Legendary Testimony from Richins Family Investigator, Kouri’s 911 Call Admitted, and Teacher Killed in Prank, with Natalie Whittingham-Burrell

and I'm a former police officer. I have been in and around the justice system for the

“better part of 40 years now, and I know a great true crime show when I see one, and that's what”

we have today. So here's what's on our MK True Crime docket. We're in week three now of the

Cory Richen's murder trial. This week, business partner and best friend of the alleged victim Eric Richen's, his name's Cody Wright. He took the stand to testify about Eric's alleged drug use. Was this a major flop for the defense? We'll discuss. And later we will be joined by criminal defense attorney Natalie with him, Burrell. A.K.A. Natalie, lawyer, check on YouTube. She'll be with us to discuss the 911 call played in court, and one of the most memorable witnesses yet

to take the stand in this humdinger of a trial, the Cory Richen's trial. Also here in Georgia where I am, a teacher was killed tragically during a prom season prank. Now, his students are charged in his death. Should they be held responsible? We'll bring you all the details. I'm very pleased to be joined today by my friend, my co-host, Diamond Dave Erimberg, the Florida Lawman, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, and the managing partner at Dave

Erimberg Law. So Dave, we're in the third week of the Cory Richen's trial, and we've had some

interesting witnesses take to stand, including Eric Richen's business partner and friend, Cody Wright. Cody testified on Monday about a call. Eric made to him on Valentine's Day in 2022. Cody said there was fear in Eric's voice. Context, however, for the call was omitted from the testimony, but we can provide that here. According to multiple court documents and prosecutorial allegations in her ongoing murder trial as of 2026, prosecutors claim that Richen's laced a sandwich.

Her husband's favorite with fentanyl, and left it for him and his truck with a Valentine's Day note. Reportedly, Eric ate a bite and then he suffered a severe reaction, including hives, trouble breathing, and blacking out or losing consciousness. This has been described as a failed attempt to kill him. About a month before his actual death in 2022, from what prosecutors say was a lethal dose of fentanyl slipped into a Moscow mu. That being five times a lethal amount. Now, with that

in mind, let's go ahead and play Cody's testimony on the call, someone. Do you recall receiving a phone call from Eric at approximately 2 p.m. on Valentine's Day 2022? Yes.

“Without saying what Eric said to you, why isn't you remembered that phone call?”

The fear in his voice, the urgency of the situation, the seriousness of what was going on. How do you ever heard Eric sound like that before? The only other time I heard that urgency in that fear, when he called me telling me that his mother had passed away in the hospital. I also heard that urgency or that fear when he had been rear-ended in an accident and feared that the person that had hit him had passed away as well or had hit him hard enough that he was scared of what

had just happened. All right, Dave, so look, I've got thoughts about this, but the first thing that

comes to mind is this is why I have my whiskey tango foxtrot mug for those of you who are listening

“on podcast or on series XM. That's what my mug says because I don't know”

WTF they are thinking by not including all this very important context here. I mean, my God, she is accused of trying to kill her husband on Valentine's Day by poisoning his sandwich and then the friend gets this call on Valentine's Day and he said there's something off. I mean, you heard that you heard the video and the audio, there's something off with the man's affect and his demeanor on the phone call like he's scared. Why not bring in that context, Dave?

It's the hearsay rule, Phil. So Cody Wright can testify that Eric called him and that he sounded fearful, just straw, urgent, all these things. They can describe Eric's vibe, but they can't

I think Corey just poisoned my sandwich. Well, that would be hearsay. So you can talk about how Eric sounded. You can talk about how he, the witness felt, but you can't talk about exactly the words that Eric said. No, you're right about the hearsay being the proper objection, of course. Now, I can think of to play devil's advocate. I can think of another way to maybe get those words in.

You basically, you know, offer the words, the exact words spoken and you tell the judge once there's

an objection that you're not offering these words for the truth of the matter asserted. Judge, I'm offering them for the effect that it has on the listener, right? And some judges might allow you to do that on that basis. But the judge, being the gatekeeper of what's fair and what's not fair, this is solely within the judge's discretion. But I suspect, Dave, that we're going to hear

“more context about this as the trial moves forward. Because remember, she's accused of that attempted”

murder. And also, you can get into prior bad acts if they denote something like someone's criminal signature. And so if you're a criminal signature, as you like to poison people with food,

then this clearly fits that bill. I'll true. Now, there are exceptions to the hearsay rule,

as you correctly noted, if it's a present sense impression and excited utterance. And so those are ways you can get it in. And if you can't, and that's objected, well, it's hard to un-ring that bell. The jury has heard it. So I agree with you that there's a way to make sure that the jury gets the context. I mean, it is really damning when you have someone like Cory Richen saying her husband is a drug user. He poisoned himself through drug use when, hold on, didn't you try to

poison him previously? A Valentine's Day through a sandwich? And then, of course, I'm still wondering if she tried to poison Grossman, the boy, the hush puppy. Yeah, hush puppy, we talked about that last time. Good question. But you know, if you're the prosecutor and you've been a prosecutor

