Sandra Birchmore Told 80 THIS About Her BABY DADDY!

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

Tony Brueski (0:08)

That was Bryan Kohberger. Let's move over to another case that is going on right now. The Farwell Trial for the murder of Sandra Birchmore. We are now four days in. The evidence keeps stacking. DNA on the murder weapon, the strap, a masked man on surveillance, 40,000 texts with a woman. Prosecutors say he had been grooming since she was at least 15

The witness the prosecution leaned on hardest wasn't a forensic expert. It was a state trooper who was part of the ruling her death an S. Now admitting he didn't collect the weapon, didn't record the suspect, didn't flag the death, had a lot of undocumented conversations with Farwell in a parking lot, with no body cam, no note taking, you know, like you do.

What the jury is hearing is a dismantling of everything the original investigation got wrong and why it matters to every woman who was told the system was looking out for her. Eric Faddis is with us, former prosecutor, defense attorney, along with Robin Drake, retired FBI special agency for the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program and master class instructor. Eric, you were with us last week on this. It isn't open and shut. That's what you were saying. The evidence? I don't know. I mean, I know no case is truly open and shut, but how open and shut is this one getting?

Eric Faddis (1:36)

Things have changed a little bit since last week. And you know, I think one of the strongest arguments defense had was that this was initially ruled an S. So doesn't that give you doubt as to the cause or as to the manner of death?

And that defense is being pummeled, I think, in part because the prosecution is showing how some of these unorthodox and questionable and even arguably suspicious measures were taken on behalf of law enforcement. And then, you know, doesn't take a genius to put together, oh, who's the suspect? Oh, they're also law enforcement? Oh, and now there's interviews going on and there's no body cam, and we're talking to people in parking lots and stuff. I think the juries start to be like, oh, was this bot from the beginning to protect somebody?

Tony Brueski (2:26)

That's what the evidence certainly seems to point out without directly saying it. I mean, it's it's it's stunning. And the way it's it's kind of coming out.

The thing prosecutors now say is the murder weapon, the duffel bag strap not collected at the scene, the duffel bag that it goes to, not even looked at, didn't record Farwell's interview that he had with him a couple of days later, didn't take notes. Called all called the lack of investigating this a tactical decision. That was one of my favorites, like tactical decision, huh? Not doing your job, not looking into the man who was seen on camera when they knew he was on camera, leaving the apartment where the murdered woman was. And you're having shady meetings behind the dumpster at the Lowe's in the parking lot. I mean, that's a tactical decision. Obviously, this officer who's testifying is not on trial. Maybe he should be. I don't understand how a prosecution overcomes its own investigators, essentially.

Having this conversation here where the initial investigation is so poor, the feds come in, and gee, looky here, everything they find seems to point in one direction without a lot of work. It's not like they really had to dig super deep to look at what they found. It's just all very low hanging fruit that nobody in the initial investigation seemed to pick and put in their apple basket.

How does the defense of Farwell overcome that perception of absolute shit investigation? And I don't know what else to call it, and it would appears to be a cover up.

Eric Faddis (4:18)

Sure, you know, it's certainly problematic for the defense, but I think the defense is going to say, hey, look, my client had no obligation to ensure that this initial police investigation was by the book, that they looked at everything that they sees what could be evidence and tested it. That's not his job, man.

And if the police screwed up, isn't that just, doesn't that just give you more pause, more doubt about, you know, the evidence that government is presenting? That's their side, bro. That's the prosecution side. This is just another example of how screwed up this case is. And we can't really come to a conclusion about what happened in part because they screwed it up. I think that's our defense.

Tony Brueski (5:03)

Which is probably part of the strategy on the part of the officers to begin with, is if we do a shitty enough investigation, when it comes to court, they can go and say, oh, look, the investigation was shit. That creates reasonable doubt. Looks like our blue brother is free. I mean, that's kind of the strategy, it seems, here. If you're able to read the tea leaves where these tricky cops think they're being all, you know, ooh, we're going to pull one over on everybody.