Luigi’s DISTURBING Fanbase, Judge Bars California Arsonist Evidence, and “No Body” Cases at Sea, with Investigator David Byington

Welcome to In The Well. I'm Matt Murphy, former homicide prosecutor, and I'm joined by my good friend and co-host Mark Garagos, criminal defense attorney to the stars.

Today on the show, we're going to get into the judges ruling on the critical evidence

in the Luigi Mangeoni case. The palisade arsonist's fixation with Luigi, and later we will be joined by my friend and Newport Beach detective Dave Buington to dig into the nobody case. We work together and also the Brian Hooker case and some of the parallels with that. But first, Mark, let's talk about Luigi.

“What's you take on the judges ruling on the evidence this week?”

By all accounts, I don't practice in state court in New York, but by all accounts reading the law, I think the judge was spot on. It's an interesting ruling. I still think that the big fight here is state versus federal. They still have an analog to what we used to have in California,

which is a once in jeopardy from another jurisdiction.

I think the big battle here is who goes first and then,

because then if it's the feds go first and they don't get a conviction on a lesser, I think that's going to bar the New York state prosecution. The difference in the federal and state, at least on this inevitable discovery, the way I read the law, is that the federal would have come in or it will come in, the stuff that's been suppressed.

On the state side, I think the judge was absolutely right in his decision. Excluding it, but the stuff that he has left to come in is still an uphill battle for the defense, but one of the things that the specter of this case is, the witchy's got a constituency. He's got a demographic that is supportive of him,

and that's not as a prosecutor.

You normally don't face that and as a defense lawyer, it's very rare,

except if you've got somebody who's high-profile or famous, and you do get a presumption of innocence of somebody's famous, not so much that they're infamous. This guy was neither beforehand, but he is that kind of unicorn or anomaly,

where he's got people who are very supportive. You look, and if you're watching this Karen Agniflow Mark Harris, but Mark Agniflow and Jacob Kaplan, and Jacob are coming off along with this spectacular female defense lawyer in New York, a resounding, unexpected victory in Harvey Weinstein, 93 for a quiddle.

“Yeah, this is, it raises an interesting legal issue, right?”

Suppression motions are based on the federal constitution, and what is reasonable and not reasonable. So normally a federal case would proceed sort of on its own with its own elements, but this, in effect, a state suppression hearing, is kind of a finding of federal law.

So that is an interesting appellate issue, because if these items in the backpack are suppressed in the state case, it has a really interesting legal implication on the federal case, with the federal judge be bound somehow by the state's ruling. I know what every federal judge in America would say to that,

and not to absolutely not. But if it's a mother of the federal judge, it's not been born who's going to agree with that proposition. Right, right. And so it's a really, it's a technically very interesting thing.

Of course, his backpack is filled with, there was a manifesto in there,

“including, I think, a hit list of other people we wanted to kill.”

So there's some really, really damming evidence that the court found not to be admissible, but you're right, they also left. The courts ruling still allowed for, I think, I mean, you know, I read the list of the things that are still coming in,

as a prosecutor, I've, I've convicted people of murder with far less evidence that still remains on the Luigi Manjee case, but also it is interesting, right, on a whole different, a whole different bunch of levels. Number one, this cheering, like fan crowd stuff is,

I think it's relatively new to American society, and I think a lot of it's driven by social media, but man, it is disturbing to me, Mark, I gotta tell you, like these people, but right out there, getting Luigi Manjee only tattoos,

and this is a murder of a father of two,

is a mess, I pay over $2,000 a month,

and there's nothing wrong with me, I'm totally healthy. $2,000 a month just for me, there are issues with that, and it's impossible to get an appointment in California.

I've gone over, Mark, to some of these concierge doctors that don't even take insurance, just so I can go and get a prescription filled. So everybody agrees it's a mess, but it begs the question for these people

that are out there with their frickin' signs and their photos of 'em. Who's next on the kill list? Because if it's okay to kill Brian Thompson, who else in our hatred of corporate American,

or else that bullshit that we keep hearing, sorry, like who dies next on the list? You know what I mean? It's like the reign of robes Pierre, like the guy was guillotine,

“I think he had a list of the next people”

that he wanted to execute. You know, who's next? And where does that stop?

And it's murder is never the answer, guys.

It's just not. I don't know. What are your thoughts on this thing? I look at it in a more clinical way in that normally,

the worry about what I call stealth jurors, somebody who is trying to get under a jury because they've got in the agenda so to speak. That's my definition.

That's normally a great worry by the defense. In this case, it's the prosecution who has to be deadly afraid because normally, in a case like this, you would have nobody who was in a constituency

or had they believe system that he deserved it or something like that. If I'm a prosecutor in this case, that gives me great pause because I remember Ivan Masks,

stealth jurors repeatedly over the years just usually, hopefully, my investigator is the one who's done the homework

so that I know if somebody is not being

completely frank or truthful. But this is something that I think the prosecutors involved, whether it's the state or federal are going to have to contend with

because in a criminal case, as you know better than anybody, Matt, all it takes is London. This is one of those cases where a stealth juror

could end up hanging in this case. Yeah, it's not the truth, and I'll tell you why.

