Rob Reiner Son's Alarming Court Appearance, “Burn Cage” Found in D4vd’s Home, and Hope for JonBenét Case
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Summary
Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner has been charged with the murder of his parents, Rob and Michelle Reiner. He appeared in court this week in a California courtroom wearing an anti-suicide smock and shackles.
Transcript
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Welcome to MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway, your host today. I'm a criminal lawyer, I'm a
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former police officer, and I've been in and around the justice system for the better part of 40 years
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now. And I think I know a great true crime show when I see one. And today, being our last show
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of 2025, we've got a great one in store. Here's what's on the MK True Crime docket today. We
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start, of course, with Nick Reiner, the son of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner, who appeared in
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court this week in a California courtroom wearing an anti-suicide smock and shackles. He's charged
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with the brutal double murders of his parents, Rob and Michelle. What will his defense be? We will
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bring you the latest. Also, also in California, we've got a burn cage reported to have been found
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inside Singer David's rental home. We'll discuss how this could be relevant to the ongoing investigation
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into the death of the teen found brutally murdered in David's Tesla. And this holiday season marks 29
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years, if you can believe it, since JonBenet Ramsey was found strangled in her Colorado home. There may be
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finally some answers on the identity of her killer in this coming new year. We'll bring you all the
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updates. Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by my fellow MK True Crime contributors and my friends and
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colleagues Ashley Merchant, criminal lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, and Dave Ehrenberg, also known
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as the Florida Lawman, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, and managing partner
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at Dave Ehrenberg Law. Welcome, guys. And of course, we're going to have to start with Nick Reiner. I know
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everybody's been talking about this. We've been following it. We've been talking about it offline a
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little bit. Let me just give you the readout and then we're going to discuss it. As I mentioned in the
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intro, Nick Reiner has officially been charged with two counts of murder with special circumstances
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because it's a double homicide and also because he's alleged to have used a dangerous weapon,
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specifically a knife. And under California law, that would, of course, qualify him, should they seek
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it, for the death penalty. His first appearance in the courtroom on Wednesday was what we call an
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arraignment, but they didn't finish. They continued it until later on because his lawyer says it's a
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complicated issue and he needs just a little bit more time. We actually have some of that on video.
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Here is SOT 1 of defense lawyer Alan Jackson on Wednesday, and then we're going to discuss it
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after the SOT. This is a devastating tragedy that has befallen the Reiner family. We all recognize that.
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Our hearts go out to the entire Reiner family. There are very, very complex and serious issues
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that are associated with this case. These need to be thoroughly but very carefully dealt with
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and examined and looked at and analyzed. We ask that during this process, you allow the system to move
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forward in the way that it was designed to move forward, not with a rush to judgment, not with jumping
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to conclusions, but with restraint and with dignity and with the respect that this system and this process
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All right, Ashley, we'll start with you. Ladies first. So this is an arraignment. Now, you and I
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being in Georgia, Dave, of course, is in Florida, and this is all taking place in California, and every
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state has different rules, different practices, different ways of doing things. But look, an arraignment,
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right? It's like a first appearance. It's towards the beginning. And there's not a lot
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substantively that happens. It's usually a formal entry of a not guilty plea. Ashley, can you see
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any advantage to sort of delaying the arraignment in this case? And why didn't he just go ahead and
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say we're going to plead not guilty? You know, I don't really see an advantage to doing it. But my
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guess, reading between the lines and knowing a little bit about the case, is that he's having some
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problems with the health of his client. I mean, you saw him, you know, we've seen a photo where
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he's actually appearing in what's a suicide garb, you know, from they call it like a suicide dress
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from the jail. So indicating he was on suicide watch, you know, his clients on suicide watch.
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Just some of the things that he said about it being such a difficult case, and there being so
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many complex issues that signaled to me as a defense lawyer, that there's some mental health issues.
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And it is very difficult when you've got a client who is potentially not capable of assisting in
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their own defense. You know, this was a very violent crime. I mean, it was a crime that happened
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by the man's hands, you know, actually putting a knife into his family, you've got to assume that
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there's some serious issues there. And so I think the lawyer was smart about just wanting to get a
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grip on what all of those issues were before he actually does anything. Because when, you know,
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when you have a client that's not mentally ill, you can actually ask them, hey, can you tell me
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what you want to do in this situation? The problem when you have a client who's suffering from such an
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extreme mental illness that they may not be able to assist you is that you as the lawyer have a
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greater burden because you're not just giving advice and letting them choose. You're also in a
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position where oftentimes you actually have to choose for them. And so it's just a greater amount
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of stress. And I think that's probably why Alan was wanting a little bit more time to try and figure out
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what was going on here. You know, I think that sounds right. Dave, in Florida, you know, is there
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a lot that happens at an arraignment? Would it be standard or typical in your jurisdiction to waive
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an arraignment or to delay an arraignment as we saw here? Well, this is such an unusual case. And so it
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is not that unusual to ask for more time because you're dealing with a competency issue. The issue here
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is not guilty or not guilty. It's whether he can assist, meaning the defendant, in his own defense,
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whether he understands the proceedings before him. And I think that's where Alan Jackson is going.
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And that's going to be key. This is different than an insanity defense. That's down the road.
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That's whether you're guilty or not guilty. This is just a threshold question of whether or not you
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can appreciate the proceedings before you. And if you can't, then you get sent to a mental hospital.
