weed through those. If my phone rings, I'm going to pick it up and listen to somebody.
01;38;12;21 - 01;38;33;21
Rob Wilson
I always will because I'll take any information anybody wants to give me if it turns to be not useful, then I wasted a little bit of time. But you got to turn over every stone and just, you know, present yourself in a professional manner and let them know that you're there to. Assist because, I mean, good detectives will take whatever help that you can provide.
01;38;34;10 - 01;38;36;11
David Lyons
100%. When do you got anything?
01;38;36;11 - 01;38;57;23
Wendy Lyons
Because we just I was just going to say it's no different than someone who has a tip on a cold case or an active, active case. You know, we always say it may be that one little piece of information. And we said that on David comes someone knows something and it may only be something so minor, but yeah, that one little piece may break it wide open.
01;38;57;25 - 01;39;13;03
David Lyons
Yeah. You know, sometimes it's a phone call after the event that you can't connect and it can be so simple. Hold this bag. Do me a favor and go to my house and get this. Or can I borrow your car? How many times have we seen that with a borrowed car? And. Yes, can I park my car here?
01;39;13;03 - 01;39;22;18
David Lyons
We went with that. With the one with Billy. And Paul is a gay. Cannot store this car here. Well, it's go for a salvage tile. Little things like that just just can make a big difference.
01;39;22;18 - 01;39;30;10
Rob Wilson
Yeah. And people out there don't know. It's like I heard this, but it's probably nothing. Please take the time and call because you do not know.
01;39;30;19 - 01;39;32;04
David Lyons
Assuming somebody else has done it.
01;39;32;04 - 01;39;50;02
Rob Wilson
That's a big thing in cold cases. Yeah. And it's no fault of women. I've done it myself. I like. I'll read through some like. Huh. Why wasn't this person interviewed in I'll go back and interview the persons like now some came to me about nine years ago and talked to me, but they didn't document it because it wound up being nothing.
01;39;50;17 - 01;39;55;01
Rob Wilson
But you still have to document because it's a box that needs to be checked.
01;39;55;01 - 01;40;00;21
Wendy Lyons
I always say in my line of work, it's not written down. It didn't happen through with anything.
01;40;00;23 - 01;40;01;11
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
01;40;01;11 - 01;40;03;21
Wendy Lyons
You know, is so important to to document those.
01;40;03;21 - 01;40;12;06
David Lyons
Yeah. Get on the stand with one of these really good defense attorneys in town, the ones that have got a couple that are interested in coming and doing the show really Which would be neat.
01;40;12;07 - 01;40;18;22
Rob Wilson
That'd be a that'd be a fun one. Do a roundtable. Yeah. With a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a detective, you know? Yeah.
01;40;18;23 - 01;40;20;13
David Lyons
We'll just get a ring. Yeah.
01;40;20;17 - 01;40;22;10
Wendy Lyons
Let them all go at it, because they will.
01;40;22;10 - 01;40;36;29
David Lyons
They can hit the bar outside, and we can load everything up, and it'll be. And thank God we'll have video of it. Yeah. But the reality of it is, is that I'd like to get them to come on and talk about just like you talked about your job is to defend somebody. And let's for argument's purposes, you know they did it.
01;40;37;05 - 01;40;45;18
David Lyons
Yeah and because a lot of people are like, how can you how can you do that? Well, somebody has to. Yeah, right. I mean, it's how this it separates us from the rest of the world.
01;40;45;18 - 01;41;00;23
Rob Wilson
And a lot of people don't get that. They think the defense attorney's job is to get a guilty person off, you know, their job to make sure that their client receives a fair trial. And here it's it all. And you have to have that. I'm in complete support of that.
01;41;00;24 - 01;41;01;00
David Lyons
Yeah.
01;41;01;02 - 01;41;05;14
Rob Wilson
So that's not their job is to get guilty People off. They just have to defend their client.
01;41;05;20 - 01;41;18;00
David Lyons
That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what it's all about. Well, good to you. Thought that was fantastic. I think we got too many prayers to Todd's family absent, especially with the extra anguish of dealing with with the discovery and everything.
01;41;18;00 - 01;41;31;27
Wendy Lyons
Just as well in the sister walking in on that horrible had the misfortune of walking walking in and jeez and that as I said on that podcast I did on her. And that's something that I'm sure his sister sees every time she closes her eyes.
01;41;31;27 - 01;41;56;16
Rob Wilson
I couldn't imagine a loved one in your state. And we had issues. I'm sure you dealt with this. Suicides were big like they are like, I want to I want to see the pictures. I'm like, No, you don't. You don't want to. Because they were so adamant. A lot of times I'll be like, I understand. And certainly can't stop you from looking at these, but give me four months.
