The Bugs Bunny Alibi

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Speaker 2 I've handled hundreds of firearms through the course of daily casework.

Speaker 2 The majority are handgun types. And then we see a fair amount of semi-automatic rifles

Speaker 2 and a variety of shotguns.

Speaker 2 Detectives Larin and McCarthy presented this case to the firearms unit.

Speaker 2 They had a woman who had accidentally shot her husband with a revolver.

Speaker 3 Tell me what this gun is.

Speaker 2 This is the same make-in model of firearm that was recovered from the Duffy residence.

Speaker 4 When I first walked in, The sun was coming through the sliding glass door. It just looked very peaceful.
until I walked in and saw Mr. Duffy laying on the couch.

Speaker 5 There was a lot of blood on the carpet and there was some blood on the wall.

Speaker 6 Lots of blood.

Speaker 7 But based on what I was being told about her, middle-class, educated woman, she didn't fit the profile of a murderer. This could be an accident.

Speaker 8 She's eccentric and quirky.

Speaker 7 She gives that impression the minute you meet her.

Speaker 9 She was very entertaining and very funny, loved to laugh.

Speaker 9 You either really, really liked Linda or you really thought, wow, she cannot be trusted.

Speaker 4 I've investigated well over 100 murders.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry for Linda? Okay.

Speaker 4 I was very anxious to hear how this accident happened.

Speaker 10 You have to understand, Pat and I joke around a lot with each other.

Speaker 8 She said,

Speaker 7 we have this thing that we always do, we morph into cartoon characters.

Speaker 3 They what?

Speaker 7 They morph into cartoon characters.

Speaker 11 What's up, Jack?

Speaker 10 There was a Bugs Bunny cartoon with Elmer Fudd and he does this silly little Elmer Fudd voice, No More Bullets.

Speaker 11 No more bullets.

Speaker 7 And she said she began to talk to him in her Elmer Fudd voice. No more bullets.
And she said she wanted to impress him and she walked over and picked the gun up.

Speaker 5 No more bullets!

Speaker 12 No more bullets!

Speaker 3 He told me there was no bullets in the gun.

Speaker 2 Well I don't believe she could have fired it in the manner she said she did.

Speaker 7 I wanted to believe her story.

Speaker 2 It's not a believable story.

Speaker 4 I had that gut feeling there was something more sinister.

Speaker 13 This is the matter of Linda Gwatz. She is present before the court.
Both counsel are present.

Speaker 3 Seven years after she shot her husband in their suburban living room, Linda Duffy Gwatz is in a Los Angeles County court denying as strongly as she can that she is a murderess.

Speaker 3 This was a horrible accident.

Speaker 3 I wish and pray constantly

Speaker 3 that I could be able to take away your pain, but I can't.

Speaker 3 This case is not a whodunit. It's more of a why'd she do it.
Linda admits she shot her husband Patrick Duffy in 2007, but she says it was an awful and unlikely accident.

Speaker 3 She's had to convince authorities that fact can be stranger than fiction because her legal defense has featured, among other things,

Speaker 3 a cast of cartoon characters. Here, let me see that sling.
Her lawyer has used the words of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd to explain her actions as he insisted she is innocent.

Speaker 7 We're going to ask you to tell us what happened today.

Speaker 3 Linda talked to police voluntarily and without a lawyer

Speaker 3 just hours after the shooting.

Speaker 10 It was pointed down.

Speaker 3 And the next thing I know,

Speaker 3 his head was right there.

Speaker 3 Just laying there.

Speaker 4 Well, let's go buy the house.

Speaker 3 Sean McCarthy and Shannon Laron have been homicide detectives for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department for 13 years.

Speaker 3 Forgive the cliché,

Speaker 3 but they really did think they'd pretty much seen it all.

Speaker 4 Here's the house right here.

Speaker 3 And then, on April 26, 2007, they got a call about a shooting at the Duffy's house in suburban Whittier. I thought he was going to go some shooting somehow.
I know it's on him. Mr.
Help.

Speaker 9 Okay, stay on the line with me, ma'am.

Speaker 3 This is the couch that you saw in the living room. Yes, yes.
Mr.

Speaker 4 Duffy was right here.

Speaker 3 McCarthy and Laren found Patrick Duffy dead on the couch. His left hand was in his pocket.