“a lot longer than I was, and more recently than I was, but still, even I remember that as a”

prosecutor, you don't want to have to try your case twice. In other words, if you get a conviction, and it's overturned on appeal because you put in some inadmissible hearsay, then you've got to do the whole thing over again. Or perhaps you don't want to risk a mistrial. And by the way, as of day 10, Monday, March, 9, there's been two formal written motions for a mistrial. I think we don't spend a lot of time on this day, but I don't think those mistrial motions really

amounted to much. One of them had to do the defense move for a mistrial after the witness mentioned jail calls in front of the jury. Now, look, and the judge said that that was relatively innocuous. And I agree because everybody and their brother knows that if you're on trial for murder, you're either are or at some point have been in jail. So that's really innocuous. And then on March 2nd, the defense move for a mistrial regarding alleged undisclosed information concerning

witness, Carmen Lauber, who, by the way, was the housekeeper, who was allegedly charged by Corey Richards with procuring, I'll shall say, the drugs in question used to allegedly murder her husband. The story, the idea was that, okay, all the information about this witness and her not doing so well in her drug court rehabilitation program, she didn't do well, and she may have

been sanctioned, you know, look, here's the thing, if she wasn't doing well in the drug treatment

court, maybe just maybe it's because Corey Richards had her out there scouring the country side for any and all manner of drugs. That's just my opinion. I welcome yours.

“Well, yeah, that's how she got the drugs. I mean, this is a key witness. She had this hook up”

with someone who had some drug issues, and instead of helping her through her own recovery, she asked her to get her the good stuff, the Michael Jackson stuff. So they have so much evidence against Corey Richards. I think the most you can do is just to, you know, batterize at the jury and be all like the doye look of innocence, and she's there, dressed very wholesomely and wearing no makeup, and you know, just maybe get some jury

nullification. Maybe there's one juror who feels sorry for her, it doesn't want her to go to prison. I mean, she was ready for this moment. She, she dressed in those pyjamas that made her look like a sweet young woman when the cops came to her house, and it was video taped after her husband was poisoned to death. So, you know, she is, she's, she's trying even though the evidence is clearly stacked against her. Well, we've got some more testimony from Cody that I want to

talk about with you. This prosecutor bloodworth asks Cody about a series of beneficiary changes

And the life insurance policy, you know, these guys were business partners. Obviously,

it's not uncommon for people who are business partners to have insurance on each other and things like that. Cody says he did not make the changes, and he did not make any changes to Eric's policy. Let's, let's check out sought to you. Are you familiar with a buy sell agreement that you and Eric had in place? Should anything happen, do either of you? Yes. Are you familiar with a new York, New York life insurance policy? A set of New York life insurance policies that were

associated with that buy sell agreement? Yes. Are you familiar with the series of beneficiary changes to the New York life policy on your life in January of 2022? I was told those happened.

“Did you make those beneficiary changes to your New York life policy in January of 2022?”

I did not. Did you ever make any beneficiary changes to that New York life policy? No. Did you ever observe Eric Richens make any beneficiary changes to that New York life policy? No. Here we are Dave, just they're hammering hammering home the financial motive behind their theory of the case. Yeah, it's also the financial charges, I mean, she's being charged for

some of these financial and proprieties as well with this fraud. So it's a too far, but jurors always

want to know the why. You don't have to. There's it's not an element to a murder charge to know why someone did it, but jurors want to know motive. And here, the motive is easy to understand. She wanted the money. She was deep in debt. She fell out of love with her husband. She had a lover grossment on the side. She wanted a new life done. He got it. He got means motive opportunity. I guess

“the only thing defense has left is just to tarnish the victim to say that he was a drug addict.”

And that was a big part of the whole testimony with Cody Wright trying to show that Cody Wright was. And so honest about his testimony, he lied about the red devils. And therefore,

the defense lawyer told the judge that that means Cory Richens is innocent. Oh, yeah, let's

pause about. Okay. So let's, let's, I'm glad you mentioned the, okay. So the red devil thing, okay. Let me, let me sort of set this up for the audience. There's this discussion between the defense and the prosecution about drugs. Okay. Defense lawyer Nester believes that she can impeach Cody. Now impeachment is where you try to show the jury that the witness could not be believe because they're either a liar or they're mistaken or for whatever reason their testimony

is not credible or believable. Right. So she says that she can impeach Cody because according to her, she didn't tell the truth about Eric's alleged drug use. And judge says he's not sure it's in fact something that's impeachable, but if it is, then she can do so. But the judge isn't sure that Cody has said anything that is impeachable. Nester referring to a transcript from what Cody said in the preliminary hearing and something about red devils. Now, I don't know about you Dave,

but I haven't used, I don't know that I've used or heard the term red devils, but this is all something that supposedly took place way back in high school more than 20 years ago. So it's, it's temporal relevance to this whole thing is sketchy to begin with in my view. But let's go ahead and listen to slot three and then let's, I want to talk with you about what we learn that red devils actually are. Was it your understanding in high school when you knew about this,

that Mr. Richins was using his own prescription for pain pills or someone else's? I had learned about this later on in life, not in high school. Okay, and what did you learn? And I learned that he had taken pain pills in high school. That's what I had been told. Without a prescription. I'd looked in get asked though. There was a prescription or not. I All right, and then I think you said in the prelim that you thought they were called red devils, is that right?