“There may be nobody better at that than you, Mark.”

Honestly, like the ability and it's not even about investigating them, you know, behind the scenes, it's just that gut when they bring the juror in. Right, and that's what we train

as his trialers. They walk him up and some of the things you look for right or like, how are they responding to the other jurors? What clothes are they wearing?

What book are they reading for their jury dude? Oh, you know, how are they dress? Are they laughing at the judges' jokes? All of that stuff? And you develop that vibe

and you've been doing this longer than me and that is like trusting your gut on that is paramount. And it's picking out those stealth jurors and a lot of times,

look, on cases without any media, that's still the process, right? Is trying to figure out, my buddy Bruce Moore, who I know you know, he's called the cry of the loon.

If you can get him talking, you can hear the crazy juror that's spotting the cry of the loon and on this one. Man, imagine if you're on jury duty

and you show up, you know, you think you might get a civil case or some sort of car accident and you wind up drawing the loongey mangey on a case and it's going to be a long trial

and you show up every day and you got to walk through this crowd sorry of these brick and lunatics with their, with the other bullshit. I don't know if that,

I don't know if that's, and as me, I know it's a juror when I show up to be fair and I'm taking time out of my life and my job to go do that.

I would probably resent somebody in the hallway, yelling at me and asking noises around the courthouse steps. You know, I, but I don't know.

“I think everybody might be a little different on that”

and, you know, sometimes those crowds can be kind of intimidating and also it's, of course, it's evidence that isn't received, you know,

during the proper course of a trial if they're walking around with photos or whatever bullshit they have. I don't know. It's, I don't know what the answer

of that is. Markets like we've got this old system that was designed along before television, let alone social media.

And I don't know, I don't know how we deal with that. And sequestering juries is not the answer in my opinion. That's, that's more,

usually more of it disaster and I can't imagine it actually works with soft funds and everybody's pockets anyway. But yeah, what do you, what do you think about that?

One of the interesting things is you're old enough to remember when California at the behest the district attorneys association

or in criminal cases.

So instead of you as the prosecutor

or me as a defense lawyer talking to the jurors, the judge did it and it was very truncated 20 or 30 minutes.

And that lasted, that law was passed and it lasted about, I want to say, 18 to 20 months,

maybe. And do you know, who carried an emergency bill to repeal that?

“The same district attorneys association.”

You know why? There was a sudden spike in hungrys because prosecutors could not talk to jurors.

They couldn't ask the questions and they were all the sudden jurors were getting on and they couldn't sus out, sort of speak.

Who was with them and who might have been to use a prosecutorial expression who was a wingnut? And I will tell you,

it, there is a sixth sense that you get when I was in New York even though,

I mean, and if you know people, when I was in New York, I watched that jury come in before the closing

the Tenian Mark tribe, the Weinstein jury along with Jacob. And I texted her immediately upon seeing them and I said, I love this jury.

This is, they're tilting your way. I could just tell by the way they looked and when they were deliberating, I told it.

This is clearly a nine to three. I watched how they reacted. They, New York's got an interesting thing that the state court does, that you may be surprised about.

In New York, I don't know if you knew this. It took me forever. They don't have an opening closing by the prosecutor.

The defense gets up and does the closing and then the prosecutor goes last. I mean, if I'm the defense lawyer,

I kind of liked that. I don't know if this is ours. Yeah. I heard that this was shot, right? Exactly.

And I don't have to endure listening to the prosecutor moving me off on my, my games, so to speak.

I didn't say,

“I think that's one of the great advantages”

for trying cases in New York. Well, the California District Attorney's Association, which I belong to for decades. I have been really disappointed

in the last couple of years that how sorry had a feckless they've been. They allowed that compassion or release law to kick in that permits sex offenders, even the most violent,

the craziest, the norliest ones to get parole hearings now. And that we should probably do another show on that. I've just,

I've never been that impressed

with that organization, even though I was a part of it for so long. But yeah, it's true. Can you imagine standing up? How many times have you done that?

Were you got a juror who looks great? Sounds great? Just responding well to your opponent? And then as soon as you stand up, you get a horrible vibe

and you realize that it is hate you. And then it happens. And you've got to dump those, but if you can't talk to them, I don't know who's genius idea

was to eliminate that, you know, attorney for dire from the freaking CDAA, but I can tell you they haven't tried any freaking cases because you would know instantly that's the bad idea.

You know? That's, that's the thing. That idea is in California. I used to just chuckle about that. I also thought it was funny.

But if you're fighting about money over the civil court, you can sit there as a lawyer and do for a dire forever. It's one of the things I love about trying civil cases. But God forbid you're fighting over liberty

and everybody wants to truncate. How much you get 30 seconds on each person. Yeah, let's rush through that. Right? I imagine if you're sitting there in the defendant's seat

and so that your lawyer came and asked them questions. That's insane. But let's ship gears into this palicates guy. Well, we got a few minutes. The one of Luigi Manjoni's biggest fans is this guy

who has been charged with setting the palicates fire. And look at this guy. So here's a, this guy is a, is a class crusader who worship Luigi Manjoni who wanted to kill billionaires allegedly.

