True Crime with Kendall Rae - Caryn Kelley & Phillip Peatross – Murder or Accidental Death?

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Phillip Peatross was an easy-going, friendly, family-oriented man who started dating Caryn Kelley after the two met at the Hard Rock Hotel. After a little over a year together, Peatross was shot and killed in 2011, and after it was determined the story of the situation was just too unclear, Kelley’s motive was questioned. Donate to NCMEC through my campaign!  https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Shop my charity merch! https://milehighermerch.com/  All profits from this charity merch will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: https://www.missingkids.org/  This episode is sponsored by: ZocDoc Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

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Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you here. If you're new, welcome. So today we're going to be talking about a that I've wanted to talk about for a while because people in general are really split on this case and I'm very curious to hear your thoughts and theories. Today we're gonna be talking about Karen Kelly and the death of Philip Petros.

So this case kind of begins in 2010 when Philip and Karen met. Karen Kelly was a real estate agent at the time. Her birthday is January 19th. She was born in 1965 in Ohio. And around this time in 2010, April of 2010, she was visiting the Hard Rock Hotel for a concert. And that's where she met Philip.

Now, Philip was born on July 21st, 1965, same year as Karen in Orlando, Florida. And as he got older, he stayed in his hometown of Orlando, and he worked as a pool contractor around the time that he met Karen. People describe Philip as a kind and gentle man. Even though he had a pretty athletic muscular build, he was a big teddy bear inside. He was not an aggressive type of person. He was known to be very, very friendly. He had a great smile and everyone he knew

said he had an incredible sense of humor. Philip was just very well liked by the people in his life. He was also a family man. He was the father of four daughters who he loved more than anything in the world. Two of his daughters were biological and two of them he adopted and their names were Amanda, Miss of them he adopted and their names were Amanda, Missy, Jaina and Jennifer. His daughters absolutely loved their dad and thought

he was a great father and so did everyone around him. It was very evident how much he cared for them. And he was married to the mother of the girls for a while. Her name is Sandra and they ended up separating and it was very, very hard on him. But after they separated, he started dating some other people. He had two serious girlfriends after Sandra, Tamara, and Karen. Before Philip and Sandra separated, they had been together for two decades,

and they had a good marriage up until the point when it all fell apart, because Sandra actually cheated on him, and it broke his heart. A lot of people in his life said that he never truly got over what Sandra did to him. And once they split, they had a really toxic, horrible relationship. Even though they had children together, they barely spoke and things were just really

tense in their family. They pretty much would only communicate with each other when they absolutely had to, mostly regarding their kids, and it was only done over text. So when Karen and Philip met in 2010, they started dating pretty quickly, and Karen said that even though she could tell, he was still in pain and hadn't fully gotten over

what had happened with Sandra. She said she still felt like he really cared for her. She said he always treated her extremely well and she was really excited to start dating him. Just like other people, Karen said that Philip was a very kind and gentle man. In fact, he really was a gentleman. He would open car doors for her, pull her chair out for her

and she explained that he would always try to display this behavior in front of his daughters so they could see how they should be treated by a man. Karen said that Philip treated her like a princess. Every day it was just amazing in her words. Karen and Philip had a pretty wide social life. They would spend a lot of their time visiting their different friends around Florida,

going on boat rides, traveling, seeing different shows, attending jazz festivals. And Karen said that she just knew he was a great guy right from the start. And the two of them had a very passionate relationship from the beginning, but the passion that made their sex life so great was the same passion that ended up fueling their fighting.

The two of them would get in some pretty gnarly fights. And of course, they would only get worse if they were drinking. Anytime the two of them drank a lot they were known for getting into arguments and that is what happened on the night of July 27th 2011. That night Philip and Karen were together at her college park home on Smith Street. It was just less than a week after Philip's 48th birthday and they had been celebrating and that night the two of them had been drinking as they often did.

