Brandon Woodruff /// Part 2 /// 436 | Forensic Files

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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] inside the woodruff's Royce City Texas
Home family friend Todd Williams found the obviously slain couple and then quickly exited the trailer to call
police who arrived on the scene at about 4 30 p.m and just to be clear since they
have two houses they were staying in their new house and that's the house that they were found dead in from the
book railroaded the married couple was sitting close together on a sofa before the TV and both had been shot and
stabbed multiple times Dennis was shot once in the face and had nine stab wounds some as deep as five inches to
his face neck and upper torso Norma was shot three times in the face and had a four inch front to back gash across her
neck Norma was turning into Dennis as if for protective cover and Dennis held in his rigid hand a
chewing tobacco spit cup their clothes and the sofa were blood soaked the television was on but all the
lights were off and the cardboard box on which the TV set had blood spatter the firing was done from just inches
away as indicated by the tight patterns of dark soot and red stipple on their skin surrounding the bullet entries the
medical examiner characterized soot as the very fine Smoky material that comes out of the gun when it's fired and is
the product of combustion that are occurring from the actual flame in the barrel of the gun and stippling is the
actual particles of gunpowder that strikes the skin and cause tiny injuries Burns or abrasions from these burning or
unburned particles of gunpowder that come out and hit the skin do they believe that the Bloods came from a
single gun that's a difficult thing the murder weapon weapons we should say because of the
stab wounds and the use of a gun it's always been quite difficult for the state to prove their case on one if they
located the murder weapons and two exactly what was used to kill these two people
what we do have here though Captain is some interesting information one we have Todd Williams saying the
whole place was Secure when I found the place the doors were locked the windows were locked I come in I break into the
home to find my friends obviously they've been murdered they're sitting in the dark with the TV on
so whomever did this left the house and was able to lock the door behind them per the book railroaded it sounds like
the most believable most likely explanation for this is that the front door was not accessed
by the killer upon leaving the home it's believed that they went out the side door which would be near the
carport and it was a setup as such we've talked about this before on the show where if you close the door behind you
it's going to lock yeah but a lot of people in areas like this you said they're roughly on five acres
a lot of people don't lock their doors correct correct when they were found dead all of the doors and windows were
locked and if it's a true statement that he was found holding a spit can for his
chewing tobacco you would almost assume that he was shot first and then stabbed afterwards
because I feel like if somebody was being stabbed especially and the face that they might not be able
to they wouldn't hold on to their spit can yeah and that's the thing here Captain I
think we can determine a few things from the brief description that we've been able to provide about the crime scene
and about the two deceased victims one there's no obvious sign of a break-in no forced entry into the home
so was this somebody that the woodruff's invited in was it somebody that they knew or we've suggested this a few times
where you also have a situation where somebody could have forced their way in simply by one of them answer the door I
put a gun in your face and now I just walk in there's no sign of forced entry for that
the other thing that's difficult here and very troubling is the close proximity in which the gun had to be to
shoot Dennis and Norma right this person whoever killed them was able to put the gun right in
Dennis's face basically and pull the trigger there's no signs of Dennis defending himself there's no sign of him
flinching it almost is as if he didn't think this individual would shoot him yeah that's the thing like it was a
total surprise but how is it a total surprise when the gun is so close to his face then with Norma we see the opposite
we see obvious signs that she's trying to avoid whatever's about to happen so Dennis was shot in the face
then we have Norma who turns in toward her husband puts her hands up to try to block or defend herself
and we know this because one of the bullets that and pardon me there's no way of not being graphic with this right
but one of the bullets it went it injured her hand her finger and then of course ends up in her in her face
well see this is also why I wonder is it possible that this person got into the house and they were asleep
um you know fell asleep watching TV and then the individual wakes them up by shooting
um the father and then attacking the mother but but the stab wounds afterwards makes me believe that would
be more personable right and not just I'm here to kill you so I shoot you and then I'd be on my way this person then
took the time to pull out a knife or if there's two individuals somebody pulled out a knife and then
ended uh ended up stabbing these individuals in their face and that's something I do want to point
out as well I don't think that anything at the crime scene particularly tells us
one way or another if this was one offender or more than one perpetrator right we do know that we have at least two
weapons that were used in the commission of these homicides so that actually points towards the possibility of more
than one perpetrator the difficult thing here Captain is as you said how does this go down in this
exact manner it appears and we know this from the medical examiner statements that Dennis shot at close range right in
the face for whatever reason is not defending himself when that happens Norma then realizes what is going to
happen she tries to block or defend herself by turning in toward her husband putting her hands up
and then we have the stab wounds so it has been stated by the medical examiner that the gunshots happen first
and then the stabbing and as you pointed out and the state of Texas as well as law