And again, he's presumed innocent. But he apparently lit this fire and what's interesting here. There's a, the judge who will defense

wanted to basically say an, and for the viewer, what happened was

this guy's charged with lighting fires and there's a whole root system of the california shop around where the fire was initially put out but he continued to smolder underground. And it were all these complaints by residents saying

it's still smoking. And there were some firemen who wanted to get out there and they understood what was going on and extinguished it and they got shut down by their command allegedly.

But there's been testimony about this in some of the civil cases. They were told they couldn't do it. They didn't have the time. They didn't have the budget or whatever BS.

And so the fire erupted again

“and that's what caused the, the policy's fire.”

So what the defense wanted to do and I think this is interesting for us to explain of our viewers mark. What the defense wanted to do is they wanted to introduce the criminal negligence and they were right.

and of the leadership of Los Angeles

“in not allowing the fire to be properly extinguished.”

All of those are legitimate claims in a civil context. They wanted to ruin that as a defense but there's a concept in the law that a contributory negligence is not a defense to criminal cases.

So if you've got like, if you've got a drunk guy walking across the street, you've gets hit by a drunk guy driving a car and then drunk guy driving the car

once they were with a second, he walked out

in front of my car. That's not a defense. And Mark, I know you've dealt with that probably a thousand times like I have. Getting a saying becomes a battleground in so many criminal cases

but toward to the point to your point. In a civil context, that's fair game. I've got, yeah, I've got cases like that. I know that people who have filed cases like that. When you see some of the testimony,

when I say testimony, they did an after-action report. They took sworn testimony under oath. They also have interviewed a lot of the fire personnel. And it's fundamentally an unbelievable story

as to what the complete and utter failure of the leadership in the city. And at first they were trying to blame the fire department and you read the after-action report

and even some of the earlier drafts.

And boy, are they off base there? They wanted to go in. They wanted to go in. And I know we're both, like, fortunately, you live sort of more on the east side.

I lived in the Casemars section of the palaces. When I was in high school, I got my dad kicked me out of Irish father, Irish son. I got kicked out a couple times in the family that I live with was that took me in.

They're beautiful people. They don't have an art buffet and they live in the Casemars section. I lived in their house. And they were wonderful people and that whole neighborhood burned down.

And they had to move them out. And they were in their 90s. And you know, they lived in their house for, I think, 64 years.

And when you do that, at that, you know, in your 90s,

that's so traumatic that even though they weren't listed

“as, I believe, 12 people died in the fire.”

They each died within six months mark. You know, it's one of those things that the family very much blams the incompetence of the city for the death. And they were, they were all, they lived a full life,

but still, you know, the extraordinary death. I'll give you the counterpoint to that. I talked to a mother this morning who has a couple of kids. And she and her girlfriend were talking about this most recent wildfire in Los Angeles that by

Seamy. And they had, they, their house had burned down in the palaces. They had moved out to close the Seamy. And the trauma by these eight and 10-year-olds kids.

Once again, it reignited pun intended. The same kind of trauma again. It's, it's awful. Yeah, it's awful. And it's awful.

But I couldn't agree more. And it's an interesting thing, right? Like, from a defense perspective, you've got, you've got some, some client who allegedly did this. And he, I don't know enough about the case

to, to say to Finnaway, but you talk about a loan. Like, I looks like a loan. And I was going to say, I know enough about the case or

“having done this long enough that I think you or I”

could take one look and understand that at least if this were in the state side, we'd be invoking 1368, no, in the federal. Almost certainly. Yep.

And, and for those for the viewer, 1368 is when the defense word declares a doubt as to the mental competency of the client. And, and I don't know what this guy's mental history is. But apparently he's just got there.

There's a suppression motion in that case as well. The federal judge, he was doing chat GBT breakdowns. They, it's an interesting mark. They, they said that he had an unhealthy relationship with a bot on chat GBT.

Almost like that movie, uh, her, right? Where he, he's got this whole relationship going with, with an IA. And boy, we're just scratching the surface of that. But apparently he was, he was having,

IA create, like, images, uh, showing the fires and the judge suppressed all those. I don't think those are necessary for the prosecutor. For the prosecution in this. But, but it is, uh, we are, we are in, we are in the future

when we look at this case. You've got this bizarre, manjony love and, you know, this class warfare that so many people want. It seems, it seems trendy at the, at the time. And this guy, you know, lit far to neighborhood.

You have the incompetence of the city, which I couldn't agree with the more mark. It's, it is shocking the way Los Angeles and the authorities handle that in my opinion. And then, and then you've got this overlay

of the legal system where intuitively, you would think that that would be able to work in some way in a defense. But, and it goes back a couple hundred years. A contributory negligence is just not a defense.

it's not a defense in a criminal case. So it's really interesting stuff. Um, it's so fascinating from a clinical legal standpoint.

