MURDERED: Bruce Blackwood

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Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

Speaker 1 And I'm Britt.

Speaker 2 And the story I have for you today will probably have you pulling your hair out because it's one of those cases where answers seem so obvious, yet justice would take nearly a decade to finally arrive.

Speaker 2 And it's also about a man who worked hard for everything he had until senseless violence snatched it all away from him. This is the story of Bruce Blackwood.

Speaker 2 55-year-old Bruce Blackwood is the type of man who loves his routine and will stick to it no matter what, rain or shine.

Speaker 2 Now, he's the manager of an off-track betting parlor in Queens, this borough of New York City.

Speaker 2 And in the 20 plus years that he's worked there, he's rarely, if ever, called in sick, which is why on the morning of March 6th, 2006, his coworkers are thrown off when they get a call from Bruce saying that he won't be at work that day because he slipped and fell in the tub.

Speaker 2 Now, he doesn't say much else and the conversation is just super short, but it's like minutes before his shift is supposed to start when he makes this call.

Speaker 1 Which like, why is he in the bath minutes before he's supposed to be at work?

Speaker 2 Exactly. And look, accidents happen.
Falling and hurting yourself in the tub is definitely a valid excuse for needing to take the day off on a short notice.

Speaker 2 But to your point, this is ultra short notice. Yeah.
Like doesn't quite make sense kind of short notice. In fact, it makes so little sense that people start kind of spreading the word about it.

Speaker 2 And the news makes its way to Bruce's closest workfriend, Tina, and she's actually on maternity leave at the time.

Speaker 2 But right away, she knows something is up because again, these two are super close, close enough that she and Bruce talk on the phone like multiple times a day, even while she's not working.

Speaker 2 So if he fell in the tub or was hurt, she is positive that Bruce would have called to tell her about it, but he hasn't. So Tina tries giving Bruce a call, but he doesn't pick up.

Speaker 2 So like a good, persistent bestie, she tries again. And this time she decides to leave a message on his answering machine.
And, you know, it's the mid-2000s.

Speaker 2 So imagine like this message feels more like an announcement. So like, hey.

Speaker 1 Oh, it like goes out to the whole room.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is Tina, pick up. And she's hoping that Bruce is going to hear this, answer the phone, because he always picks up for her.
But even after this, still nothing.

Speaker 2 Tina knows something isn't right in her gut, but she kind of lets it lie. I mean, maybe he's hurt, right? Like that's what he said.
So he could be at the hospital or something.

Speaker 2 But the next day, when she hears that Bruce didn't show up for work again, and this time was a no-call, no show, Tina knows something is really, really wrong.

Speaker 2 And Tina, by this point, isn't the only one that's worried. Bruce's older brother, Ed, has also gotten word that Bruce is MIA.

Speaker 2 So according to a cold case files episode from 2022, and just FYI, we like really relied on this episode because there's not a ton of source material or reporting kind of outside of that.

Speaker 2 But according to that episode, Ed reports Bruce missing on March 9th. So that's three days after anyone last heard from him.

Speaker 2 Ed then wastes no time creating missing persons flyers, getting a group of close friends to form a search party.

Speaker 2 And they go door to door hoping to find someone who might have information about his brother. But unfortunately, all of their searching, all of their knocking, it all leads nowhere.

Speaker 2 So it's the next day, the 10th, that police begin their search for Bruce.

Speaker 2 Their first move is to go to Bruce's house, and they're actually able to get inside somehow, but a search of his house shows no sign of foul play. I mean, the house is clean.

Speaker 2 But I think the interesting thing to them is there aren't any signs of some major fall to even corroborate the story that he was telling his coworkers.

Speaker 1 So this is in, what, 2006? Does Bruce have a cell phone that they could track?

Speaker 2 Well, he does actually, but his phone is powered off, so they can't track it, but they do subpoena the phone records, which that's going to take a few weeks maybe months before they get those so in the meantime detectives check the morgue to see maybe you know if he'd been in a car accident or just who knows right but there's nothing there either so there is literally no sign of bruce anywhere in that cold case files episode one of the investigators says it's like bruce quote fell off the face of the earth Well, and at this point, it kind of feels like he's a victim of foul play.

Speaker 1 Like it's the only option that's really out there to consider.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it can't be any clearer at this point.