enforcement agencies that work this case would tell us that this indicates that this was absolutely personal in nature
that this was someone that had a deep hatred for both of these people not only wanted to kill them make sure that they
were dead but you're kind of using the knife to actually destroy this man his appearance to mutilate him to stab him
nine times with whatever knife was used in this homicide which I'd normally say a hundred percent of the time that's
personable but we do have evidence that they're having financial difficulties and is it is there something that the
public their their friends and family didn't know about or maybe they took a loan
from somebody uh maybe they didn't pay back somebody that they should have and it's not as much of a personal thing as
like um we're proving a point type thing right the other thing I want to point out too is was the gun used as
necessity and then at some point the perpetrator or perpetrators decide that to keep using that Weapon It's
awfully loud someone might hear it I'll finish the job with a knife or a bladed weapon yeah or yeah make sure the job is
finished yeah I've heard one Theory and I don't want to get too much into all the theories that are out there because
there is a big group of people that believe that Brandon Woodruff is in fact innocent of these crimes and therefore
they have theories as to who have could have committed this murder and how they went about doing it right one of the
theories that I just want to kind of I'm going to go ahead and squash it right away is there's a theory that's been put
forward that they were killed and that somebody close to them hated them so much they showed up the next day
and chose to stab Dennis after he was already dead we know that theory cannot be and that is
because of the words of the medical examiner it says the medical examiner could not determine the order in which
the stab wounds were inflicted but they all happened probably about the same time and he Dennis was alive during all
of them but I can't tell you exactly what order they happened in but also if they're if it's just one gun at some
point that gun runs out of bullets so the knife might have been used like the corner saying to finish the job and
like you were saying also the gun is loud yes yeah we don't know why but this attack
started with a gun and then it ended with these stab wounds and again we can tell by the medical
examiner's words these weren't stab wounds that took place at a much later time this man unfortunately was shot and
then stabbed fairly quickly the gunshots themselves to these individuals would have been fatal at
some point but we had the medical examiner who says the stab wounds happen while he was still alive the problem is
Captain that we have that big window of time sometime between Sunday evening and
they're not found until 3 30 4 o'clock on Tuesday right there's a big window of time of when this could
have happened now we can obviously shrink that down a little bit to try to figure out who had the means to carry
out this brutal homicide and one is they were both supposed to be at work on Monday morning so I think we all can
agree that this happened sometime before Monday morning yeah I think that makes the most sense and if we are to believe
Brandon he says that he had dinner with them and then he left his first Duty when he left
was to run an errand for his mother and then carry on to their old house in Heath which this would be sometime after
7 pm what backs Brandon's story up is that there were two phone calls that took place in the seven o'clock hour and this
is both Norma and Dennis on the phone with relatives during these phone calls the the
relatives on the other end of the line both got the impression separately separate calls both got the same
impression that Brandon had already left the house that night that they were having these conversations after he left
after they had dinner and I don't believe there was any mention of their be in an argument or anything
it was just he came to visit he ate with us he left yes and without getting I'm finding it
difficult to go through this case because it's a real messy one and it's almost like you have to tackle each of
these issues as they pop up because one of the motivating factors that the state
of Texas will say when Prosecuting Brandon Woodruff is one of the reasons that he killed his parents was because
he's gay that he was living this secret gay lifestyle right and that he amongst other reasons this led him to killing
his parents there's a big problem with that being a motivating factor and that being these
two phone calls that took place in the seven o'clock hour on that Sunday in at least one of the calls Dennis is
discussing Brandon being gay with his relative the relative says it didn't sound like
Dennis was angry about this didn't sound like Dennis was uh you know mad at Brandon or thought that Brandon was
living some kind of Secret Life the relatives said that Dennis sound concerned for his son
stating that he worried about Brandon living that kind of lifestyle that he thought that that kind of Lifestyle was
dangerous or it came with certain risk and that he probably didn't want his son to have difficulties
in public in his public life or treated unfairly because of his sexuality right it's you know it's the same reason
why there's there's kids with minor disabilities but parents will worry because of how society and kids will
treat them and so it might be okay well you know you have no problem with your son and his sexuality but you know that
there's going to be conflicts in his life because of it where those conflicts might not happen
or there's just uh discriminations might not happen if his son were straight well and people I look for the good in
everyone and I find a lot of good in everyone but people in general are not always accepting of people that live
differently than them themselves right and so therefore out of ignorance they will treat these people differently or
unfairly because of they of something they just don't understand one to be clear did he
was he out to his parents before this dinner or was this dinner um hey Mom Dad I gotta tell you something
but a lot of times parents know before the child ever comes forward that is one thing that's pretty unclear in this
whole situation but I did want to point that out that he clearly didn't kill his parents to cover up the