And around 10 p.m., the conversation started shifting. In 2011, Karen decided to switch up her career a bit. She went from real estate to the pharmaceutical industry. Now this is all according to Karen, but she said at 10 o'clock, they started fighting over her going into the pharmaceutical industry and she said it was because he was very jealous. She often talked about how he was a jealous type of guy and he thought that she was quote

a bit too attractive for the pharmaceutical industry. He thought that she might meet other male co-workers who could be attracted to her and it could possibly ruin what they had going on. Now of course, we don't know if this is actually what they were fighting about. This is according to Karen. But Karen explained that he had become kind of a jealous type of guy after his ex-wife cheated on him, which is understandable. So they had been drinking and they go on talking about this for like two hours. Around midnight, Karen said that she was just over it and ready for the conversation to be done, but she said that Philip was still upset

and still very drunk. She said that he was so upset that he decided to leave for the night. So he started gathering up his things and got ready to go and she told him that he shouldn't leave because he had been drinking and it's stupid to drive drunk. She claims that she told him a few times not to leave and to come back in the house, but

he refused. So eventually, after going back and forth about it for a while, Karen decided that he could leave and she told him, you know, you can go, but just don't come back unannounced. And then she warned him that she had a loaded gun. When someone is just exceptionally good at what they do, it could be a waiter, a chef, or a doctor. You know you're in good hands. When you find the right doctor, you can feel it. You feel heard, you feel seen, and you feel at ease.

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within 24 hours. Again, that zocdoc, zocdoc.com slash Kendall Ray. ZocDoc.com slash candle ray, sock, dock, dock, com slash candle ray. So once Philip left Karen decided to go to bed, she was very tired, it was very late. And she said she was sleeping peacefully, everything was fine until she heard the sound of her home alarm beeping at 445 in the morning. Now this wasn't like a raging alarm, you know, someone's breaking into the house right now type of thing. It was just the beep beep beep sound that some systems will make

just when someone comes in the house. And Karen said that initially she thought that this person was an intruder. She even told police that she thought maybe it could have been someone she was having a real estate dispute with, or maybe it was someone that was angry with her from the homeowner's association. Karen said that she was worried that it was someone that was angry with her from the homeowners association. Karen said that she was worried that it wasn't intruder, so she grabbed her gun, which was a 38-calibre revolver, she cocked it, and she waited. And also, keep in mind again that this is Karen's retelling of the story. Karen said that before this person walked into the doorway of her room, she shouted, don't come near me.

But just after she said that, she actually realized that it was Philip. She said this herself. She said she could see his face from the glow of the TV. At this point, Karen said that she was holding the gun up over her head, and that when Philip saw her, he started angrily pounding on his chest. She said that he raised his voice and shouted,

what are you gonna do? Shoot me." She then said Philip moved across the room to where she was standing and grabbed her arm. And then according to her, he started yelling, let me do it, all do it. And she also claims that he said, I'm not going to live my life without you. I don't really know what that means. And he actually repeated that twice that he was not going to live his life without her. And the claim that he had grabbed her arm was backed up by a bruise that was found on Karen's wrist. And during all this, she says that she's yelling at him trying to tell him that the gun is loaded and to stop. But according to her, he ends up getting control of the gun and takes it from her. This was her initial recount of how things happened, but she later changed it. She said that she had the gun and he was fighting with her for it, and that him grabbing

at the gun caused it to shoot. So somehow the gun goes off. Not exactly sure how this happened. No one is sure how this happened actually, but it hit him in the face. The bullet went into his right cheek, went through his brainstem, and into his left cerebral hemisphere. And this is when Karen calls 911. Karen is very frantic on this call. It has been highly scrutinized. I'm going to play it so that you can hear it for yourself. Hey, everybody! Hey, my amulet is by-law-law! What? What?

9-1-1! God! Baby, baby! Oh my god, I don't know what to do, I don't know! Okay, well then, it's actually what happened. Alright, you're dead! Somebody hear a quack! He was trapped in a head with a gun!

Oh my god! One quack! Oh, blah, blah! Oh, look! Okay, now I'm sending the paramedic to you now. Right away, right away, right away, right away. I don't know what to do. Listen to me, did he shoot himself?

