Let's Go To Court! - 206: Vincent Chin & a Johnson County Mystery

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Kristin starts us off with the story of a hate crime that galvanized Asian Americans.  On the night of his bachelor party, Vincent Chin was brutally attacked by Michael Nitz and his stepdad, Ronald Ebens. Vincent died four days after the attack. He’d never regained consciousness. It was a horrific crime, but people in power didn’t see it that way. Michael and Ronald were sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay a little more than $3,000 in fines. The judge explained his decision, saying, “these weren’t the kind of men you send to jail.” Then Brandi tells us a story from her very own Johnson County bubble.  Right off the bat, William Jennings’ death looked suspicious. He was discovered in his home, beaten so badly that his veneers had come off. He’d been strangled with the bars of a decorative bird cage. A suicide note specifically mentioned that his longtime partner, David Stagg, was not to be blamed. Naturally, investigators wondered if he was.   And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary, “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” The book, “Asian American Studies Now,” by Helen Zia “Vincent Chin’s family never got the justice they wanted. But his case changed things for those who came after him,” by Harmeet Kaur for CNN “The Killing of Vincent Chin” trial reenactment by UC Hastings Law, on YouTube “The Killing of Vincent Chin” entry on Wikipedia In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Former Westmar Professor Charged In Slaying” Associated Press, Sioux City Journal “Professor charged in killing reported a suicide” by Diane Carroll, The Kansas City Star “Murder suspect wins legal round” by Diane Carroll, The Kansas City Star “Defense asks judge to throw out murder charge against professor” Associated Press, Lawrence Journal-World “Trial begins for Missouri professor of music charged with killing lover” Associated Press, Lawrence Journal-World “Professor’s trial ends in hung jury” Associated Press, The Manhattan Mercury “Mo. professor faces new murder trial” Associated Press, The Wichita Eagle “Prof on trial again in death of partner” Associated Press, The Manhattan Mercury “Source of DNA is disputed” by Diane Carroll, The Kansas City Star “Jurors unable to reach verdict in trial” Associated Press, Colby Free Press “Murder trial ends with 2nd hung jury” by Caroline Boyer, Shawnee Dispatch “No 3rd trial in 2004 Shawnee murder, judge rules” by Caroline Boyer, Shawnee Dispatch YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 30+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll be talking about Vincent Chin. And I'll be talking about a murder mystery.

Did this come from your favorite program? Uh, there's no program on this case. Oh! Oh, shit. Nope. Color me intrigued, madam. This came purely from I had no idea what I wanted to talk about on this week's episode. I read 50 different articles about different cases. I was like, I don't want to talk about any of those.

Uh-huh. And then what happened? So then I Googled something near and dear to my heart and... Lance Bass? Murder in Johnson County. Oh. Okay. Okay.

Found yourself a local one, did you? Sure did. Brandy, bad news, I ate too much to talk. That is bad news because that's what we do on this podcast.

Ugh! Ugh! Everyone, we went out to lunch and then Norm was like, hey, hey, what would happen if like. We went by Andy's. They've got some frozen custard. And of course. We both were like, no, no, I'm not doing it.

Oh my gosh. Don't make me eat this whole thing. And then he forced us to have chocolate malts. Well, you had a, what did you have? A mint crumble shake? Oh, my God. It was delicious. I did the thing where I was like,

I'll just take a few sips and then I'll probably put it in the freezer for later. And I ate the whole thing. What the hell are you doing? Putting on a little lip. It's tinted. You're putting on tinted lip stuff. It's a tinted lip balm.

It looks so good. It's Burt's Bees. It's got peppermint oil. It's theired. You're putting on tinted lip stuff. It's a tinted lip balm. It looks so good. It's Burt's Bees. It's got peppermint oil. It's their lip shimmer. Yeah, everyone's familiar with this. In the color caramel. No, the reason we are all intrigued is because you do not wear a color. I don't wear lip stuff, but let me tell you something.

What happened? We do a lot of talking on this podcast. Some might say too much. Well, they never say that about me because I'm a national treasure. But what happens is at the end of the day, I go home and my lips are fucking chapped from talking this whole time. So I placed this in my pocket this morning and thought it might come in handy. Well, that was a wonderful story and I'm glad we paused for it.

Here's another great story. Our Patreon. Our Patreon is a story that tells itself. You know, for just five dollars a month. What's a story that tells itself? You can sponsor this very podcast. A podcast didn't need

the Christian Children's Fund. Nope. Was that Sally Struthers? Did she do the Christian Children's Fund? No, it was the old guy with the beard. We discussed this. Anyway, for just $5 a month, you can support this podcast. This is probably in poor taste

that we're saying this. Other podcasts to do it. You get a monthly bonus episode. You get into the Discord to chit-chat the day away. At the higher levels, you get more stuff. You get stickers.

You get cards with our autographs. You get inducted into the podcast at the $10 level. That's the – Super – No. Sorry. I was clearly laughing at that.

Ma'am, are you part of this podcast or do you just show up sometimes? I actually thought I got fired this week. I couldn't get into the Discord. It was just like a worldwide Discord outage and I had not been fired from my own podcast. I don't want you to get too comfortable, though, Brady. Because it could absolutely happen. So at the $10 level. Yeah, that's the Bob Moss level, I'm here to tell you.

And what do you get at that level? You get ad-free episodes and you get them a day early. Plus 10% off merch. Oh, look, Brandi's like trying to be really good now.

Uh-huh. I'm so good. I can tell you that to join our Patreon, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash LGTC podcast

and there you'll find... So when you sign up, you get all the access to our back catalog too we got 32 bonus episodes on there we sure do that's exciting stuff that's hours upon hours of content why do you seem angry i'm not just excited about i'm fired up. Okay. All right. For Jesus and our Patreon. Very good. Well, here we go. It's a weird ad. It is.

It's a very weird ad. Not sure what Jesus has to do with it, but hey. Hey, Jesus is just all right with me. We're not going to kick him out. Yeah. Jesus is just all right with me. I used to love that song. Me too.

So many good Christian genes. Huh? Are you familiar with Vincent Chin? No. Prepare to be bummed out. Oh, good. This is going to be terrible. Wonderful.

Also, I ate too much, so I'm not feeling great about it. Also, it's a sad story, so we're going to be on a journey. A journey together. A journey of indigestion and a sad, sad story. Great!

Yeah, okay, here we go. Okay. Shoutouts to the book Asian American Studies Now! Is that a textbook? Yeah, it's a textbook. Okay. And the now wasn't capitalized but i just it wasn't like now that's what i call asian american studies it's all the hits from 1999 they should market textbooks i agree i agree because you know sometimes with those updates

you're like did they just update a few words? No, it's all the new hits. Yes. Anyway, that's by Helen Zia and an article from CNN by Harmeet Kaur. And I'm not going to tell you the title of it. Because it gives it all away. Like the whole damn thing. There's a period in this headline, which is too long. I was going to say that's a too long of a headline. That's a too long.

Yeah. Also, where would we be without Wikipedia? I don't know. Probably dead in a ditch somewhere. Well, damn. You heard it here first, folks. Wikipedia saves lives. Picture it.

1982, Detroit, Michigan. At this point in time, Detroit was... Okay, anyone who loves Detroiters like I did will understand that joke. And the rest of you are very lame, obviously. At this point in time, Detroit was the automotive capital of the world. The world! It had always been that way. It would always be that way. Or would it?

See, for so long, the automotive industry supported a ton of jobs. But by 1982, American car companies were on shaky ground, Brandy. Japanese car companies had the nerve to make better cars and sell them for less money. What? You seem scandalized. No, I have the hiccups. Oh, I was trying to silence it. This is a bad time to get the hiccups.

Sure it is. For consumers, this was a no-brainer. Do I want a better car for less money? Yes, yes, I do. And so American car companies had smaller profit margins and they ended up laying a bunch of people off. And it sucked. People who thought they'd found steady work that would keep them employed for the rest of their lives all of a sudden lost it. The city hit hard times. The people who were suddenly out of work were given a new name, the new poor. I know.

I'd never heard that before. But isn't that just – yeah, that sucks. Yeah. It was a rough time for the American automotive industry and the people who were in charge, or who got laid off, or whose jobs were at risk, wanted someone to blame. Oh, good. Just put that together. Now she knows where this is going. Great. People could have blamed the executives at American car companies.

No, they're just going to blame the Asian people who live in their very neighborhood. Uh-oh. Brandy has caught on to how things work in this world. Oh, no. Some did blame American car companies. They were like, hey, you guys should have taken a bigger chunk of your massive profits during the good years and reinvested it into innovation and better equipment and training. But most people –

Pretty wild and out there concept. Yeah, I know it is. And most people did not go down that road. Instead, they took out their anger on the Japanese automotive industry as a whole. Some local unions sponsored really fun events where for a dollar people could take sledgehammers and smash Japanese cars. And I wish I could tell you what the name of those events were, but it includes a racial slur. Yeah, that's probably fine just to leave that out then. Smash that blank crap.

Great. Yeah. Great. Smash that blank crap. Great. Yeah. Great. Lee Iacocca, the chairman of Chrysler, made a hilarious joke about dropping nuclear bombs on Japan as a way to get back at them for making good cars.

Mm-hmm. Meh. Yep. People slapped bumper stickers on their American-made cars that read Honda, Toyota, Pearl Harbor. Oh, my gosh. Right. Well, okay. Okay, people are fucking dumb when they get all worked up about Pearl Harbor. It's like, yeah, but do you guys know what happened next?

Yeah. Do you know what we did? Yeah. So just calm down. Unsurprisingly, all this anti-Japanese sentiment really emboldened douchebags, which I think is great because there's nothing worse than a racist who hasn't yet found their voice. No. I disagree.

And so a lot of people had a great time being horribly racist to any Japanese American who happened to be an earshot. And really, I'm saying Japanese American, but it was any Asian American. Yeah, because nobody's taking the time to find out their nationality. Right. And you know that because you never ask. You stop it right now. So that was the environment that a 27-year-old Chinese American named Vincent Chin lived in. There weren't many Asian Americans living in the Detroit area at this time, but those who did could really see themselves in either Vincent or his dad or his mom, Lily.

Are you just going to play with your hair this whole time? Are you like obsessed with how long it is these days? I mean, I am, but no. But yet I am obsessed with my how long my hair is but no I was just you know listening and touching myself I'm not touching myself excuse me while I feel myself it's weird that you're touching your bangs like that I didn't have the rest of it down

so what was I supposed to do unclip my hair and swish my head around no I wouldn't be able to handle it down. So what was I supposed to do? Unclip my hair and swish my head around? No, I wouldn't be able to handle it. It'd be way too hot. Yeah. Like a sexy librarian talking about racism. Brandy, I won't kink shame you for that. So people could see themselves in the Chin family because they had a pretty common story.

When he was 17, Vincent's dad, David, served in World War II. And because of that, he became an American citizen. That was a way that a lot of Asian-American men gained citizenship, with the obvious exception of Japanese-Americans who were locked up in internment camps. I put that together this morning as I was reading this over. I was like, ooh, but not at all. Yeah. Whoops. Okay.

Yeah. As an American citizen, David was able to propose to a woman named Lily Yee, and she came over from China, and they got married. Are you ready for a foreshadowing fact? No. Can you skip it? Nope. Lily's dad didn't want her to move to America because he'd tried living in America. He'd worked on the Transcontinental Railroad and was treated like absolute shit.

And so he'd gone back to China. And he was worried that his daughter would get the same treatment. But Lily's dad was wrong. Lily and David definitely faced hard times and discrimination, but not to the level that he had. They worked in laundries and restaurants and they longed to have children. Lily loved kids. She always wanted to be a mom. But she'd had – I can't remember what she had said, but she'd had some kind of surgery.