Speaker 4 And his right knee was being supported by a pillow. Very comfortable, relaxed.

Speaker 3 There was blood pooled on the floor and splattered on the wall.

Speaker 4 And it was a pretty good-sized blood puddle right in here.

Speaker 7 Clearly, he had a gunshot wound to the head.

Speaker 3 The couple's two teenage sons, Sean and Thomas, were at school. So Linda was the only surviving witness.
And Detective Larin had a funny feeling.

Speaker 4 It looked like he'd been sleeping on the couch couch and somebody walked up and shot him in his sleep.

Speaker 3 What did you think?

Speaker 7 I was leaning that this was an accident.

Speaker 3 Detective McCarthy has been investigating homicide cases for about 13 years and knows how to spot even the tiniest clues. He saw very little here that made him suspicious.

Speaker 3 Do you guys disagree frequently on cases?

Speaker 7 I disagree with all my partners on every case.

Speaker 3 Well, so how does that work?

Speaker 4 I think we kind of wait until we have more information.

Speaker 7 I wanted to hear her story.

Speaker 9 She was very entertaining, loved to tell stories.

Speaker 3 Julie Prendergast has been listening to Linda's stories since they first became friends in a college music program in the 80s.

Speaker 9 She said, well, actually, I'm from Ireland. And she started talking with what I thought was a pretty phony accent.
That was my first indication that Linda was a little bit different.

Speaker 3 Julie says Linda could be irreverent, even goofy.

Speaker 9 I would say, Linda, I'm going to tell you something and you're going to want to laugh, but we're in class right now, so don't laugh out loud. And it would just pop out anyway.

Speaker 3 After they left school, Julie and Linda ended up working at the same place. And one day, Julie says, Linda called with some news.

Speaker 9 She said, I'm so excited. I'm getting married and I'd like you to be in my wedding.

Speaker 3 The groom was a man Linda had met four years earlier, Patrick Duffy, a radio engineer, gun enthusiast, and private pilot.

Speaker 9 She just said it was like her dream come true and she couldn't be happier.

Speaker 17 They seemed happy as a family. They understood each other.

Speaker 3 Patrick's sister, Catherine Hunt, says Patrick and Linda were soulmates and playmates.

Speaker 17 They were kidding with each other, joking with each other.

Speaker 10 We're just always just joking around with each other and being silly and having a good time.

Speaker 3 And it was that silliness that became a cornerstone of Linda's story when she explained to police what happened the day she killed her husband.

Speaker 10 Then I came into the family room and he was sitting on the sofa.

Speaker 3 She said they had just come back from a doctor's appointment. Patrick had chronic circulation problems.
Linda said he'd been planning to go to the shooting range.

Speaker 3 His 38, one of three revolvers he kept in the house, was nearby.

Speaker 10 We keep it in this little locked box.

Speaker 3 Linda told police she usually stayed away from the guns, but that day she picked up the 38.

Speaker 8 And the story got stranger as it went on.

Speaker 10 We do this little silly thing. We always kind of relate little silly conversations to like cartoons that we've seen when we were younger and stuff.

Speaker 10 And he does this silly little Elmer Fudd voice, No More Bullets.

Speaker 7 And she claimed she said to him, no more bullets in Elmer Fudd's voice.

Speaker 11 No more bullets.

Speaker 7 And she said his response was, no more bullets.

Speaker 3 No more bullets?

Speaker 3 She said it was a game they played all the time and that when her husband said no more bullets in his Elmer Fudd voice, she took it to mean the gun was empty and that it was safe to try something Patrick had taught her.

Speaker 7 She said that she then wanted to impress him by showing him she can shoot a cowboy style.

Speaker 3 It's called fan firing and any fan of Westerns knows it. You hold the trigger down and keep pulling back the hammer so the gun fires quickly.

Speaker 3 She says once she started fan firing, she couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting her husband who leaned into the line of fire. And the next thing I know,

Speaker 3 his hand was right there.

Speaker 4 The statement about the fan firing

Speaker 4 It just didn't sound right.

Speaker 3 But his partner, Detective Sean McCarthy, who had heard his share of crazy explanations from suspected killers, listened to that panicked 911 tape, listened to Linda's story, and concluded the story was just wacky enough to be true.

