Ep. 4: Strong Victims

De: Benjamin Zand, Tika Thornton

Narrado por: Benjamin Zand, Tika Thornton

Little is caught in the act of attempted murder in San Diego in 1984. The prosecutor is confident he will serve a heavy sentence.©2022 Audible, Ltd. (P)2022 Audible, Ltd.

Completely unfair to the prosecutor

I have enjoyed the series so far, though the British reporter seems to think it’s unfair that American society does not consider hookers to be pillars of honesty. But he gets off the rails in this episode.

Little is arrested for two attempted murders in CA. The authorities know he is a serial killer due to previous run ins with the law, so they want this guy put away. So what’s the problem? Well, the star victim/witness says she was kidnapped while leaving the office near midnight, and testified to that in the preliminary hearings. The prosecutor gets a funny feeling and checks her record. Turns out that while she does have an office job, she also has a serious drug habit that she supports through street prostitution, for which she has a record. Well, her credibility is shot, the defense will argue that she entered the car to service a client, and even the prosecutor is convinced that she was on the clock that night.

Her injuries- yes, there was clearly a fight. And if she was a secretary kidnapped off the street, it would be easy to argue that it was attempted murder. But since she is a hooker, no one is going to buy the kidnapping charge, because no one is going to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that she wasn’t hooking, and didn’t get in the car voluntarily.

The case only gets worse from there. The other victim witness shows up to testify staggering drunk. The jury deadlocks 9-3 to acquit. And at the retrial, the drunk victim has dropped off the face of the earth. So Little gets a plea deal for 4yrs in prison.

The reporter seems to think the police didn’t want this guy put away because he was killing drug addicts and hookers. No, the prosecutor had a choice of locking him up for something with a plea deal, or in all likelihood watching the man be acquitted when a key witness disappeared. The guy did the best he could with a very bad case.

This guy thinks it’s all unfair, and surely something could have been done. No, it couldn’t. Sometimes the evidence is poor, and sometimes a critical witness or victim destroys their own credibility before the trial even starts, and there is no way to fix that. The authorities also knew what Ted Bundy was, and even though his victims were very high on the social ladder, they couldn’t do anything about it until they had solid proof and decent witnesses.

This was really a disappointing episode.