“That's what I was told. And was it your understanding that red devils were an illicit street drug?”

I don't know what an illicit street drug entails, but I assumed that the red devils were being abused. That's what high school kids were doing. So people were doing that in your school? I heard that, yes. And did you know what red did you know what red devils were? I learned later on what those were, yes. What are those? I believe I believe it's suit of it.

Oh, I can bring up my whiskey tango fox trot mug again, Dave, because we've seen instances in this trial where maybe lawyers were surprised by the answers, but now we've got Sutherford being compared to illicit drug use, not dimensioned by the way. The torrential in-pouring of the hearsay that we were talking about. It's almost like hearsay coming through like water through a fire hose here. What's going on? Why the prosecution allows so much

“here say in there. But here's the thing. It is important if the victim here, Eric had used elicit drugs,”

because that is the whole theory of the case for the defense. But what we're finding is that you have

a witness who's very close with Eric, who said that he has never seen Eric use over the counter or

prescription drugs. He has never seen Eric use elicit drugs. And then he sort of contradicts that by saying, well, there's those red devils that he knew about those, and then it turns out red devils at Sudafed. Then people abuse Sudafed back in high school. I don't know, but it is impeachable. That's something to impeach a witness to say, okay, well, my cacha. But the defense lawyer trying to take that a step further and say, not only did I catch you, and I lie, this entire

witness testimony should be thrown out. My client is innocent. No, you're taking maybe a small victory, you got, you know, instead trying to say you won the Super Bowl, because you made a 10-yard gain on a running play in the fourth quarter, when you're down 31-0,

“that's my sports analogy. You said it was, you said a step too far. I think it was like a mile too far.”

By the way, here's, we have the sound in the video of a turning nest or moving to strike all of Cody Wright's testimony. On the basis of all that Sudafed nonsense, let's see what the judge says, sought for. On our strongest way of possible, we object to this. We would like a continuing objection. We moved to strike all of Cody Wright's testimony, all of the issues that Mr. you're lost on redirect, on redirect, the redirect testimony. Which way? Where he answered the

question that I'm not now being allowed to impeach him on. We're asking to strike it at the very minimum. The, all of the things that Mr. Bloodworth just brought up, all go to wait, not a missibility, and... What is the non-here-say root for this witness to testify regarding what he heard if it's coming in for the truth of the matter, sir? It's not. It's coming into impeach that once the court allowed him to answer that question with hearsay to rebut the hearsay that

we elisted. What's the evidence that he heard prior to today, testifying today, that Eric richens used a list of street trucks? He just testified to it on the stand. That is not true. Okay, well, we agreed to disagree on that, Your Honor. All right, so let's just for our audience, benefit. I'm sure the lawyers who are watching this show are on YouTube are going to probably eviscerate me in the comments because I'm not going to do

this completely right, but hearsay is a complicated topic. Basically, it's an at-a-court statement

“that's offered for the truth of the matter asserted. So if you want to bring in a third-party statement”

that says the sky is blue, for the purpose of proving the sky is blue, that's what it means offering for the truth of the matter asserted. But if it's brought in for something else, other than to prove the truth of what is being asserted, then it might be non hearsay. It may fit into some exceptions to hearsay. Now, that's what when the judge says, what's the non hearsay way to bring this in when it's being offered for the truth of the matter

asserted? Because the judge is just as confused as I am. Here's what the basis of my confusion is

Dave. She says she wants to impeach this witness, which we've talked about a moment ago, which is to try to say that his testimony is somehow not reliable. There's limited ways though that you can impeach someone's testimony. You can impeach them if you have evidence of that witness saying something different at a previous time that's called a prior inconsistent statement. If you can prove that they said something different on an earlier date than what they're telling

the jury now, that's the way of impeaching. If they're a convicted felon, you can bring in their felony conviction and tend to that to the jury and show that they're a convicted felon and therefore

they're not worthy of belief. And there are very lived impeaching by hearsay. I've never heard

but am I missing something here? You're absolutely right. You can't use hearsay it for that purpose. Cody did not have first hand knowledge of Eric using red devils as an adult. He was relying on some high school rumors. So to throw out his testimony because that is the bridge too far. You could because you got it in there. You could say, oh, I'm to the members of the jury, we impeached him. We showed you can't believe things they're saying. Now even though two things

can be true at the same time, he said he never saw Eric use drugs. He didn't know of Eric using

drugs, but he had heard the rumor back in high school. So okay, you got like I said, it maybe again, a little something out of it, defense lawyer, good job, move on. But now you go to the judge, you say strike the whole thing. The judge is incredulous. In fact, the judge sent the jury out of the room and gave a legal lecture to this lawyer saying that you're trying to use hearsay to

“impeach hearsay. So remember, the original source of the drug rumor was not in court. So”

can't be cross examined. So the defense can't use these rumors to make Cody look like a line. If you're looking to make smarter choices for your health this year, consider River Bend Ranch. Their stakes are not only delicious, they also contain real, high quality protein that helps