She wasn't able to have kids on her own. And so in 1961, they looked through adoption catalogs from orphanages in China, and they fell in love with a picture of a little boy who had these bright, beautiful eyes. Lily could tell that he was smart. So she and David adopted six-year-old Vincent. They were so happy to have him. Look at you. You're a little smiley over there. Yeah, that's a sweet story. But moving to America was a big change. Vincent's first day of school was kind of scary.

Everything was so new. But he was so cute. He was, like, really chubby. And Lily made him wear slacks and a button-down shirt and a little bow tie to school. Oh, my gosh. And his new friends did tease him about the bow tie, but eventually everyone got over it. Vincent turned out to be a really funny, easygoing kid. He went to Oak Park High School where he ran track and wrote poems or poems, as Brandy would say.

And after he graduated high school, he went to the Controlrolled Data Institute, which sounds made up. CDT. What? Yeah. Huh? I just made that up right now. Well, and you said CDT. Controlled Data Institute. I don't think you know what you're talking

about. Anyway, it's a real computer tech school. And after he graduated, he got a job as an industrial draftsman at Efficient Engineering. It's in the name. Mm-hmm.

They put inefficient engineering out of business in the meantime. That's stupid. Thank you very much for laughing. To earn a little extra money, That's stupid. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Thank you very much for laughing at that. To earn a little extra money, he worked weekends as a waiter at the Golden Star Restaurant. By this point, Vincent was a... What kind of restaurant was it? A Chinese restaurant.

Okay. Do you want more information? Do you have more? Weirdly, I do. What do you got more information? Do you have more? Weirdly, I do. What do you got? Had gold and red decorations on the walls. Okay. That's end of list.

Okay. Okay. All right. Don't ask me anymore. Signature dish? I told you everything I know. I'm just seeing if you're holding out on us. No, not.

By this point, Vincent was a handsome dude. And the ladies took notice. And Vincent noticed the ladies noticing him. And Vincent was a big fan of being noticed. Of the female form, Brandy. And so naturally, he and his friends enjoyed going to the strip club. Oh, really? Yeah.

Are you scandalized? You seem very scandalized. I'm surprised. What? What? I didn't know anyone did this. Do people enjoy titties? I see mine every day.

No, I'm a never nude. I've never seen my titties. Brandy, do you have a special swimsuit to shower in? Or do you just always keep it on under your clothes? Yeah, it's on right now. Great. Good for you. Just in case like something horrible happens.

A stiff wind. Like we're walking along and Norm trips and he accidentally like reaches out and rips all my clothes off me. I've still got my swimsuit on. You're going to have to explain that because otherwise that just sounds like a fantasy that you're having. No. So David and I are like wedding planning right now. And we were just like, Kristen, Norm, and I, we're talking about like scenarios of the big day. What Norm could do to get me angry. Yeah.

And I was like, there's nothing he could do. And so we like ran through different scenarios. I was like, he texts me that morning and he's like, hey, Rudy, what time am I supposed to be there? What am I supposed to wear? Yeah, remind me again of all the details. And I was like, no, that wouldn't make me angry because literally all I'd have to do is be like, Kristen, Norm, text me and you would take care of it. Oh. He'd never speak again.

So we came up with that might get me angry is if he for some reason like got up during the ceremony was like walking towards the front and like tripped and like reached out to stop himself and he somehow grabbed my wedding dress and tore it off me okay i don't like that you said for some reason because in the scenario that we laid out it was like the middle of the ceremony and norm decides i've got to stand up and congratulate these two. Oh, that's right. Yes. And also he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

Obviously. Obviously. A Taco Bell Hawaiian shirt. Which he does own. I don't mean to make anyone jealous. So anyway, Vincent and his friends enjoyed going to the strip club like dim titties.

But as Vincent entered his late 20s, he decided to settle down. At some point, he got engaged to a woman named Vicky. They set a date. They would be married

on June 28th, 1982. What? That's my mom's birthday. Oh my God. Not 1982 because then she would have been four when I was born, which would be ridiculous. Very upsetting. That is the year she graduated high school though. So that was her 18th birthday.

Oh my God. Is everyone writing this down? No, this doesn't go in your Tim Bounds fun fact journal. No, it would go in your Lynn Bourne fun fact journal. You have to get different fun fact journals. I'm sorry people. This was obviously a joyous occasion.

The wedding was going to be huge. One source said like 400 people. Oh shit. I know. That's a big ass The one thing that made the occasion a little sad Well, she knows. I was like, could I get there even if I really tried? No. The one thing that made the occasion a little sad was that Vincent's dad, David, wouldn't be around to see his son get married. Did he die? Yeah, he died a year earlier. Well, that's really sad.

Yeah. Don't worry, it's the last sad thing that happens. I don't think it is. Yeah. Don't worry. It's the last sad thing that happens. I don't think it is. Yeah. But the wedding date got closer and closer and then came the evening of June 19th, 1982. It was Vincent's bachelorette. Oh, my God. Do you know what June 19th is?

What? It's London's birthday. Oh, excuse me. I was thinking it was Juneteenth. It is Juneteenth. But also London's birthday. Oh, excuse me. I was thinking it was Juneteenth. It is Juneteenth. But also London's birthday. She'll be two this year. All right.

On June 19th. You done burping? How dare you? That could have all been edited out. Still can be. It was Vincent's bachelor party. Also Juneteenth. Also London's birthday.

Yes. And of course, he and his friends decided to hit up the strip club. Lily was not thrilled. She was like, you're about to get married. You need to stop going to those places. And Vincent was like, I know mom, but it's the last time. How'd Vicky feel about it?

I don't know. I didn't see. It was hard enough to find Vicky's name. Yeah. Lily was kind of like Vicky and Vincent. That's cute. They could have all kinds of V stuff in their house. Just a giant V on the wall.

Yeah. All right. Lily was horrified. She was like, don't say it's the last time. That's bad luck. And Vincent was like, okay, okay. And he and three of his friends headed off for the Fancy Pants Club in Highland Park. What's it called?

What do you mean, what's it called? It's called the Fancy Pants Club. That's what it's called? That is the name of the strip club. I thought you were describing it as this is the fancy... No, no, no. This is a high-end strip club.

Nope. It's called the Fancy Pants Club. Well, I love that. Okay, I'm devastated to tell you that the Fancy Pants Club is no longer in business. Probably because as a society, we've become much more casual over the years. We don't require our pants to be quite as fancy. Okay, you ready for a disturbing fact about the Fancy Pants Club? Yeah.

It didn't serve alcohol. Yeah, that's common. What? Why? Yeah, strip clubs are often like BYOB even. Why? It doesn't require them to hold a liquor license. Yeah, but couldn't you make a lot more money by like showing tits and alcohol?

I don't think you would show that. I mean, not just showing alcohol. Here it is. Wish you could taste it yeah i don't there's something about the yeah it's i can't remember but there's a reason that's not satisfying i know it's not but it's a common thing for strip clubs not to hold a liquor license. But allow you to bring your own liquor in. Well, OK. But if you can bring your own liquor in, aren't people just getting show waste of things?

Well, exactly. But then the facility doesn't hold the liability of over-serving you and then maybe assaulting an employee. Well, they should absolutely have the liability for that. Yes. What? I'm just saying that it lessens their liability. I don't like it, Brandi. Okay.

Well, I don't make the rules. Yeah, but you run the Million Dollar Fantasy Ranch. Which is a real club. The Outhouse. Ew. In Lawrence. That's what it's called? Yeah. I don't know that it's still around, but it was BYOB.

They called it the Outhouse? Yeah. I went to a strip club in Omaha for my 18th birthday because it was the only facility I could get into and all of my friends I was with were 21. Boy, you just had to see some dick, huh? No, it was a female strip club. You just had to see some tits, huh? It was the only place that was 18 and older because they didn't have a liquor license. Uh-huh.

But you could bring in your – should we be concerned that that box just popped up? No, they just want to stop us from getting viruses. Okay, good. Like herpes at a strip club. Yeah, they heard you talking about the outhouse. The outhouse, yeah. So you went to Omaha? Yeah, for my 18th birthday with my girls from Walgreens who were all older than me.

And yeah, that was the only place I could get into was the strip club. So we went there. It was an experience. Did you fall in love with a stripper yeah I'm in love with a stripper

yeah exactly I've heard the song I know how it goes alright well anyway I've obviously never been to a strip club but I'm horrified

by the idea that you would like be around naked people and not be able to have like a gin and tonic no you can you just gotta bring it yourself okay fine

anyway pack a little cooler a cooler yourself a snack what are we gonna be like my mom walking into nature bingo with a cooler full of sandwiches and cold drinks yeah okay no one else is gonna understand understand that. Nature bingo. Everyone, when we would go camping, the campground would sometimes have activities that no one on earth would want to go to. But my mom wanted to go to all of them. And we would go to these activities. And she would insist on bringing a cooler full of food and blankets for everyone. It was a good time. We won a spatula at Nature Bingo.

We? Yeah. You mean you won a spatula? I did win a spatula at Nature Bingo. She was so excited. I was. Anyway, should we get back to you? Yes.

This podcast has too many tangents. Couldn't agree more. But they needed to know about your spatula. I won the spatula. You still use that spatula to this day. No, I don't. No. No.

I donated it to the camper. Oh, how generous of you. Yeah, no. I just had no need. I was a, what, a 12-year-old with no need for it. Yeah, you were 12 when you got yourself a spatula. Yeah, a spatula. Well, when you got yourself a spatula.

A spatula. So Vincent and his buddies, two white guys and another Asian-American guy, went into the Fancy Pants Club and went straws deep on some Sprite. Because that's the only thing you can do there. Okay. Is that a thing? People say straws deep? It is. I don't think so. Thank you for asking.

I read that in another source. Now that's what I call Asian American history. That's right. Helen Zia said that. That's rude to say. She did not say that. That's a Kristen original. So the details here are a little fuzzy, but it seems that a dancer came over and performed for them, and Vincent gave her a generous tip.

Vincent and his friends were all very generous tippers. And that seemed to anger these two douchebags who were also at the strip club. They were Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz. I like to go to the strip club with my stepdad, too. Just always at the strip club with my stepdad. You know, I knew you would make fun of these two, but I just want to say for the record that I think it's great that these two found something in common. They both like to gaze at vulvas and sip Diet Coke. Nobody's going to a strip club to gaze at vulva. No, they're not.

They're looking away. Are you kidding me? Absolutely. No alcohol served. They get the Diet Cokes and they just gaze at the vulvas. I know how it goes. Brandy's like, oh, I can't look. I'm not here for that.

I'm here to look at the architecture. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ronald was a plant supervisor for Chrysler and Michael had been laid off from Chrysler. for Chrysler and Michael had been laid off from Chrysler. And these two saw Vincent Chin and his friends having a good time, and they didn't like it. They didn't like that the dancers were paying attention to these guys. Vincent's friends overheard Ronald say racist things about them. And one of the dancers, Racine Colwell,

heard Ronald say, it's because of you little motherfuckers that we're out of work. Wow. Yeah. So... It's actually not, because Vincent's family is from China. Well, right, and...

Even if he were from Japan, like, he Japan, like he's not working for Toyota. No, he doesn't run Toyota. Yeah, that's a big leap. Oh, my gosh. So Ronald claims that at this point, Vincent got up and sucker punched him. That didn't happen. point, Vincent got up and sucker punched him. That didn't happen.

And the stepson, Michael, shoved Vincent. And Vincent shoved him back. And then the stepdad, Ronald, was like, mm-mm-mm, you mess with the bull, you get the horns. So he grabbed a chair, he held it up in the air, and then he, boom! Brought it down.

Oh shit. Oops. He accidentally brought it down on his stepson's head. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Like, really fucked up Michael pretty well. Great. Somehow he's still mad at Vincent over this. I mean, dude, you're the one who did that.