“But, boy, is it heartbreaking just from the humanity of it?”

Oh, yeah. And I mean, we, I look, I, our whole city, I think was traumatized by that. My buddy Sean, who I take all the surf trips with, he was his house, his house, his mother's house

and his mother-in-law's house all in one day. You know, and they're still, you know, they still haven't been able to rebuild because the permitting process is so slow. But anyway, um, of more to come on,

on those cases as well. Next, my friend, and new poor beach detective, Sergeant Dave Buyington, now retired. He will join us and talk about the Tom and Jackie Hawks case. And it's parallels to the disappearance of Lynette Hooker

and, uh, the suspicions surrounding Brian Hooker. Please stay tuned. And welcome back to the well. And Matt Murphy has got a very special friend that has joined us today, Matt.

Yeah, so I'm really excited about this. Mark, I'm excited for you to meet Dave. And also, I'm excited to introduce Dave to our whole fan base. Dave Buyington is one of one. As they say, Dave, who is my lead investigator

on the Tom and Jackie Hawks murder trial. And, uh, that, that took three different trials. We, we prosecuted three different people separately. And, uh, Dave and I spent, I don't know.

“What about 10 quality years sitting next to each other, right?”

Dave, between the investigation and the photos and the final day. Well, that's where the great, where Dave, were you, uh, the bureau, or were you at an agency? No, I was at the Newport Beach Police Department. So, yeah.

Who were the judges you tried the cases in front of? Uh, we have Frank Fassel for all three. Oh, remember my Fassel? Yep.

The soul is, we, how could we've never talked about Frank Fassel, Matt?

I don't know. He, I, I, I love that guy. So, Frank Fassel for the viewer. He was the, he came over from LA County. So, of course, you know, Mark, I don't even thought about that.

He, he got assigned a juvenile way, not only knew him in 2005. I spent three months in his courtroom trying a case. And one of the best trial judges after, by the way, he was the guy who OSC'd me re-contempt because he thought

I had too many cases in his courtroom. And that, that's him.

“He's no nonsense, but truly one of the finest judicial officers”

that's ever, ever had a courtroom in, you know, the state of California. He was the, he was the central judge in juvenile. So, they started him out in Juvee when we were all starting. And then I got assigned to him when I was on the felony panel.

And then I wound up, he went up being the trial judge in one of the most notorious cases in California history, the murder of Tom and Jackie Hawks, where Dave was my lead. And there's so many stories, we got to have Dave back probably to tell some of those.

But, and all with players that you would know, Mark, the, the last guy was getting John Fitzgerald Kennedy,

the third in the trio in the conspiracy.

And we tried it against Kevin McKesson, who's a good guy. And Chuck Lindner, who you probably know really well. Kevin was famously one of Johnny Cochran's law partners and, and Lindner, we'll chair and all was, one at part of the dream team.

And Dave and I. Lindner, for fun fact, Lindner's the one, if you talk to Chuck, we'll tell you if the glove don't fit, you must quit. He said, right.

And he told us that, you know why Dave and I know that because he told us that probably every single day for three months in that last trial. Now, I used to have, we used to have a joke in the office that the over and under was four minutes

from when you talked to Chuck till he mentions that. In the over under four minutes. It sounds about right. It sounds about right. It sounds about right.

Russell minutes would be the over under on how long he'd tell you about getting into it at the state prison when he went through and had to unscrew his prosthetic leg. How many times did you hear that? Oh, about a thousand.

Yeah. And yeah, I mean, there's so, there's so much there. But Dave, Dave and I, on kind of a quick, funny side note, just giving the idea. We spent so much time together

on that case. I never met Dave before. Actually, no, that's not true. I met Dave was the, Dave was the, the investigators, though.

He was the sergeant and charge of my very first murder scene

and Newport when I went and, and Dave, for those who have read my book.

when the team was eating pizza in the corner of a room

“that's already been forensically processed.”

And he's got to move the very first body and Marquis. This guy had, he had, you know, he was shot like seven times and they lift up the shoulder and you know this, Marquis most people don't.

Dave lifts up the shoulder to show me full of holes in the kitchen floor and the guy groaned. And it was like, oh, the sky, are we sure he's dead?

And then Dave goes, yeah, she's pretty much stapled into the kitchen floor. That is Dave Vynton. But was based so surprising with Matt.

You know, when I always teased Matt about

when he was still in the office is, when he, I would say, what do you in trial on? And he would say this case. I said, let me guess there's no body

because Matt was the master of nobody cases. And I thought one or two of those came out of new points. So would that have been you? Yep.

Yeah, sure was. And Dave, Dave, just so you know, I don't know if I've heard a told you story. When I was walking in the day that we were doing the side scan son

or looking for the hox, we've shared this with the viewers before. Marquis walking out of the courthouse as I was walking in. And he stopped in.

Mark and I had known each other for years. And it was, that was when it was like the big case of the, of the, of the week for the whole country. And he goes, hey, quick question.

“You guys doing side scan son or looking for the body?”

Nobody in the world knew we were doing that. Of course, we, and he goes, you're not going to find the body. Um, they tried the same thing with Lacey Peterson.