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Order today at River Bend Ranch.com and use the promo code Megan to get 20 bucks off your first order. All right, Dave, before we move into our next block where we have our guests joining us to pick up more on the Cory Ritten's Trial, I want to come back closer to home here in Georgia, where I am. I don't know if you saw this story, but we had a tragic situation here over the weekend, a Georgia teacher, sadly lost his life after teenagers' prank went wrong. So this happened late

last Friday night, a group of teachers in Gainesville, Georgia drove to one of their teachers' homes. They were armed with rolls of toilet paper to toss over the trees as part of a good-natureed

“prank. It's called TPing or we used to call it rolling the houses when I was a kid. So the teacher”

knew this was coming. This was a long-standing tradition at this school, but the ground, unfortunately, was slick from rain and the teacher who, I guess the way the rules were set up Dave, the rules of this prank contest. If you were able to TP the teacher's yard, you get a certain number of points, but if you get caught in the process, the teacher gets the points or something like that. Jason Hughes, age 40 years old, slipped and fell, as he was trying

his best to catch them in the act. So to speak, he fell in the street and was sadly run over by one of the teenagers, 18-year-old young man leaving the scene. Now, all four of the kids involved in this have been charged with various crimes, but the worst of it was the driver. Ryan Wallace, he's accused of running over Mr. Hughes, he's accused of felony Dave. I'm a side by motor vehicle because it's based on reckless driving. Now, interestingly enough, and I want to hear your thoughts

on this, interestingly enough, the family does not want him to be prosecuted. The family of the deceased teacher understands that in their opinion, this is a tragic accident, and that the late teacher, the victim in the case, would not want the kids to be prosecuted. Dave, that brings up prosecutorial discretion, and there's nobody better than Dave Aaronberg to talk to us about that, and how that plays into this case. Well, the wishes of the victim's family will matter,

because apparently the students had no malicious intent to teach her, knew about this. They all loved each other, and this was part of the junior senior class wars, and if the teacher caught them when they were teaping the house, and then they lose points, and that explains why they were in such a hurry to drive off for the teacher to come out, but then the teacher slipped and fell,

district had previously called upon the students to end the prank war tradition, because students

had taken things too far previously, and so they said, don't do it, and they did it anyways. So should there be a criminal charge here? Well, normally I would say there's something here, but if the family of the victim says, we don't want to compound the tragedy. I mean, it's already, we've already lost our loved one, and we don't want to see kids have their life run. They're already obviously saddened and just destroyed by this, by having blood on their hands.

“Does it mean justice to prosecute them further? I don't know. I think perhaps they should at least”

lower the charges, maybe come up with a resolution, and end this tradition, because this is

clearly gone too far. Well, reckless driving, has so reckless driving is a misdemeanor traffic offense in Georgia, but it's the predicate for the felony variety of vehicular homicide. There's a misdemeanor variety of vehicular homicide, but the felony variety relies on some underlying serious traffic offense like reckless driving, or DUI, or something along those lines. And to prove reckless driving, they would have to prove that this young man was driving in a way that

he just utterly disregarded the risk that he was posing to the public such that it endangered life or limb. And the evidence, apparently, according to the family, was that the reason that the victim was in the roadway to be run over was because he slipped on wet ground. So we will have to keep following this here at MK True Crime to see how it's going to play out. I actually posted something about that on X, because there's a, actually, a go-fund me now, not only for the victim's

family, but for the kids who are being now supported by that victim's family in terms of their efforts to not face criminal charges. Well, yeah, well, the one student bases up to 15 years yeah, prison, if convicted. So yes, serious stuff. Yep. Well, you know, it's, it's one of these things where he's going to have to live with this for the rest of his life. And I can clearly see where a fair-minded prosecutor might take the wishes of the victim's family into account. And even

if they don't dismiss these charges, significantly reduce them. There's a misdemeanor variety of this. There was no criminal intent, uh, and it seems to be a, prank gone wrong. And all the schools around here do it. Coming up next, we have criminal defense attorney Natalie Whittingham Burrell, aka Natalie Lawyer chick on YouTube. She joins us next to dig deeper in the Cory Richen's trial. Think about this. In 2006, $20,000 equals roughly 33 ounces of gold at spot

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Welcome back to MK True Crime. Joining us now, criminal defense warrior, Natalie Whittingham Burrell, aka Natalie lawyer chick on YouTube. Check her out. Welcome, Natalie. And as a criminal defense

“lawyer, what is your assessment of the Corey Richens defense team so far in this trial?”

Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so I am, I think they leave a bit to be desired. I will say on a positive note that they are coming across as quite dog-in, which is good because she's basing the most serious charges that you can face. They're not slouching off and kind of tucking their tail, but there could be a bit more in the way of organization and the way in which the questions are being asked. I'm really taking a lot of issue with. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean,

lawyer. I mean, what do you do in a case like this, where it seems like you have a mountain of evidence

against you? You've got means, motive opportunity. Do you try to object as many times as this lawyer has been objecting? It seems like she's just annoying to jury by the concept sections. And her tone with the judge has been a little caustic. So I don't know. I mean, what do you do

“when you have trash as a case and you try to, you know, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?”

