Trail of Blood /// Part 1 /// 416 | Forensic Files

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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who bought his mother shotgun shells and cigarettes
for her birthday he is the captain well I was hoping should kill my siblings it's good to be seen and it's good to
see you thanks for listening thanks for foron a [Music] friend this week we are very excited to
be featuring tropical hazy by our good friends over at the zfk Brewing Company this is very fittingly named as tropical
hazy is a New England style IPA that is tropical because of the Exquisite fruit flavors garage grade 4 and 3/4 bottle
caps out of five so so close to five out of five all right here's a cheers to this week's contributors first up cheers
to Elizabeth an aaox Virginia and a big shout out to Donnie in laale North Carolina next up we have Dave in
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Record and you can find all of that at true Crim garage.com and that is enough of the business all right everybody
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] oh in 1995 criminologist and political
scientist John delulio was invited to the White House to attend a working dinner on juvenile crime that same year
delulio wrote an article on the subject matter titled the coming of the super Predators he says the article is a much
needed reality check on the incredibly frightening picture that emerges from recent academ mic research on youth
crime and violence he says all of the Research indicates that Americans are sitting at
top a demographic crime bomb and all of those who are closest to the problem hear the bomb
ticking he says big city prosecutors inundated him with war stories about the ever growing numbers of hardened
remorseless juveniles who were showing up in the system quote they kill or maim on impulse without any
intelligible motive likewise a veteran police officer told dulio I never used to be scared now I say a quick Hail Mary
every time I get a call at night involving juveniles I pray I go home in one piece to my own kids on a visit to a
New Jersey Maximum Security Prison he spoke to a group of inmates one prisoner told him I was a badass Street Gladiator
but these kids are Stone Cold Predators he goes on to cite a soaring rise in youth crimes of violence stating between
1985 and 1992 the rate at which males ages 14 to 17 commit murder dramatically increased and while most violent youth
crime is committed by juveniles against juveniles of late young offenders have been committ committing more homicides
robberies and other crimes against adults there's even some evidence that juveniles are doing homicidal violence
in wolf packs citing a 1993 study that said juveniles committed about a third of all homicides against
strangers often murdering their victim in groups of two or more moreover the crimes are becoming
more violent and more serious for example aggravated assaults rather than simple assaults and attacks involving
guns rather than weaponless violence according to the article the youth crime wave has reached horrific
proportions 1994 in Los Angeles there were believed to be some 400 youth street gangs with known members alone
committing 370 murders and over 3,300 felony assaults the criminologist goes on to say what is
really frightening is what's just around the corner namely a sharp increase in the number of Super crime prone young
males at the time nationally there were about 40 million children under the age of 10 the largest number in decades in a
decade the then 4 to 7 yearolds will become 14 to 17y old to which he says it's simple more boys begets more bad
boys this spike in the young male population means big trouble ahead he pointed to quote scientific
Kitty crime literature A study of 10,000 boys who lived in Philadelphia between their 10th and 18th
birthdays over oneir had at least one recorded arrest most of the arrest occurred when the
boys were ages 15 to 17 half of the boys who were arrested were arrested more than once but the
most famous finding of the study was that 6% of the boys committed five or more crimes before they were 18
accounting for over half of all serious crimes and about 2/3 of all the violent crimes this 6% Doe 50% statistic was
replicated in a series of studies in several cities it is on that basis that James Q Wilson and other leading crime
doctors predicted that the additional 500,000 boys who will be 14 to 17 years old in the year 2000 will mean at least
30,000 more murderers rapist and muggers on the streets according to dulio what was on
the horizon was tens of thousands of severely morally impoverished juvenile super Predators who were perfectly
capable of committing the most heinous acts of physical violence for the most trivial reasons they fear neither the
stigma of arrest nor the pain of imprisonment they live by the meanest code of the meanest streets a code that
reinforces rather than restrains their violent hair trigger mental it in prison or out the things that
super Predators get with criminal Behavior sex drugs money are immediate rewards Nothing Else Matters to them so
