The Megyn Kelly Show - Fraud Week： Unraveling the Mystery of Ed Shin's True Identity, and Chris Smith's Disappearance, with Matt Murphy ｜ Ep. 815

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.900 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and fraud week.

00:00:17.100 It was the vacation of a lifetime. Chris Smith was leaving his successful yet stressful business

00:00:23.440 career behind for the open sea and a chartered yacht. He emailed his family to tell them the

00:00:29.200 news. He would keep them updated for a while, but then nothing. The emails stopped, the calls, no.

00:00:37.120 And no Chris. Our guest, Matt Murphy, has an in-depth knowledge of this particular case.

00:00:43.420 He spent 17 years as a senior deputy district attorney in the Orange County Homicide Unit

00:00:48.720 and successfully prosecuted dozens of cases, including this one back in 2018. His forthcoming

00:00:55.100 book is called The Book of Murder, A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death. And it's out in

00:01:01.160 September and available for pre-order right now. That's my kind of book. I'm definitely ordering

00:01:05.820 and reading that. I recommend you do the same. Matt, welcome to the show.

00:01:12.300 Happy to be here.

00:01:13.240 Yeah, happy to have you. And tip of the hat to you for a life spent in putting bad guys in jail. I

00:01:18.600 love prosecutors. I mean, not all, not universally, but as a rule, the good ones are the best and we

00:01:24.900 need them desperately. So thank you for all that you've done. Okay. So let's go back. Where were

00:01:31.160 you prosecuting attorney during the relevant time? So I was in Orange County, California.

00:01:36.840 And Orange County is a little bit different the way they handle their homicides than almost every

00:01:42.040 other DA's office in the United States. It's called a vertical prosecution concept. And what that means

00:01:47.380 is when you come into sexual assault, where I spent four years before I got to homicide or the

00:01:52.140 homicide unit or certain other specialized units, you get assigned a patch of the county. So I had

00:01:57.860 Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, and Irvine. And any murders that happen, you get the call in the

00:02:04.840 middle of the night, you roll out with your investigator, you're there at three in the morning

00:02:08.240 signing warrants. So you get in at the very, very beginning. And then it's called vertical because

00:02:13.160 you follow it all the way up through the system. So on certain cases, you're there, you know, as the

00:02:19.460 crime lab is processing the dead body and in others, you're there like in a missing person capacity

00:02:25.580 trying to help police solve the mystery. So it's a, it's kind of a unique way of doing it. I think

00:02:30.740 every DA's office in America should do it that way. You get to know the detectives, you get to know all

00:02:35.500 the witnesses, you get a real feel for the case long before you ever stand up in front of a jury and,

00:02:40.740 and try the thing. So, um, that's where I was. So at the time you're doing that, there's a guy named

00:02:49.140 Ed Shin in the jurisdiction, and he's been leading an interesting life, a very bright guy, uh, the, uh,

00:02:57.120 an only child, but he, before he came into your life had definitely had a couple of questionable

00:03:04.440 pieces of behavior, including with respect to his own parents.

00:03:11.160 Yeah. So Ed Shin, as you can see in the photo, he's, uh, he went to UC San Diego. He's a handsome

00:03:16.200 guy. Um, and on the surface, he was, uh, he was kind of an all American dude. He, he had a, a very

00:03:25.420 beautiful wife. He had three kids at the time. He's going to Disneyland. He was engaging in weekly Bible

00:03:30.980 study. Um, and he had a, he had parents who are very much devoted to him, but he, he had some

00:03:37.780 sketchy stuff in his past. He got in a big, bitter lawsuit. He tried to buy a magazine, like a collectibles

00:03:43.700 magazine for sports memorabilia. And that went belly up and resulted in a bunch of lawsuits and

00:03:48.340 accusations. Um, he, there was a, a really bizarre incident where he, um, may have faked his own

00:03:57.720 kidnapping, trying to get money out of his dad, but that didn't go anywhere criminally because it was

00:04:01.920 all sort of inner family wise. But, um, by the time he met Chris, um, Ed was working in what's

00:04:08.280 called the advertising lead business. So those commercials that you see at like three in the

00:04:12.540 morning, like, uh, consolidate your debts or new hair loss treatment or whatever it is, you know,

00:04:18.460 um, you're old enough that you're probably not rolling home. I'm old enough. I'm older than you,

00:04:22.720 but, um, you know, those things that when you're young, you come home from a night of partying and

00:04:26.880 you turn on the TV and it's like those, those commercials, those are, those are advertising

00:04:31.080 leads. And the way that works is, um, like mesothelioma or whatever they, these companies

00:04:36.860 will actually, um, put those ads out and people who call, aren't calling the law firm or the hair

00:04:43.300 restoration guys or the debt consolidation guys. They're, they're calling the advertising company

00:04:48.480 who then contracts with, um, the people that actually provide the services. And it's this really

00:04:54.220 weird niche where it's, they, they base it on the amount of time, how many, how many calls or clicks

00:04:59.880 they get. And it, it, it was largely unregulated by the FCC at the beginning. So it was kind of the

00:05:05.700 wild West. And it was an area where you could make a tremendous amount of money, um, if you knew how to

00:05:12.140 do it. And, uh, so Chris Smith goes, he's, he's in this business working for a totally legitimate

00:05:17.920 company, grows up in Santa Cruz, moves down to Temecula, California. And he meets Ed Shin, who works for

00:05:24.700 another company. They're both like late twenties, handsome guys. Chris is living in, uh, uh, nice

00:05:30.820 place in Temecula, but they, they hit it off. And there's a lot of junkets and boondoggles. And these

00:05:36.080 guys go to Vegas a lot. And Chris was pretty straight. He was like, uh, he was more of the artistic

00:05:41.260 side. Um, he would do the, the actual ads. Ed was all business. And with this degree from UC San

00:05:47.640 Diego, he was in a fraternity again, kind of the all American kid. Um, they became friends and they

00:05:53.380 decided that they were going to, um, start their own business. So at like, I think they were 31 at

00:05:59.260 the time. They're the same age. They started a business in Orange County called 800 exchange,

00:06:03.660 where they would set up these advertising campaigns and contract the various providers of this service.

00:06:08.600 these guys made over $12 million in their first year, um, with almost zero overhead. Right. It's,

00:06:16.060 it was, it was an insane amount of money and they knew how to do it. They're good at it. And they have

00:06:21.340 this very successful business. So Chris, um, moves to Laguna beach. And when I, I went to law school in

00:06:28.720 San Diego, um, I lived in Laguna for my first four years, uh, as a DA. So you got a picture of one of

00:06:34.600 the most beautiful places. I don't know if you've ever been there or not, but, um, it's got these

00:06:38.580 little mountains that overlook the ocean, you know, it's where Tennessee went to. Yeah, it's,

00:06:43.520 it's gorgeous. Right. So it's a bunch of artists there. And, um, anyway, he moves there. He is, uh,

00:06:49.000 he's a fanatical surfer, um, like I've been for most of my life. And he actually lived not far away

00:06:54.720 from where my apartment was. And he's got a, um, he's living the dream. Really. He's got this, uh,

00:07:01.560 this ridiculously successful business. He moves his brother down who we love to death. He's very close

00:07:06.940 to his family, moves his brother and his bride. And, and they're, they're two kids down from Santa

00:07:12.500 Cruz. And, um, life was going great, um, until it wasn't. So 12 million in the first year on this

00:07:21.700 business that Chris dreamed up and then Ed and he formed this partnership. And it seems like a

00:07:26.540 partnership made in heaven because Ed's more straight laced and can handle the business aspects.

00:07:30.900 And Chris is the dreamer, excuse me, who can handle the creative aspects and they're each

00:07:36.120 kind of doing what they want though. It must be said, Chris always had one foot in the ocean. I

00:07:42.040 mean, he, he was succeeding at business, but I think it's fair to say his communications with his

00:07:47.400 family made pretty clear. He was always dreaming of doing something else, maybe bartending on a beach

00:07:52.240 someplace. Right. So pretty much any hardcore surfer that you meet, um, has that dream of,

00:07:59.480 um, you know, sailing off into the sunset, right? I mean, you've, I'm sure you've known servers. Um,

00:08:05.360 I don't know where you're from originally, but I'm from upstate New York, but I have a brother-in-law

00:08:10.160 in California. So I do, I do know some. Yeah. So it's like, they all have that. Everybody has that

00:08:16.260 dream of, you know, literally sailing off into the sunset with a surfboard under one arm with a

00:08:20.560 beautiful woman and, um, finding a beach someplace where you can, you know, sort of unplug and go

00:08:25.860 surfing. And, um, Chris would go to Indonesia every year and do these boat charters, um, which is

00:08:31.360 something that I've done for the last probably 25 years. I've got a group of buddies and you take

00:08:35.820 these trips in Indonesia and every one of them, you want to stay a little bit longer because it's, um,

00:08:40.880 living in the ocean, eating great food, surfing all day, every day. It really is the dream of every

00:08:46.080 surfer. And he, he talked openly about this to friends and family. Um, he, he was going to be

00:08:51.320 a professional wakeboarder. Um, he's, he was always water oriented, uh, grew up surfing Santa

00:08:57.160 Cruz area. Um, and so now, you know, he's living in Laguna living, he's driving a range Rover that's

00:09:03.580 paid for by the company. He was about to propose to his fiance who was, um, you know, this kid,

00:09:09.660 a lot of people think of California, you know, the, the, the dream of California, um, less California

00:09:16.220 is, uh, you know, it's farmlands and, um, mountains. Um, but for that tiny little sliver

00:09:23.200 of coastline, um, pretty much from S you know, Santa Cruz down to the Mexican border, there are

00:09:28.660 people that really have this idyllic lifestyle. And that was, that was Chris. And he would talk

00:09:33.720 openly about, I can't wait to leave the rat race and sail off into the sunset. And he told a lot of

00:09:38.440 people about his dream of doing that. Hmm. Another thing that two guys had in common,

00:09:43.100 as I understand it was faith. They were both men of faith.

