Off The Record /// Episode #103 | Forensic Files

[Applause] [Music] [Music] hey yeah welcome back i had the privilege of talking to an individual close to a case
that we just covered if you listen to the show last week the main show we covered a case called a trail of
blood where janet downing was murdered and a lot of people believe they got the right guy
which happened to be a kid edward o'brien jr and his family and several other neighbors
have tried to point the finger at different people or point the finger away from edward one
of the people that they point the finger at is artie which artie was the brother-in-law of
janet lived at her house for two years and then moved out a little bit before the murder took place
already reached out to us saying hey some of the stuff that you were talking about in the case
is just not true if you'd like to hear a more in-depth view into some of those things that can
help you out so we got on the phone and did so listen in and jenna downey's ex-brother-in-law
i was her brother-in-law when she was murdered um i still remain friends with the
families both the salamini family which is her brother janna's brother and still remain
friends with my ex-wife janet's sister other than that being connected to the case i arrived there
like anybody else would how are you called to the scene my wife had called my work
the dispatcher informed me to call home right away which i did from a pay phone because
cell phones weren't in then she said to me you need to get to janet something happened
i immediately hung up and i drove from downtown boston to 71 boston street where she was what
time do you think you arrived at janet's house i'd say about 9 45-ish 10 o'clock
in that time frame and you're driving from work you're a taxi cab driver you're driving
from the boston area yeah i was driving no my my area is somerville mass because it's
a separate uh entity we can't do jobs in boston but we can drop off here i was dropped off at south station in
boston i'm sure as a text cab driver you guys had some kind of a log of the customers you drove around that
day did the police ever ask you for a log of those customers i i believe that's a
question for the police because i i can't get into what i truly believe i just don't know if they did their due
diligence in this case as far as clearing other suspects no i believe they did their due
diligence very very fine it just came together quick for them juan you also were telling me earlier
that we reported that your car was parked on a different road than it actually was
on yeah it was actually parked on what we call hamlet street janet's actual address is 71 boston
street but her house is right at the corner of those two streets and i was parked on
hamlet street facing up towards boston street approximately i know i was before the stop sign i'll
put it that way well some of the speculation by the neighbors was that your car was blocked in by
police officers ambulance or emt absolutely not i was the only one parked on hamlet
street and if they needed to get around they could very well have made that turn
onto hamlet street the claim by gina mahoney is that my car was facing down towards
highland avenue other side of the street which would have been parked correctly if in fact i was
parked there so what happens when you arrive at the scene when i first drove up i saw yellow tape
and like i told you before growing up in boston knowing what yellow take means there's
been a crime committed this is in my head before i even get out of the cab so i immediately jump out of
the cab i made an attempt to run into the house the police stopped me and said no you
can't go in there okay so i backed off and i said well where's my family members
what's going on and the officer i don't remember his name black or white i don't know
he told me that ryan is over there in the police cruiser i went over there and i tried to speak
to him my grind what happened what's going on buddy he couldn't talk he just had that look
of terrorism when as you're pulling up you don't know if something happened to your sister-in-law or if something
happened to one of her kids correct so after he's not able to tell you what's going on what did you do next
i walked over to gina mahoney's porch because that's who i knew how did you know or just from living
there for a couple years no i kind of knew of her because i knew her daughters outside of the neighborhood before i
even moved here so i went over to them and i looked i said what happened these are words from gina mahoney's mouth
they just took the janet out because what do you mean they took her out in an ambulance
i later learned the reason for that was that she had a faint pulse and sadly she
didn't make it how long do you think you spoke with her off and on through the night
um she even let me use her phone to wipe at the hospital i called my wife at the hospital i said honey
what's going on and she told me janet's gone how long do you think the police and emts were there that night
i don't know how long they were there before i got there but for the time i was there the police
were there throughout the night because they have to secure it for a warrant to search the house that's just
common knowledge i can't give you a time frame on when the fight apartment left i do remember them still being there but
there was no ambulance there when i got there and at some point in this evening one of the reasons people point the
finger towards you is that you lost your car keys at some point from the moment i got
there i lost my car keys let me specify i lost a car key not keys with a little dog tag and
ring on it so what you're saying is you had your keys but you had a single key that you
would use to drive your your car your taxi car uh did you drive the same car every
day no they gave us different ones every night unless they thought you were a good driver they
would give you a newer cab every night but no i remember specifically that night i
was driving car number 42. so when do you think you lost this taxi car key correct and i don't know when
that was did you ever find the key i did not and the neighbor also reported that your taxi
car was towed that night correct yes it was so did your work end up having to make a
replacement or did they have a replacement key for that for that cab yeah they they they have a
replacement key on hand and they also have a key making machine there from when they get other caps
since we're on the top of the key it's reported in the book and by gina mahoney that the police found the key and gave
it back to me that is a complete false statement i wish the police would have just went to your work because one they
could have saw the record log your work log which would have established some kind of alibi
which then when a book came out or when people were digging for information police could have said well