Oh, yeah. I think that's home with the judge. It's definitely where you don't want to go here. If that, this is an instructional and not to do. The judge has a great affect and he's very respectful to everyone in the courtroom and the fact that they are repeatedly trying his patience is not

building well for misrichens. You poke holes where you can. And so I don't really take so much

issue with the objections, but make the objections be good. Let's do the objections where they count and where they matter most and where you're trying to preserve or record. And when it comes across as though it's excessive or gratuitous, you certainly can lose the jury that way. Yeah, you don't want to waste the jury's time, Natalie, as you know, because they will hold that against you very much when they go back into their deliberations. You know, we've seen a

lot of objection. We've seen a lot of questions, though, that were asked that shouldn't have been asked. And we've seen answers given to some of those questions that, you know, the defense lawyers weren't even expecting. And I was curious to get your take on some of that aspect of the advocacy

here. Everybody's got their own style. I get that and I'm not trying to be overly critical.

But it seems like there's been more than one instance here, multiple times now, where these lawyers just walking into a bees or a hornet's nest of an answer that they weren't expecting. Yeah, if they're opening the door quite a lot, right? They're opening the door to bad evidence that would not have otherwise come in. They're also opening the door to snarky answers from witnesses that almost make the attorney seem like they're not as up to snuff as they should be.

I especially think of the private investigator who has worked for defense attorneys many times. Yeah. And they keep asking him questions to speculate to the state of mind of law enforcement,

“which he knows not to do. You should know not to ask the professional witness those types of”

questions and it comes across as disingenuous. And it makes the jury question, you know, your capacity to have a case of this nature. So it's that part is not worth it. I want to get to you're right about that private investigator. We're going to get to some of his testimony in a minute. But I want to go back and ask you some questions about the 911 call evidence that's played. Can we hear salt seven and then let's actually do seven and

eight back to back if we can. Okay, tell me exactly what happens. Okay, I can't even let that go. I need you to take a deep breath. What's going on? I don't know. I just I was like, we did with my kids. I just came into bed. Did our bed, and I turned over. I mean, it's good. It's cool. It's cool. Who's called? I was bad. I just applied on it. You're not breathing. But a legion on the floor, the ground on the floor on the ground.

I think I think I can do it. You can do it. You can do it.

“You need to come down. I can guide you to CPR. Take a deep breath from me. I'm here with you.”

So did she or did she not do CPR? Natalie? Because you know, I don't know that anybody asked any of the witnesses whether it was apparent that actual CPR was performed. I didn't hear the question asked, and it doesn't sound like she performed CPR on the 911 call. As we all know, it's legal professionals. When someone's performing CPR, it's a violin act. So there will be evidence of it if it's performed, and also you can hear a person performing it.

She is hesitant. Doesn't want to perform CPR. She doesn't want to touch him. So I would really like to know that. Did she even attempt CPR with him? Well, so, I mean, I think that those kind of follow-up questions like, you know, this is, we've talked about this before, some context that sometimes just seems to be missing from this case.

and you knew how to tell jury is exactly what they mean. Well, I mean, every case is judged by its own situation. And here, you have someone who,

“I believe she delayed con on one one. I don't think she called right away. And here she is,”

as someone who was told to CPR, and she didn't, apparently. Also, it is telling, I don't know if

it has became in the context of the first poisoning attempt. But when the husband, when Eric called

her to tell her that he feels so sick, and she knew allegedly at the time that he had been poisoned, she encouraged him not to go to the hospital, just to go sleep it off. So I think all that in context shows that these are crocodile tears. And that's something the jurors hate. They hate someone who's trying to fool you, trying to put one over on you. And I've seen that a lot in my career. Yeah, these defendants who just, oh, you know, they're, it dams on distress. Well, I, I think

the 911 call does not help her, but maybe Natalie, you think differently, or you are an experienced kind of a fenced lawyer. And so you're able to pull rabbits out of the hat.

Yeah, well, her crying, her crying in that 911 call actually reminds me as a defense attorney.

When I have a state's witness on the stand, who's lying and saying, oh, they did this to me. They did that to me, and it's crocodile tears. That's exactly what that sounds like.

“The, the same exact tone of voice. It's very disingenuous, right?”

And that's something, I mean, jurors just want to be respected that like here we're here to be a fact finder. And when you have someone who's looking at them, the dough eyes, and, you know, dress really, uh, very plain with no makeup from this then, and just look so sweet. How could anyone like this do? It reminds me of of the Menendez brothers with their, their soft sweaters, or the Nicholas Cruz, the, the massacre, the, the killer at Marjorie Stomman Douglas,

with the sweater and the big oversized glasses. The fenced lawyers know how to dress up their clients. Joe, the areas, right? Well, they're, uh, they're speaking of cold, blooded killers. There's been a, a twist in this, and I want to set it up and then ask you about it. So we have the, I guess the lead investigator detective, Jamie Woody, now a canine officer here in 2026. Also, by the way, somebody that you might have asked the question to,

hey, did you see any evidence of CPR actually being performed? But there was this issue that came up. All right. So you have Eric's sister named Amy, right? So apparently at some point, Amy told the detective Jamie Woody that Eric had told her that he thought that Corey was going to kill him. Now, that's obviously hearsay and hearsay within hearsay, but we, we've got some sound, uh, sought nine and some video of detective Woody discussing this.

