Heartbreaking Murder of Philip Walsted | Murdered at First Sight | Forensic Files

JONATHAN: Well, here we are in Hampton Court. And this has been just a wonderful place.
[PIANO MUSIC] LAURA: Philip was a kind and gentle person. RONDA: He was so well-mannered and
polite and interacted in such a loving, caring way with everyone. He lit up the room with his smile.
JONATHAN: If you look at these pictures, you can see what a free spirit Philip was, how effervescent and bubbly
he was, how happy he was. And he had his whole life ahead of him. On June the 11th, Philip went out for his walk, and that was
the last time I ever saw him. [SIREN WAILING] MARK: We had a young gay man that was beat to death,
left to die, and we didn't have a lot to go on. RUSSELL: It was starting to look a little difficult
as far as us making an arrest. It was getting a little cold. MARK: A crime of this level of brutality was a shock to me.
RONDA: It made no sense to me at all why anyone would want to hurt Philip. There was no sense to it.
MARK: When all the information came out, I was shocked that it was done just because he was gay.
LAURA: You would hear about hate crimes on the news, but it never happens to me.
It never happens to my family. Well, it did. It happened to us. It happened to Philip.
[SOMBER MUSIC] RONDA: Philip was born February 25th, 1978. He just seemed like a perfect size for me to hold.
And I just remember treasuring those moments of cradling him and rocking him and watching him develop.
LAURA: The first time I saw him, he just had this little scrunched up look on his face
like he wasn't sure being here was such a good idea after all. But he was so, so cute.
RONDA: This was when Philip was a baby, and that is my dad holding him on the table
at our house in Tucson. LAURA: He was raised in Tucson, and lived on Apple Tree Lane.
- This is Halloween, and we were going trick or treating, and I was in charge of holding Philip.
He was dressed up. I can't tell what he was, but he's holding his pumpkin. And just fun days in Tucson.
We just had an unspoken love for each other that just came naturally, and we enjoyed our time together.
Our-- our young lives were spent with very happy memories. LAURA: Philip wasn't a typical boy.
He wasn't very rambunctious. He didn't want to play sports. He was more interested in listening to music.
He didn't raise a lot of fuss. He didn't get in fights at school. He was just a calm, quiet kid.
RONDA: When we were growing up, being gay wasn't talked about. I don't even know if I really knew what gay was.
It wasn't a common topic. LAURA: Growing up in the '80s in Tucson, it was a very
conservative kind of town. If someone was gay, they would have a hard time. It was not acceptable to--
to my parents. It wasn't acceptable to Philip's parents. It was just not spoken of because it wasn't allowed.
RONDA: I'm sure it was very difficult for Philip to come out in 1993. I don't remember necessarily being shocked or surprised.
I still loved him, and it didn't change a thing about the way I felt about him. LAURA: When he did come out, he did not get much acceptance
from his parents, and he left home as a teenager because of that. BRYANNA: Back in the 1990s, it was still stigmatized.
It was still considered unusual. Some people were very accepting. Others were very not.
There was still a lack of understanding, a lack of willingness to accept. LAURA: Shortly after he came out and had left home,
my mom was there to make sure that he was OK, that he'd found a place to live, that he was with good people.
JONATHAN: I met Philip outside the IBT bar in 1999. I found Philip to be very confident.
I thought, he's very sophisticated and very directed, knew what he wanted, knew what he was looking for, and I
was very impressed with that. After we met that night, we were constantly together.
He had his own apartment. He had a job. We spent essentially all of our free time together.
When Philip moved in with me, then I knew, this is the real thing. We would rent movies and watch them at home, and just
most of the time, just being together, whatever we were doing, going food shopping
or running errands, going to the bank, those chores, which were such drudgery, became something I was anxious to do because I
could do it with him. I was smitten. I was hook, line, and sinker. RONDA: I remember Philip was living
with his partner Jonathan in Tucson and that they were happy. LAURA: I think Jonathan was--
was a good place for Philip to be. It was a safe home. It was someone who loved him for who he
was and wanted to be with him. JONATHAN: I realized that he was estranged from his family.
I think his mother wanted to have a relationship with him. I think she was sad that they didn't have a strong bond.
So when I encouraged him to reach out to them, they responded, and, in fact, would even invite me along
with him to things like a Christmas party or events like that. So it made a tremendous difference in his life
