The After Show: Matt Murphy

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Speaker 1 Hello, everybody. It's Deborah Roberts here.

Speaker 1 And today on 2020 the After Show, I get a chance to sit down with somebody many of you have seen on lots of our episodes, Matt Murphy, who helps shed light on the complex search for justice in these true crime stories that we report on.

Speaker 1 Matt has spent decades facing down people accused of heinous crimes.

Speaker 1 He spent 26 years as a prosecutor in Orange County, California, and 17 of those years he tried homicide cases, which makes him perfect to help us understand a lot of our stories.

Speaker 1 Well, Matt now, of course, is using that legal expertise with us here on 2020, where he is an ABC News legal contributor. Hello, Matt.
Happy to be here. Yeah, glad to see you.

Speaker 1 You know, it occurs to me that, of course, I've talked to you in many of our episodes or included you in many of our episodes, but we don't get a chance to talk to each other that often face to face.

Speaker 2 No, it's funny. The way 2020 works, you know, there's a ton of interaction between different people and then some you'll see in passing.

Speaker 2 So this is fun for me.

Speaker 1 So let's start with you as a prosecutor before we get into how we work together here on 2020.

Speaker 1 You became a prosecutor specializing in homicide cases, but I know that you have a rich history of all kinds of things.

Speaker 1 You worked with kids who have developmental disabilities back in the day, and you also worked on sex assault cases. So what was it about these particular cases and becoming a prosecutor that drew you?

Speaker 1 Because everybody seems to have a story.

Speaker 2 I kind of stumbled into law school out of college. I had no plan to be a lawyer.
And I got... Really? Yeah.
And then I got

Speaker 2 end of your first year is when you interview. And I had some offers.
The FBI actually recruited me, which was cool and looked really interesting.

Speaker 2 And I did an interview with the Orange County DA's office, and I was the last slot and I got brought in by a woman.

Speaker 2 I was involved in some sexual assault education when I was in college and that caught her eye on my resume.

Speaker 2 Her name was Kathy Harper and she basically brought me in and I decided I'd go to the DA's office and do my post-second year clerkship, which is the traditional legal pathway.

Speaker 2 And end of my first day, I was hooked as a junior law clerk.

Speaker 2 They put me on a project on a traffic ticket where they got in and they found like some drugs in this guy's car and they were trying to suppress it. And it was so interesting to me.

Speaker 2 And the people around me I thought were fascinating. It was in this gritty building in Santa Ana that's super old.

Speaker 2 And every time there's an earthquake, all the stuff like shakes down into the light lenses and it has to get cleaned out. So the grit and the grime of that sort of law enforcement edge,

Speaker 2 something about it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I was 24 years old and it looked really fun. And so I stayed and fortunately got invited back.

Speaker 2 And each year you start out in misdemeanors, then you go to juvenile court and then the more I learned and the more interesting the cases became they trust you more and then you do heavier and heavier cases then you go up to the general felonies and then from there I went into the sexual assault unit and it just keeps getting more and more interesting and then you reach a point where you're dealing with real victims families and you start dealing with those moms who whose kids have either been abused sexually or when you get to homicide,

Speaker 2 they've been murdered. And when you deal with those families, you almost strangely become a part of their family.

Speaker 1 For us here at 2020, I mean, I think that's one of the things that we really try to focus on, not just the true crime, but the families. These are people who have been devastated by a crime.

Speaker 1 And oftentimes, it's an opportunity for them to either tell their story or to honor the legacy of someone.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure for you, you know, a chance to help them find some either justice, peace, something in their souls, you know, about dealing with something so horrific.

Speaker 2 Well, that's why I wanted to to work with 2020, honestly. I'd been in homicide for 17 years, did a bunch of high-profile cases.
And if you watch any 2020s,

Speaker 2 they're really, really good about that. And that's what it's all about when you're a prosecutor.

Speaker 2 When you reach that point in homicide, I would always meet with the victims' families after the murder and give them my personal cell phone number. I'd never regretted doing that.
Really?