Mr. Woody, that's the question. Yeah, ask a, your next series of questions. Let's see where we go. When Amy met you in the driveway, did she say anything that informed your investigation? Yes. What did she say? She told me that Eric had said to her that he thought Corey was going to kill him. Then did you go into the house, then? Yes, it did. Okay. So this, uh, Natalie appears to be obviously

“outside the presence of the jury. Yeah. You know, so yeah. So that's, that's why there was no objection,”

but they're, they're clearly, the judge is trying to go through the sort of the legal analysis to determine whether it can come in and what it's all about. But what's your take on that piece of

this and the legal issues, Natalie? Well, my take on it is that, you know, first of all,

it's hearsay within hearsay, but blanket, uh, you know, that she could have taken action and conformity with, but I don't see how a jury would be able to put that aside if they did hear it, but if, back to did believe that his wife was going to kill him, um, that's pretty damning. That places in context for behavior around that time and whether or not it's innocuous behavior, as for lawyers who want you to believe, or if it shows that she was actually plotting to kill her husband,

if the very subject of the plot felt like they were going to be killed, maybe she was plotting to kill her husband. So it just informs us as the viewer of something. Well, the, the judge asked Katherine Nester if she wanted to ask, uh, would he about the exchange of Nester said based on

What did the conversation that she mentioned that Eric thought Corey was going to kill him in,

and what he says in both conversations. So, you know, and if you're the prosecutor, I can understand why you might want this information to come in, but I also understand as a prosecutor, why you wouldn't, because as you mentioned, it's hearsay within hearsay, and it's the kind of thing that even if you could figure out some way to rationalize its admissibility, it's one of those things where it's danger for unfair prejudice against the accused outweighs the probative value,

the probative value of it is pretty low, particularly since you can't cross examine the

purported speaker, Eric. That's just my take on it, but I want to also ask you, Natalie,

about another witness, quite the character in this case, Todd Gabler. I'm just going to

“ask you now an open-ended non-leading question. What do you think about Todd Gabler and who is he?”

Wow, I thought Todd Gabler was very, very interesting. He's the investigator that mostly, I think almost exclusively worked for the defense, then ended up finding all this information that he handed over to the police, that informed them, going back into the home and doing more searches and finding more evidence that was incriminating towards Cory Richens. And I also thought that on cross examination, I mean, he was just a gold mine for the prosecution. He anticipated

the purpose of the defense's questions, expose the purpose of the defense's questions to the jury and answering the questions. I want me to speculate, but I'm not going to do that. I disagree with your characterization. I mean, goodness gracious, I would have hated to have the cross examined

“that man, even if that was my case. Well, you know, I've talked about this before. It's, you know,”

you've got to ask pointed leading questions that you already know the answer to or a witness has the opportunity to do that. So here's, Todd Gabler discussing the hundreds of texts between housekeeper and purported drug procurement agent, Carmen Lover, and the defendant, Cory Richens. Was there any particular contact weight that caught your attention? Yes. What contact did that involve? It involved the contact with Carmen Lover.

I noted immediately that there were many hundreds of text messages between the two from the initial data said that was January of 22 through May of 22. There was a very heavy weight.

I don't recall if she was the second or third weight, but it was very close.

The only two people that I recall that were ahead of Carmen on that weight was Cory's mom and Eric. It was immediately apparent to me that Carmen had a very extensive criminal record involving drug use and potentially drug sales. I noted that Carmen had a dirty urinalysis, meaning that she tested positive for prohibited drugs in her drug court around the time of Eric's death. I was very concerned about the high number of contacts and the criminal history for Carmen,

and I alerted the sheriff's office about that. So it's the large volume of texts that he says picked his interest in this case, Natalie. Right. Yeah. And it's interesting because she does have, Carmen has a relationship to Cory Richens and her family that is a professional one as a cleaner. So one could argue from the difference perspective that there's a completely innocuous reason

“for the large amount of contacts, but you have to look into overall history. And if the history”

is that they were not contacting each other that frequently and then leading up to Eric's death. They're contacted each other all the time. And then she's supposed to be in recovery. She's in drug court and now all the sudden she's testing, you know, dirty. That would absolutely be a subject of concern. And also why if this is the witness that made that connection to Carmen based on those contacts, I would have been a lot more careful in my cross-examination of him because that's a very

intelligent person. He is very, very good at drawing, you know, the connecting the dots to each other. And so it just was such a perilous witness for the defensive film. This guy was such a good witness. He was very popular on Twitter and for good reasons.

So it's like the little mysteries, like, got a little matte lock in him. You know, he, what's interesting is that also he's been a private investigator for 34 years and he's worked

on 100 homicide cases. And in every case, it was for the defense. He has never before been on the

state side, but he was so compelled by what he saw that he's testifying for the state here. Boy, that is so powerful. Natalie, I don't know if you saw this, but there was one part of his testimony where, well, I mean, let me, I don't want to say it. Let's just, let's just listen to it. Let's, uh, slot 10. And then you drove it to a locksmith? I did. And you busted it into the safe? I did not bust into the safe. Oh, he did. He bumped. He used a technique called bumping.