when he kind of got his family back. RONDA: Philip did a lot to show his love towards his dad.
Took him to lunch and spent special time with him, which, of course, meant a lot to my uncle,
and it meant a lot to me that Philip had that kind of a heart. LAURA: They saw that with Jonathan,
that he had someone who loved him and someone he could spend his life with, and that, I think,
enabled them to see that being gay isn't the end of the world. It's just the beginning.
RONDA: He went to work for American Airlines, and I was so proud of him. He was traveling and enjoying life, and I was happy for him.
JONATHAN: After Philip got his job at American, we were starting to take plane trips,
and it changed his whole attitude, from living in a small town his whole life to seeing the world.
The first major trip we made was to Bermuda. We had a wonderful time, and Philip was in heaven.
I think it was the-- the happiest week of his life. LAURA: We would email now and again.
He would tell me a little about his job and that he was getting to do some traveling.
JONATHAN: Here we are in the Admiral's Club in Chicago on our way to England. This was the highlight of my life, this trip.
Philip was in heaven, sitting in those first class seats. I'd never seen anything like that.
There's Philip, sitting in the seat. He's playing with his TV, trying to get it to work.
I never flew first class before I met Philip. That was a new experience for me. That's something I couldn't have done on my own.
We're driving along the sea route. Philip is doing his best to drive in this crazy place.
And he was immensely proud of that. Here comes Philip. This little walk in the forest is just delightful.
When we got back from our trip, our relationship was on a whole different level.
And I knew at that point that this was it for me. This was my life. And I believe he felt the same way.
We were so happy. And we went about our normal lives. - Are you done with that thing?
JONATHAN: Three weeks later, Philip returned from work, probably around midnight.
Philip's job at American Airlines was a reservationist, and I know that that can be very, very hard,
because people are upset. They're not getting their flights. Their flight was delayed.
There's a problem. He would be quite keyed up when he would get home. What he would usually do in that case
is take a walk around the neighborhood. He loved the quiet of the night. So Philip said goodnight to me and went out for his walk,
and that was the last time I ever saw him. - When I first received the call about this case,
I was at home. It was early in the morning. The information I got over the telephone
was that a passerby had walked by and seen an unidentified male laying in the street,
and they thought he had been hit by a car, so they called 911. The scene was in the middle of the road on Fifth Street,
between Hoff Avenue and Third Avenue. MARK: There was so much blood that they could not determine
what the injuries were. RUSSELL: When the paramedics got there, they saw the seriousness of the injuries to his head
and determined this was not a car crash. It was not consistent with being hit by a car.
It was, in fact, an assault. So they grabbed him and ran to the hospital with him.
MARK: When I arrived at the scene, I saw the police officers. I saw the-- everything was blocked off.
I saw the tape. RUSSELL: When we came down here to see the scene, he had already been transported to the hospital.
What was left was a large pool of blood with clothing that had been cut off the victim,
and some bandaging from the medics that arrived to treat him. MARK: They were taking photographs of the scene.
They were looking for evidence. They were checking for surveillance. They were looking for witnesses that
may have been in their homes, heard something, saw something. And this was early hours in the morning, so a lot of people
are asleep. RUSSELL: All the evidence that we found belonged to the victim. His blood, his clothing.
There was no other evidence found that would point to anybody else that was responsible for this.
While we were at the scene, looking it over, we were told that the victim had, in fact, died of his injuries.
I went to the hospital to actually get a look at our victim. He had suffered serious, serious injuries to his head,
to his skull, at least two of which penetrated the-- the skull and into his brain.
His head was heavily bandaged. His eyes were swollen shut. They were black and blue from all the blood
draining down into his face. Because of that, homicide detectives are now involved to determine how he got injured like that.
MARK: The Tucson Police Department has to find out who he is. That was the next important thing.
JONATHAN: I woke up, and Philip was not home. His car was parked in its spot, and I thought, this is odd.
He's not here. And I was starting to get concerned. RUSSELL: I arranged to have fingerprints taken from him,