01;41;57;04 - 01;42;13;27
Rob Wilson
Let all this go by and if you want in four months, come back and you're still adamant about Want to see it? I'll show you. But please take that time. And about 75% would be like, Thank you so much. It was just I don't know why. Wanted to see my son in that condition, but I think.
01;42;13;27 - 01;42;14;01
David Lyons
It's.
01;42;14;11 - 01;42;23;08
Wendy Lyons
I think it's that accepting it that you got to wrap your mind around it. And I think it's just seeing, you know, it really. But did it really happen?
01;42;23;12 - 01;42;34;17
Rob Wilson
Yeah, It's just like I'd just like, please remember your loved one the last time you saw them. Not not this end of the 25 that percent that did want to see the pictures regretted it immediately.
01;42;35;02 - 01;42;50;19
David Lyons
It's just awful. And just real quick and anecdotal story. When I first started on patrol years ago, you know, we we found dead people. Yeah, but that's part of policing is these are some I hadn't answered the door got the mail and you know so you hike in through a window and everything but I'm I'm not going to go into too much detail because it's personal.
01;42;50;19 - 01;43;11;11
David Lyons
So my but I remember one day discovering two decedents, one of them very young. And I just I'll never forget the idea that before the other family member up the hallway as successfully got that door closed and got him outside and it was like there it did. That was a blessing because what was inside that was awful. Yeah.
01;43;11;12 - 01;43;22;16
David Lyons
And in just fractions of a second making a difference. It was bad enough that you and me have to wear it, right? Yeah. And, but I remember thinking. Oh, my God. How it can be worse.
01;43;22;16 - 01;43;26;00
Rob Wilson
Oh, yeah, it's. Yeah. I'm glad you were able to spare those.
01;43;26;00 - 01;43;26;29
David Lyons
People it just.
01;43;27;02 - 01;43;30;17
Rob Wilson
Because you can't ever get it out of your head once you see it there forever.
01;43;30;17 - 01;43;33;24
David Lyons
Exactly. Exactly. Well, fantastic. Fantastic.
01;43;33;28 - 01;43;37;09
Wendy Lyons
Thank you, Rob, for coming again. You always have the best stories to share with me.
01;43;37;10 - 01;43;39;05
Rob Wilson
Any time. I love hanging out, talking with you.
01;43;39;05 - 01;43;51;19
David Lyons
Especially with the cold case thing that that that had such a flavor to it. So we do have a lot more. We're going to talk about for sure that we want to get on board with you and line up and we'll definitely hit it up. So thanks again for coming.
01;43;51;20 - 01;43;52;18
Rob Wilson
Thanks for having me, guys.
01;43;52;28 - 01;43;53;10
David Lyons
Thank you.
01;43;54;15 - 01;44;28;13
Rob Wilson
Like I say, he he was there alone with after the victim was deceased for several hours. I mean, we're talking a long time. Just laid him in bed with him. And we also found written in blood. Please send to heaven. Todd and Matt, like I say, he he was there alone with after the victim was deceased for several hours.
01;44;28;24 - 01;44;38;11
Rob Wilson
I mean, we're talking a long time. Just laid him in bed with him. And we also found in blood. Please send to heaven. Todd and Matt.
01;44;40;12 - 01;44;55;04
Wendy Lyons
Morning. The podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions, violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police podcast, The murder of Todd Shumaker Part two.
01;44;58;23 - 01;45;17;07
David Lyons
And, well, first of all, any idea how long they'd been? A couple?
01;45;18;01 - 01;45;22;06
Rob Wilson
About half a year, according to relatives and Mr. Donohoe himself.
01;45;22;08 - 01;45;26;19
David Lyons
In a legal history of. Domestic violence. Now, I was always curious about there was.
01;45;26;19 - 01;45;45;00
Rob Wilson
An interesting issue about this case. The couple shared a dog. It was primarily Mr. Schumacher's name, Munro. And there was an argument this was a couple of weeks before the murder. Mr. Donohoe had gotten angry at Mr. Schumacher taking his dog and put it in the oven and turned the oven on.
01;45;46;03 - 01;45;47;00
Wendy Lyons
Oh, wow.
01;45;47;01 - 01;45;47;11
Rob Wilson
Yeah.
01;45;48;27 - 01;45;49;29
Wendy Lyons
So he killed the dog.
01;45;50;04 - 01;45;52;24
Rob Wilson
Now they got the dog out in time.
01;45;54;26 - 01;46;04;20
Rob Wilson
Then the animal control got involved and oddly enough, worked with us on the homicide. I'd never work with animal control in estimation. They know their stuff.