It's the movement of the door and the frame of the safe that allows it to come open. Okay, but you didn't have a combination.

I didn't, I don't know if that was a combination. I thought there was a key to that one.

It was forced open with a hammer, right? I think it was a rubber mallet and it was dropped

“onto the ground. Okay. I think that's what eventually got it opened. Was that it was”

dropped onto a flat surface? And when you were doing that, there's no law enforcement there, correct? I don't need law enforcement to babysit me. Okay. So again, you know, this is, this could have been avoided by the defense with shorter questions, more pointed questions, uh, and not, you know, with, with doing it that way, they would not have given him the room to just take it and run. We know that this safe was opened by some alternative

means, right? Why do we need to quibble on whether it was hammer or a mallet or if it was bumped or dropped, why do we, what was the point in all that, guys? She's losing the forest for the trees. So what she's trying to get at is you obtain this evidence by some of the various means, and so we should not trust this evidence, right? You aren't being watched by law enforcement. You could have gone off on your own and just done something, and so we can't trust the evidence that

“comes out of it. You as the defense attorney need to realize we're a certain battle is lost, right?”

He is extremely experienced. He works mostly for the defense. He's not motivated to help the prosecution, and so the implication that he's somehow tainted the evidence or did things in an incorrect way, he's going to take offense too, and then make you look, excuse the term, dumb for trying to imply that he could do that. In that crisis emanation, he looked like if you've ever seen a cat play with a mouse when the cat is not really hungry, he was just kind of batting

her around just now on crisis emanation, and she allowed that, like you said, you know those open-ended questions on details that ultimately were not going to matter. You know, Bill, all good points, and the way he does it is just such a burn. I mean, that's how you

can make someone look dumb, and you never have to excuse yourself or saying the word the

four letter word dumb or any other four letter word on this channel. But you know, I said, you might be a madlock. Actually, it might be an iron size. I don't know, Natalie's too young for that, but Phil, you and I probably remember iron size, right? Oh my god. Yeah, of course. I mean,

“don't don't date me too much, but yeah, iron size. The only thing missing is the wheelchair, right?”

But he does race. He does have the net race. But you know, there's one other thing that really stands out with with this witness. Natalie, I'm sure that your familiar with the whole is this or is this not sexting? And by that, this is between Bryce, Eric and his friend Bryce. What was that all about? You know, honestly, this is once again losing the forest for the trees, right? Because who cares?

You're not trying to say that someone else he was having an affair and someone else killed him. Right. That's not what we're saying at all. We're trying to say it was a genuine accident. We'll overdose. What does it matter if Eric was or was not sexting or having an emotional affair? Are you trying to, you know, throw your deceased person, your victim under the bus? That's not going to help you. So I have no idea what you was going with that. And it did not,

it did not pay off. Well, a net, a nester, defense attorney, nester, asks about these texts. And she asked Gabriel to review it. The witness says it's a joke, right? But nester asks about a text exchange between Eric and his friend Bryce that said, quote, "Cortima are starting an open relationship tonight." So I told her, "I'm taking you home."

nature, but also the kind of thing that's, you know, may not be uncommon between friends

who are sending a otherwise private text conversation. In fact, let's hear Sada Levin, which is Gabriel are discussing this. Do you remember seeing this text between Eric and another

“individual saying that Cory and I are starting an open relationship tonight?”

Right? It says, "Cory and I are starting an open relationship tonight." So I told her, "I'm taking you home." Right? Yeah. Okay. Can you let that out of your report? No. This would be part of my report. Did you see sexting between Bryce and Eric when you looked at their text? I don't recall that. No.

Katie. And it's this, I mean, is this sexting? I don't know what you mean.

No, I'm not talking about this one. I'm talking about other words. All right. I don't recall. Before Dave takes us out of the segment, I just got to point out that this, in the law, there's a technical legal phrase for this, and it goes like this. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? It's not relevant. Exactly.

If before I go, I'll just say, maybe if he had in fact left it out of this report, you could say, you're very biased because you care about Eric for some reason. You feel really, really sorry for him. You're trying to paint him in the best light possible, and you don't want to believe that he overdoses. So now you're blaming Cory, right? Why that would be the case who knows? But he did put it in his report. So why are we talking about this?

Because I've got nothing else. They're just grasping at straws, doing anything against the wall,

“hoping something sticks. But yeah, that's not going well for them. That's what they need you,”

Natalie, to take over the case. But fortunately, we've got you here, and we're going to find you on YouTube. So Natalie, where can our audience find you? You can find me on YouTube at Natalie BoyerTik. Natalie BoyerTik, thank you for being here. That's Natalie Woodingham Burrell. Dave Aaronberg, that's Phil Holloway. Next is our closing arguments and your questions. Stay tuned. Relief factor loves hearing from pain free customers, and hopes they can help you next.

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We'll get to our closing arguments here in just a moment. But first, we have a question from San

Jita who says, "Thank you for all you do. I just wanted to ask for something that would be amazing.