since we didn't know who he was, and also arranged to have a photograph taken of his face in case,
we could get him identified just by showing a photograph around. But he didn't look anything like he did in real life.
BRYANNA: He was hit in the head with a baseball bat almost 20 times. His injuries, to his face in particular,
were so horrifically terrible he was unrecognizable. RUSSELL: After his fingerprints were taken at the hospital,
he was eventually identified by a fingerprint comparison. Apparently, he had been in the system
from some other prior contact with the police. BRYANNA: He had very minor infractions
for traffic related offenses. Luckily, his fingerprints were in their system, otherwise,
he may have gone a long time without being identified. RUSSELL: Once Mr. Walsted was identified,
we were able to track down his next of kin, which was his mother. The police department were able to make contact with her
and explain to her what happened, and notified her of his death. Notifying people of a death of one of their relatives
is never an easy one. JONATHAN: I got a telephone call from my cousin saying, we heard something on the radio,
and we were just wondering if Philip is all right. And I said, well, no, he's not.
He-- he did not come home last night. They said, well, there's been a report of a murder.
MARK: I remember Philip's mother told police that he was gay and he was living with his partner in downtown Tucson,
which was blocks from the location where he was found. JONATHAN: I immediately went down to the police station,
and that's when I found out that it was, in fact, Philip who had been murdered. LAURA: The email came in, and I saw it was from my sister.
I'll never forget what it said. She said, I don't know how to tell you this, but Philip is dead.
He was robbed and beaten, and he died. RONDA: Learning that Philip had died, I'll never forget it.
It's basically like you're melting into the Earth and the world is spinning around you.
It's so tragic. It was such a horrible piece of news. LAURA: It was like being run over by a truck.
It was a huge emotional blow. I just remember I cried and cried for probably an hour.
JONATHAN: The feeling was indescribable. It was like, my life is over too. I'm finished.
Why even carry on? This-- this was-- I'd found this wonderful man who I was planning
to spend my life with. All my plans, all my dreams, all my aspirations revolved around him.
And that was gone. I was a mess. I was a wreck. RUSSELL: When we determined Mr. Walsted was
living with somebody, that person became a person of interest. MARK: Initially, he is a suspect,
because that's the first thing they're going to do. They're going to turn their eyes on the partner.
JONATHAN: I went to the police station and talked to the detectives. They told me that it-- he was probably beaten with a 2 by 4.
They clearly did not want to say a bat. I guess they did that to see my reaction.
RUSSELL: When Jonathan came to the station, he was very professional. He knew why I wanted to talk to him.
Yes, he was nervous, but he was very forthright, telling me everything I wanted, answered questions
that I hadn't had the answers to. - We talked for, I'd say, maybe an hour. And I think during that period, the cops
realized it couldn't possibly have been me. - What he did was tighten up a timeline.
He had indicated that Philip had worked to a certain time, got home late, had a beer, said he was going to go out.
I think from the beginning, they were starting to minimize anything he had to do with his crime.
Nothing of importance was found by the police at Jonathan and Philip's home. The information we had, they were
living a normal, happy, fun life together. RUSSELL: I had gotten information that he liked to frequent a bar on 4th Avenue.
It's called IBT's. MARK: IBT's is primarily a gay bar, but it's also a dance club.
All kinds of people go in there to have fun and drink and dance. RUSSELL: We talked to people in IBT's, the customers and
the security people that were there. They didn't have a lot of background for me
other than they had seen him in there a lot. They talked, but it was very minimal according to the people
that we spoke to. The security people knew him just as a frequent visitor to the bar, but they didn't socialize with him.
You could probably consider it was getting close to a dead end. Nobody could give us any information
about his activity that night. In our attempt to find some more leads and talk to people who knew Philip,
we went to his place of business and talked to several of his co-workers, and none of them
could give us anything but a little background information about their time socializing with him
within the work environment. MARK: There was no surveillance, no eyewitnesses that were known to the police, no cameras, no ring
cameras, no porch cameras. None of that stuff. No witnesses that came forward. Just one 911 caller saying that he had found a man