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So what we're seeing here is out of the ordinary, but it is expected in a case like this that's
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very high profile, where you have serious mental health issues that could play a big part in the
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case. You know, Ashley, apparently this all happened within a day or so of the, I guess, the three of
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them, the family, if you will, the son and the parents at a Christmas party. And as it's been reported,
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there was some very bizarre behavior exhibited by defendant Reiner in the day, you know, prior to
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the alleged murder. And so it begs the question, you know, could this be, does it look like maybe there
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was some issue of a chemical induced, maybe psychotic break? If you're the defense lawyer, Ashley, are you
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looking at that kind of thing to decide, okay, am I going to set up a not guilty by reason of insanity
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defense, or perhaps, you know, my client is permanently or temporarily unable to stand trial? Is that what's
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Oh, yeah, 100%. And I think it's important to sort of walk everyone through that, you know, what that really
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looks like. As a defense lawyer, when you're talking to your client, particularly right after something
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happened, that's when you want to get all the information. You want to get accurate information,
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and you want to get it when it's fresh in your client's mind. And so he's probably trying to gather
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all of that information. Where it's really compounded is when the client has been using drugs,
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maybe they're suffering from withdrawals, maybe he was in a psychotic episode, maybe he was manic,
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maybe he was psychotic, who knows what was happening. If he was manic, maybe he's now in a depressive
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low. You know, we know that he was on suicide watch. So we think there's a lot of different
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things that's going on right now with this case and with this client. And I think Mr. Jackson is
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probably trying to get as much information as he can, so he can get the right experts to do
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evaluations. He can make sure that his client's safe, because, you know, that's a big burden for
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us as defense lawyers. You've got a client who is suffering from mental illness, they're in custody.
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Clients commit suicide all the time in custody. I mean, I would bet that you both have had clients
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commit suicide. I've had three clients commit suicide. That's a lot. I mean, it's a lot. And
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I will never forget any of that. And, you know, so it's not lost on me. But I think what he's
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probably doing is trying to develop evidence to figure out where he wants to go with the case.
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Is it competency? And I know Dave mentioned, you know, competency. What is that? What does that look
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like? You have to actually be competent to assist your attorney. And what does that mean? That means
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you've got to be able to answer questions. You've got to be able to make decisions. You know, I give
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guidance to clients, but I can't make every decision for them. They have to decide, for example, if they
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want to enter a guilty plea or they want to plea not guilty. That is really what arraignment is for.
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It's to enter a guilty or not guilty plea and to make sure that you've got a lawyer. So, you know,
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you never know if this kid was saying, Alan, I want to plea guilty. I want to plea guilty. I did it.
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And he's saying, give me some more time because he doesn't know if his client's even competent to
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plea guilty. That could be what we're facing here, you know?
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You know, Dave, if you're the prosecutor, I know this is hard for you to do, but put on your
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prosecutor hat just for a minute, okay? You're back in representing the state here,
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and you've got this set of facts that's presented to you. And the allegations, or at least as reported
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by page six, right, six, Nick was at Conan O'Brien's Christmas party, right, back on the 17th of
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December. And apparently he got into an argument with his parents. He, according to someone who
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was president, someone named Bill Hader, he was harassing people. He went up to Hader reportedly
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and said, you know, what's your name? What's your last name? Are you famous? He reportedly pestered
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other party goers with the same questions, and eventually he was asked to leave. And this,
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of course, is after he showed up in the wrong attire. He was apparently just wearing like a
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hoodie, but this was like a nice, more dressy kind of holiday occasion. And so there was apparently
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lots of bizarre behavior in the, you know, hours or maybe day or so that preceded this. So if you're
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the prosecutor, Dave, what are you going to do with those facts to develop the rebuttal to the defense
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argument that maybe the client is, doesn't know right from wrong, or maybe it's not going to be
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competent to stand trial? All right, let's, let's take the easier one. It is very difficult to sustain
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an insanity defense. And I know when John Hinckley Jr. got it, got away with trying to kill President
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Reagan, people thought, wow, this was too easy. You have these individuals getting off left and right
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under insanity defenses. But in reality, it's very rare. And here, he's not going to be able to take
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advantage of that because he knew the difference between right and wrong. And you know how we know
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because he fled and was evasive after the murders. Why was he checking into a separate hotel? He didn't
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call police. He didn't like, he didn't sit there at the scene. He snuck out and checked into a separate
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location for an overnight stay, essentially to be evasive, to try to hide that he was involved in this
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because he knew what he did was a crime. He knew what he did was wrong. So it's at your actions
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after the fact that can easily disprove that you didn't know the difference between right and wrong.
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Now, as far as competency, that's harder. That's something as a prosecutor, you get your own experts
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and they interview the person and you hope that your experts will say, yeah, he is able to assist in
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his defense. He understands the nature of the charge against him. And if he doesn't, you want your
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expert to say he is malingering. You guys know what that is, right? Malingering, which is the legal term
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for he's faking it. So that's what you're going to try to use to prevent him from being sent to the
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mental hospital until he becomes competent to stand trial. Because the fear is, is that if he's ruled
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incompetent to stand trial, he goes to the mental hospital and then it could take forever until he's
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brought back to mental health. And then if he can't be brought back to health, he's released.
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So that is perhaps a strategy here for Alan Jackson is just to say, he's not competent to stand trial.
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It won't even go to a trial. We don't have to worry about an insane defense. And that's perhaps why
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he's showing up wearing a smock because I think the defense counsel wants him to look like that in
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00:14:02.360
So look, if this was, as many have speculated, this was some kind of a drug-induced psychosis or
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something like that, normally that would resolve itself once someone spends some time in jail and
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whatever they may have taken sort of works its way out of their system. So it would seem to me that if
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someone is that messed up on drugs, it might very well be that at that moment, they may not be capable
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in doing much to assist their lawyers. But that being said, that could be temporary. And there's
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not much that a lawyer really needs assistance with at this phase, other than at some point being able
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to talk about the facts and circumstances. But whether or not you're going to waive an arraignment
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is typically, you know, that's something that maybe a lawyer can do without a whole lot of client input.
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But I will say, according to our friends, Mark Geragos and Matt Murphy in California, we know
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that it is much more sort of unusual for lawyers to waive an arraignment. There's a lot of discovery
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that by that, I mean, the defense is able to get, in this case, they even had access to the crime scene,
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as I understand it already, but they're able to get a lot more of the information contained in the
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prosecutor's case file. It's not that way in every state, but in California, I think there can be
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some distinct advantages by delaying a little bit so you can see a little bit more about what kind of cards
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the prosecutor is holding. Speaking of defense lawyers, I want to move on to another issue.