00:09:47.840 Well, Ed was very, uh, Ed Shin was very into, uh, church, like I said, Bible study,

00:09:54.420 and he presented, he's got this, um, you know, this, this beautiful young wife. He's got these

00:10:00.280 kids. He's going to Disneyland a lot. Um, uh, social media wise, he's posting a bunch of photos about,

00:10:06.040 um, you know, how devoted he was. And in fact, the job that he got in Temecula, um, uh, the,

00:10:13.380 the company was called Leadpoint. He met the owner of that company in a Bible study. So, um, you know,

00:10:19.740 this guy meets Ed, Ed Shin and was so impressed with him, um, and his devotion, uh, to religion and,

00:10:27.740 um, Christianity. He decided to, to give him this very almost outsized responsibility in his company.

00:10:34.520 And Ed was doing very well there. And that's really where he learned that the lead business

00:10:39.840 and where he met Chris. So, um, Chris also had, had some religious leanings, although I don't think

00:10:44.760 he was as devout as, as Ed was. Um, but Chris was just, Chris was, he's just this really good.

00:10:52.820 He's a good guy. You know, he loved his family. His parents are still together, um, devoted to his

00:10:58.380 brother. Um, just very, uh, loved his girlfriend. I'm sorry. I think the brother's Paul. Is that

00:11:05.760 Paul? Yeah. Yeah. Who's also just a, a, a great guy. So you, this kind of like,

00:11:11.500 um, when essential California, uh, kid who's Chris Smith.

00:11:17.620 So what happened before Ed Shin formed the partnership? Because as I understand it,

00:11:23.200 he came to the partnership in debt, he, he owed some money. Well, so great question. So nothing

00:11:31.220 actually, or at least they didn't know any, anything had, had happened before they formed

00:11:35.760 the partnership, but almost right after the ink is dry and they, and they both leave their companies.

00:11:41.000 Um, there was what appeared originally to be an accounting irregularity, uh, which I think is

00:11:46.500 how it was first put an accounting irregularity with lead point. And what that turned into is the

00:11:52.320 owner got into the books and realized that there was, uh, not only a whole bunch of clients that

00:11:58.080 went with Ed, you know, and that, that's a common thing and that sparks more than one dispute out there,

00:12:03.680 but there was also a bunch of missing money. And in fact, the money, um, at the more, the closer they

00:12:09.360 look, the more money they found was missing and it wound up, um, totaling about $700,000. So right

00:12:15.740 after Chris essentially attaches himself to Ed, there are these financial problems that started

00:12:21.640 arising in Riverside County. So they get in there and, um, you know, a hundred thousand turned into

00:12:27.980 200,000, turned into three pretty soon. This is a substantial amount of money enough that it

00:12:32.660 attracted the attention of the district attorney's office in Riverside County. There's a criminal

00:12:37.460 investigation. And as you can imagine, a whole slew of lawsuits over this missing money. Meanwhile,

00:12:43.200 Chris is, um, he's almost learning about this in real time because he worked for a different company

00:12:48.700 when he met Ed and he's, he signed on for this. He's totally unaware of it. Now, all of a sudden

00:12:54.460 there's lawsuits where as, as partner, he's being named as a co-defendant, um, and this idyllic kind

00:13:00.600 of awesome surfer lifestyle suddenly has this huge injection of stress. And he's not sure,

00:13:06.340 um, he's not sure, uh, you know, how much, how much of this is kind of dragging down, how much his

00:13:12.540 company is liable for it now. And remember all this money and he's, his, his brother has moved

00:13:17.300 down. He's invested in the future, bringing his family down. So Chris decides he wants to protect

00:13:23.180 his interests. And essentially what the arrangement was, Chris was the creative guy. So he would work,

00:13:28.020 he'd surf in the mornings and then he'd work late into the night doing these, the creative end of

00:13:32.720 these advertising campaigns. Ed was the business guy. So Ed actually owned 55% of business and Chris

00:13:39.980 trusted him. So it was like, Hey, you handle the books, you handle the business side. I'll do all

00:13:44.540 the campaigns together. We'll, we'll combine our talents. We'll make money for ourselves and set

00:13:49.520 these other companies. That was the idea. So now, um, Chris has no access to the books and he's

00:13:55.880 concerned that, um, that this is going to drag him down. Um, he's worried about his reputation.

00:14:01.480 He's worried about all kinds of like the, the professional implications of this, but then he,

00:14:06.700 uh, the, the criminal case progresses to a point that Ed Shin actually pleads guilty to embezzling.

00:14:13.040 And he's ordered by a superior court judge in Riverside County to pay back $700,000. And he's given

00:14:19.960 five months to do it. Okay. Which is unusual. And he's, he's allowed to do some custody time on

00:14:26.160 weekends, but he's essentially, um, allowed to remain free so that he can operate his business.

00:14:31.820 Um, but there is, um, there's a sentence hanging over his head of 16 months in state prison.

00:14:37.840 So he's going to do what that means in California, depending on our, our crazy legislature. Um,

00:14:43.860 you're going to do at least 50% of that time. And depending on the way it's charged up to 80%,

00:14:49.360 so he's looking at at least eight months, actual prison time, if he does not make good on this

00:14:55.400 restitution order. So that's, there's this big, gigantic, um, ax hanging over Ed's head and Chris

00:15:02.020 knows about this and he's, you know, the nightmares are, are the, all the lawsuits are a nightmare for

00:15:07.860 him. And then he's, um, he's worried that to come up with this money and Ed should have plenty of money

00:15:12.840 because Ed is also controlling the accounts. Um, but Chris starts to worry that maybe he's going to,

00:15:18.060 you know, he doesn't want to, he doesn't want any of his money to go to pay Ed's debt. Right.

00:15:22.760 So he hires a lawyer named Ernesto Aldivar, really, really good guy who specializes in business

00:15:28.080 disputes. And they start negotiating his ability to look at the books and to have more control over

00:15:33.160 the money. And he wants to co-sign checks and things like that. And, um, so this goes on and on for

00:15:39.120 a few months as they're negotiating this. And, um, all of a sudden Ernesto gets a, uh,

00:15:46.000 gets an email from Chris saying, Hey, 2010, Friday, June, 2010. Right. Uh, at, I think it's

00:15:55.060 six, 10 in the evening. Um, he gets this, uh, this email saying I've decided to let Ed buy me out of

00:16:00.180 the company and essentially begins, um, this, uh, you know, telling friends and family, everybody

00:16:07.100 starts getting these emails saying, Hey, I've decided that I'm going to, I'm going to live my

00:16:10.400 dream. I've been talking about it for years. I'm sailing off into this sunset. I met a woman in Las

00:16:14.640 Vegas named Tiffany Taylor. And I've decided to sail to the Galapagos islands with Tiffany Taylor.

00:16:20.980 And yeah, that's when, uh, I became involved pretty soon after that, which is also kind of

00:16:26.640 interesting, which is a total head snap moment because everyone thought he was in love and

00:16:33.900 even engaged or close to engaged to another woman. He wasn't from what his parents said,

00:16:39.740 the kind of guy who was like, yeah, hot playboy, babe. It was, he wasn't that kind of guy.

00:16:46.280 Right. Right. He, so Ed was, Ed was really, Ed loved Las Vegas. They would do a lot of business

00:16:51.720 junkets for their company out there. Um, Chris was not into the flash and we actually had a woman

00:16:56.920 that worked for the company named Jennifer Matthews, who, when she testified about Chris and

00:17:02.060 she just described Chris, she said that he was, when they would do these business junkets in Vegas,

00:17:06.880 Chris would go back to his room and go to sleep. And Ed would be up until, you know, two and three in

00:17:13.260 the morning doing the Vegas thing, um, which I'll get into in a, in a bit, I guess. But, um, yeah,

00:17:18.360 this was a head snap moment because he loved his, he loved his soon to be fiance. They'd been dating

00:17:24.380 for a while. Uh, and you know, he, he flew his brother down. He's supposed to pick up his brother

00:17:29.720 at the airport. Um, his brother's flying back into town and, um, Chris didn't show up. And all of a sudden

00:17:35.600 he gets this, this email that, Hey man, I've sailed off into the sunset with this beautiful

00:17:40.800 Playboy centerfold. And, uh, you know, I'll catch you on the flip side, basically.

00:17:47.580 Wow. And the fiance too, or about to be fiance got dumped via email.

00:17:52.600 Right. Right. And dumped in the most brutal, harsh way. It was, it was, it was done via email

00:17:59.020 and it was, um, from an email that was apparently associated with Chris. And it was basically,

00:18:06.200 I don't love you anymore. I've met somebody else. Um, and I'm, you know, I, I'm, we're done.