fact that he was gay or living a gay lifestyle right because we have the relative saying after the fact Dennis
and I discussed this his parents were aware I don't know how aware they were or when they became aware right but we
know that that Dennis knew what was going on Norma knew what was going on and again the relative
saying the father didn't sound angry at Brandon he sounded concerned a question for you yo we have no
evidence of Brandon coming out in high school like two friends uh I mean you said the
[ __ ] kickers didn't like it so from what I found there captain that it's very unclear okay it sounds to me like right
around the time that he was finishing up high school his lifestyle is changing and noticeably to his friends right and
to others he's Brandon's now dressing different he's hanging out with a different crowd and I don't know if the
[ __ ] kickers his old batch of friends if they were just suspicious or if they were made you know if he told them
outwardly I have no idea which way that it went it did sound like at some point Mike Etherington and Brandon Woodruff
one-time good friends their families know each other it sounds like not only did they quit being friends but it
sounded like they were they were feuding like taking you know shots at each other
as far as uh insults and um whatever was going down there was some type of feud between the two of
them well he's somebody that should be looked at because I think a a motivation for this is
if he within the last couple months really finalized coming out to his parents let's say because the lifestyle was
shifting and possibly some people knew Maybe for some friends of his new obviously he
was creating another um social Dynamic that knew and he was living openly gay to them
that if it is finalized to the parents was there um a sexual partner that he had in high school or within his
old community that is there then fearful that Brandon told them told the parents if that makes sense
that an old friend might be outed by Brandon and be feel threatened by that right because also possibility look you
know um it's it is an interesting thing when you're friends with somebody for almost
18 years and you've had a lot of conversations with them about dating and girls that you know one of my friends
that's pretty much all we talked about later come to find well that was just kind of a cover-up you know he wasn't
into girls he's always been into boys but that was his kind of cover you know if I if I'm constantly telling my
friends that I have a crush on somebody and he always picked like the top of the top uh and and but he
then told us well I picked girls that I knew were way out of my league because then you wouldn't wonder why I never got
to go on a date with them right you know it was just oh you know you're just not
going to go on a date with them they're out of your league so it is an interesting situation because
you you are shocked on some level and then on some level before you start going well maybe I I kind of knew this
all along but if he would have then said well and I realized I was gay when I I made
out with one of our other Buddies none of his closest friends when he came out none of us
had any hatred towards him or discrimination towards him so I think you know obviously it's a different part
of the country um and sometimes in those smaller communities um there's more of an ignorance to
different lifestyles and but you also see sometimes these people that are um that discriminate the most against
somebody's sexuality is because of their own hatred to their to themselves that there are homosexual themselves
and but they hate themselves because of it and then they hate anybody uh that out is going to come out
well I think what we can agree on here is a couple of things one it appears that Brandon's lifestyle wasn't such a
secret that his parents knew this about Brandon that they had some kind of conversation this was something they
spoke about Dennis is concerned not because he does not approve it's more so that he's
worried concerned for his son everyone's always concerned for their children this
is just another one of those type things for Dennis now we should point out though too with
Brandon that you know I say he's not living this secret lifestyle but there were some
extremes going on here because he did do some pornography work and this was from my understanding in
the summer to late summer of 2005 and this was gay pornography work that he did uh he filmed a couple scenes in
Dallas and a couple scenes down in Florida from my understanding this is something that took place over the
course of two different weekends and he was paid fairly well for his time I'm guessing that this is not something
that Dennis and Norma knew about right and I look whether your kid um is a homosexual or a heterosexual
most parents are going to find that activity to be extreme Behavior correct you know that's just especially in in
Texas and the way that this went down for my understanding captain and I actually
don't think that this pornography work has too much to do with the actual case itself right the state of Texas and the
prosecutor would tell us different at trial but from my understanding the way that this went down was you you get
producers just like you would with any type of you know movies or entertainment or whatever that they find these they're
they're looking for attractive young men to be in these movies and it's not hard
to find them because they'll go to some of the bigger cities that have cool gay clubs to get into right and they hang
out in the crowd you know and you find a couple good looking guys and offer them
a position if they want one but I think it's important to point out that the state of Texas and the
prosecutor are going to tell us that his gay lifestyle is one of the key factors
one of the motivating factors for Brandon to kill his parents and it doesn't seem that that's what was going
on here [Music] oh oh [Music] no no no no no no no no no no no no no [Music] no make sure you check out true crime
garage.com and go to our blog and leave your opinions on this case and let us know if you liked my singing there in
this week's music yeah a sample of the kernel okay Captain let's talk about the crime
scene a little more and this is more for the thought as to police theories and things that they were seeing at the
crime scene it says here and this is from some court documents that I found that