Anyway. At this point, it was a total shit show, and Michael was bleeding from the head. So a bouncer was like, hey, break it up. Wincer said he kicked both groups out of the club, but it seems like it was staggered. So Vincent and his friends were asked to leave, and the bouncer led Michael and Ronald to the bathroom so that they could get cleaned up. And while they were in the bathroom, one of Vincent's friends came in. It was a guy named Robert Sarosky. And Robert basically tried to smooth things over.

He was like, hey, you know, hey, sorry for how that all went down. We're here for my buddy's bachelor party. He's had a few drinks tonight. Yada, yada, yada. Let's all calm down. And then Robert must have used the turlet or something because ronald and michael left the strip club and vincent and the rest of his friends were still standing around in the parking lot waiting for their buddy robert and they saw ronald and michael come out and vincent called

ronald a chicken shit at that point michael just lost his shit. He ran to his car. He got out a baseball bat. Oh, shit. It was a Jackie Robinson model and started coming at Vincent with the baseball bat. And Vincent was like, hey, if you want to fight, let's fight. But put the baseball bat down. Yeah.

Michael refused. He kept coming for Vincent and so Vincent ran. And his other Asian-American friend, Jimmy Choi, ran with him. But Michael couldn't keep up with them. So he came back to the parking lot with his baseball bat, mad as hell, not the least bit interested in letting this thing go. He was like, we have to find those guys. So he and Ronald paid some random dude 20 bucks to, quote, get the Chinese. Is he asking them to go to a restaurant and pick up some nice takeout?

No. Okay. They spent the next half hour riding around trying to find Vincent and his friend. Great. And incredibly, they did. Wonderful. They found them outside a McDonald's on Woodward Avenue. Vincent and Jimmy were laughing and evidently that – I mean I don't believe that that's what made Ronald and Michael mad.

But they got really mad. So they decided to do something. Ronald had always really been triggered by McDonald's because of that whole Ronald McDonald thing. Really took over his whole identity. Yeah. So embarrassing. And Michael had a strong resemblance to the Hamburglar. And see, now you're laughing at him.

This is how people become monsters. That's right. They crept up behind Vincent and Jimmy. But Vincent spotted them when they were just a few feet behind him. So he turned to his friend and he goes, scram. So they all ran. Jimmy got away. Vincent didn't.

Michael grabbed Vincent and held him down while Ronald beat him with a baseball bat. Oh, my gosh. It was brutal. Two off-duty police officers saw it all happen. One of them later said that Ronald Ebens had been swinging the baseball bat like he was swinging, quote, for a home run. Oh, my gosh. Jimmy saw everything. He ran back to try to help his friend.

By that point, one of the officers identified themselves and told Ronald to drop the bat. Jimmy cradled Vincent's head in his hands. And Vincent uttered his last words. It's not fair. Jimmy yelled for someone to call an ambulance, but no one moved. So he ran inside the McDonald's

and called the ambulance himself. Then he came outside and held Vincent's hand as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. That night, Ronald was arrested and Vincent was taken from the scene by an ambulance. But it didn't look good. He'd been beaten so badly that part of his brain had spilled out onto the street. Oh my gosh.

He never regained consciousness. Oh my gosh. Five days before his wedding day. Hmm. I must have fucked something up. Because my next line in the script is, they buried him on the day he was supposed to get married. That's probably accurate okay yeah vincent's friends and family were devastated ronald and michael were charged with second degree murder this was a serious crime or was it no it is It's a hate crime. Whoa. Hey, hey. Or is it manslaughter, Brandi?

No, it's a fucking hate crime. Yeah, so they got plea deals. What? Ron pled guilty to manslaughter and Michael pled no contest to manslaughter. And they got what? Get ready to hatelaughter. And they got what? Get ready to hate it. Their sentencing hearing was super interesting. There wasn't a prosecutor in sight. So the judge didn't hear anything about the case against these two men. Also, no one notified Vincent's friends or family that this hearing

was taking place. So they couldn't be there to witness it, let alone give any kind of victim impact statement. The only people who were there were Ronald, Michael, their defense attorneys, and the judge. The defense attorneys explained to Judge Charles Kaufman that Ronald and Michael were two hardworking men with no criminal history. This was simply an example of two drunk dudes making dumb decisions. No. Also, Vincent started the fight. Ronald and Michael only attacked Vincent because they were in the heat of the moment.

It was that drunken macho energy. You know, the kind that makes you commit a hate crime. There's that song about it. What? In the heat of the moment, I committed a hate crime. I thought you were thinking that other song. Which one? I thought you were thinking of that other song. Which one? Macho, macho man. I'm gonna do a hate crime. We all know how it is.

Judge Charles Kaufman was moved. These were clearly good guys. Plus, Vincent hadn't died right away. So obviously this attack hadn't been, like, super brutal. No, his brain spilled out into the street. Yeah. Anybody remember that part? One dude held him down while the other one hit him in the head with a baseball bat. It was absolutely brutal.

Yeah. a baseball bat. Yeah, it was absolutely brutal. Yeah. The only reason they were stopped was because two off-duty police officers were right there moonlighting as security guards. Wow. By the way, I'm including this because I think it might be a little relevant. Judge Kaufman served in World War II, and during his time in the service, he became a prisoner of war in a Japanese prison camp. Yeah, that's probably relevant. Yeah, I think so. Yep. I think this dude was super-duper racist.

Yeah. Two stars for racism. Yeah. Two stars for racism. Judge Kaufman sentenced the men to, what do you think, Brandy? I don't know. 300 community service hours. Basically.

Three years of probation. That's it? He also ordered them to pay three grand in fines and $780 in court costs. Cool. For killing a man. They murdered someone. In a racially motivated attack. Yeah. When Lily heard that this was the punishment these men received for murdering her son, she was heartbroken.

And so were a lot of Asian Americans. Like I said, there weren't a ton of Asian Americans living in the Detroit area. And those who did live there weren't super organized politically. But the activist Helen Zia explained that at this time, Asian Americans tended to take more of a like don't make waves approach to injustice. And Vincent Chen's death really changed things. Vincent had been killed for looking Japanese. And that meant that anyone who was either Japanese American or could be mistaken for Japanese American was at risk of being killed.

Yeah. Cynthia Lee, who was an Asian American reporter for the Detroit News, went and talked to local Asian-Americans about the lack of punishment Ronald and Michael received. And they said they were basically floored and terrified. Yeah. One man said, you go to jail for killing a dog. Mm-hmm. Another said Vincent's life was worth less than a used car. Yep.

So, you know, Charles Kaufman was getting a little blowback on his decision, but he held firm. He did? Yeah. What do you have to say about it? Okay, glad you asked. In an interview, he said, and by the way, he's got a really interesting voice, so here we go. These weren't the kind of men that you send to jail. You don't make the punishment fit the crime.

You make the punishment fit the criminal. No. These aren't the kind of men you send to jail. No. They killed a man. They murdered a man. Yep. They hunted him down and beat him. And he died.

You make the punishment fit the criminal? No, you fucking don't. Well, and also, I'd say these are pretty bad criminals if that's what they did. Yeah. Would you like a more detailed explanation? I think you'll understand it much better. Okay, great. The victim lingered for four days, which again, based upon everything, was indicative to me that they attempted to administer a punishment. They did this too severely with careless, reckless disregard for human life, which is what manslaughter is. And that's what they were found guilty of.

And that's what I predicated my sentence on. Had it been a brutal murder, of course these fellas would be in jail now. It was a brutal fucking murder. His brain spilled out of his head. Yeah. That's fucking brutal. The fact that he lingered in that state for four days is fucking brutal and again the only reason he didn't die right's because they were interrupted by the police. They were stopped.

An officer came up to them with a gun and made them stop. Lily Chin refused to accept this sentence. She wrote a letter to the Detroit Chinese Welfare Council saying, this is injustice to the grossest extreme.

Yeah. I grieve in my heart and shed tears and blood. My son cannot be brought back to life, but he was a member of your counsel. Therefore, I plead to you, please let the Chinese American community know so they can help me hire legal counsel to appeal so my son can rest his soul. Wow. Her appeal worked. Wow. And a week after these sentences came down, I'm sorry, not a legal appeal, but just an appeal for help.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yes. an appeal for help. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yes. A week after these sentences came down, a group of about 30 or so prominent Asian Americans met up at the Golden Star where Vincent had worked as a waiter. No word on the signature dish, Brandy, I'm sorry to say. Yeah, that is disappointing. They were about three blocks from where he'd been beaten. There were a few lawyers in the group, but they were all under 30 and none of them specialized in criminal law. But they were Asian American lawyers and they wanted to help. And so they talked to the crowd about what the options were and explained that

once a sentence is handed down, the victim's family really can't do much to change it. Yeah. So there are a few things they could do. They could ask the judge to set aside his sentence. They could file briefs with the appellate court to get the sentence overturned. But I mean the chances of any of that happening are just so, so slim. What do you – Couldn't they get it – couldn't they get federal hate crime charges filed? I mean –

Could you keep your pants on? OK, great. OK. Anyway, what were you going to tell us? Could we like jump ahead a couple pages? Sorry. As they broke the bad news, the crowd went silent. The only sound was Lily Chin sitting in the back of the room weeping.

At this point, Helen Zia, who had been trying to decide, okay, do I want to be a journalist? Do I want to be a participant? Yeah. Made her decision. She was like, okay, we have to try. We have to do something. We have to let the world know what has happened here. The room went quiet again.

And then the crying stopped. And finally, Lily Chin stood up. And she said, we must speak up. These men killed my son like an animal. But they go free. This is wrong. We must tell the people this is wrong. Yeah. The group agreed. The next logical step was to set up a meeting with the sentencing judge. But when it came time to figure out which one of the lawyers would accompany Lily Chin to the meeting, no one wanted to do it. Of course.

So there might be a temptation to like be upset about this. And, you know, that's fair. But like I think it's understandable. You're one of like a handful of Asian-American lawyers in Michigan. And this is putting your career on the line. Absolutely it is. I think it's completely understandable. And so a woman named Lisa Chan, who was the only Asian-American woman practicing law in Michigan, volunteered to do it. Wow.

They created a game plan. Helen put a spotlight on the case through public relations efforts and Lisa and Lily set up a meeting with Judge Kaufman. But Judge Kaufman didn't show up no big deal they decided to schedule another meeting but when they tried to do that they were told that the judge was on vacation so lisa was like wow that judge is a jackass. And that's her talking, not me. I don't think so. So she started digging into the criminal case against Ronald and Michael and, of course, discovered a metric shit ton of errors. Investigators hadn't interviewed all the witnesses. They hadn't talked to the dancers.

They hadn't even talked to the guy who'd been paid 20 bucks to, quote, get the Chinese. So they talked to the witnesses. And that's how they found one of the dancers who performed that night. She said she'd overheard Ronald say, it's because of you motherfuckers that we're out of work. So there it was. A woman who had no real ties to this case. What? You know, I didn't even catch that earlier what how just outwardly i mean obviously these guys are huge racist assholes but they don't even like even in the moment where they're being racist assholes and they're like gonna chase this

guy down because they're mad at the japanese. They're still referring to this guy as Chinese. They don't give a fuck. Yeah. Yeah. This is a hate crime. Yeah, absolutely. There's no question. Yeah.

Well, or is there a question? Yeah, here we go. So there it was. A woman who had no real ties to this case and nothing to gain by making something up had overheard what some might argue makes it a very obvious hate crime. Yes, I am arguing that. Me too. I join you. As this case got bigger and bigger, Helen and Lisa and Lily and a bunch of other people decided that they needed to make this movement official. So they gave themselves a name, American Citizens for Justice. The group is still around today. It's an Asian American nonprofit group that provides resources

to victims of discrimination. But they started this group just with the hope that they could get justice for Vincent Chin. So that was their focus. The legal team knew that they were in for a rough road, but they decided to push for a federal civil rights investigation of Vincent's murder. So we're finally catching up to Brandy's suggestion. Yes. If they could make this happen, it would be America's first criminal civil rights case involving anyone of Asian descent. Wow. Okay.