Speaker 7 The overwhelming feeling that I got from her was she was odd at best and eccentric at worst.

Speaker 3 After they interviewed Linda for an hour, they let her go home. And when you left work that day, did you have in your mind that she was a suspect?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 3 His gut told him Linda was innocent, but he'd need more. He'd need science.

Speaker 2 The muzzle of the firearm was between a distance of one and seven inches from his head.

Speaker 3 When he first studied the scene where Linda Duffy killed her husband, Detective Sean McCarthy was pretty sure it was an accident.

Speaker 3 He believed her story that she had reenacted their favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Speaker 11 No more bullets.

Speaker 3 No more bullets.

Speaker 3 And then fan fired the gun.

Speaker 3 And when he talked to Linda later that day,

Speaker 7 start with when we got up this morning,

Speaker 3 she said nothing that made him doubt her.

Speaker 3 It's my fault.

Speaker 7 No, it's not your fault.

Speaker 7 It's just that we need to understand.

Speaker 3 Larry and McCarthy were beginning to understand more about what happened inside the Duffy home, especially after they talked to the medical examiner, who had just done an autopsy on Patrick Duffy.

Speaker 7 There was a second gunshot wound.

Speaker 3 Linda Duffy claimed this was an accident, but she she had shot her husband in the head not once, but twice.

Speaker 3 And believe it or not, even seasoned investigators can miss that kind of clue at the crime scene. You could not see the second gunshot wound?

Speaker 7 Well, because of dried blood and the amount of blood and coagulated blood, we weren't privy to the second gunshot wound.

Speaker 3 What did you make of that?

Speaker 5 Well, it certainly was a red flag.

Speaker 3 But it was not just a red flag flag for McCarthy's partner, Shannon Larin. It was more like a bright red arrow pointing right at Linda Duffy.

Speaker 4 There were so many highly improbable events that would have had to have all lined up for this to actually have been an accident.

Speaker 5 They didn't line up.

Speaker 3 Still, Sean McCarthy was not convinced.

Speaker 3 Why didn't you just say this is going to be murder?

Speaker 7 Because I needed to be convinced myself that this was murder.

Speaker 7 The last thing in the world I want to do is send an innocent person to prison for the rest of their lives.

Speaker 3 It wasn't enough for McCarthy to know what happened. He wanted to know why it happened.

Speaker 5 We struggled to find a compelling motive.

Speaker 7 And we looked and we looked and we looked.

Speaker 3 But they couldn't really find one. The Duffies seemed to be an average middle-class family living here in the LA suburbs.

Speaker 3 There was a life insurance policy on Patrick, but they'd bought that decades earlier. Plus, there was no evidence of cheating.

Speaker 3 And considering her eccentric personality, Detective McCarthy could not just dismiss Linda's story.

Speaker 8 Okay, maybe this could have happened the way she says, because she's so quirky and eccentric.

Speaker 3 But it was about to get a little harder for McCarthy to believe Linda's story

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 of Tracy Peck.

Speaker 3 The firearms expert for the Sheriff's Department, who was brought into the case case by McCarthy and Laren.

Speaker 3 Remember, according to Linda, she fired the way they did in the movies.

Speaker 3 It is possible to do that pretty easily with the right kind of gun. This is the kind of gun that you can fanfire, right?

Speaker 2 Correct. So this is a single-action revolver.
This type of firearm is fired by cocking the hammer and pulling the trigger.

Speaker 3 The guns they used in the cowboy movies were were single action guns. You can easily keep firing quickly

Speaker 3 by pulling and releasing the hammer while the trigger is held back.

Speaker 2 When the hammer is fanned, the cylinder will rotate with this type of gun, so it will fire the cartridges

Speaker 2 in the chambers of the cylinder as it's being fanned.

Speaker 3 The Duffies had two single action revolvers in the house, but the gun Linda used to shoot her husband was not one one of them. It is a double action revolver and there's a big difference.

Speaker 2 The shooter simply pulls the trigger which accomplishes both cocking the hammer and releasing the hammer and the gun will fire.

Speaker 3 To rapid fire a double action revolver the shooter has to do all sorts of things at the right time and in the right sequence. Is this gun designed to be fired that way? No.