They didn't recover anything. You won't find the bodies. And words, the effect of don't let that stop you guys.

And I always thought that was so cool.

And unbeknownst to everybody else in the whole world. We, we were out there that day, not me, but you guys, and they broke Mark and they broke the sites. Can't son or they were using with the Navy. My guys from Newport, including Dave.

But Dave and I got so close over the years that the running joke was that, uh, was that we were in love with each other. And it wasn't, it wasn't wrong. And, um, and I think I crazy that I was being,

I thought I was being really funny. One time Mark, we were in trials. I was like, I can't remember which trail I was on Valentine's Day. And I decided I was going to buy, I was going to buy him chocolates.

Like one of those hard shaped things of chocolates. And I walked into the, into our, into the office that they had us in, the carved out for us in central court. And I, I thought I was being really funny. And I walked in and Dave had flowers for me and balloons

all over the inside of the office. And that was the, that was the running joke for years and years. And then, and then we're doing these interviews afterwards. And I don't know if you know who Melissa McCarthy is. She's a true crime journalist.

She is a beautiful woman and a good friend of mine. But I, I met her through this case. And they'd flown Dave down. They'd flown Dave down from Washington State. And he, he comes into the law library where I was sitting in the chair

being interviewed and Melissa is a, classically beautiful woman. She's, she's, she's been a, a reporter, a professional journalist for entire life. And Dave walks into the room and her back is to the door and he walks in and he stops any smiles.

And he, and he, and he, and he gives kind of this coy look. And she's, and he holds his arms. And he walks up to give a hug and she stands up.

She goes, and she never met him, but she talked to him on the fun.

She goes, oh, I guess, I guess we hug. And he looks her with this look of absolute disgust. And he goes, not you. And he comes over and kisses me on the lips. And that's day of buying 10.

So yeah. So just to give everybody a little bit of background. Dave finds in, a loud and proud, Matt. Dave, my 10 is, is the lead investigator of one of, of a case involving Tom Jack Cox, which of course happened on a boat. So I thought, what a great opportunity to bring somebody in.

And we can talk about this Brian Hooker case out of the Bahamas. Because there's almost nobody else who's opinion I would rather get on that. Then Dave buying kind of fact there is nobody else that I'd rather have kind of informed you and me and the readers. And I thought, Mark, you probably have some really good questions from Dave and his thoughts on that.

I know I do. So if we could shift gears into that case.

“Dave, have you, have you even fallen in this thing?”

This is a guy famously who, you know, it's sort of the latest yacht murder. He, he had a history of his wife. And it looks like the Coast Guard last week sees the boat and they're processing it. So I was going to kind of throw it over to you and see what you think. There's a picture of Brian Hooker, the, I guess we can call him a suspect

without a fending two minute equal. What do you think? You know, I'm Matt, obviously the parallels with the Hawks Glen Missing at sea. And we now we have a no body. As far as I know, he's still recovered.

The Lynette, his wife's body. So it kind of drew my attention right away. And just seeing the brief description of how this occurred. And I think I'm getting a little jaded down my old age, but it shows I immediately said,

The suspect should be there. Be husband.

“It's just the story, the story stank on ice.”

I mean granted they were at a bar allegedly drinking together and they had been drinking. They had been off the sauce for a while. So they're, the story is that they get on a dinghy to return back to their yacht, which is moored in the harbor. And it's a, it's a close harbor.

It's not like maybe a quarter mile would be for this distance that you more off of this thing.

So they jump on a dinghy and head back out to their home, basically the yacht.

And whether it picks up or whether it's bad and the story is that from the husband that his wife Lynette, somehow gets tossed overboard with the risk-landered, which has a kill switch on it, and the keys to the vessel. And through the rush, she's now wearing a PFD, a safety device. So he allegedly throws her a throw a throw life-preserver.

It's unclear whether she caught it or not. And due to the fact that he's claiming that she lost, or when she went overboard, she took the kill switch.

“And the kill switch is basically on any or small boats.”

It's a safety feature. So if you get off a jet ski, they have them too. So if you happen to fall or get separated from the vessel, as soon as the, which is around your wrist, basically, that kill switch gets removed. The engine dies.

So that's supposed to be a safety feature.

So if you get knocked overboard, the boat doesn't take off. You can get back on the boat, at least that's the thought process. So husband says that Mama's got it around her wrist. The rope sees her so rough that she gets ejected from the boat. And as soon as she does that, the engine stops.

And the wind and waves sweep her away in such a quick fashion that he's unable to do anything. Because he can't start the boat. So he throws her a throw-roll PFD device, which is like a pad you sit on. And that's the last she saw her. That's his story, right?

Yeah. There's so many questions on that. Like I said, if my love one, your love one gets ejected off the boat in that scenario. And you can't start the boat, you have paddle. So I'd start paddle like a mad monkey trying to get to my love one.

I sure as hell wouldn't give up. His story is that she got pushed away by the wind and waves so quickly that he was able to help her. And that over the next eight and a half hours, he was allegedly paddling, trying to get back to shore. So we could summon help to help search for his life. That's eight hours.