Speaker 2 So they quickly land on the idea that maybe Bruce was the victim of a robbery because what they're thinking is there's actually a lot of cash at the OTB where he works.

Speaker 2 And as the manager, Bruce had access to that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, while he's at work, not when he's home, though.

Speaker 2 True.

Speaker 2 I think maybe they thought that he was like taken back to work or something, but I'm not even going to overthink any of that because ultimately the investigators can't find anything to like back up that theory.

Speaker 2 I think they're just desperate at the beginning to come up with something.

Speaker 2 What they do find out in the process of exploring the robbery angle, though, is that Bruce owns several rental properties, mainly in New York, some in Florida.

Speaker 2 So investigators decide to print some more missing person flyers and hang them up throughout the neighborhoods where his buildings are.

Speaker 2 And they also start interviewing Bruce's tenants, which in turn leads them to this guy named Louis Perez, who Bruce lets live in one of his New York properties in exchange for doing odd jobs like repair work, construction stuff.

Speaker 2 Now, Lewis tells police that he saw Bruce on March 7th, which we know is a day after he'd called into work. According to Lewis, Bruce had arrived at his apartment building at around 9:30 or 10 a.m.

Speaker 2 They talked about some renovations Lewis was working on, and then Bruce told him that he needed to run some errands. Then outside, Lewis says he heard a horn honk.

Speaker 2 So he looks out and he sees this black Toyota Camry just sitting out front, which he assumed was waiting for Bruce, because Bruce even mentioned that the person outside was his friend Mike.

Speaker 2 And then he says that Bruce gets into that car and the car drives off.

Speaker 1 Does Lewis know Mike?

Speaker 2 No, like never seen this guy before, doesn't know who he is. But this isn't weird.
Like they have a working relationship. They don't know all the people in each other's lives.
Right.

Speaker 2 But this Mikely, this is the best one investigators have. So they start canvassing the neighborhood while looking for that black Toyota Camry.

Speaker 1 Are there any stores nearby with cameras that happen to be facing the street that might have captured the car?

Speaker 2 Well, there was one grocery store like right across the street from the building where Lewis says that he last saw Bruce, and that does have cameras.

Speaker 1 That, let me guess, don't work.

Speaker 2 I don't want to tell you you're right, but you're right. They don't work.
I've done this before. I know.
So police are empty-handed as far as like video goes.

Speaker 2 And they're even like hitting a wall trying to find this mic guy, because when they ask Bruce's friends if they know who he is, like none of them have any kind of clue.

Speaker 2 Tina says in that cold case files episode that there were a couple of mics that work at the OTB, but no one that Bruce would be friendly enough to go off with like in their car.

Speaker 2 But while speaking to Bruce's friends, investigators do start to learn more about his behavior leading up to his disappearance. And some of them mentioned seeing a change in him recently.

Speaker 2 Tina mentions Bruce was, quote, anxious and moody. And when she brought this up to him, he didn't want to discuss it with her.

Speaker 2 And she says she just kind of backed off, like she wasn't going to press the issue. But she knew he just wasn't himself, like, something must have been going on.

Speaker 2 And another friend who'd been visiting Bruce the weekend before he disappeared tells investigators that Bruce seemed nervous and was troubled about something, though he never said what it was, which is obviously super similar to Tina's experience.

Speaker 2 But in this case, Bruce did say something that looking back on it now is chilling. He said something along the lines of, I don't know why I got involved with these individuals.

Speaker 2 Now, Bruce refused to tell friends who he was referring to when he said these individuals.

Speaker 2 But considering this conversation took place just days before he disappeared, I mean, these individuals are who you have to find. It seems that way, right?

Speaker 2 Now, as they continue looking into who it could be, another friend of Bruce's comes forward and tells police that before he'd been reported missing, she had gone to an apartment building looking for Bruce.

Speaker 2 The same building that Lewis says he saw Bruce at getting into the car with Mike.

Speaker 1 And when was this?

Speaker 2 I don't have an exact date. It's likely somewhere between the 6th and the 9th.
I don't have any idea what time either, but this is like after he'd been missing.

Speaker 2 So she doesn't find Bruce, but she comes forward saying that she saw something that really alarmed her. She says that she saw someone driving Bruce's car.
He has a Cadillac.

Speaker 2 And she said it obviously wasn't Bruce.

