Prime Time Krime
Robert Wone: Part 3
Right now in true crime:
Karen read new trial date, Bryan KOHBERGER change it venue request, Sonya Massey.
In the last and final part of Robert Wone’s story we will discuss the trial and the charges brought against the 3 guys (Joe, Dylan and Victor) and current happenings with the case today.
Sources for episode:
Who killed Robert Wone (Peacock documentary)
- Duration:
- 36m
- Broadcast on:
- 26 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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Warning, this episode contains graphic crime scene detail, as well as talk of sexual assault. It may be sensitive for some listeners. Welcome to Prime Time Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime. And then together, we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. It is solvable. It was solvable two weeks after it happened. March 25, 2004, Cross Plains, Tennessee. Bur last day, question mark, Jennifer, just 21, stands in the kitchen of her boyfriend Joey Benton's family home, where she and her two-year-old daughter Adriana Wicks have been living. She has the only phone in the home in her hand and is on a call with her father. Jennifer expresses how the night before she and her boyfriend's parents, Joe and Cindy Benton, have been involved in a very heated argument. In fact, it was so heated that Jennifer was still rattled from the night before. She moves the receiver down to talk to a muffled female voice coming from behind her. She then says goodbye to her father and hangs up the phone. And what happens next? Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it? Jennifer and Adriana Wicks have not been seen or heard from since March 25, 2004. I'm a true crime investigator podcaster living in the same town where the Wicks girls went missing. Hi, I'm Jules and I've teamed up with Jennifer's sister, Casey Robinson, to ask some big questions from our little Hushtown that we've been too afraid to ask each other over the last 20 years. Where are Jennifer and Adriana Wicks? Small towns talk and, guess what, we're listening. Missing in Hushtown is coming 2024 wherever you get your podcasts. The entire first season will drop in August. We'll see you then. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. Let's jump into right now in true crime. First thing is first, the Karen Reed trial. They did go ahead and continue on to try to get this conviction. It is scheduled for January 27th of 2025. But there's a lot going on right now in this case. The initial person who did most of the investigation was this guy named Trooper Proctor. So he's under investigation and there's two additional troopers that testified in her trial that are also under investigation. So this whole thing is so convoluted, so complex. I had mentioned probably one of my earlier episodes a couple of weeks ago or this week, I can't even remember. My friends over at Love Mary Kill did a three part series or are doing a three part series on Karen Reed and everything that happened and everything that the aftermath and the trial. So you guys go check it out. I'm a member of their Patreon, so I got to listen to all three episodes early, but they are releasing them and they do a wonderful job at telling the story and really summarizing everything. So if you're wondering about what happened in the Karen Reed trial or who is Karen Reed, I don't know anything about it. Go listen to their episodes. So I will continue to keep you guys updated on all the Karen Reed happenings because I have a feeling we have not heard the last of Karen Reed and all of the drama that surrounds her case because it is a very convoluted and complex case. It's wild. All right, moving on to another convoluted and complex case, Brian Coburger, the Idaho for alleged murder has requested an official change of venue, meaning he doesn't want the trial to be in Moscow because he doesn't think that he's going to get a fair trial. Now this case has received a lot of media attention. He has received a lot of media attention due to the fact that he was a grad student teacher at a college in Washington and it is very interesting, complex. There is a lot of aspects to this case, but he doesn't think that he can get a fair trial. So he wants to change the location as does his team. This is one trial that I am so anxious for. It's set to happen next year, I believe in the summer. And I just don't even know the things that we're going to learn. I don't think we're going to learn anything in that trial that's going to sit well with us. I do think that the prosecution is going to have a very, very, very strong case against Brian because we have forensics. We have a lot of the eyewitness forensics that you need in a murder trial like this. We have his DNA on the knife sheath that was found under one of the victims, Maddie Morgan. We have his cell phone pings multiple different times at that address, driving by that address. We have his weak ass alibi that he was watching the stars that night that the four college kids were killed. We have his weird statistic Reddit posts about being a murderer. And how would you do a crime if you were to do it? We have so much on this guy and he is so smug, arrogant. He's really just a huge dick, allegedly, in