Speaker 2 For the purposes of this case I essentially invented a way in which I would conceivably fan this. And that included pulling the trigger,

Speaker 2 releasing the trigger, fanning the hammer, pulling the trigger, releasing the trigger, and fanning the hammer, but doing it pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 And Peck says it's very hard to aim while doing all that. She says the unexpected, deafening noise of the gun and the recoil would have alarmed Linda if she didn't know the gun was loaded.

Speaker 3 According to Peck, it would have been next to impossible for Linda, who claims to be an amateur, to shoot her husband twice rapidly by accident, especially since the wounds were so close together.

Speaker 2 I don't find it a very believable story.

Speaker 7 I still wanted to believe her, but it clearly couldn't have gone down the way that she said that it went down.

Speaker 3 By now, Detective McCarthy was all but certain that Patrick Duffy's death was no accident. But the two detectives felt they didn't have enough to prove it.

Speaker 3 Because of a heavy workload, it took two years. But in January 2009, McCarthy and Larryn brought Linda back in for another chat.
The video wasn't working, but you can still hear their conversation.

Speaker 20 She showed me how to do it really fast because you got to do it like the cowboys.

Speaker 7 Well, in the second interview, I think we were both convinced that this was a murder.

Speaker 3 They showed her a video of Tracy Peck fanfiring the gun.

Speaker 7 I think she was certainly surprised when we explained to her how difficult it would be.

Speaker 8 I could tell the light bulb went on in her brain and she said, I got to at least change the story a little bit.

Speaker 3 Linda now said she and her husband had practiced fan firing with an unloaded revolver for years.

Speaker 3 I'm fine. Did you believe her this time?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 3 But the detectives wanted to give Linda one last chance to show them how she fired the gun. And they made her an unusual offer.

Speaker 5 Meet us at the range.

Speaker 7 We'll bring an exact replica. and show us that you can fire this gun in the manner that you said.

Speaker 3 The detectives were certain Linda would not kill again, so they let her go home again and waited to hear from her about their offer.

Speaker 3 Days turned into weeks and then months, and life went on at the Homicide Bureau.

Speaker 4 We changed partners, and when that happens, you start getting new cases, and other cases start falling to the wayside.

Speaker 3 As the years passed, Linda might have thought she was off the hook, but her past was about to catch up with her.

Speaker 7 The district attorney said, I'm going to file this case and I need to go get her.

Speaker 3 With no news for nearly five years, Patrick Duffy's brother John and sister Catherine Hunt thought thought the police had decided his death was an accident and had closed the investigation.

Speaker 3 But Catherine says she had a hard time believing what Linda told her when she called on that awful day.

Speaker 17 She was incoherent. And I said,

Speaker 17 what happened? He was cleaning his gun and it accidentally went off.

Speaker 3 Linda had told the police that she had shot Patrick by accident, but later that night she told his siblings he'd shot himself. Could you picture him having that kind of an accident?

Speaker 17 No, absolutely not.

Speaker 21 We were raised with guns and we were taught to empty our weapons before even entering the house.

Speaker 3 And that was like the number one rule.

Speaker 17 It was hard to believe that he had done something like that.

Speaker 3 And Catherine learned she was right the day after Pat died when she met Linda at the funeral home.

Speaker 17 I said, where was he shot? And she went, like this, just like that. That's when it hit me that

Speaker 17 he didn't shoot himself.

Speaker 17 I said, so tell me what really happened.

Speaker 17 She said, oh, you're going to hate me. You're going to hate me.

Speaker 9 You're going to hate me.

Speaker 17 I said, no, I'm not going to hate you, but I need to know what the truth is. And I said, did you shoot my brother in the head? And she said, yes.

Speaker 3 It was there in the funeral home where Catherine first heard the tale of Elmer Fudd.

Speaker 17 Pat had told her no bullets, like no bullets, like Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, because they would talk in cartoon characters sometimes. She thought the gun wasn't loaded and it went off.

Speaker 17 I couldn't quite understand

Speaker 17 why she had lied. If it was an accident, it was an accident.

Speaker 17 But she had lied to us.

Speaker 3 But the police still had to prove she had lied to them about why she shot him. him.
Detectives had interrogated her twice and released her twice.

Speaker 3 The second time they let her go, they'd made that unusual offer to meet her at the firing range.

Speaker 5 We even told her, it can be at your convenience.