Speaker 2 It was Louis Perez.

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Speaker 2 Now, there are some conflicting reports about where Bruce's car was when he went missing.

Speaker 2 That cold case files episode says that police find Bruce's car parked in his driveway when they originally searched his house.

Speaker 2 But a New York One article from around that same time says that Bruce's car was in front of one of the buildings he owns.

Speaker 1 Okay, so we at least know that like his car has been around. It's not missing too, but

Speaker 1 it's super bizarre and honestly a little concerning that Lewis was the last one potentially seen driving it.

Speaker 2 Right, totally. And from what I read, Bruce was protective of his car, the kind of person who's like, no one's touching my baby, kind of protective.

Speaker 2 And his brother Ed talks about how Bruce wouldn't even let him drive in a daily news article by Carrie Burke and Allison Gendar.

Speaker 1 So the idea that this like handyman is driving it around is pretty unlikely.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 So this friend, like when she sees this, she's concerned enough to the point where she flags down a police officer officer after she sees Lewis in this car and she tells them, look, that's my friend's car.

Speaker 2 Something is wrong here. There's no way he would let them drive it.
I assume she tells him, like, by the way, that friend is missing.

Speaker 2 And she must have pleaded a pretty good case to the officer because they end up catching up with Lewis and pulling him over. And of course, he's like, oh yeah, you know, this is my boss's car.

Speaker 2 He asked me to hold on to it and move it to the other side of the street for him so he wouldn't get a ticket, which does kind of track given that it's New York City, the street cleaning schedule typically dictates like what side of the street cars can park on and when.

Speaker 2 So to them, Lewis's story sounds credible enough that they don't do anything. They let him go.

Speaker 1 Well, and all of this is happening before Bruce is officially, officially reported missing, right? So it's not like police are even looking for him. He's not on their radar, nothing.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 This probably sounded like a totally legit excuse to the officer. It sounds legit to me.

Speaker 2 Right. Because, I mean, again, his friends were concerned.
That's why she's obviously like looking for him, but there's no report that they can go like look up, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 There's not a whole lot of charges they could do, especially if he does just drop the car off and do nothing with it.

Speaker 1 Right, there's no like bolo or anything wild like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But now that, you know, the police are involved, like this story seems totally sketch, especially because Bruce's friend wasn't the only one to see Lewis in that car.

Speaker 2 Matt Young reported for news.com that other people saw Lewis cruising around in the Cadillac, blasting music, not just like parking on the other side of the street. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if it's this incident specifically that makes investigators take a closer look at Lewis, but the more they start putting the pieces together, the more things are looking off.

Speaker 2 Honestly, by this point, investigators start to believe that Mike doesn't even really exist because they can't find anyone who knows who he is. And there is no record of this guy in Bruce's life.

Speaker 2 Plus, this whole Lewis driving the car thing just focuses the spotlight on him.

Speaker 1 Well, and if he made up Mike, what else is he lying about?

Speaker 2 Bingo. And once investigators really home in, they start to find out.

Speaker 2 When they interview one of Bruce's neighbors, they say that the weekend before Bruce went missing, they saw Bruce arguing in his driveway with two guys.

Speaker 2 And this neighbor is describing the two men to police, and one of the descriptions closely matches Luis Perez.

Speaker 2 According to that cold case files episode, I guess this argument got pretty heated because the neighbor overheard bits and pieces, like something along the lines of it wasn't supposed to cost this much and this is not what we agreed on.

Speaker 1 So pretty much sounds like a business deal kind of going south.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's exactly what's happening here. Also, I love a nosy neighbor.

Speaker 2 Me too. And this could give Lewis a motive.
Like we've seen many times before that an argument about money could lead to people doing some pretty awful things.

Speaker 1 Right, but like, what does Lewis have to say about all this?

Speaker 2 Good question. And honestly, this is where things get a little bit weird in the source material, because the answer is, I really don't know.

Speaker 2 I can't find a single thing that says investigators confront him about any of this right away. What? I know.

Speaker 2 And like I said earlier, some of that might be because there's not a lot of reporting on this case. So it's totally possible they did talk to him right up front and it's just not detailed anywhere.

Speaker 2 Or they might have chosen not to bring him in for some reason. Like they may not want to tip him off that they're onto him.