And that was partly because a lot of people didn't consider Asian Americans to be a group that needed protection from discrimination. Okay. We fucking locked them in internment camps. How has it taken that long to realize that? Right. OK, get a load of this. So Lisa Chan and some of the other American citizens for justice attorneys met with a constitutional law professor from Wayne State University. And he told them that in his opinion, civil rights laws were created to protect African-Americans, not Asian-Americans.

He also told them that Asian-Americans are considered white. No. Right? Obviously not. No. No. They're not. Yeah.

No. Yeah. If they're facing discrimination. They're certainly not being treated that way. No. They're not – yeah, no. Yeah, if they're facing discrimination – They're certainly not being treated that way. No. This guy wasn't the only person who felt that way. The American Citizens for Justice group tried to get support from the ACLU of Michigan, but the ACLU refused. Wow. Mm-hmm. In fact, the executive director of the ACLU of Michigan issued a report absolving Judge Kaufman of racial bias.

Shut the fuck up. I know. The Detroit chapter of the National Lawyers Guild also decided that race hadn't played a role in Vincent's murder. No, it 100% did. No, they decided it didn't. Well, they're wrong. Interestingly, why do I always do that?

Interestingly, while the local chapter wouldn't show support, the National Lawyers Guild's West Coast chapters were like, this is definitely racially motivated. And so the national group endorsed the ACJ's efforts to get justice for Vincent Chin. But the local one wouldn't. What are you making that face for? That is really interesting. OK, so I'm going to pause here.

Oh. OK. So I'm going to pause here. Oh. This is the part that kind of makes my head spin and I've – oh, here we go. So in her book about this, Helen wrote that – wrote about a time when she and Lisa would go on like local radio shows and talk about the case. And obviously they got a lot of support from the African-American community. Yeah. But there was also like some people who were like, you know, like we just got these civil rights. We just fought for these. And now you want us to fight for yours? Well, it was also like where were you when we were doing that?

And now you want them to protect you, too. And also, you know, we experience racism from you. So I, you know, oof. That's very, it's very complicated. It's super complicated. And I'm so glad I'm a white lady telling everybody about it. So, yeah, I mean, it was just a really, really complicated issue. Yeah. So it was tough. I scratched my arm directly. I was gonna say, boy, you're hearing that. How could they not?

So they tried to get to get support locally. It was really tough. But national support did come in. The New York Times covered the story. And Lily Chin went on the Phil Donahue show to talk about her son's murder. By this point, the ACJ was really pursuing two main methods of getting justice. Federal hate crime. That's not two. We're holding that for the second one. OK.

What's the first? We're holding that for the second one. OK. What's the first one? The first, they filed briefs with the appellate court to overturn Judge Kaufman's sentence on the basis that he delivered it with incomplete information. Or I'm sorry, based on incomplete information. But that wasn't successful because of double jeopardy with Ashley Judd. They also asked Judge Kaufman to set aside his sentence.

But you can just guess how that went. Yeah, he wasn't going to do that on account of the... Being a racist douchebag. What if he'd said, I'm sorry, I'm just too racist. I'm just too racist. I'm not going to be able to do that. So their only path left, Brandy, was to push for a federal

civil rights case. Okay, great! How's that going? In November 1983, they prevailed. A federal grand jury indicted Ronald and Michael for violating Vincent Chin's right to enjoy a place of public accommodation. The defense did try to get this whole thing thrown out by arguing that federal civil rights laws only applied to African-Americans, but that didn't work. You're making that face again. Yeah, because it is.

It's very complicated. I mean, this is another group that's being discriminated against. They need their – they need to be protected. And, you know, it's funny. I wish I could go back and listen to some of those old radio interviews because it seems like Helen and Lisa did a really good job of being like, hey, we're not trying to compare. No. Because I mean, yeah, you can't compare to slavery. Yes.

But absolutely there's more than one group in this country that's going to get shit upon and is going to face discrimination. Yeah. So the federal trial began on June 5th, 1984, with a jury of seven women and five men. Theodore Merritt delivered the opening statement for the prosecution and said that what happened that night was a story of ugly racism, which turned violent. In his opening statement, Ronald's defense attorney, David Lawson, told the jury that it was pretty racism, which turned violent. I'm so sorry. He did not say that. I made that up just in the second.

No, so his tactic was to be like, hey, you know, here's how much the government has to prove to you guys. First of all, they need to prove that Ronald and Michael were responsible for Vincent's death, which I mean, come on. Yeah, that's not going to be a problem. But also they have to prove that he killed him because of his race and with the intent to stop him from enjoying a place of public accommodation. But they couldn't do that because this was a case of drunk men getting into a fight. Race had nothing to do with it. Yes, it fucking did. The only reason.

He paid somebody $20 to get the Chinese. chinese no the only reason we were all here little guys are the reason we're out of work or something to that effect motherfuckers yeah you you lightened it up i thought he said something about him being yeah little motherfuckers okay little motherfuckers okay the only reason we were all here is because Ronald and Michael were given probation, and that made Vincent's friends and family and his community very angry. And for that reason, racism had been put into this case, Brandy. Bull fucking shit. Yes, that's part of it.

Yes. case brandy bull fucking shit yes that's part of it yes it is a miscarriage of justice that they got only probation for murdering a young man please don't be hysterical but racism is part of it yeah it's a huge part of it racism is part of everything in this yes racism is part of the sentencing in addition to the claim. He said. Sorry for my primal square. He said that the testimony of witnesses would be distorted, fabricated, and changed to support the government's charges. Well, that's a bold fucking claim, sure.

Sure is. But, you know, they made up this whole thing, Brandy, to make it look like it was a hate crime. No! Nope. Nope. Oh, fuck. The jury heard from Vincent's friends

and from the dancers at the club so arguably the most important witness for the prosecution was racine caldwell who had overheard ronald say it's because of you little motherfuckers that were out of work she said that when ron said that vincent responded i'm not a little motherfucker and ron said well i'm not sure if you're a big one or a little one. And things devolved from there. Okay. So I didn't include this in my notes, but you know, during cross-examination, the defense I thought was so stupid. They get up there. He's like, so you liked Vincent Chin, right? And she's like, well, well i mean he was a customer i mean yeah i liked him all right you really you know you really liked him you know you wanted to keep him as a no i'm

a fucking stripper it's my job it's how i get more money well yeah it's like okay if someone tips well yeah i'm gonna go over to them like him tonight he's paying he's giving me money well and he was a regular so yeah but yeah i mean I mean, the idea is like, oh, yeah, you're like making this thing up because you're such good friends. No, no, this is a business transaction. It makes me think of that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. What scene? Where Jason Segel is like going to ask out Mila Kunis. He's like telling, I don't know, the bartender or something that he's going to.

And he's like, man, that's her job to act like she likes you. I bet you think strippers like you too. A classic film. It is a classic film. The surprise male nudity in that is just delightful. Have I laughed harder bad trip oh really have you watched bad trip i've not watched it yet you did recommend it to me there's a scene a non-consensual sexual relation scene with a gorilla

that really tickled me. The gorilla tickled you? In a way, yes. So the tough thing was that every Asian American who heard that sentence, it's because of you little motherfuckers that were out of work, knew that it was racially motivated. Yes! Can you? I cannot! There's no question here!

I'm banging my gavel! You're racist! You have no gavel! You are racist! I said it was a gavel. You have no gavel and you have no gavel and you have no navel. I do have a navel. Prove it.

You want to see it? You would never show it to me. I would not. You never nude. No. Racism. Check. Hate crime.

Check. Send these fuckers to federal prison. I would love that. Lock them up in Leavenworth. It's not going to happen, is it? I'm going to be real disappointed. Told you it was a bad story. Okay, great.

So the tough thing about that sentence is that it doesn't technically contain a racial slur. I know. Oh, get ready to be even more annoyed. Because even if it had contained a racial slur, under the law, that wouldn't necessarily be enough to prove that this was a racially motivated crime, which I personally think is bullshit. Yeah, it is. Honestly, I think you so much as utter a racial slur in the commission of a crime. Boom. Hate crime. Hate crime. What?

I would argue that you don't even have to do that for it to be a hate crime. What would you argue? If you are committing a crime. That's a terrible argument. You've got to use words in a court of law. Yeah, it's difficult to prove it. But yeah, if you're motivated to commit a crime purely based on the difference between your skin color

and somebody else's skin color, that's a fucking hate crime. Sure. Does it have to be purely because of that? I don't know. I don't think so. No. I mean I think even if it's a big factor.

Yeah. Anyway I'd like to toughen up these hate crime laws. I would too. Who do we write to? Also I'd like to say the hate crime does not have to only involve skin color. There's sexual orientation. There's all kinds of... We don't have all

goddamn day. We do not have all goddamn day to list all the categories that should be protected under hate crimes. Could we get like basic white bitches protected? No, but Kristen telling me these horrible stories should be considered a hate crime. I think a lot of our white listeners agree with you.

I really hate it when she does these ones. Makes me feel icky. Can we get back to just like other murders? Oh, that's going to go over great. Yeah. So the prosecution had to establish that when Ronald said, you motherfuckers, he meant people of Asian descent. And that was the reason he and Michael attacked Vincent. Jimmy Choi was another powerful witness. He told the jury about his experiences that night, and when he was cross-examined, the defense tried to use his own words against him from interviews he'd done with attorney Lisa Chan.

The defense's argument was that Lisa had coached the witnesses to help drum up this idea that Vincent had been murdered because of his race. idea that Vincent had been murdered because of his race. And that kind of held some weight because in his first talks with Lisa Chan, he didn't mention overhearing the men use a racist term, but he did mention it later. On the stand, Jimmy chalked it up to not wanting to talk about racism or race. That was just how he handled things. and that as time went on and he reflected more on that night, more memories came back to him. So I thought this was really interesting. One thing from Helen Zia's book, she talked about how when they first came up with this idea of what if we go after federal hate crime charges,

a lot of Asian-Americans were like, hold on. Can we do that without mentioning race? Why? Because I think at that time they did feel like they kind of occupied this weird middle ground maybe between black and white and it's like well if we don't make waves if we don't mention racism then fly under the radar yeah maybe it won't become worse for us yeah yeah that's really sad. I know. Yeah. So the defense argued that this was absolutely not a hate crime. This was simply a case where a bunch of drunk men had too much to drink and things got tragically out of hand.

Ronald testified in his own defense, but he did not do great on the stand because his memory was so bad. He had too much to drink that night. He couldn't remember much. Oh, but you know what he could remember? He remembered without a doubt that he never used any racial slurs and he never said, you little motherfuckers are the reason we're out of work. Oh, did he? What an interesting and incredibly selective memory. Am I right?

Yeah. That's such a weird thing that that's so common with people who testify in their own defense. Yeah, they forget the stuff that doesn't help them, but remember the stuff that does. Uh-huh. In closing statements, the defense reminded the jury that Vincent Chen wasn't perfect. He drank alcohol. He enjoyed going to topless bars. Titty bars.

He'd started a fight, and then he wanted to finish it. Bullshit. No. He ran away. He ran away. They tracked him down. And if loving titty bars is a crime, then lock me up. Lock me up. I was going to say, you're going to have to lock up a lot of people.

Yeah, exactly. If you're locking up everyone who wants to see some titties and go straws deep on some Sprite, am I right? That's right. Ultimately, the jury acquitted Michael, but they found Ronald guilty and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. But Ronald immediately appealed his conviction and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. But Ronald immediately appealed his conviction, and he was released on bond. And his appeal was successful. A federal appeals court found that Ronald had not been granted a fair trial due to a few errors. The biggest one was that the defense had argued that Lisa Chan had improperly coached the witnesses and that there were tapes of the coaching, but the judge hadn't allowed these tapes in as evidence.