Speaker 2 But it becomes almost an addiction. You know, you want to help those families.

Speaker 2 And then when you get a, I don't know what it was about the moms because the dads, of course, are broken too, and the brothers and sisters, but something about those moms, you get, and on a tough case, on a cold case, especially, when you get that hug from the mom after five years of fighting, you know, because there's so much lead up that takes years of pretrials and everything, you get that hug at the end when you win one.

Speaker 1 It's gratifying. It's very gratifying.

Speaker 2 It's gratifying.

Speaker 1 Well, it's certainly not like the quick ones we see on television where they're wrapped up in a few months' time.

Speaker 1 You've handled some of the most high-profile cases, as you you said, emotionally charged cases in California. You prosecuted cold cases, famous serial killers,

Speaker 1 the no-body murders where there's not a body actually there and more. Let's talk about some that stand out for you.

Speaker 2 You know, this is going to sound like a cliche, but they all stick with you. I tried 53 cases while I was in the homicide unit.

Speaker 2 And there's something about every one of those that stands out, but there's a few that are particularly awful, I guess.

Speaker 2 There's the Tom and Jackie Hawks murder case. That was the couple that was tied to their anchor and thrown overboard.

Speaker 2 There's the William McLaughlin case. It's the plot to body heat, if you've ever seen that movie.

Speaker 2 Same exact thing. We were just talking about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Where do these ideas and these people come from?

Speaker 2 Right, yeah. And he was a millionaire inventor, and he was murdered by his girlfriend after he got divorced, killed by her.
side boyfriend who was in an NFL washout named Eric Naposky.

Speaker 2 And there was at the Golden State Killer, I was the prosecutor on the Dirty John case with Tara Newell, the victim who refused to be a victim.

Speaker 2 The Rodney Alcala case, that's the dating game killer. But then I had a bunch of others, too, that really stuck with me.
Like I had a homeless man once that was murdered.

Speaker 2 It's easy, especially in Southern California where homelessness is so, it's such a huge, intractable problem.

Speaker 2 He had two brothers who loved him to death, and they came from Georgia, and it was these two gentlemen, and one of them, I remember, he had a cane, and they were impeccably dressed every time they came to court, and they were still proud of their brother.

Speaker 2 And I think to this day, he had a track and field record that's still held at their high school.

Speaker 2 And they came in, and it was a reminder that, you know, they're all human beings, people who love them, at least at one point or another.

Speaker 1 Exactly. I mean, they're not nameless and faceless.
These are people who have a history and who have family who are there for them.

Speaker 1 And you and I were talking earlier about how I'm just so surprised that there are so many stories for us to even cover around the country and and that these things happen.

Speaker 1 You have talked, and you've on 2020, we reveal a lot about how cases can come down to that very minuscule piece of evidence.

Speaker 1 And I think that's what our viewers and our listeners here today may find so interesting, that drop of blood or that missing object from a crime scene.

Speaker 1 And it's fascinating to me how that is something that you all hone in on and just that little detail that makes all the difference sometimes in proving these cases, right?

Speaker 2 Oh, my gosh. Well, so Orange County has what's known as a vertical system.
So that means that we would actually go to our crime scenes. So you're assigned cities, so you get a patch.

Speaker 2 It's not the normal way that prosecutorial agencies operate.

Speaker 2 Normally, the police investigate and it winds up on one prosecutor's desk for filing, another for the preliminary hearing, and somebody else down the line for trial.

Speaker 2 The way they do it in Orange County on the serious cases is we get a section of the city, and once you're on homicide, so I had Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Laguna, and Irvine. Those were my cities.

Speaker 2 So anytime there was a murder, I would go to the scene with my investigator and be there to help with warrants and things like that.

Speaker 2 But you learn when you watch those professionals process a crime scene that it really is, it can be one tiny little thing.

Speaker 2 And because you're the prosecutor, you know what you're going to want to argue in closing. And everything is closing argument backwards.

Speaker 2 You know, you imagine what you want to be able to stand up in front of a jury and say.