my opinion. And I honestly think that he thinks of this whole thing as just a game and how many things can he manipulate? How many things can he get to go in his favor? I just feel like the families of these four victims and their friends, the two survivors are just really having to go through it right now. And I know that they're so anxiously awaiting trial date, but I'll keep you updated on that. And last thing I want to talk about a little sensitive topic. There was a woman killed named Sonia Massey in Chicago, Illinois. She was I think 37 years old. She had called cops because she thought there was a prowler creeping around. So she called cops. They come out and they're talking to her getting, you know, they want her information. They want her ID, but at the same time she is making tea on the stove. So she has a pot of boiling hot water because she's going to make tea. And I don't know if one of the cops said to her like, hey, can you get that pot off of the stove? And we don't want to like, you know, we don't want to add a fire onto everything else. And she goes over to do that. And the cops are kind of at least the one. I don't want to say both of them. But the one was very like he kind of like took a step back and she was like, what's wrong? Like you told me to come over here and he was just acting weird. Like he thought that she was going to harm him with this pot of water. And there's like a significant distance in between them. There's a whole counter in between them. And she, you know, was like, like what's wrong? And he talks about you have a pot of hot water. And she just start saying I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Like she probably saw evil and she was like I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And then he was like, you better not. And then there's expletives. I'll shoot you in the face. And then she like puts the pot down and puts her hands up and says, I'm sorry. And then this cop shoots her like blatantly shoots her. And there's body cam footage and it is disturbing as all disturbing can be. And unfortunately stuff like this happens a lot. We don't always hear about it. And we can also have the conversation of like she really wasn't doing anything wrong. He could have felt threatened, but he had there was a lot of room in between them. And there was no way that she could have really done anything to harm him because he was so far away. And I don't think that her intent was to harm him. So I don't really know what prompted him to pull the trigger. But Sonya died and she called them for help and Sonya died. That is so horrific to me. Watching the body cam video is really, really traumatizing. And then when they talked about like going to get the aid kit to try to like render aid, he was like, oh, no, she's done like what I'm sorry to protect and serve to protect and serve. That is your job. And what are you doing? I just have such a hard time. Now here's my little spiel that I go on or talk about this all the time. I have nothing but the utmost respect for law enforcement officers. Anybody that puts their lives on the line to protect others is a hero in my eyes. However, I do believe that there are some people A that get into law enforcement because they are a person that wants to get away with doing that things and be under the cover of law enforcement. We've seen many murders happen in the past that happened by different people in the law enforcement community and they think that because they're in law enforcement, they're not going to be looked at as a suspect. Then we have the people that do bad things and think that they can just kind of hide behind that. Everything with Karen reach trial explains this perfectly. And then I also think that there are police departments where there is just a lack of accountability. There's a lack of background checks that are done on these people. And most of them, they do want to do well. They do want to do good. That is why they're in that job, but there are a select few that are not there for the right reasons. And this guy was one of them. He had been suspended from a ton of previous positions in law enforcement. And it makes you wonder, did his department do a background check on him? Did they investigate him whatsoever before they hired him? Because now he's being charged with murder of Sonia Massey. And I saw it with Kayla on a turner, how she was treated that day, how they spoke to her. And at the end of the day, this kind of stuff just can't happen and it shouldn't happen. And unfortunately, when it does, that's what takes center stage. And it's sad, should not happen. There should never be a time where an innocent person loses their life at the hands of anybody, but at the hands of law enforcement, who they called for help. Horrible, horrible, horrible. But I will continue to keep you updated on Sonia's case and what's going on with him, but we can rest assured that he will never be working in law enforcement again. And that is it for right now in true crime. And we are going to go ahead and get started with part three of Robert Juan. I know you guys have been eagerly awaiting the conclusion. So here we go. Okay, guys, we are jumping in to part three, the last and final part of the unsolved homicide