bloodied in the middle of the road. You don't have anything to go on, and your sole witness is the partner, who was asleep
at the time, and everything that he told them appeared to be correct and true. LAURA: It was very difficult not
knowing if the person that had done it would ever be caught. Somebody needed to be held accountable for what they had
done, and we didn't know who. RONDA: I remember just being so sad for my aunt. It was extremely devastating to watch
her try to deal with the pain. MARK: The local weekly paper picked up the story,
and flyers were put out asking the public for its help in solving this crime. The mother of an eyewitness came forward,
saying that her daughter had information, eyewitness information on the homicide involving Philip.
That was a huge, huge break in the case. It was so big that the detectives all immediately rallied to find out what this woman
knew about the homicide. - We needed to talk to this girl. We needed to find her.
I asked officers in that area if they could locate her, and They brought her to me at the station,
where I interviewed her. MARK: The young woman did tell the police that she saw a picture of Philip in the newspaper,
and that she also recognized the photograph from a driver's license. RUSSELL: She told me that on the morning of June 12th,
she was with a person she identified as David Higdon, and they were just driving around in his truck.
- David Higdon was a 20-year-old who lived in Tucson, who had just recently been released from
prison for burglary, drug charges, and aggravated assault. He was known to have a very bad
temper, he was very angry, and it was predictable that another offense was bound to happen.
MARK: They ended up parking the pickup truck, sitting on the tailgate of the pickup truck
when the victim came walking by. They engaged in some conversation. Philip stayed at the tailgate of the pickup truck.
She ended up getting into the cab, and that's when, a short period of time later, she looked in her rear view mirror
and saw Higdon beating him with a baseball bat. - [SOBS] RUSSELL: She heard David yelling at Philip,
and at that point, Philip took off running with David in pursuit. They went around the corner out of this girl's sight,
but she could still hear what was going on. MARK: She told the police that she could hear the sound of the baseball
bat striking the victim. Higdon came back a short time later carrying items from the victim, and
she identified at some point as being his watch, his shoes, keys, and driver's license.
MARK: She was very emotional, she was crying, she was distraught, and she said she believed that Higdon had done this to Philip
because he was gay. RUSSELL: I asked her what had happened after David got back to the truck.
She said that they eventually went back to David's house. David took all the items that he had taken from Philip
into the house, and he had a discussion with his brother, who then tells him how to get rid of DNA evidence and
that he shouldn't even have brought that stuff back to the house. She said he also used the victim's driver's license
to cut lines of cocaine, and that he keeps his driver's license in a top drawer of a toolbox.
When I asked her why she didn't come tell me about this information, she said she was afraid of David.
MARK: The police, with this information they had, identified who Higdon was and where he was living,
got a search warrant for his house. RUSSELL: We'd set up on surveillance at David's residence.
At approximately 1:00 AM, David drove back up in that white pickup truck that matched the description that this
young lady had told me about. And that's when we made a plan to make an entry into the house.
We had to force the door open. We made his entry inside, where we found David, his brother, and his father.
MARK: Once a search warrant is served, everyone is removed from the house, taken to the station
to do follow up interviews. Detectives remain on scene, searching for items, identifying items.
Photographs are taken, and the items that are important, are of evidentiary value, are collected,
and they are taken to the evidence and properties section of the Tucson Police Department.
At the same time, other detectives are attempting to interview his brother and David Higdon,
who is the suspect in the case. RUSSELL: Officers recovered Philip's driver's license.
We found an aluminum bat with blood on it. We found some shoes that had blood speckles on it, jeans
also with some blood spatter, as well as Philip's glasses. MARK: The brother of David Higdon was interviewed first.
Initially, he denied knowing anything, but eventually he told the police that his brother did come home and admitted to him
that he had hurt somebody. RUSSELL: We went to interview David. I advised him of his rights, and
he said he wanted an attorney. So once that happens, we stop asking questions. - David Higdon was arrested on first degree murder charges,