00:18:13.340 And which was at the end, looking back, it was diabolically clever to do that because now she

00:18:21.060 was, um, first she was devastated and then she was very angry as, as you can sort of imagine.

00:18:27.520 So, um, plus she, you know, she'd had a million conversations with him about his dream of sailing

00:18:33.720 off into the sunset. She just always figured it would be with her. Right. So it was it at this

00:18:39.960 point, I would think like in my own life, I would think at this point, if somebody near and dear to

00:18:44.200 me sent these emails, even knowing that he had a penchant to wander and, you know, he just had

00:18:50.260 wanderlust. I think I'd say, I don't know. I'm not sure. You know, hindsight's 2020, but did

00:18:57.440 anybody in the family right away say something's off? So, um, I think right away, everybody was

00:19:07.600 shocked. Um, they were, they were shocked that he would, they would do this, but then when it

00:19:11.560 settled in, they all, you know, they knew about him. They knew about his dream of surfing the world

00:19:16.640 and, um, they knew about his trips to Indonesia. And, you know, at, at first it was, everybody was

00:19:23.340 shocked and disappointed that he would do that. But, you know, the first couple of weeks,

00:19:28.020 you know, this was kind of, it was consistent in a way, not, not him leaving everybody in the

00:19:33.820 lurch. They were, they were completely flabbergasted at the way he broke up with, with Erica,

00:19:38.300 his girlfriend. But, um, you know, it, it kind of made sense. Now, what happened was Paul said,

00:19:44.620 Hey, um, you know, after a couple of these emails, they're, they're voluminous, you know,

00:19:49.340 they went back and forth or emails to his brother, there were emails to his mother,

00:19:53.000 emails to his father separately. Um, so these things were, they were ongoing and the, the,

00:19:58.680 I'm sailing off into the sunset thing, um, turned into, Hey, uh, Galapagos were awesome. Now I'm

00:20:04.340 heading down to Tierra del Fuego and I'm going to check out these islands off Argentina. And this was

00:20:10.260 an ongoing narrative. And Paul at one point, literally, I think it was, I think it was, I think

00:20:15.700 he started with dude, like, dude, at least show me a photo of you and, and this, this new woman, 0.61

00:20:21.320 Tiffany Taylor. So he gets a picture of Tiffany Taylor getting out of a swimming pool and, um,

00:20:28.480 Tiffany Taylor, it is a, um, you know, what, what Paul is looking for is Paul is looking for a photo

00:20:33.780 of the two of them together, like on the, on the boat or, you know, and what he gets is he gets what

00:20:38.840 looks like a modeling photo of Tiffany Taylor, who's gorgeous getting out of a swimming pool in a 1.00

00:20:44.180 bikini so that, you know, he asked for a photo and he got, he got a photo, but it wasn't really

00:20:51.340 what he was looking for. And so, you know, one month turns into two turns into three. Now that

00:20:57.400 his, his mother is starting to worry and the emails are getting darker and darker. So it starts out with,

00:21:03.160 Hey, I'm sailing off in the sunset with a super hot chick. And it, that turns into, um, I've been

00:21:09.220 having a lot of thoughts about my childhood. Um, you know, I've got a lot to work through.

00:21:14.000 Um, and then the description turns into, as the trip continues, it turns into, Hey, I'm going to

00:21:19.220 Africa. And, um, I met a guy and here in Bombay that he's got a sailboat just met him, but I'm going

00:21:26.120 to get on a sailboat and go up to Algeria. And then he starts talking about, um, going into the Congo

00:21:32.220 to buy a conflict diamond for his brother, which is like, it starts out the most awesome trip ever.

00:21:39.540 Um, I'm sailing off to go pursue my dream of surfing. Um, and that turns into, I'm having a

00:21:45.900 lot of like feelings about, uh, my childhood and, you know, I've, I've had really dark thoughts. I've

00:21:51.260 thought about the worst thing. And there's these suggestions of suicide. And then it turns into

00:21:56.500 the trip from hell where he's, it's like a mother's worst nightmare where the mother is receiving

00:22:01.440 text messages about getting on a boat with a random dude in Bombay or Mumbai, um, and heading to North

00:22:09.260 Africa on his way to the Congo, because he's heard of a place where you can sell gold coins because

00:22:14.500 he had, he had collected Krugerrands, um, uh, which is a, you know, it's an international gold,

00:22:20.780 gold coin that you can sell, you know, and he's talking about, he had those, the family knew about

00:22:25.480 that. And he's talking about going, you know, to the Congo by himself with a pocket full of gold

00:22:31.320 coins, looking about a conflict time. And it's just, it turns into the most, what could possibly

00:22:36.920 go wrong. Right. So his mother, um, reached a point where she's so distraught and this is a

00:22:43.600 really nice family. I mean, these are, you know, um, it's a really nice family. So this is your all

00:22:51.160 American mom who loves her son to death. Who's getting emails like that. And she's literally on 0.97

00:22:55.960 Google earth, like zooming in on the satellite photos and random villages in the Congo, trying

00:23:02.480 to find a glimpse of her son. And, um, so the, um, the dad starts. Then the dad, then the dad sends

00:23:13.080 an email trying to check, you know, if, if think about it, if you wanted to make sure this person

00:23:19.520 was really your family member, there are definitely questions we could all think of that only that

00:23:24.420 family member would know, you know, something from deep in the childhood, something specific.

00:23:29.900 And so the dad, the dad, did he have a background in law enforcement? Cause he, I guess he thought up

00:23:34.680 this, this idea. He did. So I don't know if you're aware of the rivalry between firemen and police

00:23:40.640 officers. I don't know if you're aware of that. They're always making jokes by each other. Anyway,

00:23:44.040 he started as a police officer and then he decided he wanted to be a fireman, which is a betrayal to all

00:23:49.140 police officers. But, um, but, uh, you know, he, he did, he had a background in law enforcement and

00:23:54.660 he, um, he essentially, he started getting more and more suspicious. And there's a couple of things

00:24:01.760 going on here. I think that, you know, this went on for almost, almost a year where they're, these

00:24:06.960 emails are coming into the family. And, um, a lot of people think, you know, how could somebody believe

00:24:12.980 that? Um, but you know, when you, when you have somebody that you love dearly and you're getting

00:24:18.860 these emails that at least demonstrates that they're still alive, the, the alternative is

00:24:23.860 almost too brutal to think about. So you, you, a mother's wish for her son to still be alive is

00:24:31.020 going to, it's going to get her past a lot of red flags, I think, if that makes sense. So the dad,

00:24:36.720 however, um, he starts sending, um, he, he starts asking questions and they're almost quizzes. And

00:24:43.200 it was, um, what, what Lake did you grow up water skiing on was one of the, was one of the questions.

00:24:48.880 And what was the name of our boat? And the response was dad, it was Kelly Lake, um, chill out. I'm fine.

00:24:56.440 That was essentially the response, but he doesn't answer what kind of boat it was, which was,

00:25:01.520 which was actually one of being very significant. So the dad decides he's going to come down

00:25:06.280 to, uh, to Orange County and he comes down and he meets with Ed Shin. And, um, Ed was one of the

00:25:13.260 last people to see him, to see Chris. So he, um, you know, Ed sits down with the dad and Ed is,

00:25:21.420 he's calm and he's smooth. And he explains, look, we have this ongoing business dispute. Um,

00:25:27.940 it's not a problem. Uh, he decided that he wanted to take this trip around the world that

00:25:33.000 everybody in Chris's life had heard about. And he's like, so I decided to buy him out. Uh, he

00:25:38.520 insisted that he wanted the money, uh, wired to the Caymans. Uh, I can get you all the banking

00:25:43.020 information. That's not a problem. Um, and he, and then he says, you know, but essentially you

00:25:49.380 should be, you should be aware that, um, uh, I was also with him when he got a fake passport because

00:25:55.240 he wanted to go off the grid. Okay. So he's, he provides all this information to Steve Smith.

00:26:00.820 He's, he's completely hanked up. It doesn't make sense, but then we, it's almost reassuring to talk

00:26:06.220 to Ed because he's so convincing and he's so smooth and he's so nonplussed by the whole thing. And so,

00:26:14.080 um, yeah, so he, but that's the question, right? Like why would he need a fake passport? He's not

00:26:20.820 under criminal indictment. He's not being investigated. Why wouldn't he just be traveling

00:26:25.120 under his own real passport? Right. So then we, and the answer to that really is of course you're

00:26:32.820 right. But risk was one of those guys that part of his dream was like, I want to unplug from the

00:26:37.600 rat race. I want to completely distance myself from society. I want to go someplace and just 1.00

00:26:42.980 completely, you know, check out for a while. So, so yes, you're right. If you were, I take a trip

00:26:48.880 like this. I mean, I go to Indonesia every year. I use my own fat, my own passport. Um,

00:26:53.840 but for, for him, it almost made sense. You know, it was, you know, he had talked about,

00:27:01.120 you know, Chris talked about his concern about, um, you know, what, Hey, what if the monetary

00:27:05.460 system collapses? That was one of the things that he'd kind of talked about. And he was a rational guy.