the police theorize that Norma may have been attempting to duck behind her husband the crime scene
investigation did not reveal any signs of forced entry any signs of a struggle or any signs the house had been
ransacked investigator Tommy granfield testified that he did not believe the position of the bodies was suggestive
that the victims had been taken by that the victims have been taken by surprise the wallets of Dennis and Norma were
missing but many valuables including a handgun a computer jewelry appliances remained in the home
the police noted blood droplets in front of the couch and a trail of blood droplets leading from the couch toward
the guest bathroom and bedroom so it's believed that either blood is dripping off of the knife the killer or
both after they killed the woodruffs and then walked from that spot right there in front of the couch to the guest
bathroom and I'm guessing that is to clean up themselves clean up the murder weapon
later we would find out that when police did the luminal testing throughout the house they found a good amount of bleach
in that bathroom so it appears that the person or persons cleaned themselves up and anything else that they needed to
and then cleaned the bathroom afterwards well we can't rule out that this was just a simple robbery and then they had
to kill the victims maybe because the victims knew who they were or maybe that was just part of the plan we can't rule
that out but it is suspicious that somebody went into a bathroom and cleaned themselves
off that could just be simply to have no trace evidence going back into your vehicle I've always found it troubling
too that they had just recently moved into this house I know it's it's very unlikely and this thank God is a very
very rare occurrence but I have red cases where it's a mistaken identity that somebody goes to a home and a new
family lives there now right and the offender is unaware that that is the situation I don't know that that's the
situation here but I'm just throwing that out there so how does Brandon Woodruff become suspect number one well
we have the Hunt County Sheriff's Office investigating this case but they're doing it with the assistance of the
Texas Rangers the problem for Brandon will be he's got some missing time he's got a missing window of time of where
he's unaccounted for on the night that they believe that the woodruffs were killed so we both said
that we can agree that they were killed sometime either late that Sunday night or very early Monday morning before they
had to go to work while investigators are going to shrink that window even more because what they're going to say
is that the woodruffs were killed sometime between 9 30ish and 10 30 to 11ish okay but what time does he meet up
with his friend to get back to school he meets Robert at the Denny's parking lot
at 11 PM all right so that's not looking too good for him right and here's how they come up with this window of time
there's a phone call that takes place around nine o'clock and we kind of talked about this a little bit already
remember Charla is visiting extended family on that Sunday night right she's at her grandmother's house grandma's on
the phone with her mom Norma grandma says to Charla would you like to talk to your mom I got her on the phone that
phone call takes place between nine and about 9 20 maybe 9 30 at the very latest
all right so we have another person a witness saying they were alive for that time
period so now we're shrinking that window a little bit Charla says that she will call her mom
when she gets home she says that she tried calling Mom and Dad at 11 PM that night and nobody answered you mentioned
the call forwarding she's concerned that nobody answered so that's how the police are going to come
up with they were killed during the time frame between 9 30 and 11 o'clock the problem with Brandon's story he was
supposed to be there to pick up Robert between five and six then that gets pushed back to 9 9 30
and he doesn't show up to Denny's until 11 pm what the prosecutor and the Hunt County
Sheriff's Office are going to tell us is that left enough time for Brandon to make it to the heath house do all this
running around commit murder and then meet up with his friend at the Denny's he gives them you know right it puts
them in the perfect time situation but what is his excuse for all this his excuse is that I
told you everything that I did I was just off on my times okay and I've look there's a lot of
people as I said earlier that are doing really good work on this case trying to help out Brandon's case to prove that he
is in fact innocent and they all say about the same thing you prosecuted this kid because he was
off on his times he wasn't lying about what he did he wasn't lying lying about when he did what he did he was just off
on the time well the prob the problem with that statement is you don't know you don't he may be lying he may he may
have done this in just flat out lied and now he's oh I was off on my times what we do know is that Robert says I didn't
see Brandon until 11 p.m right so what is Brandon doing between that 736 phone call where he calls mom to relay the
message about the horse and then when he finally makes it to the Denny's at 11 PM and I do have some some
uh references here for you right but real quickly we do have travel time so we have to put that into account so
we can shorten his window a little more the other thing that's a little in his favor is that he did a favor for
his parents and he was then going to take their truck and they were going to have his truck fixed but one could also
say well maybe he did that favor because it that was part of the setup right so here's some let's go through this
distance between a couple of these locations shall we okay so we have the double wide I'm going to refer to the
new house as the double wide that's on County Road 2648 in Royce City Texas we know that Brandon took that trip to
the stables for his mom and a phone call took place at 7 36 PM The Stables from the double wide to The Stables is
approximately a 16 minute drive from The Stables to the heath house remember he says I'm going to the heath
house because I'm going to pick up the fancy truck right I'm going to take care of the animals and then I'm going to go
get robber and we're going to either go out for the night or we're going to go back to campus