of Robert Juan. As we talked about in part two, this is the very complex and circumstantial case. So in this part of the episode, we're going to talk a little bit more about some of the potential evidence, some of the questions that the prosecution was asking. And we find ourselves in the middle of a trial. So about three months after the murder of Robert, Victor, Joe and Dylan are no longer living in the house on Swan Street. But there was a report that the home was burglarized. So Dylan's lawyer ultimately ended up being the one that reported the burglary. So this burglary ended up actually being committed by Joe's brother Michael, Michael Price. He allegedly came in to the home and took a few flat screen TVs and then went on to pawn them. So in this, they discovered it wasn't really a break in because Michael Price ended up having a key to the house this whole time. Now there is a part where they flash back to the interview initially with investigators when Joe Price was in the police station that night answering questions about does anyone have access to your home? Does anyone have keys? And Joe said nobody besides a few contractors had keys to the home. So a very interesting little tidbit of information Michael did have a key to the home this whole time. And Michael actually is in school to become a phlebotomist and worked closely with a hospital called Holy Cross Hospital and the prosecution very much thought that due to his phlebotomist training and his access to this hospital that he easily could have gotten paralytics from this hospital to bring to Swan Street to incapacitate Robert Juan. And another little interesting tidbit of information is Michael had perfect attendance in his college classes. He took night classes and he attended every single one, except for the one August 2 of 2006, which was the night that Robert was killed. He did end up having an alibi, which was provided by his partner, but I always like to say that I don't believe in coincidences that much and I feel like that one is just such a mega coincidence that I don't really know what to think about it. However, Michael Price has never even been considered a person of interest or anything of that caliber in this story. It's just a really interesting little tidbit of information. And it also goes to show you that things that Joe Price said that night weren't fully fact, because he knew his brother had a key and he never brought that up. A year now has passed since the murder of Robert, and at this point, Kathy is very much trying to figure out what is going on. At this point, they do say that they think Kathy realized that the guys clearly were hiding something because they weren't talking. They weren't offering up any new information that could potentially lead to somebody being arrested for the murder of Robert. They were being very, very tight-lipped. Kathy ended up reaching out to one of Robert's former employers, which was Covington and Burling, which was a law practice. And Eric Holder actually worked for that law practice and knew Robert quite well. He was a friend of his. And Eric Holder ended up coming out, pleading for information, leading to the arrest of the person that hurt Robert that night. At this point, I think Kathy very much just wanted to know what happened and wanted to have that closure. The not knowing part has to be the absolute worst. So we are a whole year in Joe Victor and Dylan decided to sell the house on Swan Street, and they leave their life behind in DC, and they moved to Florida. They are still staying silent. They're not saying a word. Very, very tight-lipped. And still to this point in time, nobody is being held accountable for Robert's death. And the prosecution, really all they have at this point, is circumstantial evidence. In my opinion, I think it's a damn good circumstantial case, but it's never going to be a slam dunk. There isn't any definitive proof that the guys were involved in Robert's death, and Glenn Kirschner, who is the prosecutor that ended up prosecuting this case, said that they didn't have direct evidence, and the reason was because of three people that had information chose to cover it up. And Glenn said that the absence of evidence is the product of a cover-up, and I think that is poetic and a hundred percent accurate. We now flash forward to two years after the murder. Glenn knew that he could not prove that the three of them murdered Robert Wan, but he very much wanted to try to charge them with something and get them on something. So he decided that he was going to charge them with a cover-up, a conspiracy to obstruct justice. He knew that it was risky, but they ended up with enough probable cause, and the judge allowed them to officially make the warrant for the arrests. So, first up, they decided they needed to get their weakest link, which all along has been Dylan Ward, so they first arrest Dylan. He ended up being charged with covering up the murder of Robert, and they very much wanted to try again to isolate him to try to get him to talk, and he's still sticking to the same story that he told two years prior. Then they go ahead and indict Victor and Joe. They talk to Victor. He sticks to his exact same story. He told previously two years ago, and they end up