Speaker 2 And you'd see one thing or another, sometimes the smallest little thing, and you'd want to, you could picture yourself arguing it. So yeah, I'll give you an example.
There was the Kathy Torres case.

Speaker 2 This was a cold case, brokenhearted family. It was a young woman who was an honor student in domestic violence situation.

Speaker 2 And she disappeared after an argument with her ex-boyfriend and she was found in the trunk of her car a week later.

Speaker 2 And this is a little graphic here, but on the trunk lid, there was a line of blood drops on the trunk lid. And that by itself is the type of thing you'd miss

Speaker 2 in a report.

Speaker 2 But when you've been to enough scenes and you've argued that enough times and you've had enough forensic pathologists on the stand, that means her heart was still beating when she went into the trunk.

Speaker 2 And that means that the person who helped put her in the trunk, and it was her boyfriend and his cousin, that means that because her heart was still beating, she was still alive, even though the boyfriend was the one that stabbed her multiple times.

Speaker 2 Because she was still alive when the cousin helped, it meant he was a principal to murder too, because she hadn't died yet.

Speaker 1 And it changes the outcome of the case.

Speaker 2 Well, and what it means is we could arrest him and he eventually, you know, it was 15 years later when he made the arrest, but he eventually,

Speaker 2 after many years, rolled over on his cousin and provided evidence against him.

Speaker 2 Now, we decided not to call him as a witness, but it was that detail made all the difference in the world as far as the presentation of the judge.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 I've covered cases, too, where sometimes, just depending on where you come from in terms of what you bring to the case, there were these two women detectives down in Florida, and a woman was murdered, and they were able to surmise that she was probably putting on her earrings before she went to bed because one was missing and they were able to figure out a woman is taking off her earrings and she probably was hit over the head before she put the one it's just fascinating those details and something a male detective or a male prosecutor like me I guarantee we wouldn't you wouldn't think about that and they were able to sort of construct you know the the actual crime was there one case though for you and you said that these cases really got to you that where

Speaker 1 you just said that's it I mean

Speaker 1 enough already in terms of how it drives you and your passion for prosecuting these cases.

Speaker 2 You know, the first time I think fundamentally all murderers are bullies. Okay.
Like they, it goes back to fourth grade for me, like the first time you encounter a bully. And

Speaker 2 there was a little boy when I was in sexual assault.

Speaker 2 This kid was,

Speaker 2 I think he was six years old, and he'd gone into a bathroom in a park. And there was a guy waiting in ambush, you know, like a spider in a web.
And

Speaker 2 this little boy, I remember, he had a flat top. And this was very early in my time in sexual assault.

Speaker 2 And I'm watching the, it's called a cast interview, where they bring them in, and it's a, it's an atmosphere. It's trained social workers, especially trained to interview children about sexual abuse.

Speaker 2 And this little boy, his mom didn't speak English, but he did. And they give him kind of the preamble, like, hey, it's important to tell the truth.

Speaker 2 And I might even, I hope I don't choke up as I tell you this. You know, he listened listened very carefully and he puffed out his little chest and he said, I'm prepared to be brave.

Speaker 2 That was probably my,

Speaker 2 within the first three months of my, my four years in sexual assault. And that was, um,

Speaker 2 yeah, that was a very poignant moment.

Speaker 2 And as a DA, when,

Speaker 2 you know, it took me, I, I had 37 misdemeanors before they let me touch a felony, and most of us did back then.

Speaker 2 And then you do what's called the felony panel, where you're, it's just back-to-back felony, jury trumpet. You kind of work your way up.
You work your your way up, very much so.

Speaker 2 And you have to strive cuts to get into different units. And it's almost like an NFL draft where the head of the unit will say, I want this person, I want that person.

Speaker 2 But along the way, you get a very marketable skill for private practice, and that's jury trials.

Speaker 2 And we all have offers, and we all have opportunities to go out into the civil world and make a bunch of money trying civil cases because it really is a valuable skill. And

Speaker 2 that was probably the moment I'd been, I had a guy whose name I'll leave out, who had very successful practice, who was in the process of retiring. He wanted me to take it over for him.