What? OK. So I watched – I mean it was really interesting. I watched a reenactment of this trial and as part of it, they reenacted some of the alleged coaching and i think the thing you have to know is that lisa chan was like she was three years out of law school she wasn't trained as a litigator and so you watch it and it's like i mean yeah she is kind of telling people okay we all need to present the same story i mean it doesn and it's like, I mean, yeah, she is kind of telling people, OK, we all need to present the same story. I mean, it doesn't it's not great.

I can see where a defense could really pull that apart. Yeah. But at the same time, I absolutely believe this was a hate crime. Yeah. What? What? What? Isn't that something that happens to some degree? Like...

Yeah, I think maybe not everybody tapes it. Yeah, okay. All right. The prosecution decided to retry Ronald. And this time, they held the trial in Cincinnati. During jury selection, potential jurors were asked, do you have any contact with Asians? And what is the nature of your contact? Is that not the weirdest?

That's the weirdest fucking question. Any contact with Asians? Any contact with Asians? You got any contact with the whites? Wow. Okay. It's a question that makes me very uncomfortable. 180 people were in the jury pool and only 19 of them said they'd ever met an Asian American.

Really? Mm-hmm. One white lady who said she had Asian friends was dismissed. One woman who said that she didn't have Asian friends, but her daughter did, was dismissed.

One black man who said that he had served in Korea was dismissed. So, of course, the jury ended up being mostly white men. I want to say it was nine men, three women. The jury foreperson was a machinist who had been laid off after 30 years at his company. Great. The second case was a lot like the first.

I mean, this is how these always go. With the exception that Ronald Evans did not testify in his own defense this time. Oh, they decided maybe that was not a repeat deal. And on May 1st, 1987, the jury found Ronald not guilty. Great. Lily Chin was a wreck. She said, Vincent's soul will never rest. My life is over. It had been five years since her son's murder. In that time, she'd moved away from Detroit. She couldn't handle all the memories.

She'd lived with family in New York and San Francisco, but after this final blow, she couldn't take it anymore. She'd lived in America for 50 years, but after this, she was done. She moved back to China. She did file a civil suit against Michael and Ronald for the wrongful death of her son, and that suit was settled out of court on March 23, 1987. Michael was ordered to pay $50,000, and Ronald was ordered to pay $1.5 million. Ronald thought that amount of money was ridiculous. And so in 1989, he just stopped making payments. I didn't get into this too much, but there were a lot of stipulations. Like they couldn't put a lien on his house.

They couldn't take his pension. I mean, there were a lot of ways for him to not. Yeah. To live just fine and not pay it. Yeah. There were a lot of ways for him to not, to live just fine and not pay it. And so in 1997, the estate of Vincent Chin renewed their civil suit. But it doesn't look like that was effective because as of like 2015, Ronald owed them $8 million in interest. Oh, my gosh. So the loss of her son was devastating for Lily Chin, but Ronald, the guy who beat him to

death, seems to have lived a pretty normal life. He moved to Missouri and then to Nevada, and 30 years after Vincent's murder, a journalist tracked Ronald down in nevada the reporter convinced ronald to talk about the case ronald said that he was unable and unwilling to pay the money he owes the estate and he referred to the time he murdered vincent chin as quote the only wrong thing i ever did in my life um pretty big wrong thing there sir well it's like first of all that is total bullshit yeah and also even if that is the only wrong thing you murdered someone yeah probably shouldn't be sitting on your ass in nevada he said he was sorry kinda and that it wasn't racially motivated and there was fault to go around, you know. OK. The journalist asked him about his life and Ronald said that he just watches a lot of TV.

Cool. Specifically, America's Got Talent. Oh, real into America's Got Talent, huh? He said they've got good judges. And the journalist said, like the judges you got in your case? And then Ronald suddenly didn't feel so chatty anymore. Yeah. Michael, I assume, did his thing too. Neither one of them spent so much as a day in jail for Vincent's death. Are you done with this completely? You look... This is just, it's horrible. Yeah. This was all a terrible injustice, but thanks to the way that Asian Americans reacted and

organized around Vincent's death, this case became a jumping off point for a lot of good. First off, it was the catalyst for a lot of activism. It's the reason the American Citizens for Justice group is still around today and the reason for the creation of the Michigan Asian Pacific American Bar Association. It's also the reason that people began tracking hate crimes against Asian Americans. Wow. It got people talking about the fact that Wayne County prosecutors didn't typically show up for sentencing hearings, which is nuts. It's insane. This case showed how important it was for them to be there.

I mean, yeah, no shit. It also showed how important it was for a victim's family and friends to be notified about sentencing hearings. The case also established that Asian-Americans are to be protected by civil rights laws. A plaque in Ferndale, Michigan is dedicated to Vincent Chin, and its inscription ends this way. The case helped form the basis for state and federal charges on important legal issues dealing with hate crimes, minimum sentencing guidelines, and victims' rights. dealing with hate crimes, minimum sentencing guidelines, and victims' rights. If we couldn't bring justice to Vincent Chin, we had to make sure that his legacy, what we had learned and what we had fought for, didn't go away.

And I think they did. Yeah. And that's the story of Vincent Chin. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's horribly sad. And makes me so angry. Shout out to Sheree Ray. Sheree Ray

recommended that case? Well, a couple months ago, Sheree Ray and I were sitting around talking and we were talking about the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans. Mm-hmm. And she just, you know, in her very charade way was like, how many cases have you done about Asian Americans on the podcast?

I was like, okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, we've got to cover this stuff more. Yeah. This was so sad. Watching footage of Lily talk about her son, it was heartbreaking.

I mean, this just absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it broke her. And watching footage of these two guys. In one of the interviews with Ronald, he talked about how it was almost like it was predestined to happen. You know, just the way it all. Oh, yeah. It was predestined that you were going to murder some poor young man?

Mm-hmm. You know, it's like he had no control. It just, like, just happened. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Ugh. Hate that! All right.

You ready to hear about a murder mystery? I'm very excited. Oh, shit. I just kicked something. I thought that was an animal sneezing. No, it was my foot dragging a computer cord. Fun fact. Sounds exactly the same. I like it. No, it was my foot dragging a computer cord. Fun fact.

Sounds exactly the same. I like it. It was April of 2004 in Johnson County, Kansas. Oh, my God. And a young, beautiful, vibrant future podcaster that we all love was still recovering from that uncomfortable who the fuck is Kristen Pitts prom queen nominee incident. Weird. It wouldn't be an easy recovery. In fact, Kristen was forced to move across the country and attend a prestigious women's college in order to reinvent herself and show everyone who the fuck Kristen Pitts is.

I went to Simmons University, a.k.a. The Harvard of Boston. That didn't roll off your tongue nearly easily enough. My God. In all actuality, April of 2004 was a very exciting time for both of us. We attended our senior prom. We were counting down to graduation. And by April 25, 2004, we were less than a month out and looking forward to all that the future had in store for us.

Do you remember when we got in those inflatable sumo suits? Yeah. Did I beat you or did you beat me? You know, who can remember? I feel like I defeated you. I actually do think you beat me. Everyone, this was like an after prom activity. An after prom, yeah, thing.

To make sure that like we didn't all get drunk and stuff. And have sex. We had no plans to get drunk and have sex. Jokes on them. That's right. We got in those inflatable suits just for the fun of it. So we were very busy getting inflatable suits and, you know, had our sights set on the future. This is the only explanation I can offer as to how we took no notice of the murder mystery that was brewing in our own backyards.

A mystery about which many questions remain unanswered to this very day. I am fully titillated. Take me to the fancy pants bar. It was early Sunday morning, April 25th, 2004, when David Stagg called 911 in Shawnee, Kansas. He said that he just arrived at his partner's house and had found him dead. He told the dispatcher that he believed his partner, William Bill Jennings, had died by suicide. I think he choked himself, David said. There's blood all over. David went on to tell the dispatcher that he was worried about Bill because he'd been

struggling with his mental health in the previous months. He attempted suicide about six months earlier. And then the previous night, the two had gotten into a bit of a squabble and David had left after Bill had asked him to. But he'd come over that morning after being unable to reach Bill. Police were dispatched to the scene and a short time later, they arrived at the owned by bill jennings located at oh my god hold up okay yes 15910 west 75th terrace shawnee kansas okay pulling it up oh this is a beautiful home it's four bed four and a half bath almost five thousand square feet this is located in the forest park estates neighborhood which is this very fancy

neighborhood that is just like tucked back actually just like right behind the neighborhood you grew up in, Kristen. This house is exactly a two-mile drive from your home. Uh-huh. I was going to say it's by the movie theater that we would walk to sometimes. Sure is. Okay. It's a beautiful, beautiful home. It's a beautiful, beautiful home.

You're just going to have to wait while I do some more of my research. Do we get to – oh, there's a Zillow listing. The Zillow listing has pictures of the inside. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, it's so Johnson County. Look at that beige. It is very Johnson County beige. Oh my gosh. So these pictures I believe are from when the house was listed for sale in 2016.

The house was built in like 1992-ish. Hate those dining room curtains. Yeah, it's not decorated to my taste. Ew, what's with this wallpaper? I will tell you that. Are those faces of dogs? They're faces of something. Okay.

What? What are you what-ing? I'm having to look closer at the faces. They're not faces of dogs. Everyone, they're – They're faces of people. It's on the top wall. It's just – it looks like there's just stickers of faces.

Faces, yeah. Like four rows deep. Hideous. Mm-hmm. Okay. Black kitchen cabinets. Mm-hmm. Don't love it.

Mm-hmm. Oh, Beetlejuice striped master bath. I've got to stop saying master. Primary bath. Mm-hmm. The enslaver is deep inside me. Oh, that sounds like gross anyway. Jesus.

Sorry. I'm just ruined to my car. Oh, look at this backyard. Beautiful backyard. Yes, beautiful backyard. It's got a pool table in the basement. Woodsy. Woodsy.

What not? This neighborhood is what some might call an enclave. An enclave. Enclave. You cannot see it unless you are in it. It is completely secluded. Like you can't see from the highway even though it's just off the highway. I see.

Yes. I did a little looking into their HOA. They've got some real strict HOA rules. Like what? What are the rules? Oh, you can't park on the street. Oh, my God. One of these.

Yeah. Also, if you are going to park on the street, it has to be for less than 24 hours. And you need to have your emergency brake on because we don't need to be dealing with any more runaway cars. How often does this happen? Thankfully, the last time no one was injured, just that light pole. Are they allowed to have friends over? I mean... Yes. No RVs.

Yes, of course. And God gave you a driveway for a reason, so use it. Also, if you're considering doing any kind of anything outside, you better fill out a form first. You want to do so much of it as a gazing ball out there you're gonna need to get that approved also um someone we went to high

school with dad is the treasurer of the hoa oh yeah she's kyla's friend yeah yeah yeah okay i can picture her oh my gosh i wonder what she's up to. She has a couple kids. You weirdo. Does she still have pretty red hair? She does have pretty red hair, yes. Okay. Now who's the creep? Yeah.

So the police arrived at this very nice house in this very upscale neighborhood in Shawnee, Kansas, which is located right inside my Johnson County bubble. I was wondering where that sentence was going. Yeah, if this house was two miles from where you grew up, it's like 2.2 miles from where I grew up. Like, yes. When they arrived at Bill's home, they found that David had been right about one thing. There was blood all over.

And there was a suicide note, but – Well, is it common for people to – I mean how do we – are we talking belt? Can you keep your pants on? Sorry. Evidently not. So there was a suicide note, but my very next sentence, if you'd let me get to it, was that it did not look like a suicide to the police. Bill Jennings was found laying face down in his dining room. His neck was wedged into the curved wrought iron legs of a decorative birdcage.