So it's a full work day. Or I don't care how bad. Go ahead. I'm sorry. 250 yards you said from the shore to the yacht.

I'm unclear. I know it's a close in harbor. So it's not like a massive harbor where you be miles away. It's protected. It's why it is a harbor. And you have other and the other thing is you have other vessels that are more there.

So he might not be able to make it to shore because of the weather, let's say. But he has other vessels he could probably kind of maneuver towards and hitch onto or another moring. And that would go the same for his wife if she's going off somewhere. It's just not shoreline. She's going to go off into the distance.

She's going to hopefully grab onto something to save her life if she's in fact drowning.

You know, one of the things that always intrigued me about your case.

My Peterson case, this case, is we now have and especially now. I mean, I don't know about when your case, but especially now. We've got so many satellites that are in orbit. And I've always wondered. When we thought in Peterson, I tried modally to get some satellite images and see if I couldn't.

Obviously back in 2004, 2003, it was not as robust as it is now. But you wonder if there isn't some way to get imaging that you could at least enhance to kind of test these things.

“Which would answer a whole lot of questions like where it happened, when did it happen?”

Instead of trying to reverse engineer a story that sounds suspect to begin with. And by the way, the every case I've ever had where it was a husband charged with a wife who was murdered. Inevitably, they're in the crosshairs. And they didn't act right as normally where the police go first. I don't know how to answer that, so to speak, but you would think if you had satellite imaging, that would solve a lot of this.

Yeah, it's an interesting idea. Isn't it an enormous wonder if as technology continues to advance with starlink and everything else. If we're going to enter a phase, Mark, where we're going to be able to do that.

Right, and see what the satellite's picked up in an area. And, you know, I got my theories on this.

“I think that if we could do that, then again, he's presumed innocent.”

You know, he hasn't been arrested yet, but man, I'll bet you we see that dinghy chugging out. They got back to the boat. We see that dinghy chugging out to deeper water. And that's that would explain that eight hours. So Dave, we obviously learned a ton together about processing boats when a murderer is suspected. What do you think the coast guard is doing now? They seize the boat, which is by itself kind of awesome.

Apparently Brian Hooker hired one of these boat transport guys who we have no reason to suspect did anything wrong. But he hired these these transport guys to get the boat out of the Bahamas and to take it back to Florida. And apparently right out of the right after they got out of the territorial waters of the Bahamas, the coast guard descended on them and seized the vessel. What do you think they're looking for on the boat, Dave?

Sure. And I wanted to go back to the satellite imaging. I think that's even something that we tried to cover with the hawks. I think it matched suggestion. We then, whether it was when the bodies were actually dumped out at sea or when they were still in harbor.

“And I think that, unfortunately, we were hoping it was too much of the CSI effect where it makes for a good movie.”

But in reality, actually, if it was accessible, we were unable to get granted. But sorry, I'm not saying we're up. But we, we, turns out we didn't need it because because you guys seized the GPS equipment on the boatmark, they got, they got everything. And when we downloaded that stuff, we had a whole like breadcrum trail of GPS heads,

where the boat went out off the south side of Catalina. That's where we knew to look for the bodies.

And Skylar story all along was that they never left the harbor.

So we kind of, the satellite thing, we would have been vision, not to use two California of a word. But very quickly, we didn't need it anymore because we had this satellite tracking thing. I'm not satellite, the GPS, which of course is satellites. But we knew right where they were, just we just sent them the visual images.

So I didn't mean to rupture it. Oh, no, it else, not at all. And that, the other thing was, I was truly interested in it for the forensic capability. If they seized, obviously, the ding used something they'd want. Either to validate or negate his story, where, you know, it appears more of a stage, you know, someone went overboard as opposed to a medical emergency,

or they were drinking and had a slip and fall and knocked herself unconscious. And then maybe that's the reason she went overboard. But yeah, that the forensic examination of not only the dingy, but other like you said, they're yacht, which luckily was seized by Coast Guard.

“And I think it's currently in their possession and floored somewhere.”

So the, once again, they're not in a hurry. They can go take that process as slow as they need to. But either to validate their history or denigated to come up and say, hey, look at this, this stinks on ice. You know, you're going for eight and a half hours.

And you're allegedly patdling in circles and it just didn't ring true. And it still doesn't in my mind, like I said, he's innocent, more power to him.

But at first blush, if our love one goes missing,

I'm patdling like an Olympian until I'm not able to paddle anymore. Not just showing up eight hours later and say, hey, guess what, my wife's missing. And then after that, you know, just hiding out on his yacht. There's an appear to be helping with the search. And people to do that in my mind, I'm sure it's too mad as they already know the answers.

You know, it's like, oh, Jay looking for the killer. Are you saying, oh, Jay, you think, oh, Jay, did it? Did it? So you're just lost. Well, that's guess on my part.