Speaker 2 That guy made, made a lot of money. But any thoughts of that, I don't know what it was about that little boy, but it was like, no, I'm going to stay.

Speaker 1 I'm going to have to do this work.

Speaker 2 I'm going to keep doing it.

Speaker 2 And it's going to sound corny as I say it, but I felt like I had an opportunity to make things just a little better for that little boy and for all the other kids on my caseload then.

Speaker 2 And then you get into homicide. And that's when it's like, you get into the varsity leagues.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 you're in the big leagues in a big way, in a big, sad way sometimes.

Speaker 2 And then you meet your first crying mother, and it was over for me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. No, but that's that's what's so fascinating and also, I think, so great about what you all do because you can see that there is a lot of passion there.

Speaker 1 Matt, you've tried high-profile cases, like as you said, like the dating game killer, Rodney Alcala, and the former child star Skylar DeLeon, where there's been substantial media interest, and now you're back on the other side.

Speaker 1 So, when we come back, we're going to talk about that shift. Stay with us.

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Speaker 1 We're back now with Matt Murphy. And Matt, one of the things you've been able to do is you bring us inside so many of these cases that you've tried.
And I'm thinking of, say, the Hussein Nayeri case.

Speaker 1 Our title for that episode was called Catch Me If You Can. And this is a case that involved psychological manipulation, an international manhunt, a prison escape.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was like something out of a novel, of course. What was the most unpredictable moment in this case for you? Tell us about some of the details.

Speaker 2 Oh, boy. Well, that case was, it was so involved.
Essentially, what happened was it's the marijuana world in California, and it is still to this day very much like the Wild West.

Speaker 2 The reason for that is it's an all-cash business because that F of the FDIC that we see on the front door of every bank we go into stands for federal.

Speaker 2 And even though marijuana cultivation and sales is legal in the state of California, it still constitutes a federal crime. That means you can't bank with credit cards.

Speaker 2 So what that means is that all those marijuana businesses are cash.

Speaker 2 So you can't use credit and those debit cards are going to be limited because if it says visa on it, a lot of times those won't work.

Speaker 2 So for anybody that's running a legitimate business, you have two essential elements left in California.

Speaker 2 You've got the the legitimate business people that are coming in, following the rules, paying taxes, getting proper permits, who are taking advantage of that change in the law.

Speaker 2 And then you still have a very

Speaker 2 entrenched criminal element.

Speaker 2 And I used to think drug dealers were like, when I, I mean, even, I've been a DA for probably 15 years before I learned this, but I thought drug dealers were like on different tiers.

Speaker 2 Like, oh, I know methamphetamine dealers are the motorcycle guys, and they got to be maybe the worst are the cocaine guys. And then I figured it was unicorn riding hippies selling marijuana, you know?

Speaker 1 I would think so too.

Speaker 2 Right, right. And it turns out, not so much.
They are every bit as ruthless, backstabbing, murderous criminals as any other form of narcotics.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't think so, but I've dealt with some absolutely vicious murders that came out of the marijuana world.

Speaker 2 And essentially, this case was one of the legitimate guys, and they've squeezed the margins down for the criminal guys.

Speaker 2 So they're making a lot less, and there's a lot more competition now, and they don't like it, and they know there's a pile of money.

Speaker 2 So a lot of those places get robbed. It's a consistent problem.

Speaker 2 But in this particular case, they kidnapped the owner of one of these dispensaries, and they took him out to the desert and they tortured him.

Speaker 2 And they had it in their mind that he was burying money in the desert, and he wasn't.

Speaker 1 Nayeri's ex-wife agreed to participate in a high-stakes operation with the police.

Speaker 1 Let's play a clip from that part of our episode that features Matt Gutman's interview with her and some undercover police recordings.

Speaker 7 They asked me, Would you be willing to help us try and get Hussein back from Iran?

Speaker 8 She and the police are laying a trap for Nairi and she's essentially the bait.