Speaker 2 But what we do know is that they decide to dig deeper into this potential motive. And they hit the jackpot when they start looking into Bruce's finances.

Speaker 2 Investigators find that Bruce had gone to his credit union to report about 13 stolen checks. And it turns out that 12 of these checks were written out to none other than our guy Lewis.

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 2 And there was also a check written out to a man who worked with Lewis named Martin Rodriguez. Basically, all of the checks total around $7,700.
So it's not a small amount of money.

Speaker 2 Police go and get copies of all of these checks from the bank and they use handwriting analysis to determine that Lewis had, in fact, forged them.

Speaker 2 And listen, the research on handwriting analysis is kind of, you know, back and forth. I don't want to say all over the place.
Yeah, but like some suggest that it's super valid.

Speaker 2 Some are more skeptical of it. But according to a 2022 finding published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, handwriting analysis is a valid method with proper training.

Speaker 2 But the handwriting analysis is not the only nail in the coffin. So with this alone, no, but they've got some other stuff.

Speaker 2 According to an episode of True Conviction that aired in 2022, there's even surveillance footage of Lewis caching these checks.

Speaker 1 Just when I was about to lose all hope in surveillance cameras.

Speaker 2 Right. Which, to me, like, they're written out to him, right? Like, we already knew that.
I expected him to cash it.

Speaker 2 I don't know that it backs up that he wrote it, but like, circumstantial evidence, it's all building.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it gets to pile up a little bit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is evidence. So, investigators at this point are like, okay, who's this Lewis guy? Let's do a little digging into his background.
And they realize that Lewis had spent 10 years in prison.

Speaker 2 For what?

Speaker 2 Well, the story goes that Lewis had a daughter with a woman, and at some point, he'd tried to kidnap his daughter and also attack or attempt to stab his child's mother.

Speaker 2 So like, this is kind of violent crime, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I wish I could find literally any other details on this incident, but all I know is that after the attempt failed, he was stopped by some state troopers.

Speaker 2 And you think at this point, like, it's game over, time to go to jail.

Speaker 1 Yeah, state troopers.

Speaker 2 But no, Lewis stabbed one of the troopers.

Speaker 1 Oh my God. Was Was this all before he worked for Bruce?

Speaker 2 Yeah, this all happened way before.

Speaker 1 Did Bruce know any of this and have any idea about his background?

Speaker 2 I mean, honestly, I don't know. I can't imagine he did.

Speaker 2 Not that he wouldn't hire him. I don't know that, but I don't think he would have been arguing with Lewis over money if he knew what he was capable of.

Speaker 2 To me, this isn't a guy you want to piss off, right? Right.

Speaker 1 And considering what the police now know about Lewis, are they thinking that maybe Bruce isn't just missing? Like, there's there's definitely a strong possibility foul play could be involved.

Speaker 2 Yeah, investigators say they suspect Bruce is a victim of homicide at this point. They just don't have physical evidence of that.
Now, if you remember, they subpoenaed Bruce's phone records.

Speaker 2 They didn't have any clue at the time when they would get them, but they were hoping that those records would help them fill in some blanks.

Speaker 2 And two months after Bruce went missing, that's when they finally get them. Investigators look at that call that Bruce made to the OTB the the morning when he called in saying he was injured.

Speaker 2 The whole thing that started this, right? Right. And what they find is that the call was pinging off a cell tower near the same apartment building that Lewis lived in.

Speaker 2 Oh, which is not the building that Bruce lives in, where you would assume if you're taking a bath, that's where you'd be. Right.
Now, apparently, this call that Bruce made was recorded. What?

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, again, I find this out later. I'm like, bury the lead much.
And I don't know

Speaker 2 if it's recorded because he left a voicemail or if they recorded all of their calls. I can't find any info that clarifies it, but it's recorded.
But it is recorded.

Speaker 2 And Bruce's friend Tina heard the recording herself.

Speaker 2 And she describes it in that true conviction episode by saying that Bruce sounded distressed, like maybe someone was with him forcing him to make the call.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, it sounds like that's pretty likely, but do police have anything to prove that beyond the cell phone records showing that he was near Lewis's apartment?

Speaker 2 No. No, not at this point.

Speaker 2 So the next step is to get into Lewis's apartment.

Speaker 2 Because they're thinking, you know, if Lewis kidnapped and potentially even murdered Bruce, it's not like he did it on the front steps of the building or in the hallway.