charging them with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and tampering with evidence. So we are now going to flash forward to October 27th of 2008. This is when the affidavit comes out, and at this point in time, none of these details that had been known in the case to the people working the case had been public knowledge. So these details come out, and it talks about the different wounds that Robert has, the possible sexual assault, and all of the different BDSM items that were found in Dylan's room. Glenn very much wanted to protect Kathy in this process because he knew that this was going to be traumatizing for her, and of course traumatizing for Robert's friends and his family to learn all of this stuff, because all of this stuff, like I said, had been kept under wraps. And I don't really feel like it was until all of this stuff came out that Kathy fully realized that Joe was possibly more involved than she could have ever thought. And once all of this stuff ended up coming out, everybody was even more astonished that this hadn't been solved yet, and that the person who did kill Robert was still out there and hadn't been charged with murder yet. It was at this point that two men that lived three blocks away from the Swan Street home, they decided that they were going to start their own website and a blog. They are David Greer and Craig Brownstein, and they very much delved into the fact that the three way relationship between Victor Joe and Dylan was not a three relationship. It was actually two, two separate two way relationships, which they believed very much set up by dynamic that ended up exploding that night on Swan Street. Their website actually still exists to this day and I think they do a really good job at kind of breaking everything down. I'm going to be including that in the show notes as well so you guys can check that out because they do have a lot of good visuals even from inside of the home on Swan Street. And I feel like seeing it is understanding it and I feel like that's a big important part of the story. So all three of the men Victor Joe and Dylan ended up hiring three separate defense attorneys because they, of course, were going to be tried together but they all had to have their own separate defense attorneys. So Glenn Kirschner was going up against three of the best defense attorneys in DC, so he definitely had his work cut out for him in this. There was a pretrial hearing that happened and Glenn very much wanted to bring in all of the BDSM items and all the evidence in pretrial, but the judge ended up denying it, which was a huge, huge blow to the prosecution, because this was a big part of setting up their case saying that this could have been a potential sexual assault gone wrong, and this is why we think this so none of that was ever even allowed in the actual trial. Then there ends up being a pretrial motion that is filed by the defense, and that is for instead of a jury trial to have it be a judge trial, because they didn't feel that they could get a impartial jury because this case was so highly publicized in DC. They didn't think that there was any way they could get 12 people to believe that their clients were innocent versus one judge. And it really could be looked at either way, you could either look at it as the prosecution only has to convince one judge that this was a conspiracy to cover up, or you have to convince 12 people. It's obviously going to be easier to convince one versus convincing 12, but at the same time, once that one person has their mind made up, that's it. We are now at May 17 of 2010, this is the start of the trial. If convicted, each of the guys could face up to 38 years in prison. Glenn very much knew that he had his work cut out for him. He had three things that he needed to do during this trial. He had to disprove the intruder theory. He had to discuss the fact that there was no blood at the scene and talk about why that potentially was. And then he wanted also to talk about the fact that the knife that was on the side table next to the bed where Robert was killed was in fact not the weapon that was used to kill Robert and was planted at the scene. They ended up using a 3D scaled model of the row house during the trial so that they could show the judge the layout of the house and try to disprove the intruder theory. And we've all heard Glenn's take on why the intruder theory doesn't vibe. I agree with it, 110%. But the defense came back and fought back against the prosecution's denial of the intruder theory. They brought a few different things to the table. One of the first things they said is the first times that they went to that row house, they said they went to the front door of the row house and the row house had a mail slot in the front door. And you could easily put your hand through the mail slot, unlock the door, and then open the door from the inside out. And they showed a demonstration of this. They showed a video of this at the actual row house. Second, they also had one of the defense attorneys navigate over the 7 foot fence without having any issues. There was nothing that was disturbed. So they were showing that this was a very probable thing that could have happened, that somebody could have jumped over the