Yes or no? Oh, no, it was like a... We shot him. It was the third thing, and then it was an accident. It was an accident, then. Did you have the gun? I did, but it was an accident. Okay. I understand it's an accident. Okay, where are you? And my bedroom with him.

Okay, the paramedic. The paramedic threw on their way, and there was a... Is he breathing? No, no. There you are. Anyone? No, he's very funny at all. Okay, he's breathing now.

What's happening? I'm in it. There you are, and he was so... Amy, no, he's very funny at all. Okay, cool, freaking hell. What's going on, Amy? Stay with me. Come on, Zooty. Come on! Oh, my God.

He put a dawn to his head, and he just... Just let me know that he was joking. But boom, it went up. I know. What are you gonna do that? I still it. And... Oh, go! go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, At one point, she said he was shot in the head with a gun instead of he shot himself, which she had claimed he had done.

She begged the operator to get help there as quickly as possible. She even asked if there was anything that she could do to help anything that she could do to possibly save him. Clearly, she is very distressed in this call. And of course, you might have some confusion, but her initial story that she told the 911 operator changed quite a bit over time. So when police got there, the first officer to arrive there was named officer George, and he said Karen came running out of the house screaming, saying he shot and not breathing. It's interesting that again, she says he's shot instead of he shot himself. When the second officer got there, officer Boop, he immediately went into the house and

went right into the master bedroom and found Philip on the ground deceased. They tried to find a pulse, but he was gone before they even arrived. So there is body cam footage of Karen that night, and she is acting pretty erratic, but I do think it's important to remember that she had been drinking a lot that night. They both had. But from the beginning, police were very skeptical about Karen and what she had to say. You can even hear police in the body cam footage say she's already coming up with her defense. At one point you can hear her say, and it went off, and I'm like, But it came in. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny.

It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny.

It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny.

It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny. It was funny., a blood alcohol test was not conducted on Karen, which is very odd considering she is clearly drunk in the video. She even said that she had been drinking so they were aware. Phillips blood alcohol concentration was 0.11, so well over the legal limit for driving. So Karen, who was very distressed at the time, was brought in for questioning right away. And she was brought in in her night gown and was wrapped in a blanket.

And when she was first brought in, she did not know if Philip had survived the gunshot or not. She never got any information from the officers when she was at the house, so they had to inform her in the interrogation room. Has Spencer as my boyfriend okay? Um, no. and form her in the interrogation room. Has Ben the husband with my boyfriend okay? No. He's not okay. And I apologize it took us a long to get him. But he's not okay.

Like, is he at the hospital? Your boyfriend has passed away. No. Um, your portion has passed away. No! Here, here. So you're gonna take your time. Oh my God! There's a lot of my life! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm not real like. This is a bad nightmare. Really? That is just a real nightmare. So Karen starts retelling the story again. You know what? It was dark. Somebody came into my house. He had already left. I heard a beep beep. the story again. I'm gonna shoot him and he didn't want to shoot himself, but it went off. And I was like, oh my god, I killed him. I didn't even have a pen. You're explaining.

I'm gonna make sure I understand this before I ask any questions about that. Is it okay? Oh, okay. Look at these things. So the detective sitting with Karen starts explaining to her that they have to read her Miranda rights because they weren't there

and they don't know exactly what happened. And it took some time because she was just hysterical during the whole thing. And the interrogation doesn't go much further because Karen ends up deciding that she wants to wait to have an attorney present while she is interrogated. And that's her right. You're the right to raise on it, do you understand that? I don't think I should do that. You're trying to make it look like it did something wrong tonight. Trying to make it look like anything sweet on the floor. It looks like I did something wrong, but I didn't.

I needed to do anything wrong. It was an accident. He came in on me in the dark. Here's the thing. I don't know. I'm an attorney present now, right? I just didn't even answer these questions. I already told you what happened.