Speaker 2 Like it would realistically had to have been in the privacy of his apartment.

Speaker 2 But before they go bursting in, they decide to arrest Lewis on June 20th and charge him with multiple counts of grand larceny and forgery for all that check stuff.

Speaker 2 Because by using that, they can get a search warrant for his apartment. And once they get in there, they tear the place apart.

Speaker 2 They rip up the carpet, even go as far as taking out the drain pipes from the sink and the shower and the tub because they're looking for any place where blood could show up.

Speaker 2 But in the end, they find nothing.

Speaker 2 which means there is no physical evidence that Bruce was ever there.

Speaker 1 Which also means there's no physical evidence that Bruce was a victim of homicide. So are they still considering him just a missing person?

Speaker 2 They are, technically, even though at this point, the likelihood of him still being alive is very slim. But part of the good news is that they do get to keep Lewis, right?

Speaker 2 Like he's still on the hook for forgery and larceny.

Speaker 2 So on June 5th, 2007, almost a year after being arrested, he ends up pleading guilty to passing fraudulent checks and he's sentenced to two to four years in prison.

Speaker 2 And Lewis's conviction seems to almost stall stall the investigation into what happened to Bruce. Like in my mind, I would have thought it would have propelled it.
Like, okay, we're on the clock now.

Speaker 2 We have this guy in jail for two to four years. We've got to make our case, otherwise he gets out.
Right. But instead, everything just stops cold.

Speaker 2 And for a solid five years, it looks like there is just nothing, which is obviously torture for Bruce's friends and family.

Speaker 2 They can't fathom why police would have just given up, especially when they seemed like they they were on the right track with Lewis.

Speaker 2 And it makes them wonder if the case would still be unsolved if Bruce was a white victim. In fact, Ed even confronts the New York City police commissioner at a town hall meeting about it.

Speaker 2 Ed finally gets so frustrated that he goes to some reporters at the Daily News who start digging into Bruce's story.

Speaker 2 And as part of their investigation, they talked to a retired detective who worked on the case and felt that it should have been solved.

Speaker 2 And I know the Daily News even contacted Lewis, who by now was out of prison. And as you'd imagine, he denied any involvement in Bruce's disappearance.

Speaker 1 Shocker. Right.

Speaker 2 But in 2011, the Daily News puts out their story. It was written by Carrie Burke and Allison Gendar, and it was titled, One Case That Haunts Me.

Speaker 2 And this article has an immediate impact because the police clearly do not want any bad press, and the lack of movement in the case wouldn't look good.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is why sharing these stories in newspapers and podcasts and on national television can be so, so important. I mean, we've seen it.

Speaker 1 Public pressure can be effective, especially in cases where the victim is a person of color.

Speaker 2 Oh, I mean, 100%.

Speaker 2 It makes me mad that you have to, right? Like, yeah, it's a combination of everything. It's not like one thing.

Speaker 2 There are finite resources, but historically, those finite resources go to missing or murdered white people.

Speaker 2 So it is so important that people of color are getting the same kind of attention because their cases, it's not that they're not entertainment-wise, that they're not interesting, they're not complex, they're not, they don't deserve it or whatever.

Speaker 2 We have to be talking about these stories and investing in the original reporting for these stories.

Speaker 2 So in this case, it sounds like once this article comes out, the community really shows up for Bruce. And the community really puts pressure on.

Speaker 2 Once the pressure is on, it is enough to get the case reclassified from a missing person to a homicide investigation.

Speaker 2 So it's then transferred to Detective Stratford in the NYPD cold case squad, who is told to drop everything and only focus on Bruce's case.

Speaker 2 Again, that would not have happened if not for the reporters who looked into it and the public getting behind them.

Speaker 2 So Stratford does just that.

Speaker 2 And the first thing he does, or that I know of anyway, is obtains a search warrant for Lewis's old apartment in the building that Bruce owned.

Speaker 2 And to his surprise, it is still vacant after all of these years.

Speaker 2 And not just like vacant, like, you know, empty and oh, I can go in, but like fully untouched since he lived there. Whoa.

Speaker 2 I mean, even the plumbing that police had taken out in the original search is still gone. So like good, yes.