so the Stables to the heath house is 30 minutes and it's been said by several people
Brandon including that it would take roughly 30 minutes for him to take care of all the animals at the heath house
okay from the heath house to the Denny's it's another 30 minute drive so if he's
already left the stables at 7 36 when that phone call is placed to his mother by Brandon
then we have an hour and a half should have gone by before he arrives at the Denny's which would put him at the
Denny's at a little after 9 pm but he doesn't show up until 11 pm so we are missing about an hour and 45
minutes roughly of what was he doing and when was he doing it right now there are
several phone calls that happened during that time frame the thing that kind of sucks for Brandon
is Brandon will say that these phone calls point out that he was doing what he says he was doing and the phone calls
would tell us he was nowhere near the murder scene at the time that that law enforcement are telling us the woodruffs
were killed at his trial these phone calls that Brandon speaks of are not presented to the jury or at any
point during the trial right these these phone calls the phone records on Brandon's part have been lost and that's
simply due to time his defense attorneys would tell us that that is on the fault of the prosecution
and it's on the fall of law enforcement that they failed to get his phone records they got other people's phone
records but they didn't get his yeah the difficult thing here Captain is there was some kind of transition going on
between singular and at T at the time and I don't know if it was a t purchased singular or what went down but at this
time in 2005 in this area if you were an ATT person or a singular person your calls would use both of
their towers but they only have records for who his actual carrier were does that make sense
yeah yeah so they cannot really triangulate where they believe Brandon would have been during some of those
phone calls the problem for Brandon is we have one person that says and this is Robert who
says I didn't see him till 11 pm Robert also says Brandon told me to tell everybody else that I saw him at 9 30.
that he picked me up at Denny's at 9 30 not 11. that's weird and Robert also says that during this missing period of
time where we don't know where Brandon was Brandon called me to make further arrangements remember could you meet me
at the Denny's it's it'll save us some time right Robert says that Brandon was breathing
heavy during this phone call and the prosecution is going to point out well that's because he was exhausted from
having physically murdered two people dense but it's definitely suspicious when somebody shows up and says hey by
the way tell people that I was here hour and a half earlier yeah and I don't have any reason to not
believe this Robert person right what is what does he have to gain from any of this he doesn't even seem to
know Brandon real well there's not a close relationship he doesn't know Brandon's family he's not a suspect
so I don't know why Robert would make this up or other people have suggested maybe he's unclear about the times I
think he's pretty clear about the times he's he's annoyed he's been waiting hours several hours after the original
agreed upon time to get picked up then we have another weird story that comes out and this is from Brandon's friends
the ones that he went to the club with that night remember he picked up Robert Robert agreed to go to the club
when they are driving back some of the guys in the back seat of the truck are horsing around and they're going through
some of the belongings in the truck Brandon has a bag with him like a I don't know like an overnight bag or a
book bag when one of the persons picks that up they said that Brandon who is is usually very laid back
happy-go-lucky kind of person was visibly upset and angry and told them to put his bag down
the prosecution tells us that there was something in that bag that Brandon did not want everybody else to see
maybe it was a blood-stained shirt maybe it was one of the murder weapons or both
of them right but that he freaked out on these individuals because he couldn't risk anybody opening up that bag and
questioning what was inside of it to back that story up not only do we have more than one person who says that that
that took place we have a text message the next day from Brandon to his friend that says I'm sorry I freaked out last
night in the truck they're saying that's referring to this whole thing with the bag
but then there's some weird things captain that look like Brandon could be innocent
the first which I think is the most bizarre thing in a lot of this case is there's a phone call we talk so much
about these phone calls there was a phone call that was placed to the Hunt County Sheriff's Office the morning
after the bodies were discovered and somebody had used the old star six seven to block to block yes they wanted to
make an anonymous call so Anonymous that they didn't want you to know the phone number
several of these calls were made on that morning and it was a woman who is asking
if they have any suspects in the murders of the woodruffs why is that weird and suspicious it's
weird and suspicious because at that time police had not announced to anybody that the woodruffs were murdered
when the bodies were found they notified their employers and they notified family
and they simply told everyone that the woodruffs were found dead that they had died and they died
together now you can take that a million different ways most people assume that it was some type of accident
a v you know a vehicle accident or carbon monoxide I mean there's a dozen different ways right so it was not
confirmed at that time with anyone that the two had in fact been murdered yet they're getting a phone call to the
Sheriff's Office from a woman who is asking if they have any suspects in the murder of Dennis and Norma
Woodruff they figured out that the caller was Norma Etherington remember she's the mother of Mike who is
Brandon's former friend right she's the one that had that weird Feud with Norma Woodruff about the 500
4-H scholarship that Brandon got so what is very bizarre here is not only do you
have a feud between Brandon and Mike you have a feud between the two mothers it's
almost like the Hatfields and McCoys at this point it's like family against family right
there's a lot of things in this case captain that just don't make sense and they don't make sense for or against