for as long as their youthful energies hold out they will do what comes naturally murder rape Rob assault
burglarize deal deadly drugs and get high man's field B Frasier's book warned of a Sharp cataclysmic increase in youth
crime and violence and what he called the coming Menace it is speeches articles and
reports like dulos that cites flawed statistics and study results that led to the growing panic in the US of
exaggerated inflation of Youth gang violence and a new political phrase the juvenile super predator
[Music] Somerville Massachusetts a beautiful place located directly northwest of
Boston the population at the time of our story is about 77,000 people now our day in question
will be or should be a beautiful Sunday a summer's day in July this is July 23rd
1995 the kids are out of school but 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien is getting up early Eddie works a part-time job he's
had this job for over a year Eddie is pretty much your ordinary average 15-year-old kid in almost every way save
but one Eddie is big and he's not just big for his age he is big for any age Eddie is 6'4 in tall and weighs about
250 lbs that's a lot of lbs for a 15-year-old there captain now the best way to describe Eddie other than big I
would say is babyfaced in the close-up photos from 1995 the head shots where you can't see his large frame his face
looks kind and boyish looking younger than 15 in my opinion but as said Eddie is pretty much a normal kid he has lots
of friends he's on the football team at school he's a big sports fan and I mean come on Boston is one of the great
Sports towns in all of America so what does he play running back I think he might have been a lineman so of course
his favorite team you know being in the Boston area is going to be the Pats and his favorite athlete is one of the
all-time greats Mr Larry Joe bird on this Sunday Eddie has to be at work at 700 a.m. this is to put together the
Sunday papers he works at a carry out so the big sellers are things like newspapers magazine soda that kind of
stuff it's important to note a couple of things the store where Eddie works is not very far from his home he could
easily walk there and did often Eddie has several friends close friends in the neighborhood and they hang out all of
the time and they are in and out of each other's houses all of the time kind of like our old white Road Keller farms
connection for us back in the day MH now Eddie goes to the store where he works but he even goes there when he's not
working so this is not just a workplace for him this is also somewhere that he frequents
in his free time as we said he's a big sports fan so he likes to go there and read the magazines and the
newspapers his friends from the neighborhood they like to go to this store there often as well Eddie spent
the entire morning working he got a ride home from his older sister he brought home from the store two newspapers the
Boston Globe and the Boston ha haral and he also brought home some candy for his
little sister the newspapers were for his parents and since we mentioned it Captain the Boston Globe is by far in a
way one of the better one of the best resources actually for this case and if anyone has not seen the movie Spotlight
which is about the Boston Globe it's a mustsee 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien he lives with his parents Patricia and
Edward Senor okay so even though Eddie Jr is 6'4 250 lbs his dad is known in his
family and to the neighborhood as Big Ed okay so Eddie is the 15-year-old big kid
and Big Ed is Eddie's father there are five kids in Eddie's family and he's the only son it's also important to note
that across the street from Eddie's house is his best friend's house this is Ryan Downing the Downing household
consists of Ryan's mother Janet who is 42 years old and single and her four children around 5:00 p.m. Eddie leaves
his house with his sister and Ryan downing's twin brother Paul they're going to go to the Catholic Church to
attend the 5:30 mass Eddie's sister jeie will be driving the group of teens as they get closer to the church
jeie drops Eddie off at Union Square this is near his place of work he sees someone he wants to talk to at his work
and he goes in there and he hangs out for a while he leaves there on foot heading in the direction of his
house Eddie stops off at a park and sees his best friend Ryan Downing at this park they chat for a bit and decide to
walk home with two other friends together now so all of them are going back to their neighborhood the group
decides to go to Ryan's house okay Captain this is important as we are about to have several moving
pieces here and I want to make sure this portion of the story comes out clear and
that it is easy to follow because the events and the movements in regards to a a group or groups of teenagers will be
very important to the of our story so to be clear we are now just after 6:30ish and we have four teenage boys
all very good friends this is Eddie O'Brien Joey Dion Chris Ford and Ryan Downing they are all going to Ryan's
house they have all been there I don't know a hundred times before they hung out there until almost 8:00 p.m. this is