Oh. Mm-hmm. Blood had pooled beneath him. But the scene looked as if a hell of a struggle had taken place. There was blood spattered throughout the house as if a physical altercation had started perhaps in the bedroom and then moved from room to room. Mm-hmm. And Bill was badly beaten.

So badly, in fact, that his veneers had been knocked off his teeth. Oh, wow. They were found on the living room floor. An autopsy would later determine that Bill Jennings had suffered several blows to the face, along with numerous abrasions, contusions and lacerations to the rest of his body. His cause of death was determined to be strangulation. And Mike Handler, who had performed the autopsy, believed the instrument of strangulation had been the legs of that decorative birdcage. Wow. That's really weird.

Yes. Super bizarre. Obviously, the scene did not match with David's claim that Bill had died by suicide, and he himself had admitted that he was with Bill on the night of his death and that they had argued. So investigators sat down with David at the Shawnee Police Department for a formal interrogation. But David was extremely cooperative. He told them that he and Bill had been in a romantic relationship for quite some time.

Every article I read just said like they'd been together for a long time. I don't know what a long time is. Years, I would assume. Yeah. So they'd been together for a long time. But in the last several months, Bill had been unhappy with how the relationship was going. He wanted David to spend more time with him, but their professional lives made that difficult. Dr. David Stagg was a professor of music at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.

He was a very well-respected professor. And according to RateMyProfessor.com, he was a strict but easy professor as long as you did as instructed. Strict but easy. Yes. He had very specific rules, but as long as you followed them, you were going to pass the class. Okay. He didn't assign homework and always gave his students a heads up on exactly what information would be on the test.

Also, according to RateMyProfessor.com, his music appreciation class was super boring. Well, you can't please everyone. Because he, quote, just rambles on like everyone knows what he's talking about. Oh, professors. And according to one reviewer, the class wouldn't be so bad if they knew everything about old music before they got there.

So if I knew the stuff before I showed up, it'd be better? Yeah. Cool. Another reviewer, though, said Dr. David Stagg was not to be trusted. Because he'll tell you he doesn't take attendance, but then he totally does, and he will mark you absent if you are not there. Okay, I'm on this person's side. I once had a writing professor who like, you know, he'd ask us if we had stuff to turn in. And if we didn't, he was like totally chill, totally fine.

And so it gives you this idea that like, oh, it's not a big deal if you don't have stuff. Then you get your grade at the end of the semester. It's like, oh, I guess it was a big deal. It was not totally fine, not totally chill. Okay. Somebody also left a review. Wait, how deep did you go into this? Rate my professor.

Everything. Yeah. Pretty deep. Okay. Somebody also said that he assigned all of his students to attend four music performances at the school over the semester. And that if you said you went to one, he'd totally check to see if you went to it. Okay. So don't try lying about it.

He'll know. Good heads up. Yep. In general, though, his reviews were quite good. He was described as fair and very approachable. Uh-huh. Because of his position at UCM, David maintained a home in Warrensburg during the week. And he co-owned a condo on the plaza.

So that's like Kansas City area. But most weekends he stayed with Bill at his home in Shawnee. Who did he co-own the place? I don't know. Huh. Okay. I couldn't find that. All right.

Bill Jennings had a great career of his own as a court reporter. He was actually the co-owner and co-founder of Metropolitan Court Reporters, which still operates today at a national level and holds its headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. Oh, all right. According to David Stagg, his relationship with Bill, like as I already mentioned, had been strained over the last six months or so because Bill wanted David to spend more time with him. But David just felt like Bill was being controlling. He told investigators that they had argued over just that the night of April 24th. David admitted that the argument had escalated at some point and that he and Bill had each pushed the other that evening. But sometime between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., Bill had asked David to leave and he had done so.

He'd gone to his condo on the plaza. Early the next morning, David had made multiple attempts to reach Bill, but he'd been unsuccessful. David left Bill a series of voicemails asking him to call him back, letting him know that he was worried. And the final one said, that's it, I'm coming over. David told investigators that when he arrived at Bill's house, he had found multiple doors to the house open, including the door leading from the house to the garage. And inside the garage, he had found Bill's car running. In the kitchen, he had also found two of the gas burners on the stove turned on and all the way up. And then he'd located a suicide note.

So all of that together paired with Bill's previous battles with his mental health made David believe that Bill had died by suicide. that he'd strangled himself with the birdcage and beaten himself to the point that his veneers came off. Was it that the scene was so confusing that he couldn't quite see it, or was it that he did this and was making up a really stupid lie? It's a great question. Thank you. Mm-hmm. So the police were like, yeah, that story's, like, great and everything,

but the scene just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. But, like I said, David was extremely cooperative. I just hit a button and my whole screen moved and now I don't know where I am at all. Wonderful. David consented to a full search of his car, his homes.

He allowed his body to be looked over. He cooperated completely with investigators. By this point, they had determined that Bill's death was not a suicide. Of course not. There's not a chance. He had been murdered. He had been beaten to death. And then, well,

combination of beaten and strangled. Yeah. They believed that whoever had done this would have extensive defensive wounds

and that their clothes would have been covered in blood from the altercation. And of course, their first suspect was David Stagg. Obviously. He put himself at the scene. He even admitted they'd been in a physical altercation.

Did he have defensive wounds? Well, no. Wow. Police searched his house, his car, his clothes, his body. They found not a drop of blood and not a single scratch on David Stagg's body. Oh. Mm-hmm. Nothing. Nothing.

So who did it? That's the question, right? Yes, Brandy. According to the police, David Stagg did it. Well, I mean, probably not, though, if he doesn't have a scratch on him. In August of 2005. Oh, no, Brandy. David Stagg was arrested and charged with the murder of Bill Jennings.

He was ordered to be held on $750,000 bond. Shit. Mm-hmm. At the time of his arrest, UCM was asked what action they would be taking against the professor, and this is what they had to say. He has proven himself an effective teacher and someone who is always willing to share his expertise with students and colleagues. As the university prepares for the fall 2005 semester, it will also await further information related to the investigation before making a decision about Dr. Stagg's future at the university. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. Sure. That they didn't jump to a Sure.

That they didn't jump to a conclusion here because this case is – it's messy as fuck. In December of 2005, a hearing was held to determine if there was enough evidence to take this case to trial. There's probably not. But I'm guessing that won't stop them. At this hearing before District Court Judge John Anderson III, the judge heard from friends and colleagues of Bill Jennings, many of whom said he was battling with his mental health and had previously attempted suicide. Okay, but that has nothing to do with this because this was not a suicide.

So what the hell are we doing talking about that? What is it? Someone beat the shit out of him. Someone killed him. Yeah, I would say that. So who else was in his life? It's a great question. It appears that they never looked at anybody other than David Stagg.

Well, that's nuts. Carol Dorothy, Bill's co-owner and co-founder of his court reporting business, she testified that Bill had confided in her that he wanted to end his relationship with David, but that he lacked the strength to do so. She also testified that she suspected that David was abusive to Bill. She said their relationship seemed to be becoming more complicated, volatile, and unstable. At this hearing, the 911 call was played, At this hearing, the 911 call was played and the voicemails that David had left for Bill before coming over to the house were played. And Mike Handler testified about the cause of death and the results of the autopsy. And he was asked, you know, what he had determined the cause of death to be. And he said that he had determined it was strangulation by the legs of that birdcage.

And when the assistant district attorney asked him if he thought it was a suicide, Mike Handler said, no way. What did the suicide note say? It's interesting that you ask that. So I only saw a snippet of it, but the very first line was, this has nothing to do with David. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Mm-hmm. OK. So at this point, the prosecution had put together a theory that David and Bill had argued that night and that it had become physical and that David had beat the hell out of Bill and then strangled him using the leg of the birdcage and then had used his history of suicidal thoughts and tendencies to make it look like a suicide. That he had gotten on Bill's laptop, written up a fake suicide note, printed it out, made sure to put in the very first line, this has nothing to do with David. This has nothing to do with David. He'd moved Bill's car into the garage, left it running, turned on those burners, and then left the house, cleaned himself up, and then stumbled upon the scene the next day. He'd made those calls intentionally so it wouldn't look like he hadn't made any attempt to contact Bill in the time that he left. And it was all a cover up. Not a great one.

But a cover up. This is a tough one. It's really tough. It's really tough. At this hearing, they also presented like a profile or a report from some DNA testing that had been done at the scene. And that report was done by the Johnson County Crime Lab. And they had determined that all the blood that was found at the scene belonged to Bill Jennings. Nobody else's blood was there. Wow. Okay. And so based on all of that information, the judge determined that there was enough evidence for this to go to trial.

And he scheduled that trial for the fall of 2006. No. Mm-hmm. Jeez. Mm-hmm. So in August of 2006, just like the month before the trial was supposed to begin, a month or two, the defense actually filed a motion to have this case dismissed. Sure. Due to prosecutorial misconduct. Oh.

Because the prosecution had withheld DNA evidence from them. prosecution had withheld DNA evidence from them. So that DNA report that they'd given to the judge at that preliminary hearing to see if this could go to trial, well, it was incomplete. Those fuckers. Bill Jennings' blood was not the only blood that was found at the scene. Uh-huh. Somebody else's blood was found there, too. Well, whose?

It wasn't enough to determine whose. It was enough to determine it wasn't David Stagg's. Oh. Mm-hmm. Ugh. So what happened was, okay, so the investigators process this. They process the DNA. They get a DNA report back.

I don't know. Throw away the last page of it so no one sees this. DNA report back. I don't know. Throw away the last page of it so no one sees this. And then they are required to send off the remaining sample to an independent crime lab of the defense's choosing. So the second crime lab gets a sample and they're like, there's another person's DNA in this. And they're like, it's not enough of a sample for us to be able to identify it, but we can – Rule some people out.

Yes, and they were able to rule out David Stagg definitively. They were also able to rule out David Stagg as the origin of the DNA found under Bill Jennings' fingernails. Shut up. Mm-hmm. DNA found under Bill Jennings' fingernails. Shut up. Mm-hmm. Did David hire someone to kill him? I think that's a possibility. So they present this motion to get this case thrown out. And the prosecution is like, hold, hold, hold.

This was no prosecutorial misconduct. Well, it absolutely was. Everybody just loves throwing that phrase around these days. What we did was just follow standard operating procedure. No, you didn't. We took the best part of the sample and we tested it. And oh, it's just – we did get the full report eventually to the defense, but it was just a little delayed. So they did, you know, we eventually got it to them.

And then a per standard operating procedure, that best part of the sample was then destroyed. We sent a small portion of the sample to the independent crime lab of the defense's choosing. And we're sorry that it wasn't enough of a sample to determine. Are you sorry? No. Yeah.

No. Yeah. And so it was determined that the case should move forward. What? Yes! Yeah. Mm-hmm.

The defense was like, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence against Mr. Stagg. Dr. Stagg. Thank you very much. But they didn't call him that. And so, it was determined that this would go to trial.

I hate it. So in September of 2006, David Stagg went on trial in a Johnson County courtroom for the murder of Bill Jennings. The prosecution laid out their theory to the jury. They said, you know, there was an argument. to the jury. They said, you know, there was an argument. Maybe Bill tried to break up with David that night. Some kind of altercation happened. It got out of hand and David killed Bill and then attempted to make it look like a suicide. He used his mental health battles against him to try and cover up the horrible thing he had done. Well, no, he didn't. I mean if it was someone else's DNA there. Yeah.

So the prosecution is like, look, he typed up a suicide. How do you know that? Well, here's how we know it. We did some very sciencey science and we analyzed the laptop computer and we were able to determine that the file that the suicide note was written in was saved in a different manner than any other file on Bill Jennings' laptop. OK. So that is interesting. Yeah.