00:27:10.500 Uh, but he, you know, this is part of his, you know, his sort of fantasy of leaving. And so when

00:27:16.320 you heard fake passport, it struck him as being very odd, but it wasn't 100% unbelievable. If that

00:27:23.500 makes sense. Eventually the landlord, right. Of the facility in which Chris and Ed Shin ran their

00:27:37.720 business gets involved because they're overdue on rent. They've moved out like Ed Shin pulled the

00:27:45.900 business and relocated it, but he's in arrears on his old rent, which is irritating to that landlord,

00:27:52.360 which is also another pivotal moment here. Right. So he, they basically skipped out. So they,

00:27:59.780 they, um, they've got a year lease and he, you know, nine months later, soon after Chris,

00:28:07.080 uh, left for this trip, supposedly he had packed up the business and moved to a different location

00:28:12.940 and stiffed the landlord for many months rent. So the landlord, actually one of the other tenants

00:28:19.680 is a private investigator named Joe DeLue, uh, who's a former officer at Laguna Beach police. And he makes

00:28:25.300 his living as a, as a PI. So he, the landlord is essentially complaining to him one day about this

00:28:32.520 tenant. And he's got this big empty office space and doesn't know where the guy is. And would Joe be

00:28:37.800 willing to help track him down? And Joe, of course, you know, was, was happy to do it. And he starts

00:28:44.600 poking around and he went. And one of the first things he did is he went and he talked to the dad

00:28:49.740 and he got these emails between, um, between him and Chris. And he, he looked at the question about the,

00:28:58.320 about the boat and the lake and that he, he saw the answer that it was just, um, that he just answered

00:29:05.220 with the lake. And that struck him as being very odd. So he decided to, to actually go in and ask

00:29:10.920 for permission to enter the business and it's been abandoned. Okay. So there's, um, there's no

00:29:15.820 reasonable expectation of privacy. If you rent, you know, if you rent a business from somebody or you

00:29:20.060 rent a home, um, you, you know, and you, and you abandon it, the landlord has a right to go back

00:29:25.700 inside. So Joe DeLue walks in and very soon after making entry, he sees what appears to be blood on a

00:29:33.780 light switch. And he realizes that that's, um, that that's something that he doesn't want to

00:29:38.480 mess around. So he backs out and calls the sheriff's department. Now, meanwhile, what has happened is I've

00:29:44.360 got my jurisdiction covered Laguna beach. The family had filed a missing persons report with, um,

00:29:51.260 with Laguna and they brought Ed in and this thing's on video, Megan. And I'm telling you, I was a DA for

00:29:58.880 26 years. You see this interview. It is, it is fascinating because Ed Shin is so convincing and

00:30:06.680 these two detectives sit down and they're like, Hey, uh, family is trying to find their, their son.

00:30:12.440 What's the deal? And he, he is almost perfect. He is calm. He is like, he doesn't break a sweat.

00:30:18.540 He describes how that, you know, Chris was always talking about this around the world trip

00:30:22.400 and sitting on a beach someplace. And about halfway through the interview, I'll leave the names of the

00:30:27.460 detectives out. Um, you can just see they relax and they, they buy it. They believe him. And, um,

00:30:34.900 you know, it becomes, uh, you know, it's sort of a, that was kind of the end, right? I taught a class

00:30:41.500 at the, um, Sheriff's Academy, uh, for young detectives. And right about the same time, I finished,

00:30:47.500 finished a class and walking out to the parking lot. And I almost get tackled by this very young

00:30:52.820 detective from Laguna beach named Julia Bowman, who has says, you know, I, I, I really want to

00:30:58.640 talk to you about this. Um, I'm going to get in trouble if my, my boss finds out that I've cornered

00:31:03.960 you, but there's, there's something that's all wrong here. And this makes no sense. And I've looked

00:31:09.940 into it and they believe them. And I don't. And we, and I wound up, I actually got sunburned and

00:31:15.640 like you, I'm, I'm Irish, right? I think Irish background for you. So, you know what that means?

00:31:20.620 You can't be outside unprotected. Oh my God. So she corners me next to my car and I went up talking

00:31:25.580 to her for about 45 minutes and I got the worst sunburn because it was so compelling. And, and this

00:31:31.900 is my, this is my patch. This is my jurisdiction. And this is, that was my job to try to help police

00:31:37.340 figure this out, but Laguna officially hadn't come to me with an issue. So I've got this junior

00:31:42.760 detective putting this on my radar and I start, I started looking into it and I find out right,

00:31:48.560 right about the same time. So, um, San Juan Capistrano is where the business was. So Joe

00:31:53.980 DeLue has just gone in. That was, uh, my colleague, Brahim Betai had that section. So I sit down with

00:31:59.500 Brahim and we have a meeting with Laguna and the sheriff's department. Laguna has almost no murders,

00:32:04.160 but the sheriffs are one of the most, Orange County sheriffs are one of the most professional

00:32:08.500 homicide investigate investigative groups in the country. They, they deal with enough of them.

00:32:13.280 They're real pros. So we all sit down and we decide I'm going to prosecute or I'm going to help in the

00:32:18.580 investigation. If there's anything ever filed, they are going to handle the investigative part.

00:32:23.080 And we start putting the pieces together. And one of the first things we learn is there was another

00:32:28.880 junket out to Vegas and Paul, who is now really worried about his brother. He's still working for

00:32:35.480 the company and they go out and they are in this casino. They were staying at, um, almost everything

00:32:40.860 was at the wind or the encore. So the two of the nicest hotels in Las Vegas, and that's where they

00:32:45.940 would do these business junkets. And, um, there's a world known as atmosphere modeling. And I'm not sure

00:32:52.120 if you're familiar with that, there's a, there's a great episode in the, in the show, um, Silicon

00:32:57.980 Valley, I think it's either the first or the second episode where they encounter, they go to a toga party

00:33:03.100 that's thrown by this billionaire, this like tech billionaire, and they encounter, um, atmosphere

00:33:09.160 models. And basically what it is, is it is, uh, you can hire beautiful women to come to your party

00:33:15.120 and talk to all the guys that are socially awkward, that you want to have invest or whatever. And you can,

00:33:21.100 they can, you know, make a company look super bitchin and awesome and, and all that. And, um,

00:33:27.380 and they, Paul looks over and they've got, they've got atmosphere models and they're across the room

00:33:34.900 at the business junket for 1-800 exchange is Tiffany Taylor. And he makes a beeline for her and he's

00:33:42.980 like, Hey, aren't you supposed to be traveling the world with my brother? And she looks at him and says,

00:33:47.840 I'm really sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. And that's when the bottom fell

00:33:52.440 out for, for Paul Smith and also for the family, because he knows at that point, meanwhile, Ed is

00:33:57.140 going, no, no, no, dude, it's a different Tiffany Taylor. And he's, he's going, what do you, this is

00:34:01.760 the woman in the photo that I got from my brother. And she is, um, you know, her real name is not

00:34:07.560 Tiffany Taylor. Her real name is Summer Hanson. She was at Playboy Center full and she, she wound up being 0.98

00:34:13.820 kind of a hero in this case in a lot of ways. Um, and she is, she's stunning. Um, and Paul is,

00:34:20.560 is in this, you know, in this casino, his brother's gone. And at that moment, he knew that

00:34:25.680 something horrible had happened. So we then, let me just jump back. So we pulled some soundbites

00:34:31.940 from some of that. I've listened to the 2020 and the Dateline, a bunch of stories on this too,

00:34:35.200 just over the years, but this is a piece from, um, NBC Dateline for the moment that the cops went

00:34:42.300 over to that old office. And at the same time, just about that, Paul was finding out there's no

00:34:47.700 Tiffany Taylor. They were finding disturbing things inside the office along the lines of what you

00:34:52.020 described. Here it is in SOT 2.

00:34:55.220 Sergeants, Don Vogt and Ray Wirt, Orange County Sheriff's Department. First thing to do, send some

00:35:01.400 texts over to take a good close look around the old 800 exchange office. That's when they started

00:35:07.500 finding more suspicious spots on some ceiling tiles, behind some molding. They pulled up carpet

00:35:15.860 and found dark colored stains on the concrete underneath. The spots tested positive for human

00:35:23.040 blood. We confirmed that all the blood in the crime scene was in fact Christmas. All of it,

00:35:28.820 all of it. Nobody else was bleeding in there at all. In the end, it was all from one person and it

00:35:33.900 was one person's DNA. And my understanding is they used luminol on the carpet and it lit up like a

00:35:42.400 Christmas tree, which detects the presence of blood. Right. So now all of a sudden, um, we've gone from

00:35:49.360 a missing person and kind of a mystery to, um, we've clearly got evidence of a homicide and that

00:35:54.680 little clip that you just showed that tiny little droplet on the, on the strip that's called cast off.

