Guthrie Ransom Notes Revealed, Nolan Wells’ Friends Threaten to Sue, and Sarah Grace Patrick Trial Delayed, with Chris Stewart

And today I am joined by my friend and co-host Phil Holloway. He is also a criminal defense lawyer out of the Atlanta area.

“He's a former prosecutor and also a former police officer. Hey Phil, how are you?”

Ashley, I'm doing great. It's great to be with you. And it's great for our listening audience to join us today because we have a great great program on tap. Let's go over what's on the docket. We start with the Nolan Wells tragedy. You know, this situation continues to grow. As we have dueling lawsuits now being threatened among the various parties involved, including threats to sue the lawyers. We'll discuss Nolan's friends who they say have been targeted and defamed. Yeah, and we have also got the awful trial of postpartum mom Lindsay Clancy. It remains ongoing.

We'll review the heartbreaking testimony. Her ex-husband Patrick testified and what the jurors have heard from some emergency personnel and different medical personnel who responded to the scene and have treated Miss Clancy.

“And Ashley, I'm very excited because a little bit later in the program Chris Stewart. He's the host of on the case on the law and crime network.”

He's going to join us to help break down the latest with the Nancy Guthrie investigation and more.

All right, but first let's talk about the developments in the Nolan Wells story.

So we've learned more about the step that Nolan's family is taking as they apparently and I put in quotes independently investigate his case. But just to catch our viewers up, Nolan Wells unfortunately went missing around the July 4th holiday off the coast of Mississippi. And what happened apparently at first everyone thought was just an accidental drowning, but then his family hired lawyer Ben Kromp and they have turned this into whole different type of situation. Where they continue to ask for transparency, but apparently they are launching their own parallel investigation into what happened while the police and local law enforcement are trying to do their own investigation.

So the latest though is that the autopsy was finally done and what we have learned is that the autopsy was done and it's going to be presented to a grand jury.

But feel that is not surprising that is normal in Mississippi. All cases like this go to a grand jury so they're not investigating any type of homicide. No one has alleged that it was a homicide or anything really other than an accidental drowning. But why it's really being talked about still today is that the families are really viewing back and forth. We've got lawsuits that the victim's family, you know, and when I say the victim, I mean he's, you know, he is deceased, not necessarily a victim of a crime, but deceased Nolan, his family has threatened lawsuits against all the different people involved.

And then now we're hearing reports that the friends, Nolan's friends, a lot of them have been defamed. They've been, you know, they've gotten people threats online, lots of people are reaching out and saying awful things to them and so they're actually talking about doing their own round of lawsuits.

“And tell me a little bit about that Phil, I think it's, it's defamation and I just, I feel so bad for what these poor kids have been going through.”

You know, we've said this before on the program that this is definitely a tragedy whether or not it's a mystery is an open question. I think that, you know, we have a lot of people who right out of the gate actually have, you know, been making unfounded statements quite frankly about the nature of this particular. Death, the grand jury process is for the benefits of everybody really the DA and for the public. This allows an independent entity, the grand jury to say, look, we've seen all the evidence here and this is, this is an, this was an unexplained case, but we see no criminal activity here or alternatively if a grand jury says we do believe there's a crime they could recommend a criminal grand jury.

But see, now we've got the lawyers for Nolan Wells friends because Nolan Wells friends are fighting back. You may remember from the last time you and I were together on the program, we discussed that on the day of Nolan Wells funeral.

There was a letter sent to lots of people who are potential witnesses in the case basically saying preserve all your evidence because we expect there to be litigation.

So the would be civil defendants, for example, we have one of the friends named Bart Edmondston Jr. He's a friend and a former teammate. He's hired a law firm. It says his attorney says I have been retained by the family of Bart Edmondston Jr. to quote to pursue people defending him who wholly fabricated assertions of fact that are putting Bart and his family and friends in harm's way. They've hired a private investigating firm. Listen to this to identify and track individuals engaged in defamation against the Edmondson's.

And a similar situation with the family of Warren Hudson. He was a friend and he actually has a mother who's a judge out there and that factors heavily in the conspiracy theory swirling around.

But now we've got the dueling threats of litigation that make this really a story. Yeah, and you know the autopsy is one of the big things the official autopsy is actually being completed, but the results have not been publicly released and also the results are under seal. So they haven't actually been released to the family either and that's that standard practice in Jackson County. You know, everyone like you said it goes to a grand jury and that's when the results will actually be known. But that does not mean that a crime happened. And I always like to start a case with whether or not a crime actually occurred or whether it's not just a tragedy because unfortunately accidents happen tragedies happen every day in this country, every day in this world.

“And they're not always attributed to some type of sinister motive, some type of guilt, something like that. And so I think the autopsy is going to be the first step for us to know whether or not a crime actually even occurred.”

This poor kid could have just drowned. He could have overdosed on alcohol. Like, could have had alcohol poisoning. There were reports that he was drinking, you know, he might have been a good swimmer, but that doesn't necessarily save you, particularly if you've been, you know, if you've been drinking a lot.

