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

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grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [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 stamed
multiple times Dennis was shot once in the face and had nine stab wounds some as deep as 5 in to his face neck and
upper torso Norma was shot three times in in the face and had a 4in 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 sat 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 bullets
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 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 mhm 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 5 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 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 in
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 Breakin 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 you 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 almost is as if he didn't think this and 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 him up
by shooting um the father and then attacking the mother but but then stab wounds afterwards makes me believe that
it would be more personable right and not just I'm here to kill you so I shoot you and then I be on my way this person
then took the time to pull out a knife or if there was 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 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 man his appearance to mutilate him to
stab him nine times with whatever knife was used in this homicide which I normally say 100% of the time that's
personal but we do have evidence that they're having financial difficulties and is it is there something that the
public their their uh friends and family didn't know about or maybe they took a loan from somebody um 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 proven 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 blade ated 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 there 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 are 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 examiners 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 have the
medical examiner who says the stab wounds happened 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 4:00 on Tuesday right there's
a big window of time of when this could have happen 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 700 p.m. what backs Brandon's story up is that there were two phone calls that
took place place in the 7:00 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
being an argument or anything it was just he came to visit he ate with us he left yes and without
getting I'm 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 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 7:00 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 relative 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 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 th those conflicts might not happen or those 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 different 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 well and to be clear did he was he out to his parents before this dinner or was
this dinner um hey Mom Dad I got to tell you something but a lot of times parents
know before the 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 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 we have no evidence of 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
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 in 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 uh 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 some friends of his knew knew obviously he was creating another um social Dynamic that knew uh 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 uh 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'm 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 want wonder why I never got to go on a date with them
right you know it 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 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 MH so I think you know obviously it's a different part of the
country um and sometimes in 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 that discriminate the most
against somebody's sexuality is because of their own hatred to them to themselves that they're 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 MH 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
MH I'm guessing that this is not something that Dennis and Norma knew about right and I look whether your kid
um is a 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-look 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
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you liked my singing there in this week's music yeah it was a oh sample of the colonel 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 theorized
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 had 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 Woodruff 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 mhm later we would find out that when police did the luminol testing through out 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 victim 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 read 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 Woodruff 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 well investigators are going to
shrink that window even more because what they're going to say is that the Woodruff were killed sometime between
9:30ish and 10:30 to 11-ish 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 1100 p.m. 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 9:00 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 9 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 11:00 p.m. 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
11:00 the problem with Brandon's story he was supposed to be there to pick up Robert between 5 and 6 then that gets
pushed back to 9 9:30 and he doesn't show up to Denny's until 11 p.m. 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 it gives him you know right it
it puts him 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
problem the problem with that statement is you don't know you don't he may be lying he may he may have done this and
just Flatout lied and now he's oh I was off of 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 7:36 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 11:00 p.m. 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 p.m. The Stables from the dble Y 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 Robert and we're going to
either go out for the night or we're going to go back to campus so the stable 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 900 p.m. but
he doesn't show up until 11: p.m. 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 happen during
that time frame the thing that kind of sucks for Brandon is Brandon will say 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 Woodruff 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 fault 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 AT&T purchased singular or what went down but at this time in 2005 in this area if you
were an AT&T 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 didn't see him till 11:00 p.m. 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 save us some time right Robert says that Brandon was breathing
heavy during this phone call and the prosecution's going to point out well that's because he was exhausted from
having physically murdered two people vce 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 does 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 up Robert Robert agrees 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 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 talked 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
67 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 Woodruff why is that weird and suspicious it's
weird and suspicious because at that time police had not announced to anybody that the Woodruff were
murdered when the bodies were found they notified their employers and they notified family and they simply told
everyone that the Woodruff 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 ve 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 Errington 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 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 McCoy
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 inand 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 and hung out there 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 2 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 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 they 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 Woodruff called it their Barn at the heath property we found it there in the barn mhm 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 5 in roughly 5 in this thing is described as having a blade that's about 12 in 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 a 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 KN 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 wood Ruffs 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 Le tell
law enforcement this gun is missing we didn't notice it missing until the Woodruff were killed till sometime after
they were killed but when was the last time you handled that gun all about a year ago right so it could have in fact
been gone before the Woodruff 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 I hate any of
these jail house snitches here's the problem I have with this jail house snitch amongst other things I know you
don't like him I don't like him either but it's like if he threw the gun that was used in a lake somewhere why
wouldn't he throw the knife in there as well why why are we finding this knife in the garage cuz it was a sword man he
wanted you got to keep that sword it's a collector's it 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 just 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 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 B 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 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 it in the trailer it's Brandon telling his support ERS you know believe me I did
not kill my parents mhm 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 them and that could have been nerves or whatever but I kind of walk away from
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
two he 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 2 and a half years mind you leading up to the trial right they were listening to phone calls
between him and his defense attorneys that's that's awful right he he should be he 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 murder 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 word or direct uh 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 Etherington 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 going to say if they came back
and said that Aon 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 he go but this doesn't make a lot of sense well
and to take that a step further there Captain this is similar to the Eddie O'Brien Jr 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
[Music] [Music] try 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 true Crim 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 Kendall 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 true Crim garage.com and until
next week be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] you can start your day off right when
you find a professional on Angie to get your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals
to get all your home projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you
Angie that

Brandon Woodruff /// Part 2 /// 436

Part 2 of 2

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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

The episode investigates the double homicide of Dennis and Norma Woodruff and the trial of their son Brandon, raising questions about his guilt and the evidence presented.

Key points

Quality Sleep with Ashley. Ashley offers top mattress brands at winning prices with financing options.
Murder Scene Discovery. Family friend Todd Williams finds a slain couple in their home, leading to a police investigation.
Murder Investigation Insights. Details emerge about the brutal nature of the crime and the challenges in solving it.
Brandon's Secret Lifestyle Revealed. Brandon's parents were unaware of his involvement in gay pornography, raising concerns about his lifestyle.
The Missing Time. Brandon has a significant gap in his timeline on the night of the murders, raising suspicions.
Family Feuds. The case reveals deep-seated feuds between families, complicating the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's always been quite difficult for the state to prove their case.

Commentary on the complexity of the murder case

5:54WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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