Well, hey, you know, the mark you've had case is certainly where bodies have been dumped in water. Lacy Peterson was one of those. And, you know, one of the things that's really intrigued me about the hook or case. So I kind of toss this to both you or either one that wants to answer it. Bodies will float if they're if they're in shallow water or fresh water.

Even these mob cases where they, I think there was one, a famous one where they attached a slot machine to some guy. And with the internal bloating, even that guy came up with a slot machine. So, and any thoughts on that? This is supposedly an inside bay and kind of on the leeward side of an island. And apparently it's not even 10 feet deep on a high tide.

So one of the things, one of the things that a lot of prosecutors do. I don't know if you've done this yet is they get people who are skilled experts on marine life. And the growth of marine life either on a body or on something that is connected to the body. And then they make all kinds of, they surmise from whether the barnacles have attached and whether or not the body.

They can tell you if a body was submerged or if it was partially in the air.

“And I cross examined the numerous people about that.”

And those are kind of telltale signs. And part of your breadcrumb theory as to what actually happened. In this case, you still don't have a body. So, that kind of get the head of yourself until you find something. Yeah, we had a real educational that.

David, I both. There is in the Pacific Ocean. And of course, this is different than a lake or a river or even a mangrove or even this thing. This area there in the Bahamas. In the Pacific Ocean, there's an entire ecosystem on the bottom that's designed by nature.

To process big mammals like whales and seals and dolphins and those things. You know, they die naturally and sometimes not naturally, but they sink to the bottom. And there's an entire, it's like shift work. There's sharks that will come in and take big bites. And then it comes down to these tiny little creatures that eat the bones.

And around the debris field around the Titanic. If you look at any of those videos, it's actually really interesting. There's all these shoes there on the bottom that are perfectly oriented. Old shoes from the poor people that died on the Titanic. They're still there because the leather doesn't decompose.

But the bodies were all consumed by this assembly line of critters, basically.

But I don't know if they have the same thing in the shallow waters of the Bahamas. I would imagine a body would float. I don't know if you've got a comment on that.

“Would you as an investigator or wouldn't you as an investigator?”

Then go to somebody who has an expertise on the tides and the movements of the tides. Because that's the first place I think I would go if I'm conducting the defense investigation. And I was taught by a good prosecutor that whatever the defense is going to ask, It's just having an answer for and that's right. Get an expert to go out and say, hey, how is marine life? An activity at that depth and that temperature.

Going to affect the body if their scavengers come in sharks or baracuda or larger. They're going to move the body parts around. So even like in the hawks case, if they were weighted down with an anchor, we were told by experts then that we may find the anchor and we may find handcuffs. But depending on how the scavenging activities and how far they're moved away,

not ever find any part of the remains. And I think the same thing goes with the hawk is even in warm water like that. Even though it's protected, like Matt said, the marine life, it's the natural cycle down there. They're going to process through there. And now we're talking, you know, several weeks and she's been missing.

So if she got the lodge somewhere in some type of a geographical feature where she's then will escape and the marine life there is going out it. I moved to Washington State and talked to a bunch of travelers up here. And some of the homicide detectives and that was one of the way that they were getting rid of bodies up here is they would put them in crab trots.

And the crabs would make quick work of any of the remains that were put in there. There would be nothing left even the bones would go through the pot. So they have the ability down there. All the animals to go through it and the longer that her remains are not recovered. That's more of a possibility that it's going to even make them more difficult to find her.

You think Dave, just give us a ballpark and I'm sure they have stats on this. Of all the murders that you worked over the years, including the many we work together. What percentage of murder cases and then I'll ask you the same question as soon as Dave's on mark. What percentage of murder cases are domestic violence, which is said, just ballpark in your experience. Well, like I say, my experience is I was smaller agencies and it was all of them.

You know, I'm a majority of them. It was very few that were stranger or robbery. They were a few, but a majority of them, and it's like I said, it's an investigation 101. We're going to look for who's closest. Has been a wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, and we're going to look at them and look at them hard.

Because that's kind of where in the past are the experiences taken us. You know, these things can happen, but it's rare that they don't know that who their attacker is.

“That's the rarity or the outlier I think.”

Yeah, what do you think? Mark, all the murders you've seen ballpark idea, what what percentage? Because for me, it was had to be, it had to be 75%.

You know, we get those callouts in the middle of the night and it was always in somebody's kitchen.

And, you know, some husband or wife had finally had enough. What do you think? I don't think I have an accurate demographic way to judge it because so many of my cases involve police shootings and so many of them. And I've got a rich history.

I tell a lot of stories about the number of females that I've defended who've ended up killing their husbands or their loved ones.

I mean, I remember having, I think I've told you this story, Matt.

“I remember one time the old civil brand jail having four women charged with murder.”

And I inherited that from my father who had prosecutors, a DA, a guy by the name of Lou Schindler, for killing his first wife.

Then when Lou Schindler got out of was prolled because back then you'd only do five to seven years for murder in California. His second wife, Laura ended up killing Lou and my dad defended Laura in a published decision. So, wow, yeah, there's there to I guess to answer there is generally there are known to one another. But when you take a look at crime statistics, a lot of the gang activity for a certain period of time is stranger on stranger in the sense that it's outside of domestic violence. A lot of the police shootings are encounters with people with mental health issues.

