Did cop kill pregnant mistress to silence his secret?

Ana Garcia (0:00)

A word of warning. This podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing. Hello and welcome to True Crime News, the podcast covering high profile and under the radar cases from across the country every week. I'm your host, Ana Garcia. Our case this week, a pregnant woman's death looked as if she had done it herself. The police and the medical examiner agreed, but her family and friends said, you are all wrong, and provided authorities with potential evidence. It took three years, but they were able to convince the FBI to investigate. And according to federal prosecutors, she was murdered allegedly by her cop boyfriend, who was married at the time. Prosecutors say he feared that she would tell about how their eight-year relationship started allegedly when she was just 15 years old and a cadet with the police. She's dead, the baby's dead, and the former cop is now on trial for murder. We are recording this on Thursday, October 15th of 2026 Our guest today is Neama Rahmani. He is a former federal prosecutor, the president and founder of the West Coast Trial Lawyers. And he's a legal analyst that you can see all the time on news outlets. Something happens, Neama is there to explain to all of us. Welcome back, Neama.

Neama Rahmani (1:25)

Thanks for having me, Ana. Great to be on. Yeah, the joke is, you know, when someone gets killed, you have to deal with me, you know? You end up having me talk about it.

Ana Garcia (1:34)

Well, we are always pleased for your insight. And today in particular, because this is really for us, a very unusual case in a lot of ways. This is a murder case that's out of Massachusetts, but it's being tried in federal court. And under a very specific murder charge, the former cop is charged with killing a witness or victim. What does that mean?

Neama Rahmani (1:57)

Yeah, certainly a very unique case for a number of reasons. And we're going to get into it. Obviously, you don't have a whole lot of cops who are on trial for murder, number one. And there's allegations of a cover-up. And just there's very few federal murder cases, just the bottom line. Usually it's of a federal official or on a cruise ship or an airline. But in this particular case, it's because you really have a case involving the murder of a witness. And what kind of witness? A witness to sex abuse.

This really reminds me of the David case that's happening here in LA, right? Where the allegation is David killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez because she was going to out him for the sexual relationship that started when she was a minor. So somewhat similar circumstances here. So the federal jurisdictional hook or the nexus is killing a witness to a crime and killing an unborn baby. That's how you get from state court into federal court. But typically, this would be a state case if the state prosecutors had handled it properly.

Ana Garcia (3:04)

Oh, and boy, the criticism that the state troopers have received and anyone involved with the investigation of this case, either locally or statewide, have really gotten quite lashing from the federal, the Department of Justice for essentially mishandling this.

And that's the approach at trial. You have the federal prosecutors telling this jury, and the trial is ongoing right now, is they botched this.

Neama Rahmani (3:36)

Oh, I think botched is the right way to go. And look, I went to law school in Massachusetts. I got a lot of friends there. And we've been talking about this case. I mean, I think Karen Reed is probably the most botched case, maybe going back to OJ in terms of what you're not supposed to do if you're law enforcement. But this case is really painting a bad picture.

And it's interesting, obviously, we talked about Karen Reed, he got Farwell here, Sandwich Day and Lindsay Clancy, not necessarily saying that was a botched prosecution case, but some of the most high profile cases happening in the country in recent memory are happening in Massachusetts. And at least two of the three, you know, there's some pretty significant criticism of the law enforcement investigation that's happening on traditional new media and social media.

Ana Garcia (4:28)

Yeah, and I think deserved, absolutely deserved. And I think it's going to play a role in whatever happens next with Lindsay Clancy, because pretty much the cops, from my opinion, walk in there, they see a woman, you know, who seems to have thrown herself out a window. She's in critical condition. You have three babies that are dead. And that was pretty much, they took it at face value and missed a lot of forensic evidence and the collecting of forensic evidence, which I have been very critical of, as have others. And that doesn't mean it changes the landscape of what actually happened.