Speaker 9 What was it like to talk to this guy again?

Speaker 7 It was really hard. I was thinking to myself, oh my god, he's gonna sense that my voice inflection changes.
If I don't laugh at a joke, you know, anything could set him off and he's highly suspicious.

Speaker 7 I want to see you. I want you to come and meet me.
Then we can be together, together, forever.

Speaker 10 She has lived under his thumb for so long. If it was real, she would be singing.

Speaker 7 I love you so much. I want to see you.

Speaker 10 Like, I can't wait to see you. Like, this is the greatest thing.

Speaker 11 She knows she has to do that to convince him to get on that plane.

Speaker 7 And then the night that he was supposed to come, I'm calling Hussein. He's not answering.
I'm like, oh my God, he's not going to get on this plane.

Speaker 7 Everyone's going to think I tipped him off, and I hadn't. Finally, he calls me, and he's like, oh, I'm so sorry, I overslept.

Speaker 7 I'll be there. See you very soon.

Speaker 12 He honestly believed that he was going to reconcile this relationship and instead he gets off the plane in Prague

Speaker 9 and gets stripped, arrested, cavity searched and thrown in prison.

Speaker 1 Wow, Nayeri was still married to Courtney Shigerian when she worked with police to lure him out of Iran and he was arrested in the Czech Republic Republic while traveling to meet her in Spain.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like something out of a Michael Crichton novel, right? I mean, navigating the ethical and the safety components involving somebody so close to the perpetrator, it's unbelievable, Matt.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so the last voice we heard on that is Ryan Peters, and Ryan was the lead detective. And Courtney was the woman's voice.
That was his wife.

Speaker 2 She was represented by a man named Lou Rosenblum, who was my former boss in the homicide unit. And he's absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 2 So Lou and Ryan teamed up to put this thing together where they lured Hussein Nayeri out of Iran. He went to the Czech Republic on his way to Spain for this post-bar trip.

Speaker 2 I still can't believe that it worked. So he fled after we arrested one of his co-conspirators, a guy named Kyle Hanley.

Speaker 2 And as soon as that arrest happened, he realized we were onto them despite all of their efforts. So he fled back to Iran.

Speaker 2 And Iran is the one country in the world that's never going to extradite one of their citizens, the United States. So they had to do it another way, and they decided to lure him to the Czech Republic.

Speaker 2 He was arrested there, gets to Orange County jail. Everybody's celebrating until we weren't because I was actually out here.

Speaker 2 In fact, I was having dinner with a bunch of ABC people when I got the phone call that Nairi had escaped from the jail.

Speaker 1 Wow, that's one of those stories that we just won't forget. And that's what makes them so fascinating for us.

Speaker 1 You were also one of the prosecutors involved in the case of Blaise Bernstein, a 19-year-old pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 And when Blaise left for college to head home for winter break, a meeting with a former high school classmate ends in murder.

Speaker 1 You covered that case for us in our episode, which was called The Last Text. And it was a story where the family's own investigation helped crack the case.

Speaker 2 A lot of times the family provides invaluable information on these things. And God forbid any of your listeners ever wind up in this situation, but when a loved one has been murdered, there is,

Speaker 2 it's going to sound obvious, but there's such an compelling, overwhelming need for justice. And a lot of times they will provide invaluable clues, material that the detectives find.

Speaker 2 I mean, the families can really play

Speaker 2 a pivotal role.

Speaker 1 In this case, Blaise Bernstein's family became instrumental in this investigation. Let's hear a clip to remind our listeners of the Snapchat clue that Blaise's 14-year-old sister finds.

Speaker 14 A quick check of his computer revealed no exchanges on iMessage or Facebook DMs.

Speaker 14 And so with virtually no solid information to go on, the Bernsteins, along with help from their 14-year-old daughter, Bowie, began dipping deeper into Blaze's social media.

Speaker 15 We would not have been able to figure it out without the help of kids his age

Speaker 16 that he grew up with.

Speaker 15 And our daughter.