fence, gotten into the house, committed this murder, and then left and jumped back over the fence without disturbing anyone or anything. Then there was a neighbor next to Swan Street that had a housekeeper that was home that night. And they explained that that morning after the murder, she ended up finding two foot impressions on a sandbox that was in the backyard. She ended up going and talking to the detectives and they basically told her that they already have the people who are involved and not to worry about this. So their argument very much was that the police didn't even bother to examine the intruder theory and that they had Dylan, Joe, and Victor pegged from the start to be the ones who committed this crime. Next, they all decided to talk about the absence of blood. The medical examiner that did the autopsy on Robert testified that there was about one third of Robert's blood in his body, but the other blood, she had no idea where it was, but it definitely was not present at the crime scene, as we've talked about. The defense brought in Dr Henry Lee, and he said essentially that Robert was stabbed through the heart, and he ended up bleeding out internally. So all of the blood that he had in his body remained inside, hence why there was no blood at the crime scene. The medical examiner very much disagrees with this theory, as does the prosecution, and they talk about how Jeff Baker, who is one of the first EMTs at the scene, stated that when he saw Robert's chest and torso, it essentially looked like it had been wiped clean of any blood. Now we are going to talk about the knife and how the prosecution very much thinks that this knife was a plant knife and that they took a bloody towel and dipped the knife in this blood to make it appear that this was the knife that killed Robert. Then in a shocking turn of events, Dylan's mom gets on the stand and testifies to this cutlery set that she had at her house, and she decided to take one of the knives from this cutlery set and keep it for herself. And then she mailed the remainder of the knives in the set to Dylan, which is the set that was found in his room with the mysterious missing knife that the prosecution very much said, they thought was a higher probability that that knife was used in the murder of Robert than the one that was next to him on the nightstand. And of course when interviewed about this Glenn said that he wasn't surprised that Dylan's mom came to testify on her son's behalf to essentially save the case with this new theory that she's the one that has the knife. It's just so super mind boggling to me. So the defense essentially ends up resting after calling seven witnesses and the prosecution rested on June 24 of 2010, and the case from there went to the judge. The judge ruled on the 29th of June, and the judge kind of went through everything and gave her opinion on everything. She very much dismissed the intruder theory she didn't believe that this crime was committed by a random intruder, but she also said she couldn't conclude that what the guy said about there being intruder wasn't true. She ended up speaking for a total of 47 minutes and she ended up coming to the conclusion that the knife that was on the table was the knife used in the murder. She did however think that Joe tampered with the scene and tampered with the knife for unknown reasons. She said she really didn't think that the prosecution's timeline in regards to when the murder happened and when the 911 call ended up happening were true. Basically she didn't think that there was a discrepancy in the time like they were trying to prove with the neighbor that heard the scream and then 911 wasn't called for well after that. And then the verdict was delivered and she found them all not guilty of the conspiracy to cover up the murder of Robert immediately when this verdict was read Kathy and other members of Robert's family and Robert's friends quickly left the courtroom. And unfortunately that day there was no justice for Robert, the judge did acknowledge that she didn't buy the story that the guys told but regardless of that, she found them not guilty. In 2011 Kathy Robert's widow ended up bringing a wrongful death suit against the three guys and they ended up pleading the fifth they wouldn't say a word. And they ended up just paying it off and Kathy did settle for a cash settlement. And I think in a situation like that where you have the opportunity to come forward and say what you know, versus just throwing money at somebody I think that's very telling of what you're not saying. And I think considering Joe and Robert were really good friends that this is yet another super big betrayal on the part of Joe Dylan and Victor towards Kathy. From there the trio ended up going their separate ways Dylan left the three way relationship altogether and he married somebody else. Joe and Victor did stay together and they moved to Florida, however, at this point in time they are now currently separated. And this is also very interesting to me. Joe Price changed his name to Joe Anderson. Joe Price is a very common name as it is and you're going to change it to Joe Anderson which is also a very common name. And Dylan Ward, again, a common name, change his name to Dylan Thomas, a other common