Brandon depending on how you look at these different items we mentioned the bag earlier where he got all upset that
these guys were going to go through his bag the prosecution tells us there's something in the bag that he didn't want
us to see blood soak clothing murder weapon what have you right Brandon's explanation for his behavior
that night is that he had not fully come out to his friend Robert remember what we got going on right now in Brandon's
life is he's coming out but he's also attending a Christian University those things don't usually work hand in hand
together and he says Robert didn't know that I'm gay I didn't want that bag opened up
because then he would know that I'm gay what doesn't make sense to me is his defense of his behavior
you took Robert to a gay club that night you took him to a gay club with you asked him if he wanted to go but was it
actually a gay club or was it a gay friendly club and it was just maybe attended by more gay people than
straight people and it wasn't I think that's very fair that you say that because I don't know for certain
which it is I I know what club that they went to that night and I've heard it described as both by different people so
yeah that's that's a very fair statement but I do find it a little questionable his explanation for knowing that they
just went to either a gay club or a gay friendly Club most of the night it could
have been gay porn it could have been sex toys it could have been something that's also just embarrassing for people
to be messing around with that's true that's true as well now we have yet to discuss the murder weapons and we were
talking about why the prosecution and the law enforcement agencies believe that Brandon should be the number one
suspect well that's because of his quote-unquote access to the believed murder weapons now Brandon got locked up
a couple weeks after his parents were killed and he was arrested for the charge of double homicide once he was
locked up his bail was set so high that he would not be able to make bail to get
out leading up to his trial remember we've talked about this plenty of times and look there's not always something
wrong with it but sometimes there is you have the right to a speedy trial in the
United States you just might not get one Brandon's trial was about two and a half
years after his parents were killed that's ridiculous now that could again not always something wrong with that
sometimes that's at the request of the defense I don't know what the case is here but it looks to me like the
prosecution wasn't so confident about their ability to convict Brandon meaning they didn't think that
they had that strong of a case then then you let him out you know while you try to build that case and here's why I
think it points to the prosecution believing that they don't have a very strong case against this guy one
there are they are going to present a bladed weapon a dagger is what it's often referred to as in court and say
this was one of the murder weapons and we found this at the remember the woodruffs called it their Barn at the
heath property we found it there in the barn and Brandon must have tried to conceal it and hide it there they
searched that Barn a couple of times didn't find it but then two and a half years later right before the trial they
find the dagger in the barn that's poppycock it has been described and this is one thing that is very Troublesome to
me I've heard experts say it cannot physically be the blade that was used in the attack that it was probably a
kitchen knife or something similar to a kitchen knife that was used in the attack
this is like an ornate decorative dagger that's why they keep calling it a dagger
some have even called it a sword because the blade was so large remember we mentioned that the the cuts the stab
wounds the deepest one on either victim was five inches roughly five inches this
thing is described as having a blade that's about 12 inches long wow now there's been other experts that say yes
this instrument could in fact have made these wounds so expert opinion different
experts saying different things in regards to this murder Weapon It's all depends on who's paying them the problem
for Brandon though is and this is fact this is not opinion they did find a small drop of blood on
the dagger on like a underneath one of the decorative skulls that's on the dagger right on the handle
and it's described as it would be in a place that if one were trying to clean blood off of a murder weapon that they
might not look that this kind of they forgot to clean this one little spot is there bleach residue on the on the knife
if there is it wasn't discussed at trial either way that there wasn't or that there was it's it's not mentioned what
is mentioned that's pretty damning here is that drop of blood is confirmed to be Dennis woodruff's
blood now of course there are ways that his blood could get on that knife and that
night knife not having been used to murder him but it's very suspicious very sketchy very sketchy
stuff now there are some people that have even suggested that the police planted that
knife in that location I don't believe that I don't have any reason to believe that they seem to be open about hey yeah
we probably should have found it earlier we just didn't go through every particular thing the first time we
searched that area the other problem for Brandon is that they will point out that he had access
to the gun that they believed was used in the homicide remember we mentioned on that Saturday the day before it's
believed that his parents were killed he spent the majority of the day helping out his old girlfriend his friend Morgan
Lee he was at her house on and off for most of Saturday at some point in the investigation after the woodruffs are
killed the Lees tell law enforcement hey a gun is missing from our house we had a decorative gun on display it
was on a shelf like in a I'm guessing in like a glass case for display purposes right on a shelf in either a hallway or
a spare bedroom but it's regularly agreed upon that anybody that had access to their home had access
to this gun it wasn't stored in a way that some if you were in their house you could just you could just take it and it
was loaded they had ammunition yes it was loaded and there was ammunition on display with this gun that seems like a