00:35:59.440 So, um, in the world of forensic science, when you have blood drops on a ceiling, it means that

00:36:05.180 somebody has either been stabbed multiple times or beaten with a blunt object. And when they fling it

00:36:09.680 back, whether it's a knife or a bat, it tends to fling viscous blood. And there was blood on the,

00:36:16.120 on the strips, on the ceiling. So this was, um, this was helter skelter. And, and at that point we knew,

00:36:23.100 and right about the same time, we're also learning that Ed's, you know, Mr. Bible study guy, um, he was

00:36:31.240 spending hours at the tables in, in Vegas. And we started interviewing employees that are telling us

00:36:38.560 that Ed would gamble all night long with purple chips, which are $500 chips. And, and then we find

00:36:44.660 out that he's spending so much money that he's getting comped the presidential suite at the Encore

00:36:50.160 Hotel, which is a, just to give you an idea, it is a two story hotel suite with an elevator on the

00:36:56.520 inside and 24 hour Butler service. It's, it's maybe one of the nicest physical spaces in the entire

00:37:02.680 world. And it is, um, they're flying him out from Orange County on the Encore jet to go to Vegas.

00:37:09.720 And that's no. So, um, so when we get back with Ernesto Aldivar, the attorney, um, it became pretty

00:37:18.320 clear that the pressure that Chris was putting on Ed created a huge financial motive here because,

00:37:24.440 um, you know, they're not, they have their, you know, Ed's married, Chris about to get engaged and

00:37:29.980 not dating each other's girlfriends or wives. There's no, um, they're not neighbors with a

00:37:34.720 dispute over offense. They have literally no beef with each other other than money. And if Ed does

00:37:40.800 not come up with $700,000 within five months, he literally goes to state prison and he doesn't get a

00:37:46.480 hearing. Why can't he do that? If they've made $12 million in their first year and they, and Ed owns

00:37:50.480 at 55%. It's big, Viva Las Vegas. Um, because this, when you are a degenerate yambler, he literally

00:37:59.220 blew probably $10 million on the tables of the Encore and wind hotels in Las Vegas. That's how you 0.68

00:38:07.240 get a presidential suite comp to you. That's how you get the casino jet because you are, you are a high

00:38:12.580 roller. I don't, I'm sure you've seen casino. It's one of my favorite movies. You know, they talk about

00:38:16.640 a whale and they're, you know, they have that, that scene where they want to get them back into

00:38:20.800 the casino to, you know, to, to go lose his money at the tables. That basically was Ed Shin. He would,

00:38:26.920 and it was, he was gambling Chris's money. And as soon as he opens up the books, he knows that,

00:38:32.980 um, Chris is going to, Chris is going to bring some sort of, um, court order so that Ed,

00:38:39.400 you know, his accounts are frozen and he's going to go to state prison.

00:38:43.100 So that makes sense. Honestly, there was a, I don't do a lot of gambling, but I, I know some

00:38:47.080 people who do. And, uh, one of them was telling me, you know, you know what they call people with

00:38:51.180 a gambling problem, losers. He said, they don't, the ones who go out there and just win because

00:38:56.380 they go out there so infrequently, they don't have a problem. It's the people who go there all

00:38:59.340 the time and they lose invariably because that odds are against them. Those are the people who have a

00:39:03.360 gambling, gambling problem. Right. Yeah. Vegas and all the glitz. I mean, every,

00:39:07.120 I'm sure most of your viewers have been there. I mean, that was not built on winning nights by

00:39:10.960 amateur gamblers. So that that's, that's from people losing money. And I can't imagine that

00:39:16.340 Matt, but if my husband ever said to me, the, the encore hotel is going to fly us out there

00:39:21.100 on their private jet. And we're staying in the presidential suite because of what happened

00:39:24.640 the last time I was there, I demand a forensic accounting of every account we have. It would be

00:39:30.880 horrifying. Oh, well, and it gets worse than that too, because then we get into, we interview,

00:39:37.120 um, uh, Ed basically hired a gopher, like a personal assistant who he moved into Chris's

00:39:43.980 apartment that was being paid for by the company and the Don. And I mean, watching that clip,

00:39:50.260 I got to tell you, I left the office five years ago. I love those guys, Don and Ray just, um, I miss,

00:39:57.000 I miss them almost every day. You know, um, they're such good, such good detectives. And you just see

00:40:02.220 that steely eyed, you know, with all the crap that the police get today, um, the vast majority

00:40:08.880 of police officers in my experience are really hardworking, honest guys and Ray and Don, um, you 0.89

00:40:15.580 know, putting this together with them, what it's, it's like, it was, it was amazing watching those

00:40:21.580 guys work. So they, they go to the Chris's, um, apartment and they find this dude, Kenny craft

00:40:27.420 living there who is Ed's personal assistant and they get, um, he's driving around and Chris's

00:40:33.060 Range Rover and they, and for me, the moment is, is this is all coming together. I think this was

00:40:38.800 even before we got the blood. I can't remember the exact sequence, but, um, uh, for me, the,

00:40:44.980 the absolute alarm bell went off when they got into Chris's apartment and his, he had two surfboards

00:40:51.620 that were there to custom made surfboards. And any surfer knows that if you're taking a surf trip

00:40:56.760 anywhere, you're not leaving your boards behind. So, um, then they did a forensic workup of the

00:41:02.200 Range Rover and they found blood in the back of the Range Rover. So that was clearly used to transport.

00:41:07.300 So, um, we then get into, um, we get into Ed's phones and we find out that a couple of nights after

00:41:15.640 Chris went missing. Um, Ed's phone is pinging, uh, at this place called desert hot springs,

00:41:22.360 which is a tiny little like dot on a map just North of the Mexican border on the way to Calexico

00:41:28.380 and Mexico. So this is like East County, San Diego, middle of nowhere. Right. And as a general rule,

00:41:35.060 when you work homicides in Southern California, if you get a human body out into the Pacific ocean,

00:41:40.480 or you get a human body out into the desert, that body will not be found. If you throw a body in a

00:41:45.280 lake, it's popping up. But if you throw a body in the ocean or you get somebody out in the desert,

00:41:49.480 it's gone. And so we have one cell phone tower and it's got like, I think it's 120 mile radius

00:41:56.180 of desert land. And Ed pinged off that at three in the morning after renting a truck at like, um,

00:42:03.800 U-Haul or something. And he drives off into the desert in the middle of the night in a pickup truck.

00:42:08.220 And so we, we, we know where Chris's body is. Um, but, uh, so now, so at this point you decide

00:42:16.020 let's arrest him, but he wasn't going to make it that easy. Like it was a bit of a challenge.

00:42:23.680 Well, right. So what happens is, um, I don't know if you used to watch get smart,

00:42:27.780 the old show, get smart. There's, there's a gag that he'd do over and over again, right? When he

00:42:31.840 gets caught, Maxwell smart, say, would you believe like, okay, I know I said this, but would you

00:42:36.000 believe? And that's what Ed does. Ed was getting on a plane to go to Canada, which was a violation of

00:42:42.460 his probation in Riverside. And also, um, we're getting pretty close here. And, um, so I made the

00:42:50.260 decision, uh, that, you know, we, we needed to, we needed to step up the investigation and basically

00:42:56.360 take him off the plane before he flew out of the country. Um, so, uh, we communicated with this

00:43:01.960 probation officer to determine whether or not he had a probation vote or whether he could leave the

00:43:05.960 country without permission. And he could not. So, um, Ray and Don arrested him at LAX and they drive

00:43:12.220 him down and they have, um, an, an, an interview with Ed and they kind of let him talk for a while.

00:43:19.480 And he tells the same story that he told the detectives at Laguna beach. And then he told Steve

00:43:24.160 Smith, the dad, um, and, uh, he basically tells the same tale and then they confront him with all

00:43:30.840 the information they have. They confront him with, um, you know, the, the forensics and everything else

00:43:35.940 that had just been put together. And, um, and they, he essentially changes the story to, okay, okay,

00:43:44.120 here's what really happened. Would you believe, um, we got in a big argument over money and he attacked

00:43:49.840 me and we got in this fight and I pushed him down and he hit his head on the corner of the

00:43:54.140 desk and I didn't know what to do. And I panicked. So I got this, uh, I got this guy who's a fixer for

00:44:00.900 me in Vegas. Who's like a Vegas host that I use. And he hooked me up with this Russian guy who came

00:44:06.860 and took the body. I have no idea where the body is. So that became his new story. And what's

00:44:11.660 interesting is that, um, in addition to at gambling, all that money, um, when we interviewed 0.56

00:44:18.140 Kenny craft, Ed was also, um, we had information that he was, he was sleeping with hookers two at a 0.53

00:44:24.780 time in Vegas and like high cap, like really high dollar, um, sex workers, uh, to the tune of

00:44:32.400 about $5,000 a pop. So he's having sex spending $10,000 with two of these, these sex workers at 0.94

00:44:40.280 a time, which kind of gives you an idea in the presidential suite, like the lifestyle that he's 0.92

00:44:44.540 living. That'll do it. Right. You can go through that pretty quick.

00:44:47.620 This is why, this is why we, we have an advertiser, cozy earth and their, their latest pitch has been

00:44:52.640 take our sheets with you when you travel. Don't like, yes, yes. That's how I'm feeling. Take them.

00:44:59.680 Ed Shin is a freaking walking commercial for that. I mean, like, yeah, two, two at a time in Vegas and 0.69

00:45:04.700 the nicest suite probably in Vegas. And yeah, there's probably some guy like Ed in there with

00:45:10.180 two prostitutes. Um, yeah. So let me show you. So he does eventually, and I want to go back to where 0.99

00:45:16.460 you are in the story, but just to show the audience, eventually, uh, you prosecuted Ed Shin

00:45:20.520 and you got him on the stand and it was on cam, which is great. And there's a little bit about

00:45:26.540 with, of him. This is from 2020 trying to tell this nonsense story. Here it is. Not three.