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 17 I told my parents I'm like I can try and help you like find everything that like you need I'm really good with Snapchat I knew the names of a lot of his friends so I was able to like text them and ask them if they knew what was going on and that's when the whole evening changed yeah when they said well what about snapchat that's when the light bulb went on

Speaker 13 and we saw that blaze gave our address out to somebody Did you know who?

Speaker 12 We didn't know at the time who it was.

Speaker 9 We saw the name.

Speaker 17 I had absolutely no idea who he was. I was so happy that there was somebody who we could talk to that could just help us find my brother.

Speaker 14 Bernsteins didn't know the person Blaise sent his address to, but in the hours ahead, the discovery of that person's identity would turn the desperate search for their son upside down.

Speaker 17 Hi, this is Blaise's dad. We really need to know what you know.
We can't find him.

Speaker 13 This is becoming the urgent issue with trying to figure out what really happened to him. And we're going to really need your help on this because you're the last person that probably saw him.

Speaker 17 And showing the police, like, look what I have.

Speaker 1 Families just oftentimes will not give up, will not give up until they can actually find some justice. And I'm sure you've seen that so many times.

Speaker 2 Oh, time and time again. Yep.
And especially on cold cases.

Speaker 2 You know, the families, like on the McLaughlin case that we were talking about, the millionaire, his daughters, every year on the anniversary of the murder, they would bring cookies to the Newport Beach Police Department.

Speaker 2 Just don't forget about my dad. And we filed charges 15 years after that murder was committed.
So you see that over and over. And I hear those voices again.
That was such a nice family.

Speaker 2 And that was one of the moms, Pepper. She went to UCSB.
I think we might have even been there at the same time. I didn't know her, but just so heartbreaking.
Blaise Bernstein's mother.

Speaker 2 that whole family, just such a nice family. And yeah, and in that case, they played a definite role role in the investigation.
There were excellent detectives involved in that case as well.

Speaker 1 I mean, technology has really changed the game in a lot of ways, right?

Speaker 2 It's changed the game.

Speaker 2 Well, I want to say it's the same game, only far more persuasive now, because now people communicate via text messages, right? So, and

Speaker 2 we have cell phone pings, so we all, in that magic little triangle we carry in our pockets, especially for people, most murderers, it's their first rodeo. It really is.

Speaker 2 So I don't know if you've ever taken up golf or anything, any whatever you've taken up we're all terrible at whatever it is the first time we do it so thankfully good detectives know the common mistakes like everybody seems to slice a golf ball people bring their cell phones with them when they commit murder so we have these tracking devices now we and on that same thing there'll be communication oftentimes with the victim and yeah so when you have a good detective who knows what to look for and sometimes they try to get rid of the cell phone not knowing that it still is going to ping where they were last time they were out doing something we've covered those stories that's right or they try to delete it and it's not really deleted.

Speaker 2 Or they try to destroy the phone. And then, even like on Blaise Bernstein, he was successful in breaking Blaise's phone, and it was raining, and it was muddy, and it corrupted all the data.

Speaker 2 But then you get to argue, why did he break the phone? Because he is taking those measures, and that's huge what's on his consciousness of guilt.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, Sam Woodward there. Blaise was murdered in January of 2018, and Sam Woodward was arrested 10 days later.
The case actually didn't go to trial until April of 2024, six years later.

Speaker 1 What was it that took so long? And how do you stay focused with such a long span like that?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 you need to make sure

Speaker 2 one of the sacrosanct obligations of a prosecutor is not only to the victims' families, but you have to make sure that the defendant is being treated fairly too.

Speaker 2 So there's process that has to go in, and the defense has to be afforded an opportunity to conduct their own investigation.

Speaker 2 And that's a part of the prosecutor's job that a lot of people forget: that you're an advocate for your client, which is the people of whatever state you're living in, technically.

Speaker 2 You're fighting for the family, but at the same time, you have to balance that by fairness to the defendant, which means when the defense attorney comes in, and I know this defense attorney very well, he's again named Ken Morrison.

Speaker 2 We tried a serial killer once that the trial itself was six months long, Meander or Dial's case.