when the group is leaving to to go swimming at a friend's house in the neighborhood Eddie is the only one in
the group that does not want to go swimming yeah he's a bigger boy so right sometimes bigger boys don't want to go
swimming well you're right you think back to when when you're a kid everyone knows someone for any number of reasons
that was uncomfortable swimming in a group or with girls or with guys maybe yeah or you had a friend that always had
to swim with his shirt on yeah I had to swim with a shirt on but I prefer to swim without pants on well and it was
actually known to his closer friends that Eddie was uncomfortable about his weight right so not only did he choose
to not go swimming on this occasion I'm guessing that was probably a pretty regular thing for him well and just his
overall size as well I mean 6'4 you're a giant compared to your your friends you're you're bigger than most of your
friends parents yeah so he's going to opt out on the swimming for that evening now again Eddie's house is right across
the street so he just walks home the Edward O'Brien house did not have air conditioning so on a summer's day or
night and this was pretty typical of the neighborhood in general his family they
might hang out on their front porch for hours and hours so his father and Eddie and his little sister were all chilling
on the porch MH some neighbors dropped by periodically to hang out and chat now just before 8:30 Eddie's sister Jeanie
and Paul Downing came home they said they were going to go to the beach and swim Paul went to his house across the
street to change and then was seen leaving the house around 8:30 p.m. note that at this time just around
8:30 p.m. Paul is believed or was the only only one scen going into the Downing house at this time right at 9:15
p.m. Eddie decides to go out for a little bit before the night is over here is his plan he's going to walk to the
Burger King grab a snack and then walk to his friend his friend's name is Garvey he's going to walk to garvey's
house this is at 9:15 MH okay so we're all on board so far we are going to move ahead in this timeline just a few
minutes this is between the minutes of 9:45 to 10 p.m. when the following takes place Ryan Downing returns home he finds
his mother Janet Downing in a pool of blood on the dining room floor Ryan runs from the house to get help he runs
across the street and gets big Ed Big Ed goes running with Ryan back to his house
mhm just before they go inside Big Ed yells to the neighbors this is Barry in Virginia reckley he yells for some kind
of assistance from Barry so now entering the home all behind Big Ed we have the reckley and Ryan during this time they
call 911 to report what they saw from their own house correct on July 23rd 1995 Janet Downing age 42 and mother of
four is found stabbed to death in her Somerville home she was murdered sometime between 8 and 10 p.m. that
Sunday night this July 23rd this 800 p.m. to 10: p.m. marker comes from Margo Nash's fantastic book the politics of
murder the Boston Globe says she was killed between 8:30 and 9:15 p.m. I'm guessing other outlets probably reported
similar times likely more to the 8:30 to 9:15 p.m. time frame frame I say that because we have Paul Downing who entered
the home sometime around 8:15 and left just before 8:30 shortly after 10 p.m. Eddie calls police from the midnight
convenience store where he works and he says he was attacked by two men with a knife he tells them he was mugged and
had cuts to his right hand M police speak with Eddie briefly at the store they go there and speak with him they
take down the report and the paramedics are there too they examine his Cuts I wonder if these actually look like
defensive wounds cuz we know that somebody trying to use a knife the knife could become slippery and cause wounds
to their hands but it also didn't seem like he was covered in blood right so what we have go down here at the
midnight convenience store Captain the police speak with him they take down his report the paramedics examine his cuts
at the at this time the the paramedics don't believe that he needs much medical attention
and like you said he's clearly not covered in blood or the police are going to have a different reaction
to the the sight of this young man but we also have to go through what Eddie told the police but this is not at
the midnight convenience store this is later that same night when Eddie was treated at the hospital for these same
injuries the cuts to his right hand and also some minor abrasions to Eddie's shins one of the officers that
participated in the safety sweep at the Downing house this is the murder scene the crime scene at the Downing house was
later dispatched to go to the Somerville Hospital he was dispatched or so we're told this to interview a boy about an
incident that took place earlier that day the boy Eddie who said he was mugged and
injured during that crime so two officers arrived at the hospital around midnight they spoke to Eddie for a while
his father and his uncle were present Eddie was photographed during this meeting he was wearing a white Above the