we talked with artie's employers and he had an alibi for that time during the murder
why do you think the parents and the neighbor and some other people have come forward
and try to point the finger towards you my belief is to get people to believe that it
wasn't eddie to get you know statements in that it could have been me for 25 years of these false accusations
oh man i'm just tired i'm tired about it you know it's taken a lot out of me do you remember what you were wearing
that night i can tell you with a pair of shorts and a shirt that's about it and i know that uh please question you
but you didn't really believe you were a suspect or under suspicion but let the listeners know what happened
to you when you showed up at the actual trial of edward o'brien we left home me and my wife brought that
child up with the daycare they had in the courthouse downstairs proceeded to go up to the beginning of
the trial judge comes in and jury comes in with probably three minutes later mr riley
you know asked me to talk to him and he says i apologize but you're not allowed in
the courtroom and i asked him why and he says because the defense has me on their witness list
so i had to leave and you were telling me that your sister-in-law didn't really date
much after the divorce she did not date after her divorce that i am aware of some people would
want to know how that divorce went down was there any animosity there that's a question for jen and her ex-husband and
unfortunately there's only one person that can answer that yeah but you can answer how you feel
about her ex-husband her ex-husband yeah i think he's a great guy great father great grandfather do you
believe he stepped up after her death uh because she was primarily the caregiver to the children
he absolutely did took his children in now i heard that there was a trail of blood
that was found once they towed your car yes there was a blood trail it was like 30 feet behind my cab
i remember that the next day so there was a blood trail just was not connected to your actual vehicle
and edward was known as this gentle giant you lived across the street from him for two years
can you give me what your thoughts on edward was you know to this day i have no bad words for his parents or him
other than the fact that he killed my sister i occasionally drank on the o'brien's
front porch with the dad i played street hockey in the street with the kids including eddie
and the other named boys in the book marco abreu john fitzpatrick and a couple of other kids it was a
common thing right i loved i enjoyed playing with kids because i've had kids on my own
and i still do obviously you know we used to have snowball fights i'd be at my house that he'd be standing
on his porch and i tossed one over and he stuck out of the way did you think he was a good kid
from what i knew of him at the time i thought he was you said something pretty interesting to me and i think a lot of
listeners and a lot of people that dove into this case deeper have not picked up on
is not only has edward's story changed on what happened but go through the events of what he
claims happen inside the house well there's a a bit of a long pathway up to the four-year door there's a four-year
when you enter approximately i'd say four by four if i run them correctly and immediately to was the house door
to go into the house he he claims he the door wasn't open he went in this is in the book he went in leaned
over and said janet janet and then out of nowhere comes this so-called killer nylon mask
as said in book this this is at the entrance of the door if this man threatened him
like they said in the book i'll kill you i'll kill your family i know you and he said leave why aren't you going
to go out the front door 52 feet to your house but yet you decide to leave through the
basement out the back of the door through the bushes and run down the street how he got back
to his house i don't know he got was housed from the midnight variety when he claims he was mugged
that's when he goes back to his house and it's in record that his family later on convinces
to take him to the hospital to get his hand checked yeah and the big question is we find
some blood on edward but we would think that he would be soaked in blood do you do you think he
went to his work or or somewhere to clean up he did not go to his work to clean up he
went to burger king as stated by margo nash and went into the bathroom to refresh himself
and then he's walking to his work and where he was mugged is perfectly in the middle of burger king
and where he worked right police later on went took him to the scene where he was claimed to be
jumped and if he has a severe cut on his hand there's gonna be blood somewhere on the ground
and there was no and this is a vicious murder violent murder 66 stab 32 slash wounds and
i want to clarify something in the book that margot says she says the slash wounds were
post-mortem which means you're dead why would the ambulance take her out if she had a
pulse is there other claims that we made or have been made about you in the past
that you would like to clear up yeah you might discuss about gina mahoney i mean
she makes up all these accusations and and one of them is that we were kicked out of the house for
selling drugs that i was kicked out on drugs to the neighborhood kids which is false we
moved out in march of 1995 march 2nd because we got the call on march for us that the apartment was
available for us and i remember leaving janet was crying when we left and it was later learned over his son
paul that he also said mom was crying because we left right i actually have it in a statement written by
paul that she was crying when we left yeah there's a couple statements that were made because as this book comes out
there's all these claims that are really not backed up by anything factual other than somebody
else's speculation can you read you have two statements i believe can you read both of them for us
these are signed letters from aaron and paul downing ryan is really long and it's basically
the same stuff i'll start with aaron my name is aaron downing i am writing this letter on behalf of my uncle adi ortiz
as the daughter of janet downing i have known adi since i was six years old from the spring of 1993
to the spring of 1995 adi my aunt carol and their son aj lived with my family at 71 boston street summerville mass
prior to living with us body and my mom had a good relationship and while living with us their
relationship continued to be on good terms i never witnessed an argument a hatred
discussion or any tension between the two of them in the two years i delivered those us
our bond as a family grew stronger as my mother did not kick audi my aunt and their son out
of our home adi and my aunt had applied for housing they chose to move out when an apartment