Or even a little bit, you know, all the other things could happen. I can just go through all of the different things that this could be accidental.

So we're really jumping the gun, you know, and the family has really jumped to say that this was something other than accidental, where the better path would have been to just wait. Apparently, you know, they're, they're not happy with the fact that they don't have access to these autopsy results. And I got a, you know, admit, I agree with that. I don't love that families and, you know, victims aren't able to actually access things like investigative reports, but that's standard practice. And there's reason for that. It's not abnormal. It's completely normal. It's how the police work, it's how the government works.

“They like to keep things secret until it's time for them to be released and they've got reasons for that.”

So it's nothing abnormal and it really does not indicate that there's anything sinister here.

You know, the thing I keep thinking about when I hear this story, though, is poor Nolan, he is probably rolling over in his grave because these are his best friends. You know, I mean, I can't even imagine he, he loved these people. They loved him. I mean, there's been reports. They loved each other like brothers. Yeah. You know, there's nothing to indicate that foul play. I know that the family wants answers, but sometimes the answers is just bad things happen. Well, now it's really getting crazy. So I mentioned Ben Hudson being one of those friends.

His, I'm sorry, Ben Hudson is the father of Warren Hudson and, you know, Warren being one of his friends. Ben Hudson, the Warren's father, has said, quote, listen to this actually, quote, in my opinion, Ben Crump has slandered and falsely accused my son and his friends of murder.

“And he's pursued what's an obvious false narrative. I think he can expect lawsuits, not just from my family, but from a number of other families who, in my opinion, he has defamed.”

And I think that statement underscores really how I think, in my opinion, reckless it is for lawyers without any evidence to come out and publicly basically stir something up like this with any statements. Or even with any window that there may be something more dark involved. I think lawyers really need to take a step back and say, you know, let's let the investigative process run its course. There's no reason to rush and go out in public and say, you know, this person did this or this person may have done that.

It's best to just let the process play out and then if you disagree with the findings, then you do your own investigation, but don't just go out and immediately start throw in accusations. Even if they haven't actually gone so far as to defame somebody, maybe they have. I don't know, but I just think it's reckless and irresponsible. You know, I had totally agree and the thing that keeps striking me fill is that there's absolutely nothing to indicate that this was warranted. You know, there was no beef between these nobody stole somebody's girl. Nobody got in a fight. There wasn't any allegations that they had had any issues.

It was anything really other than just a friendly July 4 event with a lot of friends people who all cared for each other. So, you know, there's nothing that would indicate there was a motive. There was no racial animosity, you know, a lot of folks are saying, oh, racist, this is racist, there's no racial animosity. These were really close friends, you know, no one's doing anything that would would make them think that they tried to harm Nolan in any way. So to jump to that conclusion and to really, you know, harm these boys and this family when the whole community is grieving, you know, the whole community is grieving loss of this child.

And instead of being together as a community, they've really divided with this. So it'll be interesting to watch what happens with all these lawsuits. I don't think it's going away anytime soon, but I hope that the autopsy reports will actually put it to rest. And, you know, and they did have an independent autopsy and it didn't find anything. So hopefully that will put it to rest.

I would go so far as to say that if the circumstances were different if the family of Mr. Wells and others had not come out and made this into the issue that it is now become.

“The family could very well have been pretty too by now the results of this autopsy because I think the prosecutor would have the discretion to share it.”

I think the, they have the discretion not to share it just in it to the grand jury, but if things were not as acrimonious as they are, I think the D.A. might very well have already shared the autopsy results with the Wells family. And, I think it's completely agree with you, and I actually also think that the person who did what's called the independent autopsy, you know, Ben Cronz team had someone do another autopsy. That that expert kind of easily talked to the medical examer than the original. They're all professionals. They're all medical doctors. They tend to talk to each other. They don't, you know, it's not one side pitted against another.

And so we normally would see sort of a collegiate atmosphere where they're just actually trying to get to the truth. But because of all these allegations, it's just become so hostile and we've, you know, become very divided on what is a tragedy that really the community means.

Each other and it shouldn't just be such a tragedy.

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Core age five, Dawson age three, and Kalin who was seven months old at the time back in January of 2023. Two of the children were dead on the scene and one died a few days later. What is the tragedy, one of the tragedies here is obviously you have three deaths of beautiful little children. The other tragedy here is that you have apparently a lot of issues with missed diagnosis. She's the mother, reportedly, this is her defense. It's centered on postpartum depression.

She's saying that she was also underdiagnosed, missed diagnosed, and over medicated. She's filed lawsuits against some of her treatment providers who she says did not coordinate her medication. And actually, she was on quite the cocktail of prescribed medications. The issue of whether she was actually taking everything that she was prescribed as it was prescribed. That's something that's going on in the trial right now.

But the defense here says that she did not have the mental state that is necessary for it to be a crime. She did not have the intent element, if you will. And if you don't have the act and the intent coinciding together at the same time, there is no crime.

“But this was quite the case is going on out here. What's the, what's the latest?”