Rim t-shirt which was turned inside out Eddie was also wearing green shorts and black tennis shoes
police took blood swabs from Eddie's shins they found a small drop of blood on one of Eddie's shins and later this
would be tested we should keep in mind that the O'Brians believe that Eddie is being
talked to because he was mugged earlier that day the evidence that is being collected at this time is Eddie's
clothes fingerprints blood they're taking photographs of the young boy and such and again they believe this is
necessary for the mugging incident Eddie and his father filled out and signed the consent forms for
collection of this evidence after collecting the evidence and the photographs were taken it was
time for the officers to have a nice long chat with all of the parties so they went to the Somerville police
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[Music] all right cheers mates cheers to you there Mr Captain cheers to everybody out there there we
go we just covered everybody yeah every everybody in the world at the Somerville
police station so on our timeline it is now just after 2: a.m. the officers have
Eddie sign a Miranda waivers form this is protocol at the time in Massachusetts for persons over the age of 14 but under
the age of 17 this is not typically done when you are about to interview a victim
so this is where Captain us on the outside looking in can see that the officers here do not fully consider the
15-year-old boy to be a victim they think of him in such a manner that requires them it requires
the consent form before questioning Eddie's father went with one of the officers into another room for a
questioning of his own and then Eddie and his uncle and now we have Eddie's mother present as well remained in this
room during the questioning and several officers are questioning Eddie at this time so I don't I I want everybody to be
clear this this boy this 15-year-old boy was not left alone with officers yes he
has no attorney present with him but he has his mother and his uncle in this room with him so he's got parental
supervision or you know the the backing of his family Eddie was asked to recall his day Eddie said when he arrived at
his best friend's house Ryan's house that the groceries were already in the house this is because Janet the mother
went to the grocery store just prior to Eddie arriving he said he did not help bring
them in because there was no need to do so he and a boy named Joey Dion went into the den this with the intent to
play video games but Ryan's mother was asleep in that room so they went into the kitchen instead they did this so
they would not wake her up there in the kitchen were other the other boys hanging out soon
everyone left all at the same time and Eddie went home later Eddie said he was on his front porch when he saw Paul down
and go into his home and then saw Paul leave after he says 10 maybe 15 minutes and Paul leaves with three girls they
get in a vehicle they drive off right then Eddie said he walked down the street and went to Burger King this is I
I had to laugh about this Captain because we just spoke a few weeks ago about how McDonald's always seems to
weasel its way into 60% or so of our cases well now we have Burger King trying to step in on old Mickey D's
action right the Whopper that's right so Eddie says he walks to the Burger King and he said that the the restaurant was
quite busy and then the food that he ate there upset his stomach a bit so he decided to leave so not a good showing
out of Burger King right but do we have a receipt for this visit that's that's interesting that you say that I don't we
don't have a receipt for this what's interesting is the Burger King thing does not so much come into question
because of other information that will later come out he says after this experience at the old BK that he decided
to walk down to Union Square to this area because he wanted to go to a place called jimmies this was like another
food establishment on his way there is when he said he got mugged he was mugged he
said when he walked down Somerville street after this he went to his work which was nearby remember this would be
a safe place for Eddie right he's just been mugged where you going to go you ain't going to go to Jimmy's now and get
something to eat in fact the people that mugged you stole all of your money so you're going to go to your work you're
injured and he said that he said he never returned to the Downing home after he left with the group when he said he
was going home because they were going swimming and he didn't want to go swimming
right what's interesting here we say that they're questioning this boy but really all they do is ask him to recall
his day he's not being asked specific questions even about the mugging or specific question so much about Janet
Downing who was murdered who lived AC Ross the street from him he's just being asked to record his day recall his day
and really it appears to me that the majority of this visit seems more about photographing him
right and taking his fingerprints and taking his blood getting that stuff getting collecting evidence from him