And no, you're gonna ask me what happened and I'm feeling, I'm feeling, sort of like I did something that. Do you wanna talk to us or do you not wanna talk to us? I'm fine with that, but you know what? I guess I need an attorney because I'm the one that looks like I did it. Okay, and do you want to have an attorney present

before you talk to us or do you want to explain to us what happened last night? I'm gonna talk to an attorney, because that's not right. Okay. So the next day at 12 p.m., the judge issued a warrant to search Karen's home because she had made so many conflicting statements. And by 1 p.m. that day, Karen's home was being searched.

In the kitchen, they found a couple of bottles of alcohol, a blender, they were clearly making some type of margarita, some mixers were in there, some of the bottles were finished, some were unfinished. These photos were taken that morning, July 27th, 2011, and they also found what appeared to be transfer blood smeared on one of the barstools at the breakfast bar. Transfer blood is just literally blood that has been transferred likely by Karen's hands. You know when she was having that altercation and then when she made the 911 call

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in her interrogation police, said they were left with three possibilities. Number one, that Karen shot and killed Philip. Number two, that Philip shot himself. And number three, that there was a fight and the gun accidentally fired. But they were unable to pull any fingerprints off the gun, so that made it a lot more difficult to determine which one of those scenarios made the most sense. So Karen was arrested because police thought her statements were so inconsistent, and she stayed in jail for 16 days without bond. They said again that this was because her story was inconsistent,

and because when they arrived there, they claimed that there was blood spatter on her hands. Karen said that she never thought she would be arrested, and she gave this quote to a reporter from CBS. I certainly didn she never thought she would be arrested. She gave this quote to a reporter from CBS. I certainly didn't think that I would be arrested. I absolutely 100% believed in my heart and knew that they would see how there's no way that anybody could have shot him except himself. So while Karen is in jail waiting for her release and to get prepared for trial, she ends up finding out some information about Philip that really upset her.

It turns out that Philip was not divorced from Sandra, he actually was still legally married to her and was hiding it from Karen. It turns out that this is the reason why his previous girlfriend, Tamara, had left him because they had been together for like four years and he had tried to keep it from her all that time. So this is likely why he was keeping it a secret from Karen. He knew Tamard didn't react well. So not only is this deemed a potential motive for Karen to shoot Philip, but it also revealed that Philip was likely planning to leave Karen. After police spoke with

Philip's family, they realized that Karen did not have a good relationship with his daughters at all. They never got along and it was a big point of contention for the two of them. You know, he wasn't even allowing Karen to be around his daughters and his family felt like he probably wanted to end the relationship because his daughters meant so much to him that he just couldn't be with someone that didn't get along with them. But the prosecution felt like this would all really help their case and help them to possibly prove motive, knowing that he was married to his ex still and that he possibly may have been trying to leave Karen.

Now even though Karen changed her story several times, from the beginning she always said that Philip had shot himself. It's not clear if he had purposely done that or if it was an accidental firing, but it's clear that she believes it was Philip's fault. But that kind of contradicts the evidence. So the medical examiner who did the autopsy is actually quite famous. A lot of you may know who she is. Dr. G, I used to watch her show all the time on Discovery Health when I was in like middle school. She conducted his autopsy and had some pretty interesting findings. First of all, the angle of the gun was inconsistent with a suicide in her

opinion. Dr. G explained that in most cases when people take their lives, they will shoot in the same spot. Normally, that's in the temple under the chin or in the mouth. But this was right into his chin, and she thought this was odd and inconsistent with the suicide. Her second finding was that when the gun was fired, it was not directly against his cheek. She explained that when a gun is fired, the powder leaves a tattooing mark on the skin. So the closer the gun is to the skin, that would indicate suicide. The further it is away, would indicate homicide.