Well, Patrick her husband now. He's been remarried, but her ex husband actually testified for the state last weekend. We do expect him to come back and testify for the defense. But his testimony was gut-wrenching. He testified a lot about the kids, which was really traumatic. But he also testified about coming home that day and actually finding his children and finding his wife.

He's told the jury that her demeanor, whenever he first came home on the phone that she was pretty quiet, sounded like she was busy.

They talked on the phone. He thought maybe she was giving the kids a baths. But then when he testified about what happened when he came home, you could just feel it. If you have, you know, if you've ever had been in a house with young kids, he described the experience of returning home as unusually quiet. And finding he actually found Lindsay in the yard first injured when he came home. And he just said, you know, he knew something was wrong and we can actually listen to Patrick at salt one.

And then did you go to your bedroom? Yeah.

“And were you able to get into your bedroom right away?”

No, the door was locked and that's when I knew something was wrong. And when you saw Lindsay on the ground there under the window, which direction was her body facing? Or had was closer to the house or feet or away from the house? And did you observe any injuries?

And what did you say? She had deep cuts on her wrists. And she had a red line across her neck.

I wasn't sure what it was at first.

But she cut her neck.

“And do you recall that these wounds weren't actively bleeding at the time?”

I later learned that I said that on the 911 call. Did you say anything to Lindsay when you found her in that state? Yes. What happened? And what was her response?

She said I tried to kill myself. Did you ask her anything else? I said where are the kids? And what was her response? She said they're in the basement.

So what he's referring there to there is finding her after she had apparently jumped out of a,

I guess it was a second story window.

She had cuts on her wrist and some kind of cut on her neck. And what's really the issue actually that's playing out in the courtroom right now is, was that a real suicide attempt or was it somehow famed? For example, he goes on to say Patrick goes on to say that quote, it looked like blood was sprayed almost with a hose.

There was a huge puddle in the middle of the room. And it was sprayed all over pretty much every surface. But then the prosecutor showed him photographs of the room and asked him to confirm that there was no blood visible on the walls or the bedding, which he confirmed. So really how much blood there was, how whether or not she was actually injured.

And she was actually paralyzed by the way. But people are saying the prosecution in particular is saying that this is all part of an act. It's a gimmick.

She intentionally murdered those children.

And now she's trying to use this mental health defense to try to get away from it. But what strikes me is probably some of the most awful testimony really in sad testimony from the whole thing is the father finding these kids, because they were strangled with exercise bands. In fact, we have some testimony at Saat II, which is Patrick describing what he found

with regard to one of his children. And when you went left, what did you see? Saat Korra. And how did she look? She had a band around her neck.

And was that an exercise band? Yeah.

“And do you recall whether she was, what position she was in, whether face up or face down?”

She's face down. And when you saw her in that condition, what did you do? I immediately ran over and tried to take the band off. What did you see or do next? I saw Cowan.

And where was he? He was next to her. And how did he appear? He had a band around his neck. Sorry.

He had a band around his neck. And did you remove that as well? Yeah. And do you recall what position he was in? Same as Korra.

After you removed the band from Cowan's neck, what did you do next? I tried to find out. And when you saw Dawson, what condition was he in? I knew who's gone. And did he also have a band around his neck?

Yeah. I get that the state has the opportunity to present the case. However, they want to present it. But this is just cool. There is no disputing that these children were brutally murdered.

There's no disputing that she did it. So to walk through this with this poor grieving father. I mean, and put the jury through that. You know, it just, it bothers me because the only purpose I can really think of is to really make the jury hate Lindsey Clancy and hope that they will not pay attention to all of the medical evidence about her psychosis. And about what she was suffering from.

They're hoping that the jury will just be so horrified by what happened. And they're making this poor father. They're making all those jurors we live in. And it just seems like a lot, you know, just just piling on. And the other thing, you know, that they're really the states really piling on with. Is this inconsistency with Lindsey's actual emotions.

And we've got, you know, we've got so three where Patrick has testifying she seemed happy. But again, she's got a disorder, a mood disorder where she's going in and out of psychosis. So, you know, they keep saying, oh, well, she was happy this minute. Well, she could have not been happy the next minute. But let's see what the prosecution asked Patrick. Um, that's not three.

“How often do you think you or do you remember going upstairs that data interact with Lindsey and the kids?”

Um, once or twice, it was a busy or date and usual.

When you did come up to interact with them, how was Lindsey's mood?

“She seemed happy. Happy. And how could you tell that? What was she doing?”

Uh, she's planning with the kids. And, um, she seemed in a good mood. At any point during that day, when you came up or while she's texting you, did she tell you she was having suicidal thoughts? No. Is she telling you she was having thoughts of harming the kids?

No. Did she ask for help or, or anything that caused concern?

No, she's having one of her best days.

One of her best days. You know, when, uh, when those of us who are, you know, were human beings who would go out in public and we interact with others, whether it's our family members, our friends, our colleagues, or strangers, or store clerks, whoever we interact with, you know, we present ourselves. But what you see may not be of of a person's affect and their demeanor.