well two days later on July 25th 1995 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien he is arrested and charged with the
murder of his best friend's mother who lives almost directly across the street from the O'Brien home one month later on
the 25th of August a grand jury indicts Eddie for first deegree murder so what the hell happened police
said they didn't believe Eddie story they believed that the cuts to his hand was not from the knife attack
during the mugging incident that Eddie said took place but that the cuts were from his knife attack that he committed
on Janet Downing and he had either injured himself while killing his best friend's mother or when she fought and
tried to fight for her own life causing the cuts to his hand right also police said that they had physical evidence
that Eddie committed the crime police said they matched a bloody fingerprint from a beam in downing's Cellar to Eddie
O'Brien the prosecutor said they had Eddie's blood in fingerprints at the crime scene and
Eddie had blood consistent with that of Janet Downing on his shin this was a small
drop they also said that they had three eyewitnesses that saw Eddie fleeing the murder scene their claim is that Eddie
fabricated the mugging story as an alibi for the cuts suffered during the commission of the murder right and some
of his family members were out on the porch you would have think they would have noticed him going in and out of the
neighbor's house yeah this story doesn't really heat up and get really interesting and into the nitty-gritty of
the details until the whole thing gets to trial this is what's coming out in the
papers at the time time the police and the prosecutor saying this is what we have against this this 15-year-old boy
we're going to arrest him we're going to charge him with first-degree murder and
it looks on the surface from what they're putting in the papers to be what could
amount to a mountain of evidence against this boy yeah like I said if if he used
a knife and there was that many stab wounds that there would be a lot of blood that knife becomes slippery the
handle becomes slippery they normally can injure themselves by attacking somebody else so Eddie O'Brien is
arrested and charged as we said Janet Downing was laid to rest Eddie's parents were invited by neighbors to attend the
funeral and the mass for the services for Janet Downey the neighbors said that they did not want this tragedy to tear
the neighborhood split right down the middle as one neighbor put it though Brians not only believed their son's
story and believed that he was innocent of the charges they were very vocal about this belief they did interviews
with the globe and on August 2nd 1995 just a a little more than a week after the murder the O'Brians announced a
$5,000 reward for information leading to the men they believe mugged their son now two days later and I I believe
that this should give everyone some insight into the character of this boy of Eddie O'Brien or what those around
him thought about him at the time even though this kid's been charged with murder the owner of the store where
Eddie worked he added $10,000 to the reward offered by the O'Brian yeah and you don't do that if you think this kid
is scumbag well that's the thing he's you know I I know this term is well overused
and it it's say it it's tired but he's he's described as a gentle giant or a big teddy bear well like you said his
face makes him look younger than he actually is he's got a kind face and I and I I hate that phrase too but really
when I saw pictures of him that's that's what I think of he's he's got boyish looks he's got a baby
face and people said that he was not an aggressive person he didn't argue with people he didn't get angry he didn't you
know fly into fits or anything like that in fact his parents and some of the coaching staff on his football team
would get angry and upset with him because he wasn't aggressive enough on the football field he even told his
father according to Big Ed anyway that he was worried that he would hurt the kids he didn't want to hurt the kids cuz
he was so much bigger than most of them right so he kind of hold back when he play against people yeah so we have
Eddie who says I was mugged we have his parents and now his employer who are looking for the people that mugged
him but see Eddie's got a secret and it's a really big secret and it's about to come
out two weeks after Eddie O'Brien was arrested and charge with murder he gave his attorney a note that said he was at
the crime scene the night that janning Janet Downing was murdered Eddie says the following is the real
story let's remind everyone of Eddie O'Brien's plans for that night he's going to walk to the Burger King grab a
snack and then walk to his friend garvey's house but before doing this this is the part that is new to
everybody but before doing this at the last minute he said he decides he's going to go
across the street to see if his best friend Ryan had returned from swimming and if so he wants to see if Ryan wants
to tag along with him for that night I really want to hit home this timestamp of 9:15 p.m. right at 9:15