and he was transported, booked into the local jail, and held on a $1 million bond.
I think there was a huge relief in the community that someone was arrested and in custody
for the brutal slaying of Philip. LAURA: We still didn't have a whole lot of information
about Higdon, other than what the police had been able to tell us, that he wasn't accepting of gays.
He wasn't accepting of people of color. RONDA: When I found out that it was just a random stranger that
decided to kill Philip because he was gay, I didn't understand that. I-- It is hard to fathom that there's that much evil
in somebody's mind. JONATHAN: I knew that there had been a lot of crimes against gay people,
so it was a-- it was a shock that it was my partner, but it was not a surprise. MARK: People did want this to be classed as a hate crime.
As time went on, we got more and more bits of information that supported it as a hate crime.
RUSSELL: I had gotten information about David's affiliation with the white supremacist groups
within the prison system. Letters had been intercepted that he wrote, which alluded to being part of the white supremacist
groups, the Aryan Brotherhood. Those letters were shipped to the county attorney's office.
MARK: Once we had all the information necessary, including from the young lady, confirmation that Philip
was actually gay and the compilation of all that information together, it was classified as a hate crime.
So while incarcerated, he did get a tattoo with lightning bolts, and they were colored in.
The important part about that is when anyone who's associated with this gang darkens in their bolts, it's because they have committed
a homicide of one of the classes of people that the gang is against. We used that information later on
to show that that's another reason he was guilty of the homicide, because he followed
the protocol to let the world know, I'm a killer for the cause. David Higdon's trial for murder started on January 13th, 2005.
The trial lasted 11 days. JONATHAN: David Higdon saw me sit down in the witness chair.
I looked at Higdon. You could see what kind of person he was. RONDA: Being in the courtroom and
hearing the details of Philip's murder was devastating. It was extremely painful.
I remember just being so angry at the guy that we were all having to go through that, and that he was being defended,
and that he actually thought he had a defense against killing Philip. MARK: The defense for Mr. Higdon
argued that he didn't do the killing, that the state's evidence was weak, that the state's evidence was not
enough to support a conviction for first degree murder. We had witness interviews.
All the items we'd collected from Higdon's house, including the bloody bat, bloody shoes, bloody watch, driver's
license of the victim. Statements from the brother saying that he had used the bat, he had beat somebody
and he was covered in blood. We identified Higdon as a white supremacist who hated certain people.
Jewish people, people of color, homosexual people, and only wanted one breed of people to continue,
and that was the white breed. - It was very difficult for me to look at him. I thought it was just an evil presence.
MARK: I found an expert in the world of skinhead, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, Aryan Brotherhood,
a person who had actually been in that lifestyle for 12 years and had walked away from it.
I asked him if he could testify as an expert, and he agreed to do so. The fact that we had an expert to talk about white supremacy
and why they don't like certain classifications of people, gay people being one of the classes, what it means to have
tattoos on a body from the white supremacist organizations. All that information is evidence.
We put it all together, we segmented it, and we put it on a piece by piece by piece by piece.
And at the conclusion, we got a verdict. RUSSELL: On January 27th 2005, David Higdon was convicted
of first degree murder. RONDA: I did not see any remorse in this man's eyes or demeanor.
I don't believe that he was remorseful at all. MARK: In March of 2005, the day of the sentencing,
Higdon arrived in court, and he shows up with a skinhead, I thought, this guy will never quit.
He hasn't gotten it. He's never shown remorse. He doesn't care. This is the life he chose.
This is the life he wants. Nothing else matters except himself. LAURA: We had all written impact statements of what
Philip's loss had meant to us, and the prosecutor used much of that. His mother spoke at the sentencing,
and she did a beautiful job. - He was sentenced by the judge to natural life in prison.
JONATHAN: When we heard the sentence, it was a great relief. Philip's mother was in the courtroom,
and when the judge said life without parole, she just let out a, yes! And that's how I felt.
LAURA: I met some of the-- the gay community when I went to the sentencing hearing.