That may not be accurate of of what's actually going on inside that person's life or in their head. They could be severely depressed. They could have lots of things going on, but then they quote, "seem happy and seem normal." Um, but what I would say about this testimony actually is that this is a kind of a case where there's a little something for both sides. I would say that the prosecutions, not a slam dunk, but neither is the defense.

I personally think that there's reasonable doubt. I know I can tell you that postpartum is real. I know that over diagnoses of mental health disorders is real. I know that misdiagnosis is real and I know that over medication is real. So I'm seeing some things here that fit within, um, you know, my own personal, uh, lived experience in life. And, you know, I've been doing criminal defense law for a long time as prosecutor before that.

I've seen a lot and a lot of this stuff rings true to me. So the defense very well could be successful, but it's not a slam dunk.

“Um, one of the things though that I think we got to get to before the break in sought for apparently Patrick her husband called her.”

He was out running errands, okay? And there was the debate about whether or not the place he sent her or take out or she sent him for take out was, um, too far away or whatever she sent him further away to give her more time to do her deed. Uh, but apparently they had a, a phone conversation during the time period when he was away and when she apparently took the lives of her children. So let's listen to sought for, which is Patrick saying that it sounded to him like she was busy. He thought maybe giving them bath.

I, uh, called Lindsay. And why did you call Lindsay? Because what we were looking for wasn't there. And then, uh, did she answer the call? Yes. She entered when you called her.

Uh, actually I think, I think she didn't at first. She called back.

Okay. And did you receive a call back from her about a minute later at 5.34 pm? Yeah, that's correct. Okay. And, um, can you describe that phone call for us?

“It's very brief. I just said, um, I think there's a generic brand and I said, is this one okay?”

And she said, yeah, that's fine. And, um, what was her demeanor during the call? Um, she's pretty quiet. It sounded like she was busy. I remember hanging up thinking she's probably in the middle of giving baths or something like that. So it sounded to you like she was in the middle of something.

Yeah. Were you able to understand her when she spoke to you? Yeah. And did she seem to understand what you were saying? Yes. And she didn't seem to have any trouble recalling why you were at CVS or what you were looking for?

That's correct. You know, and just to wrap up what we heard earlier this morning, I was actually listening to some of the testimony. We heard from a lot of the medical professionals who treated the children and also treated Lindsey. And it seemed like a lot of back and forth between the defense and the state on whether or not Lindsey was really sick, whether or not she really tried to kill herself. And it was, you know, probably hard for the jury to hear it was hard listening to because it was clear that this lady was very sick and she'd coded and almost died and had last relations and the state and the prosecution and the defense are literally arguing over how deeper last relations were.

So I'm sure the jury had a little bit too much today, but we'll definitely be following this and keeping up and keep everyone up to date. But up next, we've got Chris Stewart of Law and Crime Network. He's going to join us and we're going to discuss some new updates in the Nancy Guthrie ransom notes and also the strange story of accused killer Sarah Grace Atrick. Stay tuned. Life insurance. We all know we need it, but we keep putting it off because we think it's complicated or expensive or that will live forever.

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Welcome back to the Mk True Crime Show. I'm Phil Holloway along with my co-host today, Ashley Merchant. Also joining us on the program is our friend and yours Chris Stewart, who is the host of on the case with Chris Stewart on the law and crime network.

“Welcome back to the program Chris. I want to talk with you.”

We're going to start with Nancy Guthrie. Okay, because over the weekend, we received some big updates in the Nancy Guthrie case. The Pima County Sheriff's Office has released two of the ransom notes. Now, I know that you have been discussing this on your show. Actually, and I discussed this with Megan Kelly last week, but now we have the actual substance of these emails, if you will, the ransom notes that have been released. Chris, welcome back to us. Why share of nanos is now just now six months later deciding to release these notes.

Phil, I mean, I think six months has a big thing to do with it. I mean, it's amazing to think with all the attention that this story has been getting, especially when you go back to, you know, end of January, early February, when all of this began, that here we are six months later, and we, it feels like we have no idea what happened to Nancy Guthrie and he puts these emails out there. He emails ransom notes allegedly that were sent to media outlets in the Tucson area and TMZ back in the beginning. And so, you know, you take a look at these notes here, believe that's the first one that was sent.

And, you know, this one is just chilling, you know, the first one that was sent believe on February 2nd, and it demands millions of dollars to be paid in Bitcoin and ultimately it says,

"Along the lines of, we have your mom, Savannah, and she knows what's going on. She's scared, paid the money, or will kill her." And, I mean, it is, I mean, chilling is just the word I come back to. I mean, you just think if you were Savannah Guthrie reading this about your mom, just emotionally how it would be.

“Four days later, though, the second note just has such a different tone to it. And this came in, I believe it was the sixth, and it addresses the Guthrie family, and the tone of it is, it's, it's a much softer tone.”

I mean, it delivers the news that they say that Nancy Guthrie has passed away. And it goes from, in that first note, you remember they're saying, you know, pay this money or will kill her to now it's this tone of, well, we didn't want this to happen. This wasn't our intention, she's with nature now, and it's, you wonder if it's the same person writing it, you also wonder if by the share of releasing this, the discomfort that they believe that these ransom notes were actually sent by the kidnappers who took Nancy Guthrie.