01;46;04;26 - 01;46;10;28
Wendy Lyons
So did Matthew stab the dog in the same time as he was stabbing Todd was? Or was the dog We.
01;46;10;28 - 01;46;13;02
Rob Wilson
We never found Munro.
01;46;13;02 - 01;46;13;23
Wendy Lyons
Oh, wow.
01;46;13;28 - 01;46;16;24
David Lyons
So you remember who you work with with animal control?
01;46;16;29 - 01;46;37;07
Rob Wilson
No, she was fairly new and was super impressed because we had a suppression hearing in this case, like we always do. I forget what evidence they tried to suppress, but she showed up at the suppression hearing, and I was. Hey, what are you doing? It's like, I know. I just want to learn because I may have to go through one of these one time.
01;46;37;07 - 01;46;48;17
Rob Wilson
And it's rare that people will take time out of their current job and assignment to go watch something else in hopes of learning something to maybe advance their career. So it was a very I was very impressed with her.
01;46;49;03 - 01;47;10;00
David Lyons
I'm trying to think of how to pronounce her first name and feel awful about this because she's probably listening GI or J and yes, yeah, yeah. And I feel awful about that because I've actually been in communication with her on the case. Oh, really? And where am I do is I think she's agreed to do it is to come in and do an epilog on it on, on animal abuse and how that translates.
01;47;10;00 - 01;47;10;25
Rob Wilson
Absolutely.
01;47;10;25 - 01;47;22;01
David Lyons
Because she is really sharp I gather a little bit when there were some conversations when I was on the command staff about warrant service and things like that, and we were trying to coordinate. And you know, in Iraq, she's she's a detective.
01;47;22;01 - 01;47;44;21
Rob Wilson
Yeah, she I remember she, I think, gave me a call on down the road after that, just asking for advice and very impressed with her because, heck, at the time, we we try to get young detectives to come watch testimony, you know, like, I'm busy. I can't make it for her and certainly not obligated in any way. It was just her own self-motivation to learn things and become better at her job.
01;47;44;22 - 01;47;46;07
David Lyons
Yeah, hopefully we get her on here.
01;47;46;17 - 01;47;47;01
Wendy Lyons
Yeah, that.
01;47;47;14 - 01;48;01;05
David Lyons
Would be a great epilog to this to kind of fold into that because there are relationships between people who do very evil things to animals and and what they might do to people. So and I think she'd be the ideal person from animal control to come and speak of that.
01;48;01;05 - 01;48;05;22
Wendy Lyons
So yeah. So Monroe was never found, did you did you ever ask Matthew about Monroe?
01;48;05;24 - 01;48;30;17
Rob Wilson
Yeah. He, he made a comment about the dog. Must have gotten out at some point. But like I say, he, he was there alone with after the victim was deceased for several hours. I mean, we're talking a long time. Just laid him in bed with him. And we also found written in blood. Please send to heaven Todd and Matt.
01;48;31;03 - 01;48;32;02
David Lyons
Oh, Lord. Where was that?
01;48;32;02 - 01;48;33;26
Rob Wilson
Written it on the bedroom wall.
01;48;35;13 - 01;48;36;04
Wendy Lyons
Wow.
01;48;36;09 - 01;49;07;23
Rob Wilson
Yeah. So Mr. Donoghue has had some real issues. Um, as Dave and I were talking before the, the podcast started, that he had a juvenile record that was sealed that I couldn't get into. Um, and when they're sealed like that at such a young age, typically it's something really bad. And I wound up, of course, this made the news as most homicides in Lexington do.
01;49;07;23 - 01;49;24;25
Rob Wilson
I ran into a schoolteacher that asked if I was the one handling that case. And I said, yes, I was. I was like, Well, how do you what's your interest? She's like, Well, I was a teacher of Matthew Dunn High, and she's like, Yeah, I had to give statements about something that he did that I'm still not allowed to talk about.
01;49;25;13 - 01;49;32;03
Rob Wilson
And she said that a young child or student, this is elementary school, she was scared of him.
01;49;32;25 - 01;49;33;09
Wendy Lyons
Wow.
01;49;33;09 - 01;49;36;17
Rob Wilson
So he had some severe mental issues.
01;49;36;17 - 01;49;51;03
David Lyons
He's he had mental issues. But to keep it straight a little bit, yeah. They he was evaluated because we'll get to this in a minute. But I just want to make sure we're clear on the idea that that was sorted out in court before he actually stood trial.
01;49;51;03 - 01;50;22;14
Rob Wilson
Obviously. Yeah. As Sister and Dave, we dealt with people with mental issues and you can be a full blown, paranoid schizophrenic. Those are pretty easy to spot. But it's the sociopaths, the borderline personality disorders that you start to pick up on if you dealt with them enough and I'm just an immature guess I'd say yes borderline personality disorder very manipulative very intelligent and he played the victim role very, very well.