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Okay, so we've got questions here about, all right, is this person, if he's convicted, able to inherit,
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inherit, right, from the estate of his now deceased parents. And of course, California has the Slayer
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statute that basically says, no, even if you otherwise would be eligible to inherit, if you
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murder them, you're not able to do so. But there's a, I guess, a similar issue that has now presented
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itself. Who is paying for the expensive criminal defense lawyer? Reportedly, the fee to the lawyer is
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coming from the estate of the deceased parents paid for by family members who say that they want
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their loved one to not go to prison for the rest of his life, but maybe spend his life in a mental
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institution. So Ashley, what I can say is that, you know, and I know, and Dave knows, it's not unheard
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of, not even uncommon, nor is it improper for victims to pay for the defense of the perpetrator,
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the alleged perpetrator. Happens all the time. But what doesn't happen all the time is we don't see
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deceased victims paying for it. Have you ever seen anything like this? I've never seen anything just
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like this, but it actually does not surprise me. And I can't imagine what the brother and sister of
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this gentleman, you know, the other two, the two children that obviously the ones that are the
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victims here. I mean, you know, the parents were the victims, but they're without their parents. And
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I've seen where they were very close with their parents. I mean, now their brother's accused. So,
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you know, I can't imagine the burden and they're probably the trustees, but I can't imagine the
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burden on them to make this decision. The one thing I can say about it though, is I understand why
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they would want him to have a good defense lawyer, because I think that the only way that everybody can
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sleep at night and feel like any amount of justice is done is when you have a good defense, when you
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have a good and ethical prosecutor and you have a good ethical, aggressive defense lawyer. And for
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me, if it was, if it was my family and my loved one, I would agree. I would want them to have the
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best defense possible because that's the only way I could sleep at night and know that the truth came
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out. And I think that's what they want. You know, there's, there's got to be more here. And so I would
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want the comfort of knowing that my loved one, because they have to love their brother. They
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have to, they have to be extremely angry of him, at him, but I'm sure that they still have feelings
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for him, you know, especially if he was in some type of a rage or something like that. So I think
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it's, it's completely reasonable. They also have the means. So, you know, the fact that they have the
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means and the fact that they want him to go to good defense, I think that's perfectly reasonable for
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them. So I'm operating under the assumption, it may not be the case, but I think it's probably a fair
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assumption that this estate is in a trust of some kind, as opposed to a traditional will. So if it
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is a trust is actually alluded to, there would be at least one trustee, presumably some family member,
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maybe another surviving child. We don't know who that is, but the estate is worth reportedly around
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$200 million or so, right? This is a result of a long career in Hollywood. It's a lot of money,
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$200 million, Dave, but look, if, what if there's a dispute? What if there are other beneficiaries
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of this trust, other individuals who might be set to inherit some of that? And what if they say,
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look, I'm a beneficiary of this estate and I don't want this $200 million corpus of this trust being
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used to defend, you know, the killer of the principles of this trust, right? What do you do
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when this dispute, and I think it's probably inevitable, I think it's going to happen. I think
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there's going to be a dispute about using their money for the defense of the alleged killer. Dave,
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what do you say? Well, Professor Holloway, this turned into a trust in estates class, huh? I thought
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we were here for criminal law, but let's talk about trust in estates. It depends on who the beneficiaries
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are. Is it the kids? And if it is, if there's a dispute amongst the remaining children, yes, that could
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be a court decision. But apparently, according to what we've seen, is that it's the decision of
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the estate to provide this guy, Nick, with an attorney, and not just any attorney, an aggressive
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criminal defense lawyer. That's the surprise here. You generally hire Alan Jackson not to cop a plea
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and go away. You do something to do a high profile fight, perhaps to create a Menendez situation, which
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would be appalling. I mean, it would be appalling to the legacy of the Reiners. And you got to believe
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that those who are funding this criminal defense lawyer would not want their parents to be dragged
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through the mud like the Menendez brothers' parents were. So I would believe that that's where they
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have some influence. Maybe that's why they want to hire the lawyer, to make sure that he gets the best
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representation where he can perhaps go to a mental institution instead of a prison, and perhaps to
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avoid having to come up with this narrative that he's the victim here. And the parents, who people
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all seem to really love, Rob Reiner and his wife, by all accounts, are good people, who even people
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on the other side politically of them admire and love, to prevent them from being dragged through
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the mud. So maybe there is an incentive here for the remaining children, if they control the estate,
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to pay for Nick's lawyer's fees, because then they have a little bit of control.
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Well, this case is obviously going to be around for a while. So whoever they, you know, is going to
00:21:03.360
represent him, presumably Mr. Jackson for the duration, has a lot of work ahead of him and his
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team, right? Actually, because this could be a death penalty case. We have the allegations of
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special circumstances, which under most states that have the death penalty, not all murders will qualify.