00:45:32.520 Lunges at me again. And I think at that point I felt I had to fight back. I don't know if I threw

00:45:40.960 him or if I shoved him, but somehow I pushed him into this area and that's when he fell and he hit,

00:45:47.820 he hit the desk really hard. Okay. And just because the audience is going to enjoy this,

00:45:54.360 here's a little bit of our guest, Matt Murphy, the prosecutor in the case,

00:45:58.880 grilling Ed Shin on this story and some inconsistencies in it. Watch top four.

00:46:05.140 So how is it, Mr. Shin, you didn't have a bruise or you didn't bleed somewhere? Can you explain that

00:46:11.560 for us? I cannot. Okay. There you are. He's on the floor of the office. He's just sustained a

00:46:19.120 significant physical injury and you can dial 911 and they can come save him. So if you didn't want

00:46:24.740 him to die, why didn't you dial 911, Mr. Shin? Because I was in shock. You didn't dial 911 because

00:46:30.720 you knew that if he died, you got his money. Isn't that true? No.

00:46:36.960 Wow. Okay. So keep going. Okay. So first of all, that suit that he's wearing is like

00:46:41.780 Giorgio Armani. It's worth more than my entire closet put together here and in my place in New

00:46:46.840 York. So his luggage that he had off the plane was like, I, it was, I think it was Louis Vuitton,

00:46:54.360 Louis Vuitton luggage. And I remember they were, they were trying to get it out. I mean,

00:46:58.180 everything, his, his watches, his jewelry, it just, the guy oozed money. So that I look at that and I'm,

00:47:05.280 I'm looking at his suit as I'm watching that clip. But, um, so we, uh, yeah, we,

00:47:13.580 no body cases are really interesting. Okay. So we never recovered Chris's remains and which is brutal

00:47:20.020 for the family. But, um, there's two ways you can do, um, a murder case. We have a missing body. One,

00:47:26.960 since I've got Ed describing how he fell down and hit his head, um, I can prove that Chris Smith is

00:47:33.180 dead. If I play Ed's ridiculous BS, um, can I swear on this? No. Yeah, you can go for it.

00:47:41.540 Okay. All right. So I can say this is the first time I've ever been able to say this, but it's just,

00:47:45.420 it's such bullshit. He's, he describes this scene where this guy falls down and hits his head, 0.99

00:47:51.100 right? Like, and then he, and then he lets him die. And this is, this is the same night,

00:47:55.760 according to him, that we've got this, you know, we've got an attorney saying that everything was

00:47:59.700 coming to a head. And if he can pay the money, he stays out of prison and gets to keep going to Vegas.

00:48:04.260 But if he can't, he's going to, he's going to fricking prison. And like the most fortunate,

00:48:10.320 you know, accidental head wound in history. And he's not calling the police because he's in shock.

00:48:16.780 And then he actually says he drove him around for a while. And then Megan, what he does is he

00:48:20.020 describes, we get into it. Like who is the guy that, that, that came and got the body. And he's

00:48:26.260 like, well, he's a Russian guy. And he had a flat top and he had blonde hair and he's wearing a leather

00:48:31.040 jacket. And he, he describes Dolph Lundgren from Rocky three. It's like, he describes Draco. It is

00:48:39.100 like, literally, I'm sitting there listening to it going, I know this guy, this is freaking,

00:48:43.080 this is a villain in a Rocky movie, literally down to the detail. He's channeling that in his head as

00:48:48.400 he's testifying. And I'm, I'm taking notes of this. I'm going, this is, this is insane.

00:48:54.880 I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open,

00:49:00.720 honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political,

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00:49:58.520 So I've done five, no body murders. Okay. I did the Hawks case, um, at a Newport, the couple that got

00:50:04.120 tied to the anchor and thrown overboard, did a case called Judy Blatt that nobody's ever heard of. 0.96

00:50:08.820 Um, and you know, when you first start out as a prosecutor, you think that you don't know how

00:50:13.440 jury's going to react to that. And, um, and when you do a few of them, you realize that there,

00:50:20.120 there can be certain advantages if you don't find the body. And one of them is if you have to prove

00:50:24.860 the death, normally, um, you just have, uh, the death of a human being is the element. So if you have

00:50:29.640 a dead body, that element is satisfied, but if you have the, the, the ethical and burden of proof,

00:50:36.720 uh, uh, obligation to prove that somebody is dead, the way you do that is you put their mom on the

00:50:43.720 stand and you, or, or their best friend, or somebody that, that tells you how much they love

00:50:48.960 their dog and, or, or the grandma who said he'd never miss Christmas, you know, and what you're able

00:50:54.520 to do as a prosecutor is the jury will be able to get a sense of who the person was as a human being.

00:51:01.360 And my old, I had a mentor in homicide. Um, his name is Lou Rosenblum. He, he basically brought me

00:51:06.580 into the unit and he's one of the, I know you've had mentors over the course of your career. I love

00:51:11.300 this man. And he, he took me in his wing and taught me how to do murders. And he had a quote,

00:51:15.300 I will never forget about nobodies. He said, the jury can always see the soul of your victim

00:51:20.800 reflected in the eyes of those who love them. So, and that one, that's one that always stuck

00:51:26.060 with me. So I don't want to put Ed's BS, um, self-serving story on to prove that Chris Smith

00:51:34.660 is dead. I want to be able to prove it other ways. And, and with all of the emails with the

00:51:39.660 Galapagos, the easiest way for me to do that would be to call Tiffany Taylor, right. And, and just have

00:51:45.780 her come in with her passport and say, I've never been to the Galapagos islands. And, but we

00:51:50.640 couldn't find her. And, um, we, I had Vegas Metro going out there. We could not track her

00:51:57.420 down. And I don't know if that's because she's, um, if she's moved and she's, she's an atmosphere

00:52:03.380 model, right. Which is weird by itself. Right. But it's a legitimate business. It's basically

00:52:07.840 her, you're a live model. And I don't know if she's, I don't know what her involvement is

00:52:13.280 in Vegas. I don't know any of this stuff. Like all I know is I need her in order to do the

00:52:18.180 no body prosecution. And, um, I'd given up and, uh, I, the case was actually going to

00:52:25.720 be pretty difficult the way we had it. And, uh, especially given that he told all his friends

00:52:30.060 and family about this round the world trip. And, um, and I get a phone call in my office

00:52:35.100 and it was Summer Hanson crying saying, I, you know, um, I, I, I just found out you guys

00:52:41.780 have been looking for me. I I've been in Virginia with my parents. I am so sorry. What can I do

00:52:46.640 to help? And she, she flew in and I was able to put her on the stand with her passport.

00:52:51.340 So it changed. That's what forced Ed to testify. If Ed, if I hadn't been able to do that, Ed

00:52:56.460 Shin could have relied on his bullshit self-serving interview with, uh, with Don and Ray, where 0.95

00:53:02.260 he came up with this cockamamie absurd story. Um, and why, how did she disprove the cockamamie 0.98

00:53:10.020 story? Just that it showed you, you could establish that Ed Shin was the one sending those emails

00:53:14.260 and why would he tell such a lie? Like how, how did, how was she the clincher?

00:53:19.000 She was the clincher because I could prove that Chris Smith never left the United States

00:53:22.880 because she supposedly went to the Galapagos islands, which means she would have had an

00:53:26.500 entry into her passport because there was all this stuff that Tiffany Taylor had that photo of her.

00:53:32.380 Was that? Yeah. Stop one. That's right. Yeah. I see it. Right. So by her saying I never went,

00:53:38.160 it means Chris never went, which means the emails were all fake. And we were able to, the IP address,

00:53:43.180 my expert on that wasn't my favorite. I'll leave his name out of it, but he basically said

00:53:47.200 that the, the text messages came that the IP address was, um, from North America. So that still

00:53:54.360 leaves a lot of wiggle room for defense. So basically I wanted to do this as a nobody and I needed her to

00:53:59.980 do it. And she stepped up and, um, I've, I've actually kept in touch with her over the years.

00:54:04.380 I was so grateful for the way she, she, she handled that. Um, because she wasn't under subpoena.

00:54:09.660 She came in voluntarily with a heart of gold. I like that. I like that story. And it's,

00:54:17.600 and I'm telling you, I've never, I've never asked her, um, you know, how much the seedy Vegas

00:54:23.260 underbelly she, she saw, but, um, but yeah, she, she stepped in a huge way. That's what forced Ed to

00:54:29.900 testify. And there was a point in there where he, he starts talking about the emails that he sent

00:54:36.840 and he's, he, on direct examination, he starts tearing up. And so he actually starts shedding

00:54:42.940 some, okay. He teared up and you were not having it. Here's a bit of Matt Murphy's cross-examination

00:54:51.560 on that. So five. You're tearing up a little bit right now. I'm okay, sir. Were you tearing up when

00:54:56.640 you wrote that email to Debbie Smith saying their son was committing suicide or suggesting that he

00:55:01.280 was going to do that? Were you tearing up when you did that? Yes. Okay. You were actually at the

00:55:05.720 computer tearing up as you were going to break a mother's heart by essentially blaming her for the

00:55:11.620 death of her son. That was making you feel sad. It was one of the many emotions I felt. Yes.