01;50;23;21 - 01;50;42;25
Rob Wilson
And luckily we had the evidence at the scene because again, like you can do this for 50 years and get a read on somebody and be wrong. That's why we need evidence to convict people. You know, I don't ever want to go on my gut and I don't like not believing individuals I'm interviewing because I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.
01;50;43;03 - 01;50;59;07
Rob Wilson
But it's so nice to have that evidence tucked away from the scene that, you know, that you can, you know, poke holes in their story with. But now he was very convincing. He played the victim world very, very well. But I just knew he was lying.
01;50;59;07 - 01;51;07;27
Wendy Lyons
Wow. So you get your confession from him and I'd say admission. Yeah, admission. And then and well.
01;51;07;27 - 01;51;11;27
David Lyons
In the interim, too, after that, you talk about the autopsy. Did you attend the autopsy?
01;51;11;28 - 01;51;28;28
Rob Wilson
I did not. We were still doing stuff with the investigation. That's typically the next day. So service detectives go up and that's when they told me the count was over 100. So I was floored at that. And he had them all over his body from the top of his head to his feet.
01;51;29;07 - 01;51;39;22
David Lyons
Did they have any information in this goes back? A So if you don't remember, that's okay. Do they have any information about death or did the knife help make contact? You know what I'm talking about. Is it. Yeah. No. Serrated.
01;51;40;05 - 01;51;53;16
Rob Wilson
Yeah, it was. We believe the murder weapon was just a regular kitchen steak knife. Probably like five inches long. And several of the the stab wounds, especially to the abdomen, were very, very deep.
01;51;53;22 - 01;51;56;24
David Lyons
Was the murder weapon at the scene? It was okay, cool.
01;51;57;06 - 01;52;07;18
Wendy Lyons
And also, you know, I was wondering with that many, you know, how long did Todd endure this before he passed you?
01;52;08;13 - 01;52;11;08
Rob Wilson
There's no way of knowing because hopefully the first one was you.
01;52;11;08 - 01;52;11;18
Wendy Lyons
Would have.
01;52;11;19 - 01;52;17;10
Rob Wilson
Got an artery and he bled out quickly, because if not, that's that's a horrible, horrible.
01;52;17;10 - 01;52;21;08
Wendy Lyons
Torturous way to to it's something to endure that's awful.
01;52;21;08 - 01;52;39;18
Rob Wilson
Well, and again, I do believe just because of the size difference between the two, he attacked him while he was laying on the couch or sleeping. So that's where he got in, probably several devastating wounds. And then the rest was all just rage it.
01;52;39;20 - 01;52;47;18
David Lyons
Coming back to the interview, did he ever move off that last point of self-defense and a couple hits? Did he ever handle anything? No.
01;52;48;25 - 01;53;10;20
Rob Wilson
It wound up when we were starting to confront him about the multiple stab wounds, like where did this happen and why why was the back of his calf stabbed? Um, he again, like, I'm just so exhausted. I probably do need an attorney at this point. So he lawyered up for the second time. And at that point, yeah, he didn't want to talk anymore.
01;53;10;20 - 01;53;18;05
Rob Wilson
So we respected his constitutional rights and shut the interview down, filled out the paperwork for murder, and sent him down to the Fair County Detention center.
01;53;18;08 - 01;53;22;05
David Lyons
Yeah. Before you sent him, did you all, like scissors, clothing or anything? Is that a practice?
01;53;22;07 - 01;53;45;13
Rob Wilson
Yeah, we did that. And during the interview, you can hear he's complaining because we have bags over his hands that are taped, so he can't wash off any blood or anything like that. So we took precautions with that. Once he got to the hospital, his hands were were bagged by FSU and. Yeah, we certainly we had a jumpsuit for him, got him in a jumpsuit and took all his clothes for forensic examination.
01;53;45;29 - 01;53;46;12
David Lyons
Gotcha.
01;53;46;22 - 01;53;50;13
Wendy Lyons
Did he ever say why he dragged tired all the way back to the bedroom?
01;53;50;28 - 01;54;23;10
Rob Wilson
Uh, he loved him. Just wanted to be with him. So is a moment where he just snapped for whatever reason, and we'll never know. But then reality sets in after that. His five minute version of a struggle, and he probably realized that I can't lie my way out of this. So he went back there, lied with him, and probably did some thinking about how can I concoct a story around this in the best he could come up with, you know, to unknown intruders.