Yeah, Chris, I mean, when I read it, I think that the second one perhaps is by a woman. I know we've talked to Megan about that last week. There's some speculation that maybe the second ransom notes a woman. It does seem very different, a lot softer, like you said. And you know, we know from Sheriff Nanos, we can play Saw five, where he's actually said he was hoping that this might jar someone. We can play Saw five. It's out there. People have been media has covered some of this. And we just saw what was being said and felt like we need to put something out that's really accurate.

This was the time we felt, investigators felt like there's a number of pieces of information in these notes that someone might, it just might jar someone to say, you know, I've heard that or the wording, the style of the writing is. Mike jogs somebody to kind of think about who would have written this, how, how was this done. I, I think anybody who reads them, my investigators, we look at it and clearly there's things in there that are very concerning to, to our investigative team. So we, we hope that by releasing the actual note will get some response from the community.

I think he's doing this at this time because those of us in the, particularly in the true crown media world, we, we've all been talking about this now for a while. We've essentially had the substance of these notes now for months.

“In fact, last week before he released these, we were discussing the verbatim text of those ransom notes here on this very program. And so I think that he realized that other people were kind of getting out in front of him.”

I guess in a way, in my opinion, maybe just save a little face, he decided to go ahead and release these. Again, I, I hope that I hope that someone does come forward, but I've got to tell you, I'm, I'm just a more than a little dubious about the, the timing here in the sheriff's explanation, Chris. Yeah, and, and the, believe it was the day before there was some news that came out that there was some DNA that just didn't turn up anything and the hope was that there was some DNA that was going to come out of the house and maybe point us in the right direction and it just seems like it hasn't.

And, and you worry that law enforcement is kind of at this place where they're like, all right, we're just going to put this out to the public and hopefully the public can can, you know, know that person, they look at that video again of the person on the front steps of the house and maybe a jog someone's memory Savannah got three releasing that video last week. The first one in months kind of that selfie style video where she's talking directly to someone and she keeps saying do the right thing, she said that in multiple videos and I think to Ashley's point, when you look at that second ransom note, maybe it's a woman, maybe it's just someone with a heart.

Certainly that first one, it doesn't look like that person would have a heart, but maybe that person whoever wrote that second note, if that person truly knows what happened, maybe that's the person who Savannah got three continues to talk to asking that person to do the right thing.

She's definitely reaching out to someone and I'm sure the pro filers have helped her figure out the words to say and then she's probably also just speaking from the heart.

You mentioned something about DNA, so I keep hearing about this hair and want to know what's going on with it. So there was a hair at the crime scene, but they can't obtain a DNA profile from this so apparently is this yet another dead end Chris.

“It feels like it just from the reporting that's come out. I mean, remember the glove, you know, back at several months ago and the hope was this glove on the side of the road, like maybe that could be something and that didn't turn anything up and.”

I just keep coming back to you just think of all the resources that have gone into this and I know these investigations it's easy to be in the peanut gallery on the outside.

And investigation of my life. I have no idea how it works inside the tape, but everybody from the president, the FBI director to all these agents on the ground, the Pima County Sheriff's office. I mean, everybody through the kitchen sink at the investigation since the beginning and it just blows my mind that six months later, we're at this point where we're just throwing out, you know, putting these notes out there and just hopes that maybe someone from the public comes forward.

“There are some some interesting parts of the notes though, too. I mean, it's, you know, you hope you can pick pieces out of it. I think one thing not to just kind of bring this up just my mind was going to.”

The idea of USD being a phrase that they put in that first one, I found interesting because in other people appointed this out like I don't think anybody inside this country says USD when referring to money, you would say just dollars.

You know, and I think that's an interesting part of it. You know, is there something that could look out over the border? I don't know.

I agree with that. And, and that's just a week or so ago on this very program, I think I made a very similar point because if you read that, particularly the second note and by the way, for those of you who are listening on podcast. I encourage you to check out the YouTube version of this because we actually will put these notes, the images of the text up on the screen, but basically like that second note when it says, you know, she's buried in nature. She perished shortly after she was taken. We are just, it just looks to me like this may have been written originally in another language and ran through some kind of maybe, you know, translation app or something along those lines or maybe with AI.

And then like you point out, Chris, the reference to payment in USD as in US dollars to me suggests that it may very well have come from somewhere outside the United States. And of course, very, very close to the borders so that could all be true. But back to the issue of the hair real quick before we get into the Patrick case, I know we're going to talk about next. Is, you know, I'm wondering, we've got this hair and there's, okay, there's no DNA that comes from it, how do we know, Chris, that this hair is even relevant to the crown, because if you look in anybody's home, anybody's car, any building, any public place, you're going to find all kinds of hair from all sorts of people.

And I mean, it's, it's a good point because we know they had cleaning crews come through there, they had a pool in the back, so you had pool people come through, I believe she had landscaping also at the house. So you had a lot of people going in and out, you know, you had someone who, you know, not to mention just friends of hers and you wonder how many of those people I assume at this point have all been vetted and have been followed and have been looked into by the FBI and the local sheriff's office.