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It's got to be certain murders that are arguably worse in some way in this way, because allegedly
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there was a double homicide, and because there was a deadly weapon used, such as the knife in this
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case. But actually, what is different about defending this case, if the potential for death is on the
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table, remembering, however, that California is kind of weird, right? It's kind of like in a hiatus,
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they're not currently carrying out the death penalty, but theoretically, the jury, as I understand
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it, could impose it if the prosecutor seeks it. Right, they could, and they're on a moratorium right
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now, Phil. So the governor has actually said, we're not executing anyone. So that means he's not signing
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any warrants, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't end up on death row. So the second that I read
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special circumstances, I immediately thought, oh, death penalty, because that's one of the terms of art that
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we use for death penalty cases. Back in the 70s, the Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court,
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said that we could not have death penalty cases anymore. But then within about a year, they said,
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well, actually, we can, but you have to make sure that it's proportional to the crime. There's got to be
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some special circumstances. And so when you see those special circumstances, immediately, you start to
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think, oh, death penalty eligible. Is this a death eligible crime? Typically, special circumstances are
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if there's more than one person killed, or this is the one that I kind of get bothered by. It's sort of a
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catch-all if the death is in the commission of another felony. Every death is in the commission
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of another felony. You could be committing an assault, and the person dies. So essentially,
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that special circumstance, in my opinion, is kind of null and void. But immediately, I started thinking
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about that. And I'm sure that that is something that Alan Jackson is thinking about, because not
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only do we have what we've talked about with competency and with insanity, but now we've got death
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penalty. So death penalty, you're automatically thinking mitigation. Because how a death penalty case
00:23:12.320
works is you first go through the innocence and guilt phase. So the jury, like we typically see,
00:23:17.040
guilty or not guilty. But then you have a second phase of the jury trial. And the jury actually
00:23:21.700
hears what's called aggravating circumstances, those special circumstances. But they also hear
00:23:26.740
mitigation. They hear mitigating evidence. And so any mental health defense, any use of drugs at the
00:23:32.520
time, any abuse, anything like that is going to be factored in as mitigation. So he's probably already
00:23:38.020
thinking about that, I need to start developing that mitigation now to try to help my client avoid
00:23:42.920
the death penalty, if the state does decide to pursue it. Dave, you brought up to Ashley's point, you
00:23:47.940
brought up something a minute ago, you were talking about whether or not we could be seeing the defense
00:23:53.500
set up here for what we call the Menendez defense, right? You're, you're saying that there was some kind
00:24:00.340
of abuse that just drove your client to act on this irresistible impulse or something along those lines
00:24:07.200
that led to this big blow up and of course, the murder. So we don't know yet if that's going to be
00:24:14.340
the case, we speculate that it could be headed that way. But in terms of mitigation, if you're the
00:24:21.040
prosecutor, and this is the way that the defense goes, and they're saying, look, our client may have
00:24:28.360
killed his father and mother, but it was because he was the victim of, of some kind of abuse over the
00:24:33.960
course of his lifetime. As the prosecutor, what do you do to counteract that kind of mitigation? Because
00:24:39.540
look, we don't have the benefit of hearing from the deceased victims to counter any such allegation.
00:24:47.660
You've got to look into any allegation and just disprove it. It's just a factual inquiry. You need to
00:24:53.040
talk to your investigators at the district attorney's office and just to show that this is, this is
00:24:58.960
garbage. I mean, that's what they did when it came to the Menendez brothers, when they tried to use the
00:25:03.980
abuse excuse. Plus, you want to follow the public statements. If he's never made, Nick's never made a
00:25:09.480
public statement about this in the past and all of a sudden now brings it up. You know, that's, that's
00:25:14.440
telling. Also, you want to see every time he speaks to someone like in the Menendez brothers case,
00:25:19.920
they spoke to psychiatrists after the murder. And only later, not right away later, did they bring
00:25:26.060
up the abuse excuse. So it, you know, that's the kind of thing showing inconsistencies that could
00:25:31.500
just punch holes through any such claim. And as a prosecutor, I can just tell you, you're a human
00:25:35.940
being. And if they try to victimize the victims yet again, I would make me extra angry to dig in my
00:25:42.600
heels and to demand serious punishment, life in prison, even the death penalty. Because it's one thing,
00:25:48.400
if you take responsibility, plead for mercy and say, I have dependency issues. It's another thing we say,
00:25:53.500
I did it because I was in fear of my life and make up some crazy story about someone who's so beloved
00:25:58.940
in our community. Ashley, let's just say that you get the call to go out to California and assist in
00:26:07.900
this defense. What direction would you take it? I would want to talk to him. I'd want to talk to my
00:26:14.560
client about what was going on in his mind at that time. I would try to really establish what he was
00:26:21.060
thinking. I would try to create a timeline about his mental health also. Was he self-medicating?
00:26:27.300
You know, is that, is that what happened? To try to negate intent, because this is really going to
00:26:31.740
come down to whether or not he had criminal intent and what his reasons were for trying to brutally kill
00:26:36.240
his parents. And I would really focus on that because this is not, this isn't a shooting. You know,
00:26:41.060
the goal was not just to kill someone. This was an act, a very violent act. And that to me signifies
00:26:47.000
that there's something going on. I would hire the best experts that I could to do full analysis of
00:26:52.180
everything going on mentally with him. You know, get all of the records, get all of his history and
00:26:57.600
make sure that I fully understood his mental capacity. Well, this, this particular DA's office
00:27:04.460
in Los Angeles is no stranger to this Menendez defense, if that's the way that it's going,
00:27:10.460
because they've, of course, recently just been through it with the actual Menendez. So
00:27:15.080
they, they certainly know what they're doing. And of course, this is one that we're going to be
00:27:19.140
watching very closely here at MK True Crime. So stick with us because we'll be in it probably for the
00:27:26.680
duration. Now, coming up next, after the break, we have a listener request for updates on the
00:27:33.260
JonBenet Ramsey case. Ashley and Dave, I know you guys remember her. Here's a little fun fact,
00:27:38.800
maybe not so fun. JonBenet Ramsey's grave is very close to where Ashley's office is and where my office
00:27:47.180
is in Cobb County, Georgia. And I don't know, Ashley, if you've ever been out there, but do you remember
00:27:52.520
back in the, I guess, aftermath of her murder, they actually put listening devices in the trees
00:27:59.620
that are near her, her grave out there, because they were thinking maybe someone would come and
00:28:05.420
make some incriminating statements. But here we are in 2025, and there's still been no killer
00:28:11.060
announced, but we may have some different news on that. We'll discuss that coming up after the break.
00:28:16.820
Also, we have update on singer David, D4VD, as I call him. There is a new allegation that he was
00:28:27.580
in possession, or at least in his home, there was an industrial incinerator located capable of reaching
00:28:34.580
temperatures of over 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. So stick around. We'll get into that after the break.