01;54;23;10 - 01;54;29;12
Rob Wilson
There is no way he could clean that house, get rid of the body and say, Nah, Todd, he just left to go get. And I never saw him again.
01;54;29;12 - 01;54;40;12
David Lyons
Yeah, because the couch cushion flip was kind of a modest attempt, as it is. Kind of. Yeah, right. It'd be probably that, too. Is that the idea of lying with him for that long term?
01;54;40;21 - 01;54;51;12
Wendy Lyons
Well, I'm just thinking the schematics of it with the size difference. How did he drag him that far and get him up in the bed? Yeah, that's six seven inches difference in height. Mm hmm.
01;54;51;17 - 01;55;11;21
Rob Wilson
Well, dragging him wouldn't have been too hard, but getting him on the bed probably would have been a struggle because. Horrible to say, but dead weight is difficult to to move around. But, yeah, it's in. That's where I think he probably did a halfhearted attempt. Take his own life, too. He saw there was he's probably there's no way he's getting out of this.
01;55;12;14 - 01;55;18;06
Rob Wilson
But then I think he was surprised by the family showing up and had to go with that that story, that.
01;55;18;06 - 01;55;19;28
Wendy Lyons
Story that he concocted. Yeah.
01;55;19;28 - 01;55;20;07
Rob Wilson
Yeah.
01;55;20;17 - 01;55;22;29
David Lyons
So he had to hand that story to the family, I guess.
01;55;22;29 - 01;55;27;10
Rob Wilson
Yeah, to the family and then to the initial officers at the scene.
01;55;27;10 - 01;55;36;22
David Lyons
It so the autopsy gets completed, you get that new information. I wasn't surprised because of the amount of damage there and whatnot. Neat that you recovered the knife in the scene.
01;55;36;22 - 01;55;44;01
Rob Wilson
Yeah. It's again it's just think I would imagine he was just overwhelmed with trying to figure out a way out of it.
01;55;44;01 - 01;55;54;17
Wendy Lyons
Well, and I'm sure the knife was probably the least of his thinking. Where is he going to put it or hide it? I mean, unless he's going to vacate the the residence to take it somewhere. I mean, there's only so many places you can hide that night.
01;55;54;17 - 01;56;19;05
David Lyons
Yeah. It, it, yeah. They don't think that through good financing. One time we had a murder of a Willard Street, I think one time, and then they actually called a guy, and he reminded me of a wolf in Pulp Fiction. He was a cleanup artist. And. And he he had cleaned the apartment. It was a stabbing so well that the first run through FSU really didn't detect anything until they got a statement and then went start pulling the toenail where it was out and stuff.
01;56;19;06 - 01;56;19;19
Rob Wilson
Yeah.
01;56;20;08 - 01;56;35;22
David Lyons
But I remember Craig Sorrell interviewed him and it was like a it was like talking to Wolfram Fox and he's like, he goes, First thing I told him, Get all the silverware. And they're like, Why do I have to throw all the silverware? And he goes, Because there's one piece missing. You get all the silverware. And it's funny, but not funny.
01;56;35;22 - 01;56;42;01
David Lyons
But that's a real life thing too. So it anytime you do that, you have to be willing to take those extra steps, I guess.
01;56;42;01 - 01;57;02;09
Rob Wilson
Yeah. Now that's I remember I think it was the Alex Johnson case where he was in the garage. That's where they put him in the barrel to transport him down to the river. And we did some swabs to see if we could find any blood. And there was such a small amount on the railing of the garage door.
01;57;02;23 - 01;57;11;07
Rob Wilson
And I think Marcy Adkins at the lab, who you all had on before, who's fantastic, Susan, she solved a lot of murders for me that I take credit for.
01;57;11;12 - 01;57;12;00
David Lyons
Sure. Yeah.
01;57;12;13 - 01;57;13;25
Rob Wilson
As all cops do. Yeah. Yes.
01;57;13;26 - 01;57;14;29
Wendy Lyons
Like, love hearing that.
01;57;15;13 - 01;57;16;09
David Lyons
And she will.
01;57;16;12 - 01;57;16;29
Rob Wilson
Yes, she.
01;57;16;29 - 01;57;17;21
Wendy Lyons
Will. Mercy.
01;57;17;22 - 01;57;32;06
Rob Wilson
Marcy in the lab has been so good to me over the course of my career. So many people. Matthew Clements, who's in Ballistics, you know, I could call them at any time. And if it was legit enough reason, they jumped me to the it's close to the front of the line as I could.
01;57;32;08 - 01;57;46;13
David Lyons
That's a relationship that you give people and it makes her. Yes, she's going to be back and Bill Breslin will be back and we're in. Try to get him through one word and cry or weep. And and but Bill and Marcy have agreed to do one. And I'm not going to disclose what it's about, but it's a serial offender.