Speaker 3 They weren't shocked when they didn't hear back from her. And several months later, they stopped by the Duffy's house and saw a for-sale sign.
Her sons were home.

Speaker 7 They said she's on her honeymoon in Italy.

Speaker 3 Two years after the shooting, Linda Duffy was Linda Gwatz, newly married to Lawrence Gwatz, who anyone in the saxophone world knows, is a world-class player.

Speaker 3 When we Googled him, he was playing in Carnegie Hall. And once again, when wedding bells rang, so did Julie Prendergast's phone.

Speaker 9 She asked me, would I sing in that wedding?

Speaker 9 And I said, what?

Speaker 9 Linda, I'm not coming to your wedding. Something's not right surrounding the death of Patrick.

Speaker 3 Julie says she was uneasy with how Linda just moved on.

Speaker 9 She dyed her hair blonde. She was wearing different style of clothes.
She seemed to be walking on air on clouds, like just as happy as can be.

Speaker 3 A year after shooting her first husband, Linda met Gwatz online. She moved to Mississippi where her new husband was a music professor.

Speaker 3 She was out of sight, but for detectives Laren and McCarthy, she was not out of mind.

Speaker 3 Did you forget about this case? Was there a period of time where...

Speaker 7 Oh, no, absolutely not.

Speaker 3 When their workload with their new partners permitted, McCarthy and Laren each turned their attention back to Linda.

Speaker 3 They wanted to take a new look at the blood evidence with a new expert, Paul Dellhauer. He studied the photos and police reports and concluded Linda had to be lying.

Speaker 3 Based on her statements, police believed Linda was claiming that she had fired quickly and from the same spot.

Speaker 22 She moved and the relative position of the gun to the head changed.

Speaker 3 We are standing next to the couch on which Patrick Duffy died.

Speaker 3 Dellhauer said the blood evidence told him a lot, especially these tiny stains on Linda's clothing and the walls called spatter, which he says came from the first shot.

Speaker 22 The barrel has to be within about three inches of the head in order to produce the spatter.

Speaker 3 Delhauer says the second shot created a large pool of blood on the floor in the exact spot where Linda said she was standing.

Speaker 22 She would have been getting jets of blood hitting her.

Speaker 3 Linda Duffy have any blood on her?

Speaker 6 Very little.

Speaker 23 Very, very little.

Speaker 3 Police thought they now had proof that Linda was lying. She didn't have enough blood on her after the shooting to support her story.
Larin and McCarthy thought they knew what really happened.

Speaker 7 She took aim, fired one round while he was sleeping, realized he wasn't dead, comes back on target, fires the second round, and that's why they're within two inches of each other.

Speaker 3 They believe Patrick's death wasn't an accident, it was an execution.

Speaker 3 By 2012, the new prosecutor assigned to the case was eager to move ahead, and police began talking to Linda's co-workers.

Speaker 7 Boy, that was very revealing. They consistently talked about how she was so charming.
But then as time went on, they started finding out that she was this compulsive liar.

Speaker 3 And Julie Prendergast had a few stories to tell. about her one-time friend's record when it comes to telling the truth.

Speaker 9 We all have one gallbladder. Linda had hers removed three times.
Linda just always needed to seem to want to have attention.

Speaker 3 It was enough for McCarthy.

Speaker 7 I became absolutely convinced that we need to prosecute her.

Speaker 3 So finally, in May 2012, five years after Patrick Duffy's death, Detective McCarthy flew to Mississippi, where Linda and her new husband were living in a comfortable home, and she had gotten a job at the university.

Speaker 3 You knock on the door, what's her

Speaker 3 reaction?

Speaker 7 Her reaction was: I thought the investigation was all over.

Speaker 3 The investigation wasn't over. McCarthy arrested Linda Duffy Gwatz for murder,

Speaker 3 and everyone was in for some surprises.

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Speaker 3 It's been six years since Linda Duffy shot her husband to death, and she thought she was going on with her life with a new husband, a new house, a new look, and a new town.

Speaker 3 But now she's going on trial for murder.

Speaker 26 Tuesday, her freedom came to an end.

Speaker 3 And Joseph Lowe is her attorney.

Speaker 15 Unfortunately, on this particular day, she was going to play with a gun again like she's done so many times before, and she rapper-fired it in the top of his head.