They were there because they were family too. And they lost a brother and a friend.
BRYANNA: Since Philip Walsted was murdered, The Tucson Police Department has actually
taken several steps to try to eradicate hate crimes in their community. One was that they had the safe places policy, where
people that are different sexual orientations and are feeling threatened know there
are certain businesses and places they can go to seek refuge, to be safe. They now have liaisons that are specifically
trained on how to communicate most effectively and take these reports, and to be the most understanding
and compassionate with people that already feel so vulnerable. RUSSELL: I find it heartbreaking, you know,
that somebody that young had so much more life to live, and it was taken away from him.
It's not right. It should never be right. They didn't deserve it. People are people with different choices
and different thoughts, and they shouldn't be killed for those. JONATHAN: Well, we're on our last hour now,
so I'm going to get a sunny view from our balcony. RONDA: There's a memorial for Philip in Tucson.
There's a big tree there and a park bench, and family members and loved ones have visited it over the years.
MARK: It had a profound effect on me. I do think about the case. I drive by this memorial, and I glance
over that and think about it. JONATHAN: I left Tucson a few days after the trial,
and this is the first time I've been back. I haven't even seen the memorial. LAURA: It's a place I can go, and
I can remember spending time with him, and it's a place for good memories. - We've lost somebody that will never
know what their future was. We'll never know what their potential was. We'll never know what value they could have
provided to the community. It's important for Tucson to remember. JONATHAN: Coming back here has been very hard for me.
Seeing our old house where we lived together for three years, seeing the memorial, it's been very, very hard for me.
But I'm-- I'm glad that I did it. RONDA: I know that losing Philip has been a devastating event in his mom's life.
I know that she is, to this day, devastated. Philip was just a sweet soul. JONATHAN: What I miss about Philip was the simple things
we used to do together. We just enjoyed each other's company, and I knew that it would never happen for me again.
I never even tried to meet anybody again. I knew that part of my life was over. - I would have loved for him and Jonathan to have--
to have built their life together and to have perhaps gone on to have children. It would have been so wonderful.
RONDA: I miss his quiet spirit, his funny little side jokes, and just the sweetness of who he was.
I miss that we didn't have more time together. LAURA: When I met my wife, it was
the first same-sex relationship either one of us had been in, and it surprised the heck out of us both, I think.
But I do wish Philip had-- had lived long enough to see me find happiness with my wife.
Whether it was, you know, him poking fun at me and saying, I knew, I knew it. I could see him do that.
That would be great. JONATHAN: I asked Philip if he wanted to get married. He thought that was silly in those days,
but it was not the thing that it is today. I would have been happy to. LAURA: I want Philip to be remembered for being kind and
joyful, for the love he had for Jonathan, for the love he had for his family, because he was taken from us, and I don't
want anybody to forget him. JONATHAN: We're about to get on the road. Be seeing you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

The death of 24-year-old Philip Walsted is initially thought to be a robbery gone wrong, but personal details emerge that reveal shocking motivations behind his murder.

Murdered At First Sight is a true crime documentary series that tells the first-hand stories of the most complex and hard-to-solve homicide cases: murders committed by strangers.

Brief Summary

Philip Walsted's life, tragic murder, and the investigation into a hate crime are discussed by family and detectives.

Key points

Philip's Kindness Remembered. Philip was described as a kind and gentle person who lit up the room.
The Brutality of Hate Crimes. The shocking reality of Philip's murder revealed as a hate crime.
The Tragic Last Walk. Philip went out for a walk on June 11th, and it was the last time he was seen.
The Emotional Impact of Loss. Family members share their heart-wrenching reactions to Philip's murder.
David Higdon Arrested. David Higdon was arrested on first degree murder charges, held on a $1 million bond.
Trial Begins. David Higdon's trial for murder started on January 13th, 2005, lasting 11 days.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It made no sense to me at all why anyone would want to hurt Philip.

RONDA struggles to understand the violence against Philip.

1:26WatchSep 19, 2025

Tension

80/ 100High tension

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