I mean that says that probably he wasn't the one who wrote it. Yeah. That doesn't prove that David's the one who wrote it. That David wrote it. Exactly. And then don't you think it's pretty suspicious that the first line of the suicide note is this has nothing to do with David? Don't you think only David would write that? I mean I do think it's kind of suspicious I do too

but it doesn't mean that David's the killer no it does mean he's the killer no it really doesn't and so the prosecution's like yeah this is your killer right here he's the last person to see him alive he admits that they had a physical altercation that night he's the one who

discovers the body he's the one who spun this whole narrative. And then the defense gets up and they're like, um, hello, let me talk to you about DNA. Y'all heard of DNA? Yeah. And they're like, yeah, there, uh, something horrible happened in this house that night, but you know what? A third person was present because we've got DNA of a third person. We also have a fingerprint on a glass in the kitchen. To this day, the prosecution cannot tell you who those belong to, who the fingerprint belongs to, who that DNA belongs to. belongs to.

Mm-hmm. But the prosecution countered that in order to acquit David Stagg, the jury would have to believe that a phantom third party had come in to Bill Jennings' home

that night and murdered him just after he'd written up a suicide note. No. They could believe that this other person came, committed the crime, and then wrote the suicide note themselves. That's stupid. Or they could believe that David wrote the note. He hired someone else to come kill the guy.

Yeah. I hate it when they do the phantom argument. Well, your phantom left DNA. So they're not a fucking phantom. Yeah. We all know that DNA. That phantoms do not have DNA. Duh.

Duh. The jury deliberated for 11 hours. How? Over two days. No. And then they sent a note. Oh, shit. They were hopelessly deadlocked.

And devoted to you. They were split nine to three. Really? In favor of what? In favor of conviction. What? Uh-huh. Yup.

So the judge declared a mistrial and everyone was back in court in March of 2007 to do it all again. Okay. The trial was essentially a carbon copy of the first.

Please repeat everything you've just said. I will not. But only this time, the defense had some extra evidence. A piece of hair had been found at the crime scene. It had been caked in blood and it was like stuck to the wall and it had never been tested. So between the first trial and the second trial, the defense had it tested. And it was not a match to Bill Jennings or David Stagg. Oh, my God. It's more proof that somebody else was in the house that night. Yeah.

So both sides present their case. The defense presents this new DNA evidence that they didn't have at the first trial. And then just after they rested their case, but before the case was sent to the jury, the defense entered a motion for the case to be dismissed. And the judge said he wouldn't rule on that until after the jury finished deliberating. Well, what? Yeah. The judge was like, let me marinate on that. Let's let the jury deliberate and see what they come up with.

Oh, no. That doesn't – that's not how that works. I don't think it's how it should work. So – Well, if they acquit him, then couldn't the judge in theory dismiss it and then he could be tried again? No. But we'll get to that. OK.

OK. tried again? No. But we'll get to that. Okay. Okay. So the jury deliberates and deliberates and deliberates and deliberates and deliberates. And again they are hopelessly deadlocked. Yeah. This time they were split three to nine.

Nine in favor of acquittal. This is so weird yeah okay and so again a mistrial was declared yeah so a couple weeks goes by the judge is like marinating on the dismissal motion that the that the defense had submitted and then finally everybody is back in court and the prosecution is like, please don't dismiss the charges because if the judge dismisses the charges, David Stagg is legally acquitted of the crime. Oh.

If the judge dismisses the charges. OK. If the prosecution dismisses the charges, then they can come back and charge him at a later date. I didn't realize that. OK. Yes. And so they're like – the prosecution is like, please do not dismiss the case. Yeah.

Let us go back, find some stronger evidence, and let's retry this. This is your second try. That's exactly what the fucking judge said. The judge is like, are you fucking kidding me? You want to go find stronger evidence? You've already had two tries at this. Yeah. He said, what I expected here, a second trial was that the state was ready to go ahead and

they had their strongest case ready. Right. That's ridiculous. He said that he knew of no cases in the county or state that had gone to trial three times after two hung juries. And he said he couldn't remember a murder case that was as tenuous as this one. Absolutely. He said that he didn't believe that the prosecution's evidence got any stronger between the first and second trial. So why would it get stronger on a third trial? He told the prosecution, you've put a monkey on my back.

Yeah. And he said, you should have dismissed this case if you weren't ready to come in here and immediately. Yes, this is on you. This is on you. And he said, there is not sufficient evidence in this case. Mm-hmm. And he dismissed the charges. He said, I believe that to rule otherwise would be wrong. Yeah.

And so the charges against David Stagg were dismissed by the judge, which means he was effectively acquitted of all of the charges and cannot be retried. Are you going to come out with something like then they found the real evidence and – No. That's where the case ends. Yeah. OK.

It's never been solved. A third person is obviously involved. Yes. Because they left DNA at the scene. The prosecution had this theory that they tried to bring into trial that there was – because they never found any kind of weapon because he had – because – I'm sorry. Bill Jennings had blunt force trauma to his body, to his face, to his – they had this theory that there was this decorative egg in Bill's house that had some heft to it and that David had used that to beat Bill with, which is why he didn't have any physical injuries on his body. Even if he did, he would still probably have some physical injuries. And so the judge ruled that they couldn't bring that argument into trial because they had no

proof that that decorative egg was involved in any way. Well, and doesn't it seem much more likely that this third person took off with the murder weapon? Yes. Yes. David Staggs' colleagues and the university all stayed by him the whole time. He had like dozens of supporters in the courtroom with him every day. A bunch of people wrote letters to the editor at the Kansas City Star defending him saying that this was like a witch hunt and like why would they try him again after the first trial when there's no evidence here. All it did was effectively bankrupt David Stagg.

His defense ended up costing him like $400,000. He did keep his job at the university. He retired from there at some point. There's still a trombone scholarship there in his name. Wow. Yeah. Bill Jennings' family believes that David Stagg is responsible for Bill's death. They believe that he murdered him

and that he's gotten away with it. There is an entry on findagrave.com that claims to be written by Bill's cousin. It talks a little bit about his life. Bill looked shockingly similar to Freddie Mercury. I have a picture here to show you. Okay, look at this. This is the picture that's on his headstone. Oh gosh, he sure did. He looks so much like Freddie Mercury. Yeah. So there's an entry on Find a Grave here that claims to be written by his cousin and talks a little bit about his life and all stuff that can be found in other articles.

But at the end, it says the one who did this has since been found convicted and is serving a life sentence. But that's not true. Nobody has been convicted of this crime. Maybe they meant convicted of something else and is serving a life sentence. I don't know. But I think this is a real mystery. That's so interesting. There are so many unanswered questions in this.

Oh. The prosecution did a shit job. Oh, they did a terrible job. When they were trying to go for a third trial, they argued to the judge. Hey, we did effectively convince 12 jurors of his guilt. No, you don't get to add them up. Are you serious? Yeah.

That is the dumbest thing. That was their argument. You had nine on one trial, three at the other. Get out of here. Let us have another try at it, won't you judge? Oh, that's just infuriating. Yeah. Yeah.

They would have been better off just asking for what they wanted and shutting the FUD. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. What do you think? I think the most likely scenario is, yeah, that David paid somebody to have Bill murdered. But what did he gain from it? That's the thing that I can't figure out.

What would he have gained from it? Yeah. He didn't stand to gain any life insurance possibly. He didn't get his estate. That all went to his siblings. I looked at the probate court records. It doesn't even seem like it was contested. His estate was split into three equal parts and given to each of his siblings.

So even that doesn't make sense. Yeah, so in that case, it's like, well, it's more likely to be a crime of passion if no one's going to benefit. Yeah. Somebody else was present in that house. Well, sure. They left their DNA. But who the fuck was it?

This happened right in our town that's wild i had never heard of this no me neither there's like either very minimal coverage of this hmm i went down a very deep rabbit hole. There was – OK. So there was a show done at some point for an ID show that's no longer around. It's called Forensics. You decide. And they present for you basically what the prosecution did for their forensic testing and what the defense did for their forensic testing.

So something I didn't mention. The defense actually had this software guy come in and do an analysis of all of the stuff that was written on Bill's computer. He had actually – this is really sad. He had multiple suicide notes saved on his computer that he'd written over an extended amount of time. And they did an analysis on those through this software program compared to the one that was found at the scene. That's what I was about to ask because someone's writing style. Oh.

It matched the writing style. Huh. I mean, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean that's interesting. Still not enough for me. No, I agree. I don't – what scenario would lead to this being an actual suicide when the scene looks like that?

Exactly. None. I can't think of any. To me it does – so it was printed out and found at the scene? Mm-hmm. So to me that takes me more down the road of David of like someone who knows what's on his computer. Yeah. And would just print something out.

Mm-hmm. I don't know. See, it's a mystery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe this even got to court. I can't either. They really didn't have much of anything on him.

Nothing. It went to trial twice. And the prosecution wanted to do it a third time. Well, they had 12 jurors convinced, Brandi. Oh, my. Okay,ors convinced, Brandy. Oh, my. Okay, well told, my friend. Thank you. Thank you.

Should we take some questions from our Discord now? I believe we should. How do you get in there? All you have to do is sign up for our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. Oh. And then you get to ask little questy questions no relation to mrs pots and chips is brandy which side of tiktok are you on now mom talk cooking talk any favorite videos lately okay so i think i'm on my algorithm i think is very weird

a little bit everything i am on mom talk i'm also on like crime talk where people are like rehashing you know true crime stuff i'm also on real life soap opera tiktok there has been a whole have you been seeing this here's here's the thing i don't like i don't like it when i have to go find part two of something yeah and so i get angry when someone gets me all interested. There has been, I don't know, a love triangle happening on TikTok. I can't even keep up with it all. And let me tell you, I have watched like four or five recap TikToks about what is going on,

and I still don't understand it all. It's a mess. You know what I get a lot of? And I'm just now realizing, I mean, now that you're saying this, like something I get a lot of, and you wouldn't think there'd be so many of these, but it's like women chopping up salad and they're telling stories about how their mother-in-law doesn't like it. Oh yeah. It feels oddly toxic. Toxic mother-in-law doesn't like oh yeah it feels toxic mother-in-law um so this video that i really like right now is like it's gone like

super viral and it's this guy at um at mardi gras and he's just like holding his drink all the floats are going by and he's singing thinking with my dick it's so good how many times have you watched that video he is a whole vibe it's so good also because of you i you never stand too close to the sidewalk yeah is that you never stand too close to the sidewalk? Yeah. Is that the, you never stray too far from the sidewalk? Oh, I stand too close to the, that really doesn't make any sense. No, I have the, let's get dressed. Oh my God, I love that lady.

I fucking love her. Someday I will be as chic as she is. Oh yeah? I'm going to wear harnesses. Yeah. I'm going to have all the designer bags uh-huh i can't wear the shoes she wears but i she's so fucking cool she's so cool and then the way she says done yes oh and she's just like she puts like a trench on uh-huh and then she ties it. Yes. And she's like, perfect. Fuck.

She's so fucking cool. The mayor is calling for the FBI, says, my husband thinks it's okay to switch sides of the bed on a whim. How do you all feel about this? He claims it is absolutely normal for couples to not have a designated side of the bed and that I'm the crazy one for insisting on sides. Okay. No, your husband is sides. Okay. No. Your husband is wrong. Yeah.

No. He's cocoa nuts. Yeah. You absolutely. Everybody has a side of the bed. Pick a side. Yeah. Even when Norm just like sits on my side for a minute.

I'm like. What the fuck are you doing on my side? Hello. Even if we're in a hotel. Are you lost? Even if we're in a hotel, we stick to the same side. Same sides. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. No, there's a designated side of the bed. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. David and I attempted to switch sides of the bed after we had London because I wanted to be closer to her bassinet. Mm-hmm. And it had to be just because of

the way our room was laid out on the opposite side of the bed. Yeah. And I could not sleep. I could not get comfortable on his side of the bed. And so we had to rearrange everything so I could have my side of the bed and have London next to me. I completely understand. Nat Likes Cat says, do you ever look up yourselves or your friends at family on newspapers.com?