00:55:18.040 Oh my gosh. So well done, Matt. No, thank you. That's as a prosecutor, that's,

00:55:25.000 that's what you want. You want the bad guy on the stand. And if every trial kind of has a moment,

00:55:30.780 you know, where, um, you can point to it and, and it's like a turning point. That was the turning

00:55:36.060 point of that trial. Uh, and his, his direct, by the way, I mean, this is the thing about the fraudsters,

00:55:41.220 Megan. Um, and I know you've probably encountered this before when you got a guy who makes his living

00:55:45.580 fine by, um, by fooling people. Right. Um, they tend to be really good at that. And all you need

00:55:52.300 is one juror and his mom, his, his mom was sitting right behind me, um, in the front row in the gallery

00:55:59.340 and the jury, we had to have her testify. Cause again, we'd got to do it as a nobody because of,

00:56:04.200 um, Summer Hanson. And so there, you know, he's on the stand and he gave me that gem and you almost

00:56:10.220 never know exactly what's going to happen when they hit the stand. But that was, uh, that was when it's

00:56:14.920 like, wait a minute, dude, you're, you're crying. You're trying to show emotion. And you sent a

00:56:20.460 year's worth of emails. You broke up with his soon to be fiance by saying, I don't love you anymore.

00:56:25.500 Like one of the most ruthless, heartless freaking psycho things I saw in 26 years. And there, 0.95

00:56:33.000 there he was on the stand in an Armani suit. I mean, there are a lot of prosecutors who have a

00:56:38.360 script for their cross and that's the script that's going to be delivered and they're not going to

00:56:42.780 deviate. But to your credit, you were nimble. You saw him try to engender sympathy for him.

00:56:48.540 I, it was so hard for me and you stuffed it down his craw. It's like you were leading this poor mom

00:56:54.600 to believe her son was about to kill himself because of the kind of parent she was. Where

00:56:58.860 were your tears then? That is just perfectly done. That had to be a good night for you when you went

00:57:03.800 home. No, thank you. No, that's, that's, it's the, the fundamentals of every good cross

00:57:08.740 examination that you'll hear from any real trial or is you can prepare. I mean, I prepared that cross

00:57:13.680 for years and you have to be prepared to, I think the journalism term is hill your puppies. Like you

00:57:19.840 have to be prepared to abandon the story that you're in love with. If the truth leads you someplace else,

00:57:24.160 you have to do the same thing with, um, with cross examination. You have to be able to,

00:57:28.060 to put aside every note you've made all your careful preparation. When you get a moment like that,

00:57:32.740 you have to, because that's, that's, that's how you win trials. I think. So it's, it's, I think

00:57:37.980 it's, it's just from Hemingway, kill your little darlings and no one's killing it. It's a Christy 0.98

00:57:43.620 gnome thing. You confused us that she's, she likes to kill the puppies. We don't kill them. 1.00

00:57:49.540 Yeah. The last, the last moment in that, um, you know, I gave him one last chance. Uh, I, I got a,

00:57:56.400 I got a, uh, like a topographical topographical map and I put it up and I had a marker for him.

00:58:03.000 And we had a search and rescue team out at staged during his cross examination in the desert.

00:58:09.960 And, um, I don't know if you have that photo that is actually, I don't think I put it on.

00:58:14.860 I should have sent this to you. There's one where they were there out there for two days

00:58:18.160 and they were sitting in the cold. Um, and they were, um, they're, they're waiting. And what I

00:58:23.880 love about it is the cadaver dog that we had was named karma and they're, they're all waiting.

00:58:29.260 And, and it's like, okay, Ed, here you go. Here's his family. Here's a Sharpie. Here's the

00:58:34.560 map. Do the right thing. So they're fans to this family, the family of your foreign partner

00:58:39.520 do the right thing so they can bury their son. Tell us where the body is. And he almost,

00:58:44.560 almost looked like he thought about it for a second. And he said, I have no idea where,

00:58:48.560 where the body is, sir. I have no idea, but we had them out there. And this is kind of,

00:58:53.000 this is sort of funny behind the scenes, but I'm like, I, I, I, you know, I asked to take a photo

00:58:59.300 of the, of the stadium crew. And it was like about a dozen people in the two orange County

00:59:03.200 detectives kind of drew the short straw to sit out in the desert in the one in a hundred chance

00:59:08.000 that Ed chin would actually do the right thing. And they just looked, I asked them to take a photo

00:59:12.320 and they looked, it was like one of those high school, uh, football team photos where they're all

00:59:16.240 grim, you know, and they're all lined up. And I'm like, you know, can you, I'm like, they just look

00:59:20.880 so to, to Donna or Ray. I'm like, guys, they just look, they look too mean. Can they take another

00:59:27.640 one? And these guys snapped a photo. And I wish I had it where they're literally jumping up in the

00:59:32.940 air with big smiles on their faces, holding fixed accents and shovels. Like you want us to look happy?

00:59:37.800 Here we are freezing our butts off out here in the middle of nowhere. Gallows humor there.

00:59:41.560 Oh my gosh. But, um, yeah, so the, uh, the jury goes back and I, that, that judge that you saw

00:59:49.140 there is his name's Greg Prickett. He's, he's retired now. It's one of the finest bench officers

00:59:53.540 I've ever tried a case in front of. And again, with all the heat that the judicial system, especially

00:59:58.100 the way it's, it's under stress lately, where I think a lot of people are losing confidence in it

01:00:03.520 a lot of ways for reasons that I'm sure you're aware of that I won't go into, but, um, that's a really

01:00:08.800 good, fair judge. Right. And his staff was really professional in the bailiff, this guy, Zane, who I

01:00:14.840 loved done a million murder trials in front of him. Um, he goes back and I'm kind of arguing with

01:00:20.100 one of the defense lawyers in a, not a bad way to very, his defense team were excellent attorneys,

01:00:26.000 but this guy, Al Stocky, who's been around a long time in Orange County. And we're arguing about,

01:00:31.560 you know, some way that the evidence is going to go back. So the way, what happens is the jury gets

01:00:35.700 instructed. They go into the deliberation room, bailiff goes in, um, and like gets them all

01:00:41.260 settled and comes out and the, um, you've got, uh, then the evidence goes in. Right. And Al is

01:00:47.340 arguing about what, you know, some, something that he thought should go in in an envelope or something 0.99

01:00:51.920 stupid, not, not stupid by him, but something unimportant. And, um, and so Al and I are kind 0.99

01:00:57.340 of mixing it up a tad and Zane comes out after the jury been back about, you know, 30 minutes,

01:01:02.780 just getting settled. And he kind of comes out and he's got this really funny look on his face and

01:01:07.240 he goes, Al, he goes, I don't think it matters, buddy. It's like, they don't even want to see

01:01:11.520 the exhibits. They're asking for verdict forms already. So, um, yeah, that's, yeah, that's a

01:01:18.600 great sign. And, and, and look, as a DA, my plan was, I was going to do this for like three years,

01:01:23.740 learn how to try cases and then go make money in some civil firm someplace. Um, and the longer you

01:01:29.980 remain a DA, the, the more interesting it gets. And then pretty soon you're doing the serious stuff

01:01:35.600 and then you're doing felonies and then you get your own investigator. And then, you know, for me,

01:01:39.780 I was 34 years old and I'm doing murder cases and I'm walking through murder scenes. And, um,

01:01:45.260 what becomes really addictive for you as a prosecutor, if you're, if your career and you're

01:01:50.720 dedicated to it is you get families like the Smiths and Paul came to me after the verdict.

01:01:57.480 And I will never forget the sensation that his wife was lovely. He had such a nice family. And

01:02:02.300 this is a really good guy who loved his brother. And imagine how wronged, you know, a person is.

01:02:09.900 I mean, death of somebody we love is the worst thing that we can ever experience, right? Death

01:02:14.720 because of murder is the worst of the worst, but truly, I think the darkest thing we can experience

01:02:21.800 as human beings is if you have somebody you love dearly and they're killed. So somebody else can get

01:02:27.740 money and that person gets away with it. It's about as bad as it gets. And he, as a DA, especially for

01:02:34.540 moms like Debbie Smith or brothers like Paul, it becomes kind of an addiction. And when, you know,

01:02:42.540 when you, you're, you go through those dark moments of trial and you're not sure in the issues and doubt,

01:02:47.800 Paul came up to me crying right after the verdict and he gave me a hug and I can still feel like the

01:02:54.180 stubble on his face. Um, and he cried and cried and cried. And, um, it's, it's an incredibly gratifying

01:03:02.020 thing. And it, and it, like it was for good cops, like, like Ray and, um, and Don and, you know, we've got a

01:03:09.220 really good judge. That's that case was one where doing it because it's a dark, dark profession as

01:03:16.420 you alluded to. I mean, it's, you're on the toughest of cases. You see awful things. It's

01:03:23.640 your job to make sure this person who's dangerous doesn't get returned to society. So the stakes

01:03:29.360 could not be higher. This is why most do get in and get out. They can't make a whole career out of

01:03:35.460 it. It's just an enormously stressful way to make a living. It is, but it is more so than the stress.