p.m. three Witnesses Place Eddie O'Brien at his house this is his father this this is
his sister and this is also the grandfather Eddie O'Brien's grandfather was living with them at the
time they would later say we all were aware that he was there at 9:15 because we heard him yell to Big Ed hey I'm
going out I'm going down to the I'm leaving the house to go to Burger King so this was not just him going to his
father and asking this is him kind of yelling it at the house and asking for permission but announcing it at the same
same time so Eddie says he went across the street to the Downing house he knocked on the window which was
typical he says he noticed that the front door was unlocked so he went inside he said most of the lights in the
house were off he said he saw blood in places as he made his way through the house he noticed the bathroom door was
closed he says he saw Janet Downing l hang on the living room floor she's lying on her side mhm he says he ran
over to her to see if she was all right he put his hand on her and he said Janet
was not conscious and Eddie said that there was blood all over the floor he says he didn't understand what
had happened to this woman he turned her over so now she is on her back he says that he saw all of the cuts to her neck
Janet was covered in blood and she wasn't breathing Eddie wanted to get help so he said he started to go back to
the front door mhm he says before he got to the door someone grabbed him from behind he described this person as a
tall man with dark hair the man was wearing a nylon stocking over his face in some kind of what Eddie called latex
gloves as tall as Eddie or is he shorter than Ed there was no height description
given in the information that I found the man put a knife to Eddie's throat and told him if you tell anyone
about this I will kill you and I will kill your family and I will have plenty of time to do it before the cops can
catch me right then Eddie said he heard something and he he believes it was a knock at the
door the man then told Eddie to get out of there so Eddie ran to the cellar and out the Cellar Door so he's he doesn't
run out the front door he runs to The Cellar down the steps to The Cellar and out the Cellar Door he said when he got
to this portion of the house that the Cellar Door was already open so he's just running outside once outside he
stumbled and fell into some bushes if you look at a map of the the neighborhood you will see that there is
a large amount of bushes or what even some were calling a wooded area that is described to be I would describe it as
behind the Downing home I have seen some reports that say it's beside the Downing
home so I I mean I don't want to whatever words people want to use go for yeah do we have a map that we can put on
the website or Instagram uh we might um check our Instagram cuz we might have I'm looking at one right here I do want
to point out something too before we move on that I found this to be interesting and it is somewhat part of
the case but it it should be noted the the home the Downing home is a duplex so they share a wall with
somebody else right the Downing family purchased this home in the late 70s her Janet Downing and her ex-husband
purchased this duplex in the late '70s and they lived in one and rented out the other side so at the time in 1995 Janet
who is now single divorced she's living there with her four kids on one side and
they've rented out the other side the people living at the other side are the recky the ones that follow Big Ed into
the crime scene right the reckley had rented from Janet Downing for like five years and they didn't hear anything they
heard some things and we can get into that during the trial but some of the things they heard I personally I
question them um there's been a lot made of what they might have heard at 8:15 which is difficult because we have
Paul who's in and out of the house at 8:15 MH back to uh Eddie's story okay so he runs out the Cellar Door says the
Celler door was already open when he got to that point of the house once outside
he said he stumbled and fell into those bushes that I am saying are directly behind that house he says he doesn't
remember getting scratched or injured during this fall he said then he went to the sidewalk and started walking away
from the house he believes that he heard someone or maybe some people calling out
to him but he says he just kept going so now he is fleeing from the house and he's running down if if you're looking
at a map he's running down Hamlet Street toward Highland Avenue away from the Downing home he said he then walked to
the Burger King and he went into the bathroom washed his face and some of his body because he says he was sweating
profusely by this time not only is it summer and it's probably hot out right but if his story is truthful he's
probably scared to death and he's been moving quite quickly through the neighborhood to get down to the Burger
King and he said he didn't know what to do he said he wanted to go home that's your natural thought I guess but he said