If you could make a playlist on YouTube of the closing argument segment, please. They are the best bits of the show and I would love to easily binge them. I somehow feel cleverer after watching them and would like to be that concise too." Thank you very much, San Jita, to all today is your lucky day because, guess what, Dave? Our intrepid team of producers have done just that and they have made a specific playlist just of our closing arguments and in that playlist, Dave.

One thing that they will find here, eventually, is the closing argument that I know that you are teed up and ready to go with. Oh, I am ready and thank you Phil and San Jita. That's a wonderful request, smart and thank you to our team for putting it together because it's our favorite part of the show. So, you remember when I recently complained about being trapped near a passenger on a night-time

“flight who wouldn't stop yapping the entire time. I honestly thought that was the peak of aviation”

mystery, misery because you're dealing with a three-hour flight that was like a three-hour root canal

That's the equivalent of sitting next to this guy. But it turns out, the airlines have found a

“way to be even more brazen. They aren't just letting passengers steal your piece and quiet anymore.”

They're actually stealing your view. I don't know if you saw this Phil, but I'm talking about the infamous Seed 11A. A recent report of the New York Times highlights how Boeing and Airbus both have planes used by major airlines that are missing a window in Seed 11A. Meanwhile, those airlines are charging premium preferred fees for those so-called window seats that are actually just blank, plastic walls. Because of air conditioning ducks and electrical wiring, the window is completely

blocked. Yet, they still list it as a window. See, here's the kicker. They still charge you extra for it.

There are lawsuits pending over this, and although I have to cried for the list lawsuits and

other rants, on this one, I'm with the plaintiff's bar. There's plenty of men's raya out there. The airlines know what they're doing here because they know the window isn't there,

“but they admit the material fact during the transaction to get you to pay the premium. In any”

other industry, we would call it a classic bait and switch or even theft by deception. But the good news is that if you look out and get the aisle seat on that row, you won't have to worry about something and consider a person keeping the shade wide open while you try to snooze. That's because there is no shade. Because there's no window.

You know, someone once said, if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support

of Paul. Yeah. So, until the FAA starts handing out indictments for scenic fraud, my advice is simple, do your due diligence and check those seat maps. Otherwise, you're just paying a premium to spend three hours in a staring contest with a wall and trust me. The wall always wins. That's my rent. Well, Dave, thank you for the heads up because I'm going to make a note of 11 a because later this month, I'm flying out west to bring home a new puppy named

Duke Holloway and I have to make sure that Duke is underneath the seat in front of me and they appropriate inappropriate carrier. And I want to make sure that we're not in 11 a because if I can't have all the room and see the things that I need to see none of us are going to be very happy on the way back. And of course, everybody needs a happy puppy on the way back. All right. Thank you very much, Dave. Look, I'm going to talk about, well, this is more about, say, lawyering and trial preparation,

which is kind of a theme that I've kind of fallen into since we've been covering this quarry rich in this case. There's so many things we can learn about the law, about trials, trial preparation, and lawyering. I thought I'd take a minute to just talk with our audience about a device that we use. It's called a motion in limony. L-I-M-I-M-E. A motion in limony if you're a lawyer going into a trial,

“this is your secret weapon for keeping things efficient and fair. And by the way, judges encourage”

these things because they want to get evidentiary issues sorted out before the trial starts. We could use some of that in this rich in case, by the way. So, you absolutely need to use them. Look, jurors are ordinary people. They give up their time. They come in because they have to serve justice. The last thing that these folks want or need, and the last thing, obviously, that you want, is a trial that drags on and on and on with side shifts, with irrelevant details or with

prejudicial bombshells that really shouldn't be heard at all. So, without this pretrial, motion in limony, your opponent might slip in something that's really toxic to your case, and that really might not be admissible, like a client's unrelated past, or perhaps some emotionally charged, but nevertheless irrelevant facts. And once it's out there, in front of the jury, like was said earlier in this show, you can't un-ring that bell, or, as we say in Atlanta,

you can't take the skunk out of the jury box, or you can't put the toothpaste in the two, that all means the same thing, and even if the judge sustains your objection at trial, and strikes it and tells the jury to disregard it, the damage is done. The jury's already heard it. So, that means more objections, more side bars, more delays, and a lot of wasted jury time. So, folks, if you're a lawyer and you're getting ready to try a case, whether it's a civil case,

or whether it's a criminal case, the judge is going to love you if you file these motions in limonate ahead of time. You know most of the things that are going to come in. You can't address

you know are coming, and the jury and the judge are going to appreciate you for it, and it just

“may help you win the case. All right. So, respect the jury's time. Use motions in limonate,”

your case, and your jurors, as I said, will thank you. And with that, we'll leave it right here.

Thank you very much for joining us today at MK True Crime. Thanks to my co-counsel and co-host

“Dave Aaronberg, I guess co-counsel is a good way to refer to my co-host these days. And of course,”

special thanks to our guest, Natalie, Whittingham, Burrell. And to those of you watching, thank you for

watching and listening. Thanks for listening. We'll leave it there. Have a great day.