01:03:42.640 You're absolutely right. A hundred percent. Right. Um, but what is, uh, it's more gratifying

01:03:48.360 than it is, um, that it is stressful, believe it or not. For moments like that, you, you kind of,

01:03:53.300 uh, I tried 52 murders or 52 cases while I was in the homicide unit. Um, and every one of those,

01:03:59.920 uh, there's a, there's a mom, you know, or, or, or, or somebody loved every one of those victims

01:04:04.680 and you, um, you know, especially on the hard ones on the cold cases where you reach back in time where

01:04:10.620 they effectively got away with it until you come in with a new team and dust off the boxes. Um, uh,

01:04:16.820 most people can't understand how important that is to a family member, unless God forbid, you know,

01:04:21.800 you experience it yourself. Um, it is holding the person accountable is becomes for a lot of them.

01:04:29.440 It's becomes the center of their entire life. And it's, as a prosecutor, you become a very,

01:04:33.700 it's the one last thing you can do for your loved one. The one last thing. And, and ideally provide

01:04:38.740 them with some sort of a proper burial, which is why you were pressing him and he did not give up the

01:04:44.780 location of the body. And then Camo, my old colleague over at NBC news, went to the jail and

01:04:53.120 interviewed Ed Shin and gave it his best shot in. I mean, it's very rare to see Keith Morrison fired up.

01:05:00.820 This is about as close as you're going to get. He was clearly frustrated with this guy who even

01:05:05.220 once he's in jail for the rest of his life, won't give it up. Here's a bit of it in SOT 7.

01:05:10.440 You wouldn't reveal either where you put the body personally, when you drove that rental truck

01:05:19.440 down to wherever you drove it to, you won't reveal that. I can't, I don't, I don't have that. That's,

01:05:27.860 and it's not something that I can do. Unfortunately, there are just some secrets that man is willing to

01:05:33.660 deal with his life for. All right. So then I think we're kind of at an understanding, which is

01:05:40.160 that, you know, it's just somewhere that I can't go. It's right. But you know, I know as a journalist,

01:05:47.660 that's, you know, everybody wants, that would be a coup de grace for you to unearth. And I don't give a sweet

01:05:54.540 flying about that. I don't, I don't care. I kind of care that the family has a chance

01:06:02.200 to get some closure that they have been begging you for. They don't have closure.

01:06:08.060 They don't know where their child is. And he didn't give it up to him either. And he's never

01:06:13.020 given it up. Why? Well, I think that one of the reasons why, and this is something that I hit him

01:06:18.220 up with on the stand. It's like, dude, you're, if he hit his head against the desk, there will be a

01:06:23.180 forensic record of that. There will be one, one skull fracture. And if the body is found,

01:06:31.180 I've always believed he bludgeoned him to death. There was a member, there was a bat,

01:06:36.120 a baseball bat. We didn't actually put this in evidence, but there was, you know, he's a sports

01:06:40.080 memorabilia collector. And there was one that he used to have in his office that I don't think was

01:06:44.000 ever located. I mean, it was like a year later by the time it was searched. But if he hit him in the

01:06:50.860 head 10 times to kill him, um, then there will be, if the body is found, it will reflect that

01:06:58.220 there'll be multiple skull fractures inconsistent with him just falling and hitting the desk. 0.98

01:07:02.460 And I think that's why, why would he care if he's serving life in prison? What was the ultimate

01:07:05.820 sentence? It was life without possibility of parole, but so if you get that, what does it matter? If it

01:07:12.100 turns out that's when, now we can prove that your story is BS already. The jury has said it was

01:07:16.540 right. Because in the state of California, our legislature, um, does something crazy just about

01:07:25.800 every week on behalf essentially of, um, of homicide defendants or people serving life sentences.

01:07:31.780 They've been after the death penalty for years, but they've, they've openly said that LWOP is next.

01:07:37.700 That's life without possibility of parole. They're trying to undo that sentence. And I think that, um,

01:07:42.460 he sees it as being into his legal advantage, not to cough it up. And, um, because, you know,

01:07:49.120 maybe someone down the line will go, Hey, look, it's possible that he hit his head. Like

01:07:53.000 you see some crazy stuff, um, in the appellate process in California. Most, most of the appellate

01:07:58.520 justices are, are, are fine judges. Um, but you know, with the legislature, you just, there's such an

01:08:06.340 ideological bent to a lot of the things that they're doing that a lot of really bad guys like Ed Shen,

01:08:11.900 um, you know, the California legislature is kind of their, it's their, their best hope that they're

01:08:17.680 going to do something that benefits them. And in California, unfortunately, we see that all the

01:08:21.920 time these days. You have a, we have a very activist group of people that have been elected and they,

01:08:26.820 they have some ideas about crime and punishment that, um, I, in my view, it's just, it's madness.

01:08:34.180 And yeah, it's, they're guys like Ed Shen. Yeah, it's dangerous. It is absolutely dangerous.

01:08:38.380 With our condolences to, to the entire family. It's just terrible. And I mean, they, they were

01:08:44.440 lovely and all the specials I heard them into, uh, they, they sounded so reasonable, so kind and so

01:08:48.520 thoughtful, but you eventually did leave the DA's office. And then what are you, what are you doing

01:08:55.480 now for a living writing, right? We're coming out with a new book. That's exciting. You're welcome

01:08:58.960 to come back on when, when it hits to promote it, but happy to come back on. Um, so I've, I've got a

01:09:05.200 law practice here in, in California where I'm largely, um, defending police officers. Um, I've

01:09:11.340 got a case right now against, uh, where George Gascon is prosecuting one of my clients, um, who is

01:09:17.160 innocent. Um, uh, uh, uh, and I'm, I've got a contract with ABC news. I'm doing a bunch of those

01:09:23.760 2020s. Um, uh, and by the way, I know Keith, Keith, of course, Keith Morrison works for NBC. So my,

01:09:30.900 my overlords at ABC will probably be mad at me for saying this, but for those of you who have never

01:09:35.100 met the man, he really is one of the nicest people on the planet. And I'd love seeing him get fired up

01:09:40.100 in that interview with that shin because Keith Morrison is a, is a force for good. And those

01:09:45.220 guys sat me down. I was so exhausted when the verdict came in and they wanted to interview me

01:09:48.940 that night. I did my, uh, dateline interview that night, uh, with him and Josh Mankiewicz, but,

01:09:53.740 uh, Keith Morrison's total close. And honestly, the best thing about NBC easily.

01:09:58.560 Yeah. I, I, well, yes. Right. Right. Those guys, they're good guys. I'm like all the politics

01:10:05.440 in NBC, which I know, you know, a little bit about, um, but the, uh, yeah, so I'm, I'm defending

01:10:10.480 police officers. I've got a, uh, that's, that's a large part of my practice. Um, I'm splitting time

01:10:15.580 between LA and New York city. I got a place in, uh, in New York where I've, I wrote the book and I'm

01:10:21.140 doing a bunch of stuff with a bunch of live TV, um, with people that have moved over to news nation,

01:10:26.300 learning how to do that a little bit. And. Oh, is that my friend, Dan Abrams? You're doing that

01:10:30.180 kind of, that show that he does? Uh, I've, Dan has not had me on his show yet, but Elizabeth Vargas,

01:10:35.600 Ashley Banfield and Chris Cuomo have all been, um, kind of rotating me in and like various topics of

01:10:41.140 the day. And when you do homicide. Dan has revived live PD in another forum where he gets, you know,

01:10:47.980 mostly cops on to talk about the arrest, but that's something I'm sure he'd love to have you on.

01:10:52.820 I love that. You've found another way to use your many skills, but maybe now you can have a nicer

01:10:59.880 hotel room and you, you should still travel with the cozy earth sheets. Cause one never knows, but

01:11:06.260 I, I know it's odd to say to a prosecutor, but I feel the need to say, thank you for your service.

01:11:10.780 I really admire what you do and what you've done. Thank you. Thank you very much.

01:11:16.040 I have a feeling you're going to be seeing Matt again soon on this show. I certainly hope so

01:11:20.120 coming up the rest of the week, the fraudster at the center of the hit Netflix show. BitCond is here

01:11:27.780 and later two people who escaped a cult, a very well-known cult, how they got defrauded. And then

01:11:36.860 my very own fraud week story. See you tomorrow.

01:11:43.960 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.

01:11:50.120 Yeah.

01:11:50.760 Yeah.

01:11:51.860 Yeah.

01:11:53.360 Yeah.

01:11:55.260 Yeah.

01:11:55.800 Yeah.

01:11:57.580 Yeah.

01:11:59.340 Yeah.

01:11:59.660 Yeah.

01:11:59.780 Yeah.

01:12:00.620 Yeah.

01:12:00.900 Yeah.

01:12:01.520 Yeah.

01:12:01.780 Yeah.

01:12:02.960 Yeah.

01:12:03.380 Yeah.

01:12:04.080 Yeah.

01:12:04.360 Yeah.

01:12:04.800 Yeah.

01:12:05.440 Yeah.

01:12:08.800 Yeah.

01:12:09.860 Yeah.

01:12:18.540 Yeah.

The Megyn Kelly Show - June 11, 2024

Fraud Week： Unraveling the Mystery of Ed Shin's True Identity, and Chris Smith's Disappearance, with Matt Murphy ｜ Ep. 815

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