he was afraid to remember so right across the street right across the street you're taking a very long DET
tour yeah so well no he he says he it wasn't until he got to the Burger King that he could
kind of clear his mind my my guess is that when he's running from the Downing house he's just running from the Downing
house once at the Burger King he that's where he's saying once there I didn't know what to do I I wanted to go
home but because it was right across the street from where the man threatened my
life and my family's life he didn't feel like he could go home he says he left the Burger King and it was then that he
was approached by what he describes as two boys most of the newspaper articles say two men but his description was that
of two boys and he said one of them had a knife these two boys were the ones who
who he claims mugged him he said that he gave them all of the money that he had which was
$17 he said one of the boys threatened him and told him that he was going to cut him and this kid was coming at Eddie
and Eddie says he kind of side stepped him you know steps back right and he stuck out his hand and his arm to try to
Shield himself with his hand he doesn't remember getting cut at this time but he
put his hand out to block the knife from there he decides to go to his work the midnight convenience store there he told
one of his co-workers that he had just been jumped the worker picked up the phone and dialed 911 and handed Eddie
the phone and that is when police and EMTs arrived at the midnight convenience store about 15 minutes later right and
that's where they're going to check his person and and the injuries take him to the hospital and that's kind of where
the conversation between him and police start happening yeah so here's what they
observe at the midnight convenience store there is a cut on Eddie's pinky finger there is a larger cut on the palm
of his hand and a cut going down his thumb all three of these Cuts were to Eddie's right hand right so after the
EMTs were done with Eddie the Somerville police who responded to the call they they drove Eddie home now once he was
home his grandfather is recommending hey you should probably go to the hospital and get a tetanus
shot and get this hand examined one more time remember the EMTs when they examined his hand they didn't really
they didn't do anything they just kind of you know cleaned it up well and like we said and I I think I've brought it up
twice already if he is using a knife himself think about what would happen if a knife
slipped through your hands you're going to be cut possibly on your thumb your next finger your your palm so it doesn't
those wounds don't have to be multiple stabo it could be one injury for one slippage of of a knife that you're in
control of yes it was a cut a cut to his thumb a cut to the palm and a cut to his
pinky finger now they decide that that his family decides that Eddie probably should have got
stitches they think he should get a tetanus shot they take him to the hospital and then that is where we know
that police really first started questioning Eddie because think about this for a situation now yeah there's 77
roughly 77,000 people living in this area but you get a call at just before or right around
10:00 that a woman's been stabbed to death in her home and then a shortly after 10:00 you
get a call that a boy 15-year-old boy and depending on which route you take which is her neighbor yeah depending on
which route you take it's 04 to0 five so less than a half a mile away mhm this kid is involved in a knife attack so so
not only proximity in far as location but proximity in time as well two knife attacks take place or at least the
finding of one victim and then the reporting of another victim yeah friends with her kids knows the victim the
neighbor of the victim was in the victim's house earlier that day many times it it seems like kids
frequent that address uh um what I wonder though is what was he wearing before he went home uh instead
of going swimming before going home and and not hanging out with his friends what was he wearing well see
that is where a big problem happens for you're the big problem the police and for later the
prosecut okay there are there there's like a dozen witnesses that say Eddie O'Brien was wearing the same thing that
morning that afternoon that evening before and after the murder and then he's photographed by police right
twice mhm white shirt white shirt it's Above the Rim shirt remember people from the 90s will remember the Above the Rim
uh brand I don't know if they're still around everything's below the rim now um very sad it's very but uh he had a white
Above the Rim t-shirt on which was turned inside out and he was and again this was not uncommon and it's not like
he was wearing the shirt right side out and then later it's inside out no every person says he was wearing an Above the
Rim shirt that morning that afternoon that evening that night he was wearing green shorts and he was wearing his
black tennis shoes now you point out something that's very interesting it's the yes yes if if if this giant of a boy
was using a knife to to murder this woman and stab her repeatedly it very easily could have