So to determine the distance between Karen's gun and Philips' cheek, Dr. G had to conduct a test firing. So a few distance tests were conducted using both Karen's actual ammunition and lab ammunition, which is similar to the ammunition that Karen used. The ammunition itself has a great effect on what type of residue is left after the gun is shot. So they were trying to determine if Karen's ammunition would reproduce the same effect as the lab ammunition. And if it does reproduce the same or a similar effect to her ammunition, they're able to use the lab ammunition because obviously they only have so much of care in to test

with. And hopefully by doing as many tests as they can with lab ammunition, they can determine how close Phillips cheek was to the gun. There was ammunition that was submitted with the Suspect Revolver. So this is ammunition that was actually removed from the cylinder of the revolver at the time. We need to test fire laboratory ammunition along with the suspect ammunition because the ammunition that's used

has a great effect on the residues that are left on the surface. So it's a reproducibility. We don't have a lot of ammunition from the scene. We have a lot of lab ammunition. So we want to make sure although we've gotten the same type of ammunition, we want to look at the reproducibility of our ammunition to the suspects. This particular revolver is not the one that was collected for evidence. When we did the actual testing, it was indeed the revolver that was submitted

by the law enforcement agency that was collected at the time. You really want to try to limit your variability. That's why you want to make sure that there's reproducibility between the same ammo that we're using and that the suspect has. That's why we use the same gun. So even though they can essentially recreate Karen's weapon to use for testing, it's important to note that you can't recreate someone's skin. So when testing is actually done, they have to use something called twill, which is a type of fabric that can kind of mimic the way that skin would receive a bullet. So to actually determine the distance between Philip and the gun, they shot into the twill

at incremental distances. First one inch, three inches, and six inches, 12 inches, and 18 inches. And when they look at the twill and how the gun powder sprayed, they're able to give an estimated distance that the gun was from the person who was shot. We don't know exactly how skin reacts compared to the white cotton twill. So therefore, we're developing a conservative bracket.

How accurate is this test? I think it has a range. It's not going to be one to one. It helps you. It's a tool, just like anything else. It's a tool. It's not an answer, or say. That's where we have to give a bracket.

It is accepted. Scientific working group accepted this methodology for giving a rough range. So after they completed the testing, Dr. G was able to determine how far the gun was from Philip, which she said it was three to six inches away, and that is inconsistent with a suicide. Plus, Tamra, his ex-girlfriend, even came out in an interview and said that Philip never would have killed himself, especially because that would mean leaving his girls behind, and they were everything to him. So the forensic evidence

was looking pretty strong against Karen, especially with the circumstantial evidence in his life, it didn't seem like he would want to commit suicide. But the defense ended up getting a break in their case when they found out that Philip had struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past. Karen's attorney was Diana Tennis, who is a very well-known respected lawyer who is known for giving her legal opinions on different Florida cases like Trayvon Martin, Casey Anthony. She ended up figuring out that in 2006, Philip had shown up at his ex-wife Sandra's house with strange marks on his arm and a few weeks later called her drunk threatening to kill

himself. And Sandra was very frightened and ended up calling the police. And Philip was Baker-acted. Now that allows for someone to be involuntarily institutionalized to undergo psychiatric testing. So police were able to Baker-act Philip at the time because of the signs of distress he was showing. And in court, Karen's attorney presented all this as evidence to the jury.

She explained that all of this shows a history of suicidal ideation. She argued that if he was capable of being suicidal then, then who's to say that he wasn't suicidal that night. However, Dr. G fired back. She said that that happened five years ago and has nothing to do with what happened on the night that Philip died on July 27th. So making the argument that the two are related just seemed like a stretch. And in response to Dr. G's testimony, she said that she was going to wait and see what the jury thought. So it actually took some time for them to go to trial,

but by the time they did, her charges had been changed. She was originally charged with first degree murder. That was dropped to second degree murder, and then dropped again to manslaughter. And this also changes the amount of jurors that there will be. It was reduced from 12 to six. So the prosecution only had to convince six people

that Karen was guilty. And it also means that the state didn't have to prove intent, which changes things quite a bit. The trial began in May of 2013, and in the defenses opening statements, Diana Tennis, Karen's lawyer, recounted the events that occurred that night. You'll know there was a struggle. You will know he decided when confronted with his girlfriend cowering next to her bed with a gun over the over in the air. But his decision was to cross that room and fight with her for that gun.