Speaker 8 It's a complete accident.

Speaker 3 He'll argue that, based partly on the words of Elmer Fudd, No more bullets. Linda thought the 38 revolver was empty.

Speaker 3 Did you ever consider the possibility that this, what we'll call a Bugs Bunny defense, for lack of a better term, could be true?

Speaker 16 Zero percent chance it's true.

Speaker 3 Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa says in 27 years on the job, he's never seen a defense rely, even partly, on a cartoon.

Speaker 16 Bugs

Speaker 16 is having a conversation with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.

Speaker 3 Watching a prosecutor parrot a bunny was a first for us, too.

Speaker 3 But an official transcript of the cartoon had to be made.

Speaker 16 What do you know? No more bullets.

Speaker 16 And then Bugs Bunny says, no more bullets? As they're having this conversation, just as she went to fanfire the gun, he laid down and put his own head right in front of the gun.

Speaker 16 So ridiculous.

Speaker 3 You know and I know that strange things do happen.

Speaker 16 Strange things happen. This wasn't one of them.
He was asleep. She shot him in the head twice.

Speaker 3 It was that simple, open and shut.

Speaker 16 For me, it was.

Speaker 3 But it wasn't so simple for the jury. Over two weeks, they heard three recordings of Linda telling authorities about cartoon rabbits and cowboy fanfiring.

Speaker 3 They also heard days of testimony from dueling experts about whether Linda's explanation made any sense at all. It was a lot for the jury to consider.

Speaker 27 It was difficult, you know. For every expert, there's another one who can tell you a different story.

Speaker 3 The defense questioned whether prosecution expert witness, Paul Dellhauer, she would have been getting jets of blood hitting her, was really an expert at all.

Speaker 3 The jurors deliberated for a day, but could not reach a verdict.

Speaker 27 Very few of us thought the intent was there. So, how do you convict somebody when it could have happened exactly the way she explained it?

Speaker 3 With a deadlocked jury, the judge had no choice. He had to declare a mistrial.

Speaker 13 So, he will be discharged on this case.

Speaker 12 It sent a clear message that the jury wasn't willing to convict on murder.

Speaker 3 Were you disappointed?

Speaker 16 I'm always disappointed when there's no verdict, because that means I have to do it again.

Speaker 3 And roughly one year later, with Linda having remained in jail,

Speaker 3 Villa was doing it again.

Speaker 3 This time his case will be very different.

Speaker 16 He lay down on the couch.

Speaker 3 Streamlined

Speaker 3 and simple.

Speaker 16 His wife came up to him,

Speaker 16 put a gun between one and seven inches from his head and pulled the trigger.

Speaker 28 Some time went by. She pulled the trigger again.

Speaker 3 He says the Duffy's marriage was strained and she thought she might have to take care of her ailing husband.

Speaker 16 She's like, I'm not going to wait on this guy for the rest of his life. This was a premeditated and deliberate murder.

Speaker 3 For his opening arguments, Defense Attorney Joseph Lowe brings his own sofa

Speaker 3 to present this as a simple case.

Speaker 15 No motive.

Speaker 15 No intent.

Speaker 28 No crime.

Speaker 15 Pat was her best friend and she was his. One of the things I love to do is to watch cartoons together.
They're kind of goofy.

Speaker 3 But there are many aspects to this trial that are, if you will, offbeat.

Speaker 13 One of you asked the clerk about how these cameras work.

Speaker 3 Well, they're only on me. Judge John Turibio has a reputation for lightening the atmosphere for the jury.

Speaker 13 I'm the star, so don't worry.

Speaker 3 But things quickly get serious

Speaker 3 when the DA takes them back to the moment right after Linda Duffy shot her husband. My husband wasn't getting girls screaming anyway, so he had to do it again.

Speaker 8 It's hard to make out some of the words because she just can't even talk.

Speaker 3 She sounds terrified and frantic to me.

Speaker 3 What does she sound like to you?

Speaker 16 She sounds like someone who is acting.

Speaker 2 May I use the firearm to demonstrate?

Speaker 5 Just aim it at the jury.

Speaker 3 Tracy Peck tells the jury Linda had to pull the trigger on this gun twice

Speaker 3 to get two bullets to fire.