Speaker 2 But the bad news is like, that means there's still no evidence that Detective Stratford can find pointing to any crime committed there. But he does find something.

Speaker 2 He finds a bunch of old papers that belong to Lewis, like receipts, bills, phone cards.

Speaker 2 And when he starts looking through Lewis's old financials, he discovers some purchases made around the time Bruce disappeared for things like a long sheet of plastic and large amounts of sulfuric acid.

Speaker 1 Don't love that. Feels like a pretty big red flag to me.

Speaker 2 To be fair, though, Lewis did repair and construction work. So you can't attribute it to something other than trying to get rid of a body.

Speaker 2 But according to that Daily News article, even the guy who sold him this stuff thought that it was strange because Lewis had never bought anything like this before from him.

Speaker 2 It's not standard materials he was coming in for.

Speaker 1 They weren't his usual tools. Right.

Speaker 2 Now, the problem with this stuff, though, and honestly, the problem with everything in this case, really, is that it's all circumstantial.

Speaker 2 Investigators are almost certain they know what happened to Bruce. They think that he and Lewis got into an argument, Lewis killed him, and then somehow disposed of his body.

Speaker 1 But they can't prove it.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 There's no smoking gun.

Speaker 2 Well, that is until Detective Stratford gets a call late at night from his chief, who tells him that someone has come into the station with information about Bruce Blackwood.

Speaker 2 And I get the sense Detective Stratford knows that this is big right away. So of course, he rushes over to the precinct where he finds a young woman waiting for him.

Speaker 2 And this young woman, her name is Irene Perez. She's Louis Perez's daughter.
Wait, pause.

Speaker 1 Is this the same daughter he was arrested for trying to kidnap?

Speaker 2 Great question. Honestly, I don't know.
It totally could be, but there's nothing that says her name or says this explicitly. Okay.

Speaker 2 But either way, Irene said that she had read the article in the daily news and she knows for a fact that her father killed Bruce because he told her he did it and she recorded his confession.

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Speaker 2 Irene pulls out her phone and plays the recording, but The quality of the recording is terrible. At this point in time, it's 2011.
So she's using still like an old school flip phone.

Speaker 2 And in this recording, Lewis switches between Spanish and English, but Detective Stradford still can tell that there's enough in this recording to show that Lewis is talking about killing someone, most likely Bruce.

Speaker 2 However, they can't use it as evidence.

Speaker 1 Why not? It's a confession. It's a recorded confession.
And New York is a one-party state, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is, which means that for recordings like this, if you guys don't know, you only need one person's consent in a recording.

Speaker 2 Like as long as I know I'm recording, then the other person doesn't have to know.

Speaker 1 In one-party states. Right.

Speaker 2 There are two party states and one party states. New York is a one-party state.
So in this case, Irene knows she's recording her father. She's the one party, which should make it admissible.

Speaker 2 But the problem is, Detective Stratford says that he had gone to the prosecutor's office with the recording and they tell him that it's because of the quality. Like it's just not up to par.

Speaker 2 They're not going to be able to use it. They don't want the jury inferring anything.
They don't want the defense saying that's not not what he said. He said something else.

Speaker 2 So the prosecution tells him, basically, the only way this is going to work is if you can get Irene to make another recording, but this time, it's got to be way better quality.

Speaker 2 Like you got to wire her up. We need a recording where there can be no doubt about what Lewis is talking about.
And surprisingly, Irene is willing to do it.

Speaker 2 And I don't know that it was hard because apparently her dad was like bragging about it all the time.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, like, how would you bring that up in conversation again? But I mean, if he's starting the conversation,

Speaker 2 go for it. So Irene goes back and she makes another recording, but this time with a recorder that police gave her.

Speaker 2 And now they can hear what Lewis is saying clear as a bell, which includes what happened to Bruce.

Speaker 2 Now, you can hear snippets of the recording in that true conviction episode, but according to Lewis, on the morning of Bruce's disappearance, he came to Lewis's apartment where he confronted him about the forged checks.

Speaker 2 and bruce told him that he was going to go to the police so lewis is scared right this dude already spent 10 years in prison he wasn't about to go back and in his mind it was either him or bruce so lewis tied bruce to a chair and then at some point grabbed bruce by the neck and choked him so hard that his neck snapped And it was at that point that Lewis knew he had to get rid of the body.