slipped and he could have cut himself during that attack or she's fighting him off and he loses control the knife and
cuts himself but then you have a problem where this woman was brutally attacked and yeah he's got cuts to his hand well
let's stay at the crime scene for but where's the blood on his on his body or on his clothing yeah cuz how many stab
stab wounds do we have oh man this was see that's the other thing too this was a
horrible horrible attack so what's the motive for this kid well because because he thought she
was a attractive well so then wouldn't the motivation be sexual in nature do we have any sexual assault that happened
sexual assault she was stabbed believed to be 98 times 98 times 9 times and that's not the extent of her
injuries we can get into that during the trial portions of this story but I mean
you're talking 98 times that's a brutal attack the the general thought was that she that that Eddie O'Brien became
obsessed with this woman and that he was some kind of sexual sadist and he decided to attack and kill her and he
went in there with the knife and stabbed her 98 times and then he fled the scene
made up this whole story of oh I was attacked I mean did he stab her like really slowly to make sure that he
didn't get any blood on his shirt well see that's the part of the story that there's all these question marks
Captain Captain there's there's a ton of C cin cabin mhm C his new name is cabin there's all
these question marks there are things that make this young man appear to be guilty M but there are also things that
you go well if he did in fact kill her why are we not seeing this type of evidence well people will go well he
went to the Burger King he said by his own his own admission that he went to the Burger King and he washed his face
he washed his hands and he washed portions of his body well yeah good luck getting that amount of blood off of you
and how did he get the blood off of his clothes right the one thing I don't like
about his story though Captain is that it's not that Eddie called 911 it's that he gets to the
store and it's it's the uh the the store clerk working at the time that goes what
the hell happened to you oh I was jumped that store clerk dials 911 hands him the
phone it's almost like he was forced to do it he was forced on the spot to come up with an excuse for why he was cut
right and maybe boom that's his his Alibi maybe he wasn't intending on going home for several hours after he killed
though the problem you have is you have a store clerk that knows him that doesn't tell you he's covered in
blood so unless you can find a bloody shirt somewhere that he changed out of and like you said there's multiply
Witnesses saying he wear wore the same shirt that's not to say he lives right across the street I'll just take this uh
shirt I'm I'm going to pull this one off I'll wear this shirt I go in commit the
crime I got blood all over me I have to discard the the shirt now I put back on my old shirt again a big bloody mess and
you're going to put on a white shirt a lot of other colors you could go with that that just doesn't make a lot
of sense to me 98 times like if I was wearing a white shirt and I was eating spaghetti and I
took 98 bites I'm going to get more spaghetti sauce on me than this kid that supposedly just stabbed this lady 98
times violently because he's so obsessed with her got any blood on his [Music] shirt so much more to get to make sure
you stick around join us again tomorrow in the garage until then be good be kind
and don't [Music] litter [Music] the Angie's List you know and trust is now Angie and we're so much more than
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Trail of Blood /// Part 1 /// 416

Part 1 of 2

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The city of Somerville is full of tight-knit neighborhoods. In 1995 a woman was brutally murdered in her home. Evidence led the Somerville police to the unlikeliest of suspects. Beer of the Week - Tropical Hazy by Zaftig Brewing Co. Garage Grade - 4 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode examines the 1995 murder of Janet Downing and the arrest of 15-year-old Eddie O'Brien, questioning the evidence and motives behind the case.

Key points

The Coming of the Super Predators. John Delulio's article warns of a demographic crime bomb among youth.
Eddie O'Brien's Ordinary Life. Meet Eddie, a typical 15-year-old with an extraordinary size.
Murder in Somerville. Janet Downing is found murdered in her home, sparking a community crisis.
Eddie's Alarming Call. Eddie O'Brien calls police claiming he was attacked, raising suspicions.
The Investigation Begins. Police collect evidence from Eddie after his alleged mugging.
Consumer Cellular's Flexible Plans. Consumer Cellular promotes a more consensual and flexible approach to phone plans.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

These kids are Stone Cold Predators.

Prisoner's chilling description of juvenile offenders.

5:33WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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