Speaker 2 But when Ken comes in and says, I really need more time to investigate this, the last thing you want to do is hold somebody's feet to the fire and create an appellate issue because the worst thing for a family is

Speaker 2 you go too hard, too early, and somebody gets off the hook and a jury acquits them. The second worst thing is you go through the entire process.
They're convicted.

Speaker 2 The family thinks they can finally sleep and it gets reversed on appeal.

Speaker 1 And you got to go back and do it all over again.

Speaker 2 So you have to be very, very careful. And Orange County judges are good about that.
And once he's in custody, he's not...

Speaker 2 Unless he escapes like Nyeri, they're not posing a danger to the community anymore. So

Speaker 2 you actually have the time to cross all the T's, dot all the I's, and ensure that all of their rights are scrupulously honored and so it doesn't get reversed.

Speaker 1 When we come back, Matt literally wrote the book on murder. In fact, it's called The Book of Murder, a Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death.
And we're going to talk about it when we come back.

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Speaker 1 We're back now with Matt Murphy, and you have transitioned from prosecutor to legal analyst, thankfully, for us here at 2020.

Speaker 1 And now, of course, you are an author telling stories that are in the public eye and how they kind of changed your view.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, it's from your background, right, in prosecuting.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's number one,

Speaker 2 this is kind of a confession here, Deborah.

Speaker 1 Well, that's what we do on this program. We allow you to just confess whatever.

Speaker 2 I miss this job every day.

Speaker 2 I miss my call-outs. I miss my cops.
I miss the strategy and the puzzles. Every murder case is a puzzle.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it's two pieces, and it's the guy's hiding in the bushes down the street, which actually happened to me once.

Speaker 1 And just putting all those pieces together.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it takes 15 years, but each one is a puzzle.

Speaker 2 I really do miss that.

Speaker 2 And I'm still doing, I'm still practicing law. I have a homicide on my case where I'm actually a defense lawyer on it.
So I'm seeing it from a different perspective.

Speaker 2 And in that one, my client is actually innocent, says probably every defense lawyer out there.

Speaker 1 I was going to add that, actually, without being so cynical about it.

Speaker 2 But the beauty is I will win it.

Speaker 1 I have no doubt you will.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 what I love about my work here at ABC is being able to tell people, and I have a larger platform, to educate the general public about the hard work of all the professionals behind the scenes on these cases.

Speaker 2 Like these forensic scientists that I got to work with, some of the best human beings I've met in my life. And you see them at 3 in the morning working with the detectives.

Speaker 2 Oftentimes they've been up for 18 hours trying to process these crime scenes. And

Speaker 2 I probably rolled out to, I must have been to 100 different homicide scenes over the course of my 17 years in homicide. I never heard a a single complaint from any of them.

Speaker 2 And then they're always there when you need them. And it's just some of the best people.
And then you see, I mean, that goes on to the juries, too.

Speaker 2 You see a group of people that really want to do the right thing and judges who are making the right rulings. And every one of these cases for me always started with something horrible.

Speaker 2 You've got your poor victim, you know,

Speaker 2 in a ditch or dead on a kitchen floor. And then immediately you see the best of humanity sort of come in.
And what ABC has allowed me to do is educate people and

Speaker 2 help tell these stories, help unpack some of these really interesting cases from across the country. And it's second nature.
It's very easy for me to look at

Speaker 2 a murder prosecution and explain what the prosecutor is concerned about, why the judge ruled this way.

Speaker 2 I really enjoy that work. And I miss the prosecution game every day.

Speaker 1 I can imagine. Well, you hit on something I was going to point out because you

Speaker 1 talk to people who have just committed unthinkable crimes, but then you get to witness witness the human spirit too which is a kind of a lift in the midst of all of this difficulty

Speaker 2 yes for sure and you also as the prosecutor in a weird way you kind of get the last word you're the last person that's going to stand up there's of course an entire appellate process that begins that's critically important in any in any case but as the prosecutor you get to

Speaker 2 almost speak for the people that can't speak for themselves.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 once you've met the mom and you've met the family, I had a great quote, again, from Lou Rosenblum, my former boss, and it was before my first nobody case.