Speaker 2 And to do so, he says he dismembered Bruce using an electric saw and a machine. Oh my God.
It's horrific.

Speaker 2 And then he says he went on to bleach the entire room, including the walls, and poured bleach down all of the drains.

Speaker 1 Which is why the police were never able to find any blood or anything. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like this, I don't know. This was like professional.
It's alarming. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So what happened to Bruce's body then?

Speaker 2 Well, Lewis says that he put the body parts in some garbage bags and then paid people who were experiencing homelessness and had no idea what was in them to dump them in different garbage cans around the city, which explains why his body was never found.

Speaker 2 And I think one of the more disturbing things about this recording is just how casually he talks about all of this. I mean, he's sharing really horrifying details of the crime.

Speaker 2 And at one point, he says, it's not about committing the perfect crime, it's how to clean it afterwards. Oh my God.
Investigators finally have what they need.

Speaker 2 So in March of 2014, Lewis is finally arrested for the murder of Bruce Blackwood. And his trial starts in September of the following year.

Speaker 2 Now, the prosecutor for this case is a woman named Melissa Carvajal, who I want to give some major props, because I think most prosecutors would get this case and be like, oh, you know, nobody, no forensic evidence, no thank you.

Speaker 2 But Melissa, she's like, bring it.

Speaker 2 And she knows, even with the confession, she has an uphill battle because in Brooklyn, where the case is being tried, there's only ever been one successful prosecution for a nobody case.

Speaker 1 Which are not great odds, but I mean, between Irene and the recording, that feels like enough probable cause.

Speaker 2 Yes, except for she hits a snag with Irene because she refuses to testify against her father. Why?

Speaker 1 She was so willing to record him like on her own than with the police's assistance. And she was the one who walked into the police station to begin with.
But

Speaker 2 I think it's because her dad is scary, right?

Speaker 1 I was going to say, is she just terrified of her dad? Because I mean, honestly, I am.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't be of this guy? And part of it is like, I mean, it is her father.
I mean, granted, he's a monster, but I think that might be part of it. Like, it's not just some stranger.

Speaker 2 But like, it can't go forward like this. Melissa needs her to testify, even if she doesn't want to.
So. The judge has to issue a material witness order, which means they arrest Irene.

Speaker 2 They have to drag her to court. And she's not happy about it.
When she gets on the stand, she starts crying and claims that police forced her to make the recording.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Does her claim have any merit to it? I mean, the recording still exists. No one forced Lewis to explain in detail how he committed the murder.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess the way that it works is I don't know that they ever even like address whether she was forced to make it or not, because all that matters is that.

Speaker 2 The prosecutor just needs Irene to acknowledge that the recording is of her father, which she does.

Speaker 2 And Melissa has something up her sleeve too that will hopefully seal the deal here. She actually has a recording of her own of Lewis talking in prison with Irene that she plays for the jury.

Speaker 2 And in this call, he's telling his daughter how to lie on the stand, how to cry, how to say that police forced her.

Speaker 1 So Lewis is basically father of the year.

Speaker 2 Truly. So his plan doesn't work.
It takes only three hours for the jury to find him guilty of murder in the second degree.

Speaker 2 And about two weeks later, he's sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, which is the maximum sentence allowed.

Speaker 2 So it took a long time, but Bruce's family and friends finally got the answers that they had been waiting years for.

Speaker 2 And Lewis can finally be held responsible for committing a heinous crime against a guy who seemed like he was just trying to help him out.

Speaker 2 I mean, he gave him a job, he gave him a place to stay, and this is how he was repaid.

Speaker 2 Like if Lewis had just an ounce of empathy or even just a moment of mercy for someone who showed him kindness, this tragedy would have never happened.

Speaker 2 And somewhere, Bruce Blackwood would still be alive.

Speaker 2 You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.

Speaker 1 And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 2 We'll We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Speaker 2 Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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Speaker 5 Have you ever experienced something truly unexplainable?

Speaker 5 A moment that felt almost like a vivid dream, leaving you with a lingering sense of wonder, leaving you questioning everything you thought you knew?

Speaker 2 Perhaps it was a fleeting glimpse of something extraordinary, a chilling whisper in the dead of night, or an undeniable premonition that comes to life.

Speaker 2 I'm Yvette Gintile, and I'm her sister, Rasha Pecarrero.

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