It's very proportionately, the mental health component of police shootings is off the charts and my experience at least. Yeah, and you know, it's it's interesting right here and you're absolutely right. It goes both ways including that first murder that David and I did a guy that was a woman who killed her, her boyfriend who we think was trying to break up there. But it's so Dave, I'm I'm I we got to have you back as this case develops. Dave, I'd love to talk to you again even off the record so to speak.

“Alcalcer is my honor meeting you and I've heard someone say a civil brand at a long time.”

He's to ride my bike. The fact that kid. There's his by the way. I used to go up there. I mean, civil brand.

I mean, it was one of the she was known as a grateful anthropist, but her legacy, at least in my brain, is the most decrepit woman I've ever seen in my life. I didn't agree with you more Matt, it's great seeing your face again. I miss your brother. Oh, likewise, Dave, if he's safe up there and we will definitely have you back.

I feel like we didn't even get out of first gear yet on this one.

But there's a lot more to come and mark and have lots lots more to talk about.

“In the weeks and hopefully months and even years years ahead, so we hope to have you back.”

Awesome brother, appreciate you guys be safe. Matt and I under earth a story from in the well coming up next. Although all of our stories seem to be in the well, but they tuned. And maybe we make Dave our honorary PI for the in the well. I love that idea.

I love it too. Thanks, we'll be right back. Here is my probably inappropriate in the well story. Since we just had Dave buying to none. In the heart of every professional detective,

whether they are a woman or a man, their beats a 17 year old kid who can't resist a little. I'm going to use word Tom Fulery every once in a while. And on the Tom and Jackie Hawks case, this is something that didn't make an end to happen on tomorrow. I can understand why in just a second. There's a guy named Dave Moon and Dave and Dave buying ten were really close. And he's heard as we just met.

Dave is the grizzled real deal. He'd seen it all. He'd seen, you know, he's one of those guys and so was Dave Moon. And you get a pretty, those guys. They get a pretty gallows sense of humor after a while. And when we serve the search warrant on Skyler and Jennifer's home in Long Beach,

they live with Jennifer's parents who were very, very religious. And it's a working class community kind of a blue collar place in Long Beach. And, you know, very quiet and nothing had ever happened. They're probably ever. So when we finally got the warrants on the Tom and Jackie Hawks murder case,

did you can imagine Mark?

We had probably 20 police cars and a million CSI fans and everything

and they descend on this house. And Skyler, for lack of a better term, was a bit of a weirdo. And he had purchased this sex toy, which was right after the murder of John Jarby. He murdered him dumped him on the side of the road in Sonata,

came back and spent $900 buying this piston-driven dildo machine. And I mean, it's, it, you can't make this stuff up. So that my cops, Dave Boone, Dave and Buying Tanner, you just met. I only do the search warrant, they find the Hawks computers, they find this cornacopia of incredibly damning evidence,

They followed the courts ruling two ATs,

and this case is still up on appeal. But they also found this friggin' sex toy, man.

“And so it has, it has, it comes with attachment of your choice, right?”

And there is this wobbly gigantic thing dangling off the end of this. So what does Dave Moon do? And with all the police cars outside, every neighbor on this street is outside looking. And they've lived in this house for 20 years.

And there's Jennifer De Leon's very deeply religious mother in the house. Dave Moon throws on a pair of latex gloves, grabs this thing by the business end,

and walks it down the driveway,

flopping around for every neighbor and neighbor to see. I don't know what he could have done different because they don't make CSI bags big enough.

“This thing was like the size of a friggin' microwave.”

And he holds it with the business end, walks it right out there dangling you know, bobbing around and loads it into the back of this evidence van and Lana Henderson, Jennifer's mother, comes running out of the house

and announces to the world, "That's not mine, that's not mine." So anyway, tales of the true West as they say, or for today, that is a tale from the Well.

So anyway, I am so happy that Dave was able to join us.

“I'm so happy that you got to meet him, Mark.”

He is a classic guy. When I can lure him down to LA, we got to get dinner together. And another funny story is I shared this off air. Dave Bintin was my lead investigator from Newport,

and when we prosecute this case,

his my DA investigator for the second two trials,

was a woman named Lisa Hunter, and they were each married at the time. Each of them wound up getting divorced along the way, not related to this. But they kept in touch.

They wound up getting married. They are married today. I love them both. They were probably my favorite couple on the earth. I hope I don't get in trouble for saying that.

But my only disappointed is, I should have been the little ring bear, little boy carrying-- Being carrying the pillow down the aisle, and they had an aloping wedding

where nobody got invited. They did one of those. So anyway, maybe they'll let me do it one day. So that's it.

Thanks. Thanks, Matt, and thanks to our guests, Dave Bintin. Thanks to you for tuning into the Well, and looking forward to seeing all of you

at CrimeCon in Las Vegas. Next weekend, right, Matt? So we'll be there. Next weekend, can't wait. We're going to tape there.

So I'll see you then.