Speaker 2 If I do not release the trigger, the cylinder will not advance.

Speaker 3 The big surprise in this trial is what prosecutor Bob Villa leaves out.

Speaker 8 I'd have people's 1335 be admitted into the evidence, and with that, I rest.

Speaker 16 I arrested my case after basically two and a half days.

Speaker 3 Unlike the first trial, there is very little dense forensic testimony about bloodstains and most crucially,

Speaker 3 he does not introduce Linda's taped interviews with police where she first discussed

Speaker 18 Bugs Bunny.

Speaker 3 There was no need for Bugs Bunny.

Speaker 16 No need unless she took the stand.

Speaker 3 Villa has thrown defense attorney Joseph Lowe a curveball. Since the defense isn't allowed to introduce the interrogations unless the state does first,

Speaker 3 the only way jurors will hear Linda Duffy's side of the story is if she takes the stand and exposes herself to cross-examination. Were you hoping she would take the stand? Absolutely.
Were you ready?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 Lowe begins his defense with a good offense.

Speaker 3 His first witness is the detective who at first did not think Linda was a murderess.

Speaker 15 When you were done asking your questions, you allowed Mrs. Duffy to go home.

Speaker 3 Correct.

Speaker 7 Talking to her was very convincing to me. She was eccentric, and how could she harm anybody?

Speaker 15 So you would not let somebody who you thought had just committed a murder go back out on the street if you had the power of arrest. Isn't that correct, Jack?

Speaker 3 Such and relevant. Sustained.

Speaker 7 That night, I liked her.

Speaker 7 As the investigation went on, I liked her a lot less.

Speaker 3 Loeb tries to paint a sympathetic picture of Linda.

Speaker 12 Sir, how are you feeling right now?

Speaker 14 A little nervous.

Speaker 3 By calling her sons, Sean and Thomas.

Speaker 4 She's just a very emotional, caring person. We were always really happy.

Speaker 3 They like cartoons a lot.

Speaker 8 They were always making funny jokes to each other and always poke fun of each other and stuff.

Speaker 3 The defense has a very big decision to make. Will Linda take the stand herself?

Speaker 16 And if she took the stand, we were going to hear all about Bugs Bunny.

Speaker 3 Ms. Gwads, do you wish to testify?

Speaker 10 No, sir.

Speaker 3 Linda has decided not to take the stand. So her lawyer worries the jury will hear nothing about fanfiring.
And then he comes up with an idea.

Speaker 15 So I'd like to refer to court and counts of page five of the 911 transcript.

Speaker 3 He finds a reference to it in the 911 tape prosecutors have already introduced.

Speaker 13 A long time ago, he showed me how to pull the thing back on top of the gun and pull the trigger real fast.

Speaker 3 So Lowe is allowed to call firearms expert Lance Martini, who says fan firing a double-action gun like Linda claims she did is not so far-fetched after all.

Speaker 6 This can be done. It's not overly common, but it certainly can be done.

Speaker 15 Sir, is it humanly possible to shoot more than one round in less than a second?

Speaker 5 Double-action mode.

Speaker 6 Yes, it is.

Speaker 28 There's no way.

Speaker 16 Absolutely no way it happened that way. This was an execution.

Speaker 3 These jurors never got to see any cartoons,

Speaker 3 but they did see one animation produced by the prosecutor. It is no laughing matter.
It attempts to answer a deadly serious question.

Speaker 3 What happened to Patrick Duffy?

Speaker 28 He's asleep watching television.

Speaker 3 The video doesn't leave much to the imagination.

Speaker 3 Although the defense, in closing arguments says it and the rest of the state's case

Speaker 3 are all a fantasy.

Speaker 15 She accidentally shot her husband. It ain't right, and it's not fair to guess somebody into a conviction.
Guess somebody into a concrete tomb.

Speaker 23 It all comes down to whether it's one word or two from the jury.

Speaker 3 Correct. Guilty or not guilty.

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Speaker 13 Jury's present, counsel and defendant are present, and you've reached a verdict or verdicts?

Speaker 3 Yes. Would you please? It's been a long road.
Now, nearly seven years since Patrick Duffy died, and one year after a jury deadlocked in his wife's first murder trial.

Speaker 3 This time, the jury comes back in just over 24 hours.