01;57;46;19 - 01;57;47;26
Rob Wilson
Yeah, Very scary guy.
01;57;48;02 - 01;57;58;10
David Lyons
Very spooky. And she is brilliant. Yes. She has the ability to I think for our audience especially, she can take that into layman's terms so quickly and make people understand.
01;57;58;11 - 01;58;07;28
Rob Wilson
What Marcy was. She's one of those where she could have easily translate transferred from the lab and she could have been a homicide detective and a very good absolutely.
01;58;08;00 - 01;58;10;12
David Lyons
Yes. Her her linear and analytical thinking.
01;58;10;12 - 01;58;13;03
Rob Wilson
Is right on. Yes, she would have been fantastic at that job.
01;58;13;03 - 01;58;15;13
Wendy Lyons
She's patting her own back right now, and she should be.
01;58;15;18 - 01;58;17;03
Rob Wilson
Yeah, sure. Absolutely she should.
01;58;17;03 - 01;58;33;22
David Lyons
Yeah, exactly. So we get we get to the autopsy, we recover the knife and everything and and he's done make no statements after that, correct? Yeah. And that gets tricky. A lot of people don't know. Maybe we'll do an educational show on Fourth Amendment and then it moves. And, you know, first man, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, all like, kind of it's good.
01;58;33;23 - 01;58;51;19
David Lyons
It's kind of convoluted as to how it gets more difficult to interview somebody longer. They're in in their first couple of weeks. I guess what we're talking about now is what what kind of things went on in the aftermath after he goes to jail? What walk us through what the investigation looks like in the things that you're doing to tie this up.
01;58;51;19 - 01;59;16;05
Rob Wilson
Well, this one is actually really short and simple. Those domestics typically are you're not having to run down alternative suspects or anything like that. Like I mentioned before, we swab the heck out of the house. Turns out once he admitted that it was just he and Todd and he was the one that stabbed him all that blood and swabbed of became useless because we know the blood belongs to the victim.
01;59;16;05 - 01;59;23;12
Rob Wilson
Todd. And if there's fingerprints on things belonging to Matthew Donor, I. Then that doesn't tell us anything. He lived there.
01;59;23;28 - 01;59;32;14
David Lyons
Useless until you get on the stand. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. And then when you get cross-examined as to why you didn't do it. Yes. So it's perfunctory to some degree. Yes.
01;59;32;25 - 01;59;50;18
Rob Wilson
Do it. And you're always I had a murder case where we only collected 15 items and I only sent off two or three items to be tested. It was a domestic as well. And I got grilled on the stand for cross-examination. I didn't send enough off to the lab. I already had my mind made up, stuff like that.
01;59;51;02 - 02;00;07;07
Rob Wilson
And it doesn't matter if I sent off 99 things to the lab, they'd say, Why didn't you send off a hundred? You know, it's just a tactic that they use. And I understand they've got a job to do, but absolutely. Yeah. As long as you can articulate why you sent something off or why you didn't, you're fine.
02;00;07;12 - 02;00;26;14
David Lyons
Right? It's it's funny to have we're talking about a quick case because it's it's so isolated. And we were just listening to the the Culpable podcast the other night, Wendy, and season two where they're talking about the murder Brittney Sykes in Ohio and really good investigators. You can tell it's an unsolved case, but I think they'll get there.
02;00;26;14 - 02;00;50;07
David Lyons
But one of them was talking about the challenge on a whodunit when what people think or tips or conjecture in theory once that lands because they're talking in that case about thousands of tips. Yeah. The guy that killed it allegedly killed the four kids in Idaho. I think they when they when they talk about having thousands of tips, I don't think some people understand that that's a thousand things.
02;00;50;07 - 02;00;51;09
Rob Wilson
A thousand interviews.
02;00;51;09 - 02;01;06;29
David Lyons
That's it at least. Yeah. And every one of them has to have a beau around them. Yeah. And that that's a big deal that I always try to get across to people is a tip is something that might move But geez, or Pete don't ever confuse that for a theory you had. Yeah I mean don't don't don't paint that in a different way.
02;01;06;29 - 02;01;29;10
Rob Wilson
Well I'm sure you had some cases. I've had several where you get to a point in the investigation where you kind of hit the end of the road and it's like, should we take this public, you know, put it on the news because you need their help, but you only want to viable tips because once it goes out there, you will you'll get 100 or 200 leads and you have to follow up on every single one.
02;01;29;10 - 02;01;30;25
David Lyons
Yeah, they've all got to be wrapped up. Yeah.