“But yeah, it just seems like we don't know, we don't know if that hair was associated with anybody related to what happened to Nancy got three, which, you know, is just it's difficult.”

Here we are like six months later, and still, you know, it just seems like one thing after another, and you just hope that eventually there is that piece of DNA, or maybe that person comes forward, or maybe somebody who's watching this or any of the other coverage says that it's time to come forward and tell, tell the world, tell the Guthrie family of what happened to Nancy.

Yeah, it sounds like this hair is more, since it doesn't have that DNA profile, so they can't really put it in codice or try to, you know, run it.

It's not as big of an investigative tool, it may be more of a tool for prosecution if they do find someone where you can match it. And that's kind of similar to what we hear with a fingerprint, you know, if you have a fingerprint that's, that's of a high profile and you can actually put it into a database system versus one where it's just for matching quality. That's sort of where we are with this hair, it sounds like it's just kind of a matching quality, but it doesn't have any actual DNA because it probably doesn't have the actual root still attached, so it doesn't sound like it's going to help us really solve this.

“Oh, I want to switch over to the Sarah Grace Patrick trial and for those of you that aren't familiar with this case, this is the Georgia 18 year old who has charged with murdering her mother and her stepfather back in February 2025.”

The trial has been delayed, it was scheduled to start this morning and it's pending out of Carroll County, which is a county outside of Atlanta outside the metro area, it's about an hour outside of Metro Atlanta.

And that is the scene where this trial was supposed to start, but it was continued, so tell us what is going on with this Chris, first tell us a little bit about the case.

Yeah, well, let's actually, let's start back, it's February 20th 2025 and 911 call comes in and Carroll County and it is from Sarah Grace Patrick who was 17 years old at the time and according to deputies. Sarah Grace's six year old sister, which is just incredibly sad to think about allegedly found her mom and her stepdad James and Kristen Brock, they had both been shot. Sarah Grace calls 911 law enforcement comes into investigate and it wasn't until July of 2025 that the Carroll County Sheriff's Office said they had made an arrest in the case of James and Kristen who you see right there.

And the arrest was for Kristen's biological daughter Sarah Grace Patrick and she has been in custody ever since. I remember we've covered this case pretty closely here on law and crime since Sarah Grace Patrick's arrest last year in July and the word that I always come back to that the public information person for the county used at the news conference was that they said they had a mountain of evidence against Sarah Grace Patrick, but really to that point and here we are. You know, in August of 2026, like we don't really know what that mountain actually is made up of. So today we're anticipating this trial was going to begin. I am told the judge came in to the room. Everybody was ready to go and he said he had been meeting with prosecutors and defense attorneys all morning and they decided it'd be the best interest to name a new trial date and that is expected to come.

That new trial date just to be announced in the next couple of weeks. It's unclear when this trial is going to happen. There was a hearing last week or the week prior where the defense raised some questions.

They said they wanted more time. They said she has a new attorney on the case of the public defenders office who came on in February said that going through some of the discovery.

Notice a few things that might need a little bit more looking into unclear what that is. He raised some questions about chain of custody of the evidence, but the judge denied that motion. They were going to start today, but right before jury selection would have began the judge decided that this trial needs a new trial date.

“Well, one of the more interesting things about this case is before she was arrested. So she being a serious Patrick had reached out to a true crime influencer, right?”

The host of allegedly reportedly the account which has over 100,000 followers said that Sarah Grace Patrick had sent her a direct message about her parents' case. And then so she made a video about it later. So let's check out SOT 6, which is the Patrick influencer exchange. The girl that asked me to cover the case has been arrested. Y'all, this is Sarah Grace and she messaged me back on June 3rd and just said search up Brockcase. So I said Brock Turner, Brock who. She said Kristen and James Brock, codon.

And I said, "Not knowing she was going to wind up arrested for this. I am so sorry. I cannot imagine. I will absolutely research and cover their case. Please take care of you always. Again, not knowing and I covered it.

“17-year-old daughter arrested for parents in Carroll County. On Tuesday afternoon, Carroll County Sheriff's Office announced that they have arrested 17-year-old Sarah Grace Patrick.”

She is facing two murder charges and two aggravated assault charges. The girl that asked me to cover the case has been arrested.

That's crazy. That's just wild. I know you've talked to some of Sarah Grace's family. Tell us about that. It sounds like there's some mixed opinions. Some people think there's no way she's capable of this. Some of the family members think that she's kind of acting completely different. Tell us about all that.

“The family dynamic actually of this case is so important when you just think about some of the opinions and the commentary of it that's been going on for the last year or so.”

So you have James and Kristen Brock, they're the victims in this case. You have James Brock and his side of the family. So he's the stepfather of Sarah Grace Patrick. The members of that side of the family who I've spoken with, they believe that Sarah Grace Patrick is guilty. They believe that she would be capable of doing something like this. But on the other side of the family, which is Kristen Brock side, that's the biological side for Sarah Patrick. Her grandfather, a man named Dennis and it's important to remember like he lost his daughter in this in this murder.