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00:29:45.740
Welcome back to MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway. I'm here with my co-hosts Ashley Merchant and Dave
00:29:52.700
Ehrenberg, and we have been following here at MK True Crime the case of Senior David out in California.
00:29:59.740
We've been following this since September, and to be honest with you guys, the case gets more and more
00:30:05.640
disturbing. By way of a reminder, the badly decomposed remains of 14-year-old victim,
00:30:12.040
Celeste Rivas Hernandez, were found in the trunk of David's Tesla back in September. The Los Angeles
00:30:18.800
Police Department is investigating the case, as we understand it, as a homicide. They have confirmed
00:30:24.580
that David is being seriously considered as a suspect, but no one has yet been charged with anything,
00:30:30.480
not with destroying the remains, not with hiding evidence, or certainly not even a murder. Allegedly,
00:30:36.660
there is an investigative grand jury that's hearing evidence, which in and of itself is very peculiar.
00:30:43.200
But now in the case, we're told there are multiple witnesses that are close to David that are
00:30:47.920
cooperating. They're testifying to this grand jury. And now, guys, we have a private investigator
00:30:53.040
claiming that he found this industrial burn cage inside David's rental home. As I said, the
00:31:00.160
reports are that this item available, I guess you can buy it online, but it's capable of reaching
00:31:07.380
temperatures of close to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, more than enough to incinerate human remains. Of course,
00:31:17.140
the remains were located, but still, this is a very, very bizarre and peculiar turn of events.
00:31:23.940
Dave Ehrenberg, you're the prosecutor. Do you do something with this evidence?
00:31:28.700
Yes. In fact, it was not subject to the search warrant, so it's not being used, apparently,
00:31:33.780
in front of this grand jury. And the only answer to that as to why not is because apparently it was
00:31:39.180
discovered by a private investigator, and perhaps the authorities did not learn of this. What is this
00:31:44.480
thing called a burn pit or something? What is this? Yeah, it's a burn cage. It says professional
00:31:51.680
power done right DR burn cage. I mean, my gosh, I don't know where you get one of those if it comes
00:31:57.480
on Amazon Prime, but that is ridiculous. There's only really one reason why someone who's suspected
00:32:03.920
of killing an underage girl who is found in his trunk would use that for. It's like a scene from
00:32:10.440
Ozark. So that, to me, is real evidence. That's circumstantial evidence, but it's real evidence,
00:32:16.600
and perhaps the only reason why it has not been used, allegedly, is because prosecutors and law
00:32:20.920
enforcement didn't know about it until now. Hey, look, you can't, don't, don't, look, don't,
00:32:25.580
don't badmouth anything about Ozark, because yours truly was in season three, episode one,
00:32:31.940
as an extra at the poker table. Check it out. Wait, wait, wait, wait. First of all, I love the show. It's
00:32:38.000
one of my favorite shows of all time. Yeah. It's why I never do business with the Mexican cartel.
00:32:42.280
And secondly, Oh, that's the only reason? There's a lot of reasons. Standards. Right, exactly. But Phil,
00:32:48.780
I'm sorry, but can you at least tell us what you were doing as an extra? I was a high roller at the
00:32:53.960
poker table, season three, episode one. Check it out. I didn't say a word because then they would have
00:32:58.640
had to pay me more and put me in the Screen Actors Guild. But anyway, a story for another
00:33:04.540
time. Ashley, this, this incinerator reportedly was still boxed and unused, and it was discovered
00:33:12.080
inside the, the residence on Doheny Street by someone named Steve Fisher, who was hired to comb
00:33:18.880
through the $20,000 a month pad by the owner of that rental property. What do you make of it?
00:33:26.380
So if I'm the defense lawyer helping David, I'm going to come up with a really good reason that
00:33:31.320
he's got a burn cage. There better be a really good reason because that is an odd thing to have.
00:33:35.980
I mean, you better be doing some neighborhood cremation of animals for a charity or something.
00:33:41.260
I mean, there better be some really good reason. This isn't like a burn pit where you're in your
00:33:44.680
backyard and you're just doing, you know, a fire pit, burning up some leaves. I mean, this is
00:33:48.300
literally a device to cremate remains. And that's what this device is. It's insane to me that it's even
00:33:55.180
sold like this. I mean, what do you need a burn cage for other than maybe trash? But I would want
00:33:59.840
to have some really solid reasons. Again, the police aren't using it, but it might come up later
00:34:05.520
on. And so you want to have some good reason why this man has a burn cage. And the thing about this
00:34:11.060
case is that his music, his actions, they're just strange and nobody can really piece it together.
00:34:17.420
I would imagine that's why the police are taking so long. They're trying to put these little tiny
00:34:21.640
odd things together and they don't have any smoking gun. You know, they don't have anything
00:34:26.540
like that, but they've got a lot of really bizarre things that he's been doing, really bizarre things
00:34:30.640
he's singing about, things that are bizarre in his house. And so I think they're just trying to put all
00:34:35.220
of these little pieces together before they make an arrest. Well, our intrepid producer, Natasha,
00:34:40.800
has researched this issue and she informs me that standard human cremation requires a temperature of
00:34:46.900
at least 1,400 degrees. And of course, this is apparently more powerful than that. Of note,
00:34:53.920
these incinerators are illegal to use in LA. David, by the way, being the most searched person
00:35:01.260
on Google of 2025, Dave Ehrenberg, I thought it was going to be you, but you didn't make it. It was
00:35:07.740
David. No, no, it was David. They just didn't put my last name in. Right. Okay. Also, I don't spell it
00:35:14.500
with like a four. I need to start doing that, putting numbers on my name. So, but yes, I have
00:35:20.340
to admit, I had not heard of David before all of this. And I think one of the reasons why he was
00:35:25.760
most searched is because you have a lot of people like us who are trying to figure out who this guy
00:35:30.120
is as opposed to like Taylor Swift, who everyone knows. Yeah. 100%. I think I contributed to that
00:35:35.380
Google search because my kids immediately know, oh yeah, of course I knew who that is. And they knew all
00:35:39.520
the stuff, but they learned it on TikTok. So if we're not on TikTok, we don't know who he is and we
00:35:44.060
don't know all this stuff. And so we're all contributing to this Google search.