became available for them in melbourne mass i even remember my mother saying that
she wanted them to continue living with us so they could save more money any story
that contradicts this is false signed and ring down and can you read the one from paul
downing so whom it may concern my uncle adi has always been a loving and caring uncle to both me
and my siblings i remember quite fondly how he would chase me my brother and sister around the house
when he and my aunt could carol sorry would babysit us during our childhood years
when my uncle and aunt came to live with us they bought they both brought with them
a sense of joy and joyfulness to the house that was lacking following the divorce of our
long and the divorce of my parents sorry i took i i could tell my mother loved artie
and carol and baby aj too around because we her kids trusted and loved him as well i remember my mother crying in
the den when my aunt and i broke the news to my mother that they were able to clear the
extensive waiting list for state housing that they would be moving out soon it was a day
we all dreaded but knew the moment they would eventually clear the list that they were able to spend together
with my aunt and uncle is among the few loving memories i have of that house i grew up in saint paul down
now there's a conviction a young man is convicted which maybe makes it harder to have
closure but i don't know if there's ever really any closure no and for me the answers are different
compared to the kids the kids are doing very well they i believe they have the answers
they wanted me i just have the answers because there was so much speculation that it
was me and that hurts that hurts so bad it's just i mean 25 years man i really never spoke to
anybody in the news media or anything about it i did have that documentary film with
street land productions but i don't know where that's going when i heard your podcast i thought
there'd be an opportunity if i left my phone number you'd call me yeah it's just i think
hard when you see pictures of edward and you hear about his gentle makeup that and we just don't
know much about him from the outside so it just it goes well how could he do this crime uh unless he
just snapped that's what i believe he smith but i don't know if you know it's also mentioned it was mentioned in
court documents that he had excuse me he had on his bedroom walls newspaper headlines of natural born
killers he had a telescope pointing to janet's bedroom i'll leave that part up to you
to think what you want of it i really can't say what i really think about that but maybe they found the guy
maybe they found the right guy quickly but when they had a couple leads or a couple
questions for other people if they would have taken one or two steps they would have been able to clear those people
in the in the public's eyes as well because they did question you we again i'm gonna say me and my wife
were interviewed the following day by police after that i was never questioned in my eyes and i believe in the police
eyes i was never a suspect because all my samples excluded me i understand his unknown dna
and then all these lies come out afterwards time after it didn't happen that night
they didn't happen the following day the gina mahoney you know she hugged me that night
she even stated to the cops that i had no scratches or blood on me when i arrived well people will always
make up speculation but certain evidence and dna evidence doesn't lie it's not course it doesn't lie no
i mean it was like i was you know talking to my wife at the time you know there's a possibility they may
find my fingerprints in the house possibly on the glass when i was washing the windows
or because i later learned that latent fingerprints can stay on something for a long time
but you know never any of that never anything in blood or you know it's just just a bunch of lies after the
after eddie was cornered i'm going to say and in my heart i believe 110 it with him
no question about it and and the other thing too is it to mention quite a bit about where he
worked that he put newspapers together on sunday mornings and etc etc because the big everybody went
to including her children went to they never mention the fact that it's also a pot porn store
born magazines sexual toys and other sexual paraphernalia behind a closed door why would a fifth
hero be working now yeah i don't know it doesn't seem like a place that i'd want my 15 year old
working artie i want to thank you for taking the time to contact us uh to be willing to be so open i know
that on our facebook page and some other social media pages artie has been answering questions he's
very open he's been very respectful to us and to any listener that i've seen him engage
with please be respectful to him as well as his sister-in-law was viciously murdered
and um again when these cases are covered when there's defensive made for individuals they have to point
the finger at different people that's just common and sometimes you're caught in
the crossfire and people will speculate maybe to the end of time on whether these individuals should be pointed at
or not but it does happen so i i want to thank you so much artie for coming on and
clearing up some of that stuff and talking with us and being so respectful i want to thank you
for the time and let me speak because my wife is sitting there with me and she's like
i can't believe you're this happy to talk about something like that i'm like i need to
i feel good about doing this well it's been great talking to you and i'm glad we're able to
let you have the time in the forum to clear some things up you stay safe my friend
and talk to you soon alright stay safe wear your mask yes sir you

Off The Record /// Episode #103

Brief Summary

Artie, Janet Downing's brother-in-law, discusses his innocence and the case surrounding her murder, addressing various accusations against him.

Key points

The Murder of Janet Downing. A deep dive into the tragic murder case of Janet Downing and the ensuing investigation.
Artie's Connection to the Case. Artie, Janet's brother-in-law, shares his perspective on the investigation and accusations against him.
The Trial of Edward O'Brien. Artie recounts his experience at the trial of the man convicted of murdering Janet.
Conflicting Accounts of Edward's Actions. Discussion of Edward's behavior and the inconsistencies in his story after the murder.
The Emotional Toll of Accusations. Artie reflects on the lasting impact of being wrongfully accused for 25 years.
Artie's Openness. Artie has been very open and respectful in addressing questions about his situation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I still remain friends with the families.

Maintaining relationships despite tragedy.

1:42WatchAug 12, 2020

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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