That was a decision he made. Her lawyer also told the jury that they would end up getting to hear Karen's story for themselves because she would be testifying during the trial, which she ended up not doing. You can see Karen is very upset in all the footage from her trial. She's often sitting with her head in her hands covering up her face. The prosecuting attorney was Kendra Moore, and she argued that the story that Karen told was so inconsistent that she cannot possibly be believed. And Karen's statements were very inconsistent.

From her phone call, from her interrogation, you can't determine who even shot the gun off. Was it an accident? Like she said on the 911 call, did Philip take the gun from her and shoot himself? Like she also claimed? She gives different versions of the events. Sometimes she says she didn't see the person who came in the house, she believed it to be an intruder,

and in the same story, she will tell the person, and then I called, and then I called out Philip, and I talked to him, and he said this to that. So there are things in her versions that don't make any sense. At one point she says he was joking and put the gun to his head. So what are you going to do? Shoot me?

And then in another version, she's got him fighting with her. And then in another version, this is all the joke. During the trial they introduced the photos from the crime scene, forensic evidence from the gun, and the audio from the 911 call That was taken when the officers first arrived on scene and it turns out that Karen Wasn't a super liked person in her neighborhood and they brought a lot of her neighbors up who Did not have nice things to say about her and they really painted a picture of Karen that was unstable and untrustworthy Alan O'Pell who is one of Karen's neighbors,

was called to the stand and said that Karen was a frequent partier. He said, two people is what I heard. It sounded like either an argument or a party. It was just a loud conversation. And they asked, what did you hear her say? And he said, go, just go. And they asked him what he did about the noise.

Were you able to go to sleep? Was your wife able to go to sleep? And he said, my wife said, here we go again. She grabbed her ear plugs off the nightstand, put her ear plugs in, I rolled over, put the pillow over my head, and went to sleep shortly thereafter. The next witness that they brought in was Randy Mixen. He was a friend and coworker of Philip, and he testified that Philip would agonize over the idea of having to tell Karen about Sandra and how he was still married to her behind her back. He also explained in court how Karen did not

have a good relationship with Philip's kids. I could be wrong, but I don't believe the kids were allowed to be around her at that point at all. He also talked about Philip's daughter's wedding, which Karen was not invited to. So, even though this is a manslaughter case now, and the prosecution doesn't have to prove intent, his testimony did help kind of boost the idea that Karen would have had a reason to be upset with Philip. So then they moved into the forensic portion of the trial. Like I said,

Dr. G was brought in to testify. The prosecution asked her why she concluded that his death was a homicide. Here was her answer. So I don't know about the specifics of that, but once I saw the wound and heard the circumstances, I didn't feel that that ended into it because at the time of this event, that there was no history of depression. People get over things. I can't always use things in the past against them. The defense was able to bring in their own pathologist, Dr. William Anderson, who completely disagreed

with Dr. G's take on everything. But interestingly enough, his testimony was revoked due to technical legal issues. So, that means Dr. G's testimony remains unchallenged. And then on the fifth day of the trial, something must have changed for Karen and her defense team and their strategy, because they decided to not have her testify. Did you have the opportunity to discuss with your attorney whether or not you

wanted to testify in this matter? I did. And did you have the opportunity to ask your attorney any questions you may have about testifying in this matter or not testifying in this matter? Yes, I did. I've decided not to testify because I'm too emotional about the situation. Is this your decision, ma'am? Yes. Has anyone made this decision for you? No, ma'am. Now this is pretty problematic because the attorney had already

told the jury that she was going to do that. So, well, the smart move was not having her testify. The dumb move, the move that I would make over again, had I do it to do over again, is giving the jury the impression in closing and opening arguments that she would definitely testify. At that point, I truly did not believe that you could have a case where you've got two people in a room with a gun, one walks out, the other one doesn't, and not here from the person who survived.