00:35:47.800
Well, look, it's going to be interesting. This is another one that we've been following here.
00:35:54.140
We're going to continue to follow it here on the show, moving into the new year. This case is going
00:35:59.560
somewhere. I think there's going to be charges. I thought honestly, there would have been some
00:36:03.520
charges by now because somebody destroyed that body. It was literally dismembered and found in this
00:36:10.040
Tesla. Somebody did that. And that's a crime. I think cops at least have some idea who that person
00:36:16.040
was that did or persons maybe that did that. And of course, there's the other issue of this
00:36:21.180
illicit relationship allegedly between David and the underage victim. Now there's going to be an
00:36:29.240
electronic trail. We've talked about that on the show as well before. I think that all that stuff is
00:36:34.900
going to lead to some kind of criminal charges, maybe even a murder indictment. And if so, we'll
00:36:40.200
have it for you here straight away at MK True Crime. Now, I want to turn our attention to John
00:36:46.180
Benet Ramsey. Now, this is a case that goes back 29 years, all the way back to December 26,
00:36:55.640
whatever 29 years ago is. And this was, for those of you who don't know, this comes by the way,
00:37:02.900
this is a listener suggestion from listener Melissa. We really do read the emails that you
00:37:08.420
send us, mktruecrimeatdevilmaycaremedia.com. And Melissa has asked us to cover this show.
00:37:15.480
She says, love the show. You're all so brilliant. Love hearing the perspectives with the legal analysis
00:37:20.360
on a variety of cases. Very well done. I wonder what the status of the case for John Benet Ramsey is.
00:37:26.580
All right. So Ashley, can you give us sort of the Reader's Digest version on what this case is
00:37:33.140
about and what happened? Yeah, definitely. So, you know, this young girl, she was killed when she
00:37:37.480
was six years old. She was strangled. And so they found her, they knew what happened. And for a long
00:37:41.940
time, they thought that her parents had done it. And then they looked at different family members,
00:37:45.440
friends. I mean, they really had just about everybody as a suspect. And they narrowed all of
00:37:49.800
those people down and they were all cleared. Their names were cleared. I think there was always been a lot
00:37:54.060
of suspicion about that. But what I think is really interesting right now is they're using new DNA
00:37:59.000
technology to try to solve this case. And we're going to see this a lot more because DNA is just
00:38:03.620
evolving every day. I don't know if a lot of people have followed it, but after 9-11, they really
00:38:09.480
established this new type of DNA technology where they were able to get DNA. And it's not necessarily
00:38:15.300
what I would consider blood, semen, or saliva. So the standard old school DNA is always blood,
00:38:20.360
semen, or saliva, you know, a fluid. Now we've got DNA where it's touch DNA. Essentially,
00:38:25.200
you're touching something and your DNA is on it. We also have more procedures that are called
00:38:29.600
amplification, where you're able to actually extract. So let's say you've got four different
00:38:34.580
people's DNA on an object. You're able to actually extract one profile so that you can try to match
00:38:40.120
it to something else. So now take that a step further. And now we have all these people going
00:38:44.540
into these genealogy databases. And that's where they're trying to take this case. They're trying to
00:38:49.220
really use those genealogy databases, you know, where you take that swab, you get it for Christmas.
00:38:53.720
Some people may have it under their tree. 23andMe, I don't even know if they're still in business,
00:38:57.900
but Ancestry, all these places that have their DNA, you know, that is contributing to this. And so
00:39:03.080
they're really hoping that some of the advances in the DNA, particularly with genealogy, is going to
00:39:07.500
at least narrow down to a family member, maybe, so that they can narrow down some suspects and keep
00:39:11.920
the case alive. Dave, I want to get your thoughts on this annual update from Boulder Police Department.
00:39:19.860
So let's go ahead and hear SOT2, and then we'll ask Dave about it. This case remains a top priority
00:39:26.840
for our department. This past year, our detectives have conducted several new interviews, as well as
00:39:33.020
re-interviewed individuals based on tips that we've received. We've also collected new evidence and
00:39:38.600
tested and retested other pieces of evidence to generate new leads. Techniques and technology
00:39:44.920
constantly evolve. This is especially true with technology related to DNA testing.
00:39:51.500
Detectives continue to consult with outside experts from across the country, as well as our state and
00:39:56.760
federal partners, to strategize and explore all options when it comes to evidence testing.
00:40:01.780
All right, Dave. So there you have it. That's the update. They say that they have new interviews
00:40:08.920
and they have re-interviews. If you're the prosecutor out there, and I know it's not the same guy as it
00:40:14.520
was back when this happened, but if you're the prosecutor that inherits this still unsolved cold
00:40:19.600
case, is that how you would proceed? Or is there anything else you would do? Are they doing it the right
00:40:24.240
way? Ashley hit upon it. The new technology is genetic genealogy. It's what helped catch Brian
00:40:30.900
Koberger. Brian Koberger's relative was found through one of these 23andMe databases as a match.
00:40:38.260
And then that's how they traced it to Brian Koberger. We don't know who the relative is.
00:40:42.600
In fact, this whole area is shrouded in secrecy. And why? Because it relies on all of us who enter into
00:40:51.500
these databases voluntarily. And the thinking is, if people thought, hey, if I check the box that said,
00:40:57.960
sure, I'll be in a public database, then I'll get hassled by cops who are investigating a murder
00:41:04.380
out there. And maybe the real murder will blame it on me because it's my DNA that's found when it's
00:41:10.500
really his. So that's a thing that police are intentionally trying to be vague on this.