You know, Kristen Brock was his daughter. He has stood by Sarah Grace Patrick. The entire time we've also spoken with Sarah's biological dad, his name is DJ. He also stands by Sarah and her innocence.

In fact, he said the day before she was arrested. He sat in on a four hour interview. He told me with law enforcement where ultimately they had her come in for what he said was going to be like a witness statement for her to pick up property. But he says it ended up being a four hour interrogation. We're ultimately there were accusing her of this murder. Then the next day they put out a warrant for her arrest and then he had to drive her to the sheriff's office in Carroll County and turn her in. Definitely inside the courtroom. I was there for a bond hearing last year. Like it's there's some tension. Definitely because you have, you know, both sides of the family. These are people who spent Thanksgiving together in the past.

Like we had pictures of all of them together on Thanksgiving and then now you have because of what she's accused of an absolute, you know, not to use the cliche, but a line in the sand for sure in this case. There are other interesting, I guess, evidentiary tidbits here. Apparently Patrick, the defendant in the case, commented on a video that was posted by a family friend. The family friend's name Kelly Brown Brown has said that Patrick had reached out to her to speak on Patrick's behalf regarding the case.

And she claimed in the video that Patrick didn't hear anything unusual the night of the murders except she did hear the alarm on her father's LVAD, which is the left ventricular assist device. So he had a heart condition. So she said that she heard that going off throughout the night. Patrick commented on that video saying she heard the alarm going off for 10 to 20 minutes before she went to sleep. But then when they also when they interviewed Patrick. She apparently said she didn't hear any any gunshots and they know that the stepfather and mother died of gunshot wounds. But then they they interviewed, they did what's called a forensic interview, which I'm going to talk about later in my closing because honestly this is one of the most misused kinds of junk science in my opinion that law enforcement ever uses.

But they did what the call they forensic interview of this then five-year-old child who said that she, you know, she's president in the home that night. She said she did hear gunshots. So they're taking basically a what they say is a mountain of evidence that they haven't disclosed plus a statement of a five-year-old saying that's your gunshots.

“She defended Patrick saying she didn't hear gunshots but they she did hear the heart device going off and that's what they're building their case on Chris.”

And there's another thing that I'm interested like one question I've had with just what we've been able to like piece together.

And so we have the dispatch audio not the 911 call but the dispatch audio of the response I actually have it here. So this was like as Carol County's getting everybody ready to go to go respond to the house in Carolton and it says in reference to a cardiac arrest complainant advises that the mom and the stepfather are cold to the touch and they think they're beyond CPR and didn't see anything around them that is suspicious law enforcement is in root to you. And then during the bond hearing last year Kimberly Bowling who is the sister of James Brock when and she was very emotional on the stand as she was just talking about the impact on her life.

You know you think there beyond CPR they're cold to the touch you're not seeing anything suspicious and yet it seems like it was you know it a crime scene that's that's very much beyond you know what any of us would want to picture.

Well and the ultimate irony here is that.

Sarah Grace path Patrick delivered the eulogy at their funeral and those words also being used against her before we go to the break let's check out sought seven.

“If you want to take a hug or anyone, we're anything for granted and little with all that you have in your life.”

And honestly I want to take but I'm not taking people for granted I want to think of that way. Also known as my cattle family, my grandparents, my siblings, Jamie, Johnny, Jamie, Joe, John, Trent, Justin, Ashley and Jesse were helping you get through my worst nightmare. And last but not least, don't want to make caution for you, Nate, Mike, Kimberly A's Kim Bowling, Katie, and most of all my father and Jean Ben from making such a big difference.

Jamie and Paul would have thank you all too.

I love you because I said to him, I'm sorry. Chris, I don't know what the mountain of other evidence they say they have is my mind is open but when she says, I love you guys and so do they, I'm sorry. Look, I don't see that as an apology.

“I think that's saying basically I'm sorry for your loss and she's speaking to the folks there at the funeral service but we'll have to leave it there with you.”

But before you go, tell us how folks can find you.

We all know that you're with law and crime and about your great show, but how can they find you? Yeah, head over to our YouTube channel, Law and Crime and check us out there, we're also on Spotify, we're streaming on peacock as well the show is on the case with Chris Stewart. All right, thanks so much, buddy. We'll be right back with our closing argument, stick around everyone. You can go three out of four US homes have toxic chemicals in their tap water.

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Go to aquatru.com right now for 20% off your purifier using promo code true crumb. Aquatru even comes with a 30 day best tasting water guarantee that's aquatru.com AQ UA QUATRO.com promo code true crumb TRUE CRIME. Welcome back to the MK true crime show now it's time for our closing arguments fill will you get us started? Sure actually I will be happy to we left off in the last segment referring to the Sarah Grace Patrick case previewing that case. It's coming up in the west Georgia County Carroll County sometime in the future.

It was set to start today as we're recording this show, but it did get delayed, but that's case relies heavily on a child forensic interview. Okay forensic interview that sounds impressive, doesn't it? But this is where a five year old child is alleged to have reported hearing gunshots. Yet her 17 year old half sister president in the home at the time did not hear those gunshots apparently. So let's talk about what child forensic interviews are and what they are not.