I just got a free trial in TakeAllMyMoneyNewspapers.com because I'm having a great time looking up everyone I know and don't know. I may or may not know that Brandy ran track in high school. That's a different Brandy. And Kristen won a lot of writing awards. True story. I'm not a creep, I promise. Kristen won a lot of writing awards. Dot, dot, dot. True story. I'm not a creep.

I promise. Yes, Kristen did win writing awards. That's some other Brandy that ran track. I have a cousin named Brandy Pounds. Do you really? Yes. That's just lazy. Yes.

Who was born first? I was. Damn it. Yeah. I'm the original it. Yeah. I'm the original BP. Yeah. But I think she ran tracks. That's probably my cousin.

It's actually technically my dad's cousin's kid, which makes us – Don't even worry about it. Who fucking knows. Okay. You know what's weird? What? My dad's cousin's kid is named Michelle Pitts. Oh, and you're Kristen Michelle Pitts.

Well, they were going to name me Michelle Pitts, but I think she came first. She came first. The chicken came before the egg, so she got the Michelle. She got the Michelle. Mm-hmm. That's a fascinating story. Creamy Boy here wants to know candy or chocolate, and I would like to know what the fucking difference is. All candy is not chocolate, but isn't all chocolate candy?

Yeah. Yeah. So I will take candy because it also includes chocolate. Wow. Wow. Talk about a real includes chocolate. Wow. Wow. Talk about a real loophole. Beat the game. Oh, my gosh.

Honk if you're gay says your pronunciation of emphasis and syllable are very weird. I'm from Florida. Is it a northern thing? No, it's from a movie. Brandy. I was going to say it is oh i'm sorry no we're quoting a movie when we say that i know everyone outside of florida says emphasis and syllable what's i put the emphasis on the wrong syllable is it view from the top i honestly have no idea anymore. Yeah.

We've done it forever. We saw the movie when we were 13. We lads. Yeah. I don't know. Creamy Boy. Oh,

she and I already asked a question by Creamy Boy. I don't care. Creamy Boy, you get all the questions this time. What's your favorite perfume? Do you have a favorite perfume?

I'm looking for a new one. It's kind of a sensitive topic, if you must know. I have a couple. Bulgari. Au Te Blanc. It's white tea. It smells just fresh, clean. It's amazing.

I also love Glossier You. It smells so good. Some people think it's a little strong. What's it smell like? It smells different on every person. Oh, that's marketing bullshit, Brandy. That's a bunch of mumbo jumbo. No, I'm at that point where I'm like, I want a new perfume, but I want to use up my current perfume because –

So you're just putting on that navy like it's – Navy? Yeah. You ever heard of navy? It's like old lady perfume. How dare you? It was big in the early 90s. No.

The old lady perfume. If you're going to reference an old lady perfume, it's White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor. Yeah. My grandma had like – oh, it was very fancy, you know, because White Diamonds, like there were, they made a bunch of those little fuckers. Yeah. And so she had like a holiday gift set. Oh, yeah.

It was all the little bottles and it was like so fancy that it couldn't be used. So it sat atop her toilet for years. Oh, yeah. I have a perfume tray in my bedroom. I know you do. Mm-hmm. With all my beautiful bottles of scents on it. And I use two of them.

It's got Curious by Britney Spears. How dare you? I did tell a story on here about the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen perfume, didn't I? Ew, what? I swear I've told that on the show before. Did they create a perfume? Yeah, they made a perfume, and I found it on clearance for like $6. Oh, you did tell the story.

At a Sears store. It was going out of business. And it smelled amazing, and I loved it. But then when people asked me what I was wearing, I was too embarrassed to say, so I just stopped wearing it. Well, if people kept asking, you should have just made it up. I should have. That's my own scent. It's my natural smell.

Comes out of my holes. Oh, God. That's just an idea for you of what you can say to people. Bidets for Brandy wants to know what kind of house plants do y'all have? Kristen's kind of into plants these days. I don't have any plants in my house. I have all of them. You got all the plants. What do you got? I got snake plants. Yeah.

Really, I mean, here's the thing. I go to Ikea. Yeah. I find plants that don't need a ton of sun and I buy them. Yeah. I don't look at the hinga-dinga-dergan words on the side of them. So I'm not really sure. The only ones I really know are snake plants, because, like, that's, yeah.

Snake plant, very recognizable. You got any spider plants? Oh, yeah. I do. Thank you. I thought so. Appreciate you. Casey Muller Bunnell wants to know, I've been waiting all day for this.

At the end of the podcast when you say, go on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review, I believe I say a five-star rating and review. Yeah. So get it right or pay the price. Let's not get technical. Why is it specifically Apple Podcasts? Do you accept reviews from other podcast platforms? Yes. Please leave us if you like the podcast.

Specifically, if you like the podcast, leave us a review wherever you want. I mean, if you want to write it on a bathroom wall, that would be wonderful. Specifically, the Apple Podcasts, those reviews, I don't know. They maybe help us in the charts a little bit. It's where most people listen to podcasts. Correct. Like 83 percent of our listeners are through Apple podcasts. And that really helps with the charts.

So that's just, you know. That's why we specifically say that one. But, yeah, if you want to leave a review for us somewhere else, if you want to tattoo it on your ass, we would love it. Please don't do that. Don't throw it out there and pretend you don't want it. Speaking of asses. What? You were very rude

to me. I was? Everyone, I've told you on the podcast before about how when I ask for dibs on a case, I send Brandy a sexy pic as a thank you. And usually it's like a close-up of my fingers together so it kind of looks like a butt. But every time you know that it's not my butt.

And every time I've been thinking, gosh, I wish I was wearing short sleeves because I've got a real meaty upper arm. Yeah, like an elbow pit yeah and i knew that if i just squeezed that together and zoomed my camera in real close that would look like a juicy booty and so i sent it to brandy and she was turned on i was and what did i say you i asked you if it fooled you and you said it didn't because you knew that my butt wasn't really that juicy. That is rude and I apologize. Sad but true is the thing. Also, there are no zits on my arms arm so that's how you also knew

uh brandy's hoe face wants to know oh this is a question just for me oh just for you can you touch your tongue to your nose oh my god she can everyone ew fun. She's picking her nose. I am not. But yes, I can. I have a really long tongue. Okay. Freakishly long. I think it's fitting that your ho-face asked you this. Oh, Karen Like the Memes asks, I just purged a ton of my kids' toys.

Are you purgers or keepers? I'm a purger. I donate shit all the time. You really do. i'm a purger i donate shit all the time you really do yeah you also change your stuff up all the time yeah i find it disgraceful i like to i like to keep it moving i know you do and i like a museum no i like i think especially from doing the podcast with you. Yeah. I know more about like how many couches you go through.

Yeah. Yeah. But I don't buy expensive couches. No, no, no. I'm not saying you do. Current couch. I don't buy expensive couches either, but I keep them forever. Hold on to them.

Okay. When Norman and I moved to Kansas City. Yeah. We bought a recliner, a love seat and a couch. Yeah. For $300. them. Okay. When Norman and I moved to Kansas City, we bought a recliner, a love seat, and a couch for $300. Okay? Total. Total. We kept those puppies until two years ago?

Yeah. Yeah. So that's my situation. Yeah, I really need to learn from you because I really need to get rid of stuff. Yeah, I just – I don't want stuff hanging out too long. No, I had a morbid thought the other day of like what if Norman and I get hit by a bus? And like then my family has to come sort through all this crap. That's not fair.

But how could I get rid of a concealer that I bought five years ago? You just get rid of it. It's practically new. And that thing just goes straight into the trash. See, that's where I'm fucked up. I'm like, I want to donate it. Well, no. That needs to go into the trash.

I know. Shelf life is done. That's what they say. But is it really? That's real, yes. I don't know that it is. If you weren't using five-year-old makeup, you probably wouldn't have to do the beauty regime that you go through. You are in rare form.

So you're saying if I switched up often enough, I could sleep in my makeup? Like you? I'm nothing like you. I'm nothing like you. All right. Let's take some Supreme Court inductions.

We don't take Supreme Court inductions. We do Supreme Court inductions. Oh, wow. Why'd your color change?

Biscuits get done. We get finished. What is that? Don't worry about it. What is that? It's a Johnson County mystery.

What episode number are we on? 205? Chickens get plucked. Eyebrows get tweezed. That's not how it goes. That's what we say. Oh.

In the cosmetology world, what do you say? Chickens get plucked. Brandy gets fucked. Oh, comedy gold. She didn't see it coming. Zing. Anyway, are we on episode 206? And I don't see your...

Kristen doesn't look as pink as it once was. Oh, rude. Why is it like purple-y now? Did you change your color? Is that a thing? What do you mean? I'm just orange. And you're like fuchsia now. Did you change your color? Is that a thing? What do you mean? I'm just orange. And you're like, you're like fuchsia now.

You used to be hot pink. Now you're, no, you're more magenta-y now. What color is this? Okay, everyone, she's talking about my cursor. In case there's some confusion. Obviously sounds like she's talking about my vulva, but. Did it? This is a legitimate question.

Did it change colors? I don't know. Here's what I would wonder. Maybe I have this document up on my computer downstairs. Yeah. Or it's conspiracy. It probably is. Anyway.

Nobody cares. We're going to continue reading your names, favorite cookies. Jen. Oatmeal with raisins. Some people say oatmeal with raisins. Not Jen. Oatmeal with raisins. Alicia.

Peanut butter blossoms. Dana D. Domino's pizza chocolate dipped cookie. Oh, is that one? I don't know. That was a thing. Okay. All Pizza Chocolate Dipped Cookie. Oh, is that one? I don't know. That was a thing. Okay. All right.

Brooke Isley. Kroger Brand Fudge Enrobed Peanut Butter Shortbread Cookie. Enrobed. Fudge Enrobed. I want to be enrobed in fudge. Rich Court. Tim Tam. Mads.

Literally any chocolate cookie. Anne F. Ginger Thins from Ikea. I didn't even know Ikea had that. I probably love that. Have you had it? Of course I have. I mean, when I go get the plants, I also get the Hinger Dinger Flinger Thins.

They have Mandelflore in Ikea. Julie Nosko. Classic Dark Tim Tams. Mallory. Oatmeal milk chocolate chip cookies. Nicole. Chocolate chip soft batch cookies. Liz Crumbly.

Anything caramel. Katie S. Pepperidge Farm Nantucket cookies. Katie B. Homemade chocolate chip almond flavored cookies. Ooh, that sounds good. Fritz. Oh my God.

Mellow Macarona. Hey, Macarona. Fritz says these are Greek honey cookies. And you must eat them while you do the Macarona. I don't think that's a thing. Amanda Goldsmith. Chocolate chip. Rachel J.

Savannah Smiles. Girl Scout cookie, which they sadly don't make anymore. That is sad. Does Savannah not smile anymore? Savannah, say it. Denise. Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip. That's Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip. That's Nestle Tollhouse.

Welcome to the Supreme Court. Thank you, everyone, for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen

and then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. And don't you leave them anywhere else. And be sure to join us next week

when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned! And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts.

I got my info from The Killing of Vincent Chin Trial Reenactment by UC Hastings Law, the book Asian American Studies Now by Helen Zia, and an article from CNN by Harmeet Kaur titled, Vincent Chin's family never got the justice they wanted, but his case changed things for those who came after him. That does, in fact, give it all away. The whole damn thing. I got my info from reporting by Diane Carroll for the Kansas City Star, Caroline Boyer for the Shawnee Dispatch,

and the Associated Press. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.