00:41:16.420
They're talking about new technologies. The fear is, is that enough people know about it that they'll
00:41:20.420
click no. They do not want to be entered into the database. But now you have all these databases out
00:41:26.300
there, all these companies who do it. And so it is now a real chance that we could find a match that
00:41:32.420
didn't exist before. Also, because of what Ashley said, you don't need all the stuff you needed before.
00:41:36.940
You just need the touch DNA and you need a relative. So in the year 2025, maybe there's hope
00:41:42.720
that we can finally catch the real killer here. And as Ashley said, it is not the parents. I know
00:41:48.400
they still are under suspicion. The mother passed away years ago, but they've been drawn through the
00:41:53.100
mud. It was not the parents. No, and I don't think it's the father either. In fact, we've got
00:41:57.920
SOT3. If we can go ahead and roll that. This is Father John Ramsey saying that he's advocating for
00:42:04.400
this DNA evidence to be investigated by Othram Labs. Othram is one of the few cutting-edge labs that can do
00:42:12.980
investigative genetic genealogy, IgG is the term for it. And we've been advocating that the
00:42:19.580
border police do that, use that technology in our case. I think if they do, we've got to
00:42:29.620
probably have 70, 80 percent chance of getting an answer. It's been very successful in solving
00:42:36.340
old cold cases. It's kind of the latest and greatest use of technology and DNA to solve crimes.
00:42:45.280
You know, Mr. Ramsey there, he's not wrong. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to
00:42:52.320
interview here on this show. We did a special episode. I interviewed one of the owners of
00:42:57.240
Othram Labs, and I encourage folks to go back and take a look and a listen to that interview because
00:43:02.460
this is really great technology. I think it's very promising, and this very well could be what gets us
00:43:09.580
to some answer as to what happened in this case 29 years ago with the death of JonBenet Ramsey.
00:43:18.500
All right, stay tuned. Coming up, we have our closing arguments right after the break.
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00:44:22.680
Welcome back to MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway joined by my fellow contributors,
00:44:27.880
Ashley Merchant and Dave Ehrenberg. And if you can believe it, guys, it's time for our last
00:44:33.720
closing argument of 2025 here on the show. But first, did you know that you can now listen to
00:44:41.540
MK True Crime on the Megan Kelly channel, Sirius XM channel 111? This is part of our Megan's podcast
00:44:48.780
playlist. MK True Crime will air Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and Saturdays at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Eastern
00:44:56.020
standard time on Sirius XM channel 111. All right, Ashley, we'll continue with the theme of ladies
00:45:05.200
first. If you're ready, we'd love to hear what your closing is for today, the last one of the year. So
00:45:10.620
take it home. I know, last one of the year. So it's got to be epic. Normally, I don't really rant. I do
00:45:15.980
more of a, you know, lecture type style. But today, I'm going to rant a little bit. So earlier this week,
00:45:21.320
we got to see Fannie Willis. We got to see her testify finally in front of the Senate, a committee
00:45:26.280
that I testified in front of, I don't know, 18 months ago, immediately. And I'm going to just
00:45:30.880
kind of walk you through a little bit of the differences first and then mention a couple
00:45:33.720
things and sort of respond to them. So first, it took the Senate, what, 18 months for her to
00:45:39.200
actually sit her butt in that chair and answer questions. When they gave me a subpoena, I said,
00:45:43.660
when do you need me? It is a public service. You want to hear from me? I've got nothing to hide.
00:45:49.000
That's the first thing. When she testified, she definitely leveled her rage. I read that
00:45:53.780
quote somewhere and I said, that is appropriate. She leveled her rage. But I wonder, why act
00:45:58.700
like that? If you've got nothing to hide, if you're not upset about what you've done, if
00:46:03.520
you are beyond reproach, why act like that? Why show such anger? But the other thing that
00:46:08.700
I really wanted to talk about, it's just, you know, I was sitting in my chair as I watched
00:46:12.580
it and I was kind of like wanting to scream, you know, oh, wait, that's wrong. If you go back
00:46:17.080
and you watch your testimony and it's out there, you can find it. The Georgia General Assembly
00:46:20.580
live streamed it. You can go watch it. One of the things that was asked was if she had
00:46:26.420
had conversations before she took office, if she had done certain things before she took
00:46:31.060
office on the Trump election interference case, the Georgia election interference case.
00:46:36.240
Her response, kind of insane, that it's a dumb ass question. So a state senator is asking
00:46:43.460
her a question, calm, respectful, asking her a question in a public, in the state capital
00:46:48.880
under the Georgia Gold Dome, asking her a question about if she had taken action before she took
00:46:54.560
office or had conversations about this case. She says, that's a dumb ass question. And she
00:47:00.120
says, it's factually impossible. I'm literally screaming, where's my indictment? Because you
00:47:06.360
know what? My indictment, where my client was charged, says he was charged with racketeering
00:47:11.340
conspiracy. And guess what the date that that racketeering conspiracy started? November 4th,
00:47:16.420
2020. Guess when Ms. Willis took office? January 1st, 2021. So I don't really know if Senator
00:47:24.760
Dolezal is the dumb ass or who's the dumb ass. But if you had looked at the indictment, you would
00:47:29.560
clearly see that you yourself, Ms. Willis, had alleged that this crime started to occur before you took
00:47:35.380
office. So there's my rant. I hope everybody has a great holiday and a happy new year.
00:47:40.960
All right. So there it is. We end 2026 with Ashley Merchant posing the question, who is the dumb ass?
00:47:47.880
All right, Dave, your turn, buddy. What's on your mind today? What's your final closing argument
00:47:56.020
Well, thank you, Phil. Thank you, Ashley. I really enjoyed being partnered up with you guys here on
00:48:00.920
True Crime. And when it comes to the last couple of weeks, it's been a gut punch because we've seen
00:48:08.000
such violence, such tragedy. We saw it at Brown University, where they still haven't caught the
00:48:13.820
killer. We saw it at Bondi Beach in Australia, where 15 innocent Jews were slaughtered by jihadists.