Speaker 26 We, the jury, the above entitled Action, find the defendant, Linda Doreen Gwatz, guilty of the crime of second-degree murder of Patrick Albert Duffy in violation of section 1878.

Speaker 3 The guilty verdict floors Linda

Speaker 3 it hits her lawyer hard too.

Speaker 3 For his part the prosecutor is more relieved than anything else.

Speaker 8 I'm pleased that I don't have to try it a third time.

Speaker 3 You saw the way she reacted.

Speaker 16 Yes, I've always thought she was an actress, so that was

Speaker 16 that was her her moment.

Speaker 27 Honestly, that's the first time I saw her really cry.

Speaker 3 Patrick Duffy's sister Catherine has waited years for this day.

Speaker 27 She didn't get away with murdering my brother.

Speaker 3 When it comes time to sentence Linda three months later, it's her last chance to address the court, and she speaks.

Speaker 18 I wanted to let all of you know

Speaker 3 how grieved I feel.

Speaker 3 Most of all to

Speaker 18 Patrick and my beautiful son, Sean and Thomas.

Speaker 18 Because you lost such a loving, wonderful father.

Speaker 3 Her sons try their best to ask for leniency. If there's anything you can do to

Speaker 14 help out with my family, that's all I can ask.

Speaker 3 I believe she's innocent, and I will till the day I die. Linda's second husband, Larry Gwatz, also appeals to the judge.

Speaker 8 To assert that this was a premeditated, purposeful act,

Speaker 8 I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 It's unacceptable to me.

Speaker 3 Look at these two people,

Speaker 28 beautifully in love.

Speaker 17 Why? Because she's a wonderful human being who doesn't deserve this.

Speaker 3 But the judge doesn't have much leeway.

Speaker 13 In this particular instance, the law mandates 40 to life. My oath requires that I impose that.

Speaker 8 I was like,

Speaker 8 you did this to yourself.

Speaker 3 We found it curious that one jury could not agree on a verdict at all and a second convicted Linda in a day.

Speaker 3 It is ironic, but in these two trials, it is apparently true that in the case against Linda Duffy Gwatz, less is more.

Speaker 3 If I remember correctly, we sat down with jurors from both trials to see why one jury quickly reached a verdict.

Speaker 14 Andrew Andrew Dixon, murder in the second.

Speaker 29 Danielle Wong, second-degree murder.

Speaker 3 While the other never did.

Speaker 27 Brandi Jones, not guilty.

Speaker 9 Pamela Enriquez, murder in the second.

Speaker 16 Where's the gun? One to seven inches.

Speaker 3 Remember, the jury that convicted Linda only heard the bare bones prosecution.

Speaker 16 Makes this impossible to happen the way she says.

Speaker 3 Very little about fan firing or cartoons.

Speaker 3 They heard a lot more than you heard.

Speaker 29 And we can only make the decision based off of the evidence that we heard.

Speaker 3 The jurors from both trials, the ones who heard the long story and the ones who heard it made short, sat around our table and pondered. While less, maybe more,

Speaker 3 is it enough?

Speaker 27 And you're putting a woman away for the rest of her life, so present everything.

Speaker 29 I think I really have to agree with Brandy. Maybe all the evidence should be presented.

Speaker 3 Did you know she gave an interview to the police?

Speaker 3 Would you have liked to?

Speaker 29 I would have loved to hear what she had to say.

Speaker 29 Would that have changed my decision? Don't know, possibly.

Speaker 3 If you had heard everything, you think it would have affected the deliberations?

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 And even though they made their decision, some of the jurors who convicted Linda still have questions.

Speaker 3 Did it bother you that they never said exactly why she did it?

Speaker 29 Yeah, it did.

Speaker 3 How did you get over that?

Speaker 29 I'm not over it. I still want to know.

Speaker 9 When I heard the guilty verdict, I said, yay, justice is finally served.

Speaker 3 Julie Prendergast has no doubt the second jury did the right thing by finding her former friend guilty.

Speaker 3 And she wonders how Linda's life, which was once so happy, became so tragic.

Speaker 9 I'm sad for everyone involved.

Speaker 9 Those two boys lost their father and now they're losing their mother. It's a tragic story in every way you can think about it.

Speaker 3 Linda Duffy Guads will be eligible for parole in 2037.

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