In my opinion they are in the category of what we would call junk science it's something that unfortunately is relied upon too often in the criminal justice system. Proponents of these interviews will tell you that they're based on rigorous science while relying on techniques that have been shown for decades to produce false memories and contaminated statements.

There's repeated questioning there's subtle cues from the interviewer and there's the pressure of an authority figure in a strange room.

“These things can create detailed yet false stories of events that have never ever happened.”

The study is going back to the satanic panic days prove this over and over yet the field keeps using the same basic approach just with fancy or names, fancy or protocols and fancy acronyms. There is no gold standard controlled research that proves these interviews reliably distinguish truth from fantasy it rates better than chance.

Especially when there's no physical evidence. Interviewers often enter these situations where they confirmation bias.

“They for example they will look for abuse or they will assume that a child knows something about a crime and then they unconsciously shape the child's answers toward that bias.”

Leading questions still slip in the old did he hit you or in this case did you hear a gunshot this form of question becomes the frame it's a leading question and it puts the child in a frame of mind to fill in the details to simply please the adult questioner. They use things like body diagrams sometimes anatomical dolls and repeated tell me more those kinds of prompts have all been linked to increased false allegations and controlled experiments.

The science of memory does not support the claim that a trained interviewer can magically extract pure truth from a child's mind.

The court and courts and child protection agencies treat these sessions as if they are forensic gold yet the error rate remains unacceptably high and the field resist the kind of blind replicable testing that real science demands when lives families and freedoms are on the line.

“The process science is dangerous and I believe it's fraudulent it's suggestability theater masquerading is evidence that's why child forensic interviews are in my view actually junk science.”

Well, you know I agree with you Phil I definitely am right there with you I want to talk about one of the cases we just were talking about the again Sarah Patrick case. One of the things that came up was why this case was continued and so the prosecutors argued that the new defense team you know they came back into the case in February. And at that time they requested continuance but the prosecutors said oh well we're three weeks away from the beginning of trial and we are in quotes well within the ten day limit for the state to provide discovery and new evidence.

I love it when our producers read a law and think oh my god that can't be right so one of the questions they had was can the defense really receive new evidence just ten days prior to trial beginning. And I want to answer that and welcome you to the wild west of criminal defense where the defense can definitely receive new evidence up to ten days prior to trial in the state of Georgia where that trial is going and I want to illustrate this point by kind of a funny story in my own history. Not only can you get it ten days prior to trial but in states like Georgia you can actually even get it during trial which is super fun when you have eight billion other things going on during trial and you're trying to focus and you're getting new evidence particularly when it's not newly discovered it's just something that the prosecution happened to have not picked up before or gotten before.

So Georgia is one of those states that I would like to equate our discovery statute two maybe a fax machine or pigeon pigeon carrier statute regarding discovery it is very antiquated. And what the law says is that state just has to provide discovery ten days prior to trial but if they don't if they don't then what's the remedy. Well, nothing really it's a continuous as you could see here but only if the judge grants it and only if the defense can prove what's called bad faith what does that mean that means maybe they hit it maybe they you know.

Did something to try to avoid giving this something like that so the story I want to tell is a case I had several years ago where a couple days into trial it was actually the second day of trial the prosecutor walked in and handed me over a hundred hours of jail recordings of my client. Talking with family members friends different folks because they record you when you're on those jail calls and the prosecutor said well I just got them you know I requested them they've been available for months obviously but I just physically went got them because I thought maybe they would be important.

And I said judge you know I can't physically listen to a hundred hours of audio on jail calls this week while I'm sort of in the middle of trial I'm kind of busy. And the prosecution said well you know what we won't use them until laugh you know the end of our evidence so probably three days so she probably has three days to listen to all of them before we actually play them.

And I said well let's do the math judge and myself as to not sleep not eat do I need to actually pay attention during this trial or should I be listening to these jail calls while I'm in trial I mean what what do you actually want out of this because you know I'm kind of busy in trial actually trying this case and paying attention to it and the judge said well you know I mean you don't really sleep that much in trial anyway so I'm sure you can figure it out.

“Well I'd said no not so much I'm not going to figure it out I'm sorry I'm not going to listen to these I'm putting my foot down and if you force the trial to go forward and the state introduces this evidence and it's harmful.”

I'm not going to have any way to counter it because guess what I don't have any time.

Judged sit and I don't really care guess what state never introduced him in trial it was all a tactic in my opinion to really throw me off and have me listening to pointless jail calls when I should be sleeping and I should be preparing for trial.

“But yes to answer your question you can get evidence ten days prior to trial you can actually get it in the middle of trial.”

It's insane I like to call it the wild west but goodbye everyone but before we let you go we want to give a quick reminder to please subscribe so it's the MK true crime show on YouTube.

Wherever you get podcasts all of the different podcasts places please subscribe and check us out and thank you so much to my co host Phil Holloway and to our guest Chris Stewart and thank you for joining us.

We hope you have a wonderful week.