great idea the prosecution would tell us that they believe that Brandon stole this gun on Saturday and then used it on
Sunday to murder his parents the Lees tell law enforcement this gun is missing we didn't notice it missing until the
woodruffs were killed until sometime after they were killed but when was the last time you handled that gun oh about
a year ago right so it could have and in fact been gone before the woodruffs were killed it could have
been gone before Brandon had access to it on that Saturday right that gun has never been found
and I think that the problem I have with the knife is against Brandon it's got his father's blood on it that looks very
bad but what the prosecution would tell us later is that the gun was probably thrown in a
lake somewhere because they present at trial this guy that was in a cell that says
hey at some point Brandon asked me if a gun with a wooden handle if it would float to the top
or how long would it stay submerged in water like he was concerned that they were
going to find the murder weapon oh I hate any of these jailhouse snitches here's the problem I have with this
jailhouse snitch amongst other things I know you don't like them I don't like them either but it's like if he threw
the gun that was used in a lake somewhere why would he throw the knife in there as well why why are we finding
this knife in the garage because it was a sword man he wanted you got to keep that Soul the collectors it's a
collector's item it's going to be worth a lot of money someday oh unfortunately I I agree with you I mean if you're
going to dispose of the gun why wouldn't you dispose of the knife unfortunately what we have here Captain is Brandon is
convicted of double homicide and he's been in prison ever since the thing that I have a big problem with
is I've looked at this thing for the past week we've been looking at this case and I thought from from the get
from Jump Street that oh we're going to come across something at some point in this next week that's either going to
definitively for me prove that Brandon's either a innocent or be guilty yeah I can't find anything that tells me that
he is in fact innocent I can't find anything that says to me 100 that he's guilty I am very suspicious of that
missing time that hour to hour and a half that he's unaccounted for on that night it's
been suggested this is what was going on or that was what was going on that he didn't lie to police but I don't know
that until there were people that can back up where he was and what he was doing and when it when he was doing it
or the fact that he tells his friend hey I was here an hour and a half earlier correct that's very suspicious now
in a lot of cases we don't have uh the suspect talking whether that's a interrogation or anything but what we do
have in this case is and we played in the trailer it's Brandon telling his supporters you
know believe me I did not kill my parents and normally you can get a sense a gut sense of whether or not you
believe the kid in this case it's so weird because it seems like he says a couple lines that
make sense and I go okay probably didn't then he says a couple lines where I don't think he's saying anything wrong
it's just the way he chose to say him and that could have been nerves or whatever but I kind of walk away from
the whole uh him pleading his case to his supporters and still kind of throw my hands up like I
don't know I don't think I learned anything from it well in online you can find the interrogation or questioning
tapes when the Rangers and the Sheriff's Office are questioning Brandon right and
I've watched them and they're very interesting because his body language to me never at any point even for a second
shows what I would believe to be a guilty person he is he's extremely Cooperative with their questioning so
much so that he's offering up to a DNA test he's offering up he's even telling them like hey I'm not planning on
sticking around in this city I don't like it here my parents have been killed right I'm probably not going
back to college I was failing anyway and I don't really want to go back there I'll probably go here and I can't
remember where he says he tells them where he's planning on going I think it's to go off and stay with extended
family which makes a whole lot of sense it's just in a whole different city right
but he's so Cooperative to the point that he doesn't have to tell them that he's planning on leaving the area one if
he were guilty I think I think he wouldn't have told them that Tui doesn't have to tell them where he's going
and three he even says he even offers up that he will stay in the area long enough for them to
clear him as a suspect when you're done when you guys are all done with your investigation or you're all done looking
at me right let me know and then I'll I'll wait till then to go so super Cooperative during the
questioning process it's one of those cases Captain where I I cannot find a reason to push me to one
side of the table or the other the innocent side or the guilty side what I will say is I don't feel that Brandon
regardless of what people out there listening feel if he's guilty or not I feel that this guy got screwed in court
I don't think that this was a fair trial and a large part of that comes from this
fact and this is known fact it's in the court documents we have a judge who had to make a ruling on this after the fact
it was proven that the prosecution was not only listening into Brandon's phone calls while he's in jail for two and a
half years mind you leading up to the trial they were listening to phone calls between him and his defense attorneys
that's that's awful right he should be he's one if you're going to hold somebody that long I understand that you
think he's a murderer but if you think he's a murderer then get him to trial if you're going to hold him for two years
then release him he should not have to sit in jail it it's supposed to be innocent until
proven guilty an innocent man shouldn't have to sit behind bars for a whole two years the other thing too is I would I
really want to know if Brandon came forward and and talked about any sexual encounters that he possibly had uh in
his community during High School would there be any individual that showed discrimination towards him that would be
afraid of him possibly telling his parents or or telling the community well this this whole mess right here is pure
and simple abuse of power is what it is I get it okay this was taken to a higher