Speaker 2 And I asked him for tips, like, how do we do these?

Speaker 2 And he said, the jury can always see the soul of your victim reflected in the eyes of those who love them. Oh, it's a heavy one, right? Wow, that's profound.

Speaker 2 As a prosecutor, every time you sit down with the mom or the dad,

Speaker 2 you get that same thing.

Speaker 2 You get a real sense of who your victim was, and then you get to stand up and argue for them. And you're advocating almost on their behalf.
Technically,

Speaker 2 again, it's the people of the state that you're working for. That's your actual client as a prosecutor.
But really, when you're up there,

Speaker 2 you get to speak for the victim that can't speak for themselves anymore. And that can be,

Speaker 2 you can... draw on some really hot passion when you do that when you hear some nonsense from the defense side of the table.

Speaker 2 And it's an honor to do that at the time.

Speaker 1 To remind people that there's a human being behind this terrible crime. We have such loyal true crime viewers.
What is it that draws people to these stories and to watch us on these programs?

Speaker 2 Well, I think it's a combination of things. When it comes to true crime, I think it's a lot deeper than that.
I think that there is a fundamental human

Speaker 2 need for justice. And I think that these cases really are fascinating.

Speaker 2 They're so complex oftentimes and multi-layered.

Speaker 2 And these, of course, are stories that we can all relate to because when it comes to murder, you know, the technology has improved almost to the point of magic at this point.

Speaker 2 But the motives to commit murder are the same that they've been for 200,000 years. It's greed, jealousy.
you know, anger.

Speaker 2 It's the same. It's almost like the

Speaker 2 all the biblical terms yeah that we've heard over the years and so but but I think people see reflections of their own lives and it's a combination of those things and

Speaker 2 when when they when they watch these shows especially if they're done well people learn and they get to see the detective that solved the case and I think it's really good because it it really does kind of enforce what's good about the system.

Speaker 2 We hear so much about what's bad about it, but a lot of times that plan lands safely.

Speaker 2 A lot of times you got hardworking, dedicated people who are bringing justice to these families and to the communities by catching the bad guy and also preventing that person from hurting anybody else.

Speaker 2 And that's important. And I think that when it's done right,

Speaker 2 it is, all of these are good stories and hopefully they have, you know, it's sort of a bitter happy ending. But I think people they need to see that.
They like to see that. And also,

Speaker 2 look, there are cases, and I've done some here on 2020, where the the prosecution gets it wrong sometimes. And some people are overcharged.
Some people are flat out innocent.

Speaker 2 And it's equally important that those people are freed. And I think that there's almost a participation

Speaker 2 when people watch these things. And they get smarter, they get better.
And I think the world is a little better for them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and seeing the resolution. Well, we hope that we do it right, as you say, and because of folks like you who

Speaker 1 help us bring a certain understanding to these cases. Matt, such a pleasure to get to chat with you in person.

Speaker 2 Pleasure is all mine.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you so much. And we really appreciate your being with us on so many of these stories on 2020.
Well, make sure to tune in to 2020 on Friday nights at 9 on ABC.

Speaker 1 The 2020 After Show is produced by Amira Williams, Susie Liu, and Sasha Oslanian with Lisa Soloway, Brian Mazurski, and Alex Berenfeld of 2020. The theme music is by Evan Viola.

Speaker 1 Janice Johnston is the executive producer of 2020. Josh Cohen, the director of podcasting at ABC Audio, and Laura Mayer is the executive producer.

Speaker 1 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 11 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 16 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd, Bezos now, ripped to shreds on his super yacht and the boxes keep

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Speaker 5 It ain't right.

Speaker 11 Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundled subscribers.

Speaker 5 Terms apply.

Speaker 6 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 2 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland, Ohio, into a crime scene.

Speaker 9 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 11 The first thing that hit my mind is a monster.

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Speaker 2 Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.