name. The one guy in this with the most not common name Victor Zaborski did not change his name. And I want to leave you guys with the end of the documentary that was on peacock who killed Robert Juan. They asked the defense attorney who he thinks killed Robert now of course he thinks all three of the guys are innocent. They only represented Joe, but in representing Joe he's representing them all at essentially for the most part. But I think this clip is interesting and telling and I feel like I want to play it because there has to be an answer for what happened inside of that house that night. One of them is dead, three of them are not talking, and one of them holds the key to what happened in that house so we are going to hear from Bernie Grimm in three, two, one. Why would he be doing as opposed to Joe or Victor? This case has more questions than it has answers. I don't know. And it will bug me forever. But yeah you're right. If somebody said Bernie there's a gun to your mother's head. What's your best guess? I say Dylan. And there it is. Honestly, my personal opinion. I also kind of lean in that direction, but regardless of who is responsible. If any of those guys are covering up what they know to be the truth, they are all just as guilty and just as responsible. And I can't imagine Kathy Juan being re-victimized every day by the not knowing and knowing that potentially possibly the person or persons that murdered her husband are still out there. And they're able to live their lives. They're able to move on. They're able to make new memories with their loved ones and their friends and their family. And Robert never got that opportunity. And it really makes you wonder what would have happened if somebody else had answered Robert's message of, "Hey, can I stay with you tonight?" And it wasn't Joe that responded back. What would have come of that? Would someone else have gotten harmed being at that house? It really just makes you question so many different things. And it's really unfortunate because Robert and Joe were really, really good friends. Whatever happened that night never should have happened and the long time that it's been since this crime occurred, it never should have gone on this long without answers to who really did kill Robert. And I hope that there is a day that this case does reach a resolution and that Robert's family is able to get a little closure and get justice for him. I don't know if they are ever going to be able to come up with enough obvious major evidence that they can try these gentlemen again on any type of other charges. But I do know that the prosecution in this case, Glenn Kirschner, is going to continue to fight for justice for Robert and keep telling Robert's story until hopefully somebody spark something in someone and they come forward and speak on what they know. So that is the three part story on Robert and his fight for justice continues to this day. And I feel like we need to keep telling his story until like I said it spark something in somebody and they decide to either come forward with what they know, or they break down and just tell the truth. But I do encourage you guys to check out the website that I was telling you about. I'm going to link it in the show notes below and also watching the two part peacock documentary who killed Robert Ron, because it is very, very well done. You get to hear from the law, some of the law enforcement officers you get to hear from the prosecutor you get to hear from the defense you get to hear from the two guys that started the website, the bloggers who lived three blocks away from the DC home. And it's just a really interesting cumulative documentary that was put together and when you watch it, you do end up having more questions than answers, but I definitely think that if you look at the case. It is not black and white, and there is a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence, but I feel like circumstantial evidence sometimes can get the job done, and I hope that they're able to somehow get the job done here and we can get justice for Robert. So thank you guys as always so much for listening when I started doing this Robert series I didn't realize that it was going to take up three episodes but here we are at episode three but I wanted to really give each episode. It's own time kind of break it down so I didn't overwhelm myself and I didn't overwhelm you because it's a lot of information to kind of take in and it's banned over many many years so that was another factor into breaking it up into three parts but I appreciate you guys. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I will see you on Monday for a brand new unsolved case have a great one and stay safe. Bye guys. Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumba Casino.com. I looked over the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing. They're also playing Chumba Casino. Everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumba Casino is home to hundreds of casino style games that you can play for free anytime anywhere. So sign up now at Chumba Casino.com to claim your free welcome bonus. It's Chumba Casino.com and live the Chumba life sponsored by Chumba Casino. 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