court and a higher Court had to make a ruling on this and determine that no wrongdoing took place
uh let's say horseshit all right I'm sure that's a term that they use a lot in Texas that's what this is to me abuse
of power because what they did here was let's take this guy lock him up we'll set the bail really
high so he can't get out and then in the time that we take to build our case we're going to use him
being locked up to our advantage to build a case against him by snooping on his phone calls now I get what the Court
ruling says that you know they were told the inmates the the people that are housed at that facility are told your
phone calls will be recorded I get that that's fine I also get that he was mirandized that says you've been
arrested for this charge and anything you say or do can and will be held against you in the court of law I get
that the problem is where the hell is the attorney-client privilege right okay I get that they they presented this has
happened in other cases where they've presented um Casey Anthony her phone calls that she
had while she was in jail locked up they've presented those at trial they didn't present the phone calls between
her and her attorney because that's privileged information and that shouldn't be information that maybe it's
not presented at trial but prosecution shouldn't be able to hear that and then I think the problem becomes
it just seems like they're discriminating against this guy simply because of his sexuality or that they've
built this case against this guy maybe they really believe that he killed his parents and it has nothing to do with
his lifestyle for them maybe they just really believe that he did it but they're going to stack the deck against
this guy which is just unfair that's not what our society has deemed to be right
right and the thing is too the higher Court ruling was that well none of the information gathered in those recordings
was used against him at trial so what who cares well you can't actually prove that because whatever information that
the prosecutors heard they could have changed their strategy based off the information they heard so there would be
no way of really proving unless they took direct words or direct lines between those Communications and
presented those at trial I agree 100 and so it's one of those situations where I cannot tell you if
Brandon Woodruff killed his parents I can tell you this there were other suspects that I would
have looked at these etheringtons are weird that whole family Mike Etherington said lies to the police we know that
because he told police that he saw on Brandon's Myspace page that Brandon hated his parents and he wished they
were dead the police checked the Myspace page it didn't say that it said that he
loved his parents so why did Mike make that up I find that really strange to go run an errand for
your parents when you want to kill them and come back and kill them yeah and to take it a step
further there was hold on I was just gonna say if they came back and said that Aaron was never run I'd go okay
well that makes more sense but when they come back and go okay well we have proof that
that that Aaron was run I go but this doesn't make a lot of sense well to take that a step further there Captain this
is similar to the Eddie O'Brien Junior case that we covered back in August of this year in episodes 416 417 the trail
Blood episodes there was evidence at the crime scene that is directly related to these
murders that was not tested and not presented at trial and that is a difficult bitter pill to
swallow at the end of the day there was hair found in Norma woodruff's hands that law enforcement agree this I'm
going by their own statements they believe that that hair likely came from the killer could it have come from
Norma's head yes could it have come from her husband yes do we know where it came
from no it was never tested and it was never presented at trial Brandon Woodruff did not receive a fair
trial [Music] [Music] all right thanks for joining us here in the garage we want to hear from you we
want to know what your thoughts are on this case check us out at truecrime garage.com and go to our blog and leave
us a comment Colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week this week we are recommending railroaded the
homophobic prosecution of Brandon Woodruff for his parents Murder by Philip Crawford Jr available in both
paperback and Kindle forms among those who have read Crawford's book is Catherine Ferguson she is one of
woodruff's defense lawyers and I found an online review that she wrote for the book which says quote Mr Crawford has
done an excellent job of setting forth facts not speculation or Prejudice that show Brandon Woodruff is innocent check
out railroaded that great title and many others are listed on our recommended page at truecrime garage.com and until
next week be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] foreign

Brandon Woodruff /// Part 2 /// 436

Part 2 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

In October of 2005 college freshman Brandon Woodruff was arrested for the murders of his parents. Someone killed Dennis and Norma Woodruff in their new home. Questionable tactics have many asking was this Texas Justice or an Injustice?

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Brief Summary

Brandon Woodruff is tried for murdering his parents, Dennis and Norma, amid financial struggles and questionable evidence.

Key points

Murder Scene Discovery. A family friend discovers a slain couple in their home, leading to a police investigation.
Locked Doors Mystery. The investigation reveals locked doors at the crime scene, raising questions about the killer's entry.
Personal Attack. The nature of the attack suggests a personal motive, as indicated by the medical examiner.
Brandon's Secret Life. Brandon was involved in gay pornography, a fact unknown to his parents.
The Crime Scene Investigation. Police found no signs of forced entry, but blood droplets led to a chilling discovery.
Missing Time and Suspicion. Brandon has a missing window of time on the night of the murders, raising suspicions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to be seen and good to see you.

Nick welcomes listeners to the show.

0:51WatchNov 11, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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