I didn't think that that was possible. And so I told them some things that only she would be able to tell them and told them she would testify. So the prosecution closed their case by kind of reinstating all of the facts. One, that Karen wasn't toxic at that night and held out the gun. Two, that she didn't put the gun down

when she recognized that it was Philip, which she admitted that she knew exactly who it was. She knew that this was not intruder and she kept the hammer cocked on the gun. And that was pretty much all they had. And Dr. G's testimony was very controversial. Even the judge had kind of scolded her during the trial, so the whole thing was a bit wonky at the end.

At one point, Dr. G started testifying about prescription drug. There were prescription drugs at Kelly's home, models marked Ambien and Xanax, but the defense claims that Dr. G's unannounced testimony on these drugs is out of bounds. The judge agreed. Their fact finding missions. Um, we do not engage in trial by ambush. There are no peri-mason moments during trials. The point is that everyone comes to the table

fully informed of what they disagree on and what they may agree on happened. But the jury only took two hours to deliberate. Clearly, they had made up their mind and did not need a lot of time to think on it. So they came back in with their verdict, and that's when Karen Kelly was found not guilty in the death of Philip Petrus.

That's right, not guilty. Instead of facing 30 plus years, she was now a free woman. With the jury, front of the defendant, not guilty. So, so we all did a Orlando Orange County floor. I was 20 if they've made 2013 sign-men for this. Karen said that this was a huge relief, as you can imagine, and she said it still did not bring Philip back, and so she was sad about that.

But many people have questioned whether the decision to acquit Karen was the right move. And that's where I really want to know your opinions. Do you think there was enough evidence to convict her? Do you think that Karen was guilty? Or do you think this truly was an accident? A lot of people do believe that she did have motive to kill Philip. I mean, not getting along with his kids was a big deal to him. I mean, so much so that he didn't even invite her to his daughter's wedding. Also, he was still married to his ex-wife, Sandra, and many people believe it's possible that Philip told Karen about it that night. Maybe she freaked out. A lot of people question her 9-on-1 call, people question her interrogation footage, and also the way that she was talking when she first left court.

When she first walked out of court, a free woman, one reporter asked her, what are you going to do next? And here is her response. Really? Really? Do you ever have any doubts? No, that's why I didn't testify. What would you have to say to Mr. Peter

for his family now? They already know how I feel about Phillips. But it knows me, I would never do such a thing. What are you going to say to Mr. Peter's family now? They already know how I feel about Trillup. Which of the knows me would know I would never do such a thing. What are you gonna do next? Go to Disney World. So that is pretty strange. I mean, I don't know what made her say that. I don't know why you would say that.

But that really lit a lot of speculation. And there are many people out there who think that she got away with murder. But is there enough evidence to actually prove that? That's where I want to know your opinions. What do you guys think? This one's really tough. Obviously, I wish there was more information, more evidence,

to make it more concrete either way, but it's a really tricky one. I see why the jury made the decision that they did. It's really hard to determine what really happened that night from the information that's available. And I could see both or all three, I guess, scenarios playing out. You know that she shot him, that he shot himself, or that the gun accidentally fired. So I want to hear your thoughts on this one. Did the jury make the right call? Did Karen get away with murder or did she have to go through all of this

after her boyfriend accidentally shot himself? When you look at it that way, you start feeling bad for Karen, you know? But her behavior being so erratic and the Disney World comment, oh, I don't know. It's just a really, really tough one. I wish there was more information on this case. This case has very minimal reporting and content on it, so it's kind of hard to pull all of this together,

but I found it to be really interesting and to be honest with you guys, I don't know how to feel. I truly don't know what I would have done if I was in the jury. That is gonna be it for me today, guys. truly don't know what I would have done if I was in the jury. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts.

It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendal Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. [♪ Music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing The next time you're looking for some extra cash to help make ends meet, come see the friendly Franklin folks, or visit us at 1ffc.com to learn more. All loan terms and APRs depend on needing our underwriting and income criteria

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