00:48:23.380
Next, we saw it with Rob Reiner and his wife, who were murdered by their own son.
00:48:29.300
But just when you thought there was no hope for humanity, we see heroes, people like Ahmed Al Ahmed.
00:48:38.180
He's a 44-year-old Syrian-Australian Muslim shop owner, father of two, who disarmed one of the terrorists
00:48:45.180
and got shot for it, became a hero, probably saving countless lives.
00:48:50.360
Just contrast him with the radical Islamists who were trying to murder Jews in the name of ISIS.
00:49:00.000
And we also saw, when it came to Rob Reiner's tragic murder, we saw that there were people
00:49:05.760
on the right who spoke up. And yes, I was very disappointed, even by President Trump's standards,
00:49:13.840
that he said the things he did about Rob Reiner. He should have let that go. But I was heartened by
00:49:20.080
James Woods, who I often disagree with politically. And he said this in an emotional talk on Fox News,
00:49:28.440
said that because you disagree with people doesn't mean you have to hate people. He called Reiner a
00:49:33.180
godsend and a great patriot, noting that they both loved the same country, but had a different path
00:49:41.720
to the same destination. Rob Schneider, formerly of Saturday Night Live, who has expressed a lot of
00:49:49.380
very conservative views and gotten in trouble for it. He said this,
00:49:54.280
I really admire Rob Reiner and ask that everybody will be able to put aside our political affiliations
00:50:00.140
and opinions and enjoy somebody for their true talents. We have to agree to disagree and also agree
00:50:05.460
that we can condemn a horrible, horrible tragedy. We've done it and asked for it in the past.
00:50:10.560
We can do it ourselves here today. Remember, it was Rob Reiner who condemned the murder of Charlie
00:50:16.860
Kirk. And so I'm looking at the best of humanity. People on both sides of the aisle can come together
00:50:22.300
and say, no, we must move out of this time of despair, of senseless violence. And in this,
00:50:29.740
our final episode of the year in the midst of Hanukkah and shortly before families around the world
00:50:34.700
will celebrate Christmas, this positivity is what I like to focus on. It's the hope that during
00:50:40.140
these times of trolling and swatting and contrived consternation that we light candles during
00:50:46.440
Hanukkah and are taught that darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can. So my wish for all of
00:50:54.160
us here at MK True Crime is that we all become the light in the lives of others. Never lose faith
00:51:01.280
that the power to heal this world is within us all.
00:51:07.580
All right. You know, look, so one of the things I really love about this show, like in the closing
00:51:12.220
arguments, we never know what anybody is going to say. It's completely up to the individual co-host
00:51:19.640
or contributor. And so this is a perfect example of three people, three contributors doing this show.
00:51:26.480
And we have three different directions that we go in because I'm going to talk to you a little bit
00:51:32.000
about the phenomenon known as stealth jurors. And the reason I want to talk about stealth jurors is
00:51:38.500
because here at MK True Crime, among some other exciting changes that we'll talk more about later
00:51:44.020
here on the channel and on the show, we're going to be covering more trials. And we're going to be
00:51:50.080
focusing in depth on some of these high profile trials. Stealth jurors are people who intentionally
00:51:57.040
conceal their biases, their prejudice, or their personal agendas during the jury selection process
00:52:04.280
because they're trying to get on a jury. That jury selection, of course, known as, as we actually say
00:52:10.540
in the South, we call it voir dire. Dave may call it voir dire, but it's the time when the lawyers and
00:52:16.280
sometimes judges get to question jurors, and sometimes they're dishonest. And they do this
00:52:20.900
just so they can get seated on a jury and influence the outcome of a trial. So they oftentimes, they will
00:52:28.140
lie. They will misrepresent what their views are, what their opinions are. They will misrepresent
00:52:33.680
whatever conflict of interest they may have. They try to appear neutral, and they try to fly under
00:52:40.420
the radar so that they can get put on this jury with some agenda. We've seen some examples of this,
00:52:47.000
of course, in history. We have some allegations, for example, from the Scott Peterson trial years ago
00:52:53.600
out in California. But, you know, what they do, they'll hide their opinions, they'll hide their
00:52:58.720
personal connections, they will hide motives. A lot of times they might want to, say, write a book or
00:53:06.040
seek their 15 minutes of fame doing news interviews following whatever the verdict may be in these
00:53:11.980
high-profile trials. So stealth jurors, they're a real problem. They're a serious problem. They
00:53:17.060
undermine the fundamental right to a fair and honest, impartial jury as guaranteed by law to every person
00:53:24.980
accused of a crime in the United States. They taint deliberations. They lead to biased and wrong
00:53:30.820
verdicts. They hung juries, they hang juries, and they misrepresent themselves to result in mistrials
00:53:39.400
and wrongful convictions or wrongful acquittals. Their presence in the jury box erodes public trust
00:53:45.580
in the justice system, and it leads to unjust outcomes, regardless of whatever the evidence is
00:53:50.460
that's presented in the case. So detecting them is challenging, but it's crucial. It requires lawyers
00:53:56.940
to ask probing questions, good questions designed to look for nonverbal clues, inconsistencies in their
00:54:04.380
responses, and they oftentimes have to resort to post-trial revelations to see if this has happened
00:54:11.040
because these people can be prosecuted for lying during the jury selection process. That's it. That's
00:54:17.120
my rant. That's my close for 2025. First, though, I want to say thank you to all of you who are our
00:54:24.060
audience. You make this show what it is, whether you watch on YouTube, whether you listen on Sirius,
00:54:29.340
or you listen on podcasts. Thank you. And thank you to my fellow contributors today, Ashley Merchant
00:54:34.680
and Dave Ehrenberg. This has been a great year, and we have some very exciting things coming up in store
00:54:40.740
for 2026. More on that, so stay tuned. But until then, I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas,
00:54:47.860
Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, and of course, Happy New Year from us at MK True Crime.