02;01;30;26 - 02;01;43;07
Rob Wilson
Because if you don't that one, if you have 200 tips and you only do 199, by the time it gets to trial, those defense attorneys will be convinced that that one person didn't do was the real killer in we've wrongly arrested their client.
02;01;43;16 - 02;01;59;05
David Lyons
That's even if it's an unequivocal yes mean it'd be neat for people to experience that to be on the stand when that happens. But even if it's an unequivocal I did it and the evidence is there, that's their job. And you know, we've got great ones in town. I'm sure I'll bring down our defense attorneys more than one contingent.
02;01;59;05 - 02;02;05;12
David Lyons
Yeah, they're amazing people, but it needs stuff. So in that case. Yeah, that wraps up pretty quick then.
02;02;05;21 - 02;02;15;09
Rob Wilson
So yeah, the investigation part is actually in this one. It's probably done in 4 to 5 days and that's all the paperwork and everything, sending stuff off to the lab.
02;02;16;25 - 02;02;24;16
David Lyons
So you get to kick your feet up on the desk cause like, obviously there's nothing else going on in town, right? Absolutely. That's it. Like maybe two or three years, you'll have it. I'm being facetious.
02;02;24;16 - 02;02;25;13
Wendy Lyons
Of course you are.
02;02;25;13 - 02;02;26;01
David Lyons
Exactly.
02;02;26;02 - 02;02;51;26
Rob Wilson
That is a then, you know, there's the gallows humor in homicide. You have to have it. But it's a good feeling when like you're next up and you finally get one, it's like, okay, this isn't a whodunit. I can solve it, wrap it up pretty quickly. And then I go to the back of the line, you know, that's maybe you get lucky and your numbers not called again for three months, four months.
02;02;52;09 - 02;03;00;15
Rob Wilson
So, you know, you're not busting your butt on this unsolved murder because those are the worst when you get an unsolved and you're still killing yourself and then you get another one.
02;03;00;24 - 02;03;13;28
David Lyons
Which is the nature. Yes, that's it. That's where all that loose ends. I think my land speed record one was a derby day where a guy got beat to get death with a two by four, a third straight. And I think I was able to be back home in about 4 hours.
02;03;14;03 - 02;03;14;24
Rob Wilson
Yeah, those are nice.
02;03;14;24 - 02;03;27;27
David Lyons
Yeah, exactly. I had some some stuff to do afterwards, but I had somebody in custody, I had statements, I had the physical evidence recovered and we got to it. But yeah, that never happened again. And you're right. That's the raking leaves on a windy day yet always coming in.
02;03;27;27 - 02;03;33;24
Rob Wilson
It's a really good analogy because it it just doesn't stop. You just hope for a breather from time to time.
02;03;34;08 - 02;03;49;24
David Lyons
And I think if somebody gets into the business, I think it's a mistake they might make it. Don't ever think you're going to be done and kind of take it just it's the nature of the beast. But when you do leave to this day and I've been gone a long time, I still will be out doing something and I'll think about one of them that didn't lay down.
02;03;49;24 - 02;03;53;11
David Lyons
You're just always like, If I could get back and do this, I'd never leave you.
02;03;53;16 - 02;04;20;15
Rob Wilson
I'm pretty lucky that I think I've only have two unsolved in my career and I put them out. I work them to exhaustion. Yeah, like it's just so I'm at peace that. But I still get I've been gone over a little over a year now and there's still some PTSD. Like when I hear a certain phone, a ring type that that was my ring when I was in Homicide at 3 a.m., I'd hear the train.
02;04;20;24 - 02;04;26;08
Rob Wilson
And if I hear that exact ring, it's like it takes me back and I'm not happy about it exactly.
02;04;26;19 - 02;04;45;16
David Lyons
But I will say this I kind of miss it enough to where? Like when we were talking about David Callum's family, we've met the Hastie family. Yeah. Which is South. A beautiful people that have a an adult son. We covered Michael Gormley that went missing and hasn't been seen and there's foul play all over that. There's also a part that makes you sure work.
02;04;45;27 - 02;04;47;24
Rob Wilson
You never know. Goes away.
02;04;47;24 - 02;05;05;10
David Lyons
And that that's an inside thing that you're thinking wired or like if I'm listening to a good podcast myself again, I'm going to pitch culpable. It's really good. The entire time I'm thinking, Boy, I would probably think about this. Yeah, it would be an avenue. So it's it's fun to think about, but you don't have to go in and do it and you're not bitching, get paid for it.
02;05;05;10 - 02;05;27;04
Rob Wilson
So I think Travis Holt, who's a really good detective, I think he's running cold case now. Right. Very sharp guy. And I'm sure he'll do great at it. But I've other departments have a former homicide detectives come on as consultants. Right. And Florence Weathers is out there listening. You know, I'd be certainly happy to come back and review some cases because it is fun being part of it.
02;05;27;13 - 02;05;32;27
Rob Wilson
I just wouldn't be the main one responsible. I'd just give some ideas and maybe some guidance and see where it goes.
02;05;32;27 - 02;05;51;05
David Lyons
Yeah, I, I won't name any names, but I did get hit up by somebody several months ago and got to love him to death and he's not there anymore. But he had an idea of having a an event where a lot of us going back as far back as we could get together, spent an entire day and just talk about what's on that shelf.
02;05;51;07 - 02;05;57;08
David Lyons
Yeah. And I was like, brilliant. Well, that won't happen. No, Right. It's like, But if there is any neat concept.
02;05;57;10 - 02;06;21;15
Rob Wilson
Well, when they asked me to take over the Cold Case unit, I had the idea that because I think at the time we had 50 maybe unsolved murders going back to the seventies or eighties, what I wanted to do was take six weeks, not do a damn thing, but read every case file and put them in categories. It's like, okay, these are potentially DNA cases, right?
02;06;21;16 - 02;06;51;21
Rob Wilson
Okay, we'll set these aside and when I get to them, I'll go through all the evidence and send a ton of stuff off to the lab. These are pounding the pavement cases like need to re-interview some people, maybe some new ones that they missed. They go over here and then there's some that no fault of any detective. Sometimes the bad guy wins, they get the breaks, and there's just hardly any sort of ability to those and set those aside so you can work on the ones that actually have a chance getting solvent.
02;06;51;21 - 02;07;09;05
Rob Wilson
First thing you do is you send all those off to the lab and hopefully you get a phone call or two and six months. It's like, Hey, you know, this, this belongs to so-and-so, you know, and there's the low hanging fruit, as they say. Sure. You know, it's like, give me those any day of the week. I don't need to beat my chest and say how great of an investigator I am.
02;07;09;07 - 02;07;11;14
Rob Wilson
Like, Now you give me a DNA hit and I'll go put the cuffs on.
02;07;11;29 - 02;07;21;11
David Lyons
That and look at what it does for the family. Absolutely. I mean, that that and it it yeah. Whether it's low hanging fruit or hanging fruit, I think that the name of the game is a game is to see many dollars you can get.
02;07;21;11 - 02;07;51;02
Rob Wilson
Yeah. We just I just finished up a a couple pled guilty to a cold case murder that happened in 2010. Um yeah, that's when I made contact with the victim's daughter. I knocked on her door and told her who I was, and she was like, Don't get me involved unless you believe you can solve this. Cause I'd already come to a certain amount of peace with it, right?
02;07;51;03 - 02;08;09;24
Rob Wilson
I don't want to live through it again if nothing's going to happen. And that's tough because I had this not like I can't promise you anything. All I can promise you this. I'm going to give it my all and I'll keep you in the loop every step of the way. And I was I was fairly confident. I knew who did.
02;08;09;24 - 02;08;19;10
Rob Wilson
And, you know, we had some avenues to go to get some some information. And luckily we were able to make it happen. But yeah, she was she was scared that I was opening up the case again. Actually.
02;08;19;10 - 02;08;24;11
David Lyons
But everybody metabolisms metabolizes that in a different way. And I could see that I could see where that.
02;08;24;12 - 02;08;27;05
Rob Wilson
Yeah, she's like, don't make me go through it again if nothing's going to happen.
02;08;27;05 - 02;08;27;16
David Lyons
Right?
02;08;27;25 - 02;08;39;14
Rob Wilson
So that was a real relief off my shoulders when we finally got the the arrest of the two individuals. And yeah, she was very grateful and, and also frustrated that it took 13 years, you know, Absolutely crazy.
02;08;39;17 - 02;08;52;24
David Lyons
Well, let's go back to this one. Sure. It didn't take 13 it thank God for the family on that is where do we go now if a pretty pretty quick investigation get some things back, some lab work. You got your autopsy reports on everything. What happens next?
02;08;52;26 - 02;08;59;12
Wendy Lyons
Hey, you know, there's more to the story, so go download the next episode. Like the true crime fan that you are.
02;08;59;12 - 02;09;32;10
David Lyons
The Murder Police podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It has produced and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform as well as at Murder Police Podcast dot com, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police podcast Merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of murder police podcast swag.
02;09;32;23 - 02;09;56;12
David Lyons
We are also on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube which is closed captioned for those that are hearing impaired, just search for the Murder Police podcast and you will find us. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review on, Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcasts, make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop.
02;09;56;24 - 02;10;00;05
David Lyons
And please your friends, lock it down. Judy.