The Black Box

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Speaker 6 They told me that this vehicle had gone off the road into this creekbed. She was face up in about ankle-deep water.

Speaker 7 She's got severe injuries to her head.

Speaker 8 Little did you know the mystery that was about to unfold.

Speaker 10 I go into the living room and I see blood all over the place.

Speaker 9 Went into the bathroom, there's more blood. The whole time we're thinking it was a car wreck and now what happened?

Speaker 11 We're sitting there trying to figure out what really happened to our mom.

Speaker 12 The rumor mill is an overdrive.

Speaker 13 An overdrive.

Speaker 14 There was gossip that there was an affair.

Speaker 15 I told my brother, this is how people get away with murder.

Speaker 8 Sex lies in a Christian bike club. Who would have thought? Exactly.

Speaker 13 This was just tearing her apart.

Speaker 16 You really can't make this up.

Speaker 14 There's no other way to describe a human being like that.

Speaker 17 Satan spawned.

Speaker 6 Station A Top Fire, stem up on alert.

Speaker 18 They would have a bad rec on Old Pittsburgh Road.

Speaker 6 Got one day at their call for the corner.

Speaker 8 The slow-moving water, chilled by the December air, trickled over her lifeless body.

Speaker 14 She was one of my biggest supporters, and she's not here anymore.

Speaker 8 How this wife, mother, and grandmother ended up in this creek would consume her family for years.

Speaker 19 I'm not going to give up until I find what really happened.

Speaker 8 Do you get a lot of car crashes as the coroner?

Speaker 4 We do.

Speaker 8 Terry Tinker, the coroner for Chester County, South Carolina, had been called here to the site of a fatal traffic accident. It was right before midnight on December 14th, 2016.

Speaker 8 A husband and wife were in their jeep when it ran off the road, ending up down by this creek.

Speaker 7 And when he got to the bottom, the nose of the jeep was right here.

Speaker 8 He was told the 53-year-old woman had been ejected.

Speaker 7 And I saw that lady laying in the creek. I knew who she was.

Speaker 8 Who was that? Judy Baldwin.

Speaker 16 Your?

Speaker 7 My friend.

Speaker 8 Terry had known Judy or Baldwin most of his life. That must have been just such a shock to the system to see that.
It was.

Speaker 7 A longtime friend laying in the creek.

Speaker 8 The coroner noticed some unusual markings on Judy's face. Deep, dark, blackened circles around her eyes.

Speaker 7 I'm seeing a lot of

Speaker 7 bulging eyes. They're what a lot of people call raccoon eyes.

Speaker 8 How do you get those raccoon eyes?

Speaker 7 Is there one kind of from probably

Speaker 7 brain injury?

Speaker 8 Driving the Jeep was Judy's husband, Jamie Baldwin. He suffered minor injuries.

Speaker 8 Jamie told first responders they were traveling down this dark, rural road when he swerved to avoid hitting a truck.

Speaker 8 His out-of-control Jeep then careened down a side embankment and crashed into the creek.

Speaker 8 He said he was knocked out, and when he came to, Judy's limp body was in the creek a few feet away. He called 911.

Speaker 18 Do you want to try a CPR?

Speaker 18 You've already tried.

Speaker 8 Jamie had already been taken away in an ambulance when Detective Chris Reynolds with the Chester County Sheriff's Office arrived on the scene.

Speaker 20 I actually took my flashlight. I looked in.
I saw a cloth with blood on it. Blood on the seat.

Speaker 8 The detective saw the Jeep's door open, where Judy apparently had been ejected. What's your first instinct of this scene?

Speaker 20 It's an accident. Until it's proven something else, it's an accident.

Speaker 8 That same night, Judy's two sons, Josh and Chris Orr, each got late-night phone calls. They were only told their mom had been in a car crash and they needed to get to the hospital right away.

Speaker 11 I was the first one there.

Speaker 11 And I, you know, running through the emergencies side, and I was like, you know, where's Judy or Baldwin at?

Speaker 19 And I was like, we don't...

Speaker 5 We don't have a Judy or Baldwin.

Speaker 19 I was like, they've been in a reg. I was like, is Jamie Baldwin here?

Speaker 8 Josh found his stepdad, Jamie, in a hospital room.

Speaker 19 I was like, where's my mom at? He was like, she didn't make it. I was like, what do you mean she didn't make it?

Speaker 19 And he said,

Speaker 19 she's dead.

Speaker 8 Chris arrived shortly after and got the terrible news. He asked his stepdad what happened.

Speaker 15 And all he said was, I wish it would have been me.

Speaker 11 It felt like a dream.

Speaker 19 I mean, I was like, I cannot believe we're going through this again.

Speaker 8 Yeah, because your dad died tragically.

Speaker 8 Their dad, Judy's first husband, died in a motorcycle accident 12 years earlier. It just seemed unbelievable to now lose their mom, also in a crash.

Speaker 8 So here you are having to say goodbye to your other parent, your mom.

Speaker 8 That's really a hard thing to do to lose both of your parents at such a young age.

Speaker 19 I know nothing's perfect, but like our family was, we had to have any problems and we were all happy. And, you know, our parents parents are gone.

Speaker 8 Around 6.30 that morning, Judy's 23-year-old niece, Jesse McWaters, was sound asleep when her phone rang.

Speaker 8 Her dad gave her the tragic news that her aunt, known as Little Judy because she was just 4'11, had been killed.

Speaker 14 And he said, Little Judy's dead. And I was like, what are you talking about? He said, little Judy is dead.
I just started... screaming and crying.
I woke up everybody in the house.

Speaker 8 When Judy's nephew heard the news, he realized his aunt's beloved Yorkie was all alone. So early in the morning, he headed over to Judy's house.

Speaker 9 The whole time, I'm thinking, I'm just going to the house to get the dog.

Speaker 8 Rodney Wright wasn't prepared for what he saw once he walked inside that house.

Speaker 9 It was a shock. I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 10 I go into the living room and I see blood all over the place.

Speaker 9 Blood in the floor. Went into the bathroom.

Speaker 10 There's more blood.

Speaker 9 I mean, the whole time, we're thinking it was a car wreck, and now what happened?

Speaker 8 What Jamie says happened to Judy.

Speaker 18 When I came back in, she was there too. Fireplace and the floor.

Speaker 8 And then the clue that baffled the coroner. So, this was going to be the key area in the autopsy.

Speaker 8 Just a few hours after Judy Orr Baldwin was found dead at the scene of a car crash, her nephew was stunned to find blood in her house. A lot of it.
He had no idea what was going on.

Speaker 9 It was so confusing.

Speaker 9 Stuff just didn't add up.

Speaker 8 Turns out there was an explanation. Judy's husband told investigators there had actually been two accidents that night.
Judy had taken a terrible fall at home, the reason for all that blood.

Speaker 8 They were on their way to the hospital when they crashed.

Speaker 14 I was in complete shock that she was gone.

Speaker 8 Now Judy's family, including her niece, was grieving.

Speaker 14 She was the bright light in a dark room. She really was.

Speaker 8 Was Judy a romantic? Did she believe in true love?

Speaker 14 She did believe in true love just because she had experienced it. Todd was her one true love.

Speaker 8 Todd was her first husband who died in that motorcycle crash.

Speaker 14 I think after he passed, she was kind of longing for that love and she wanted to be loved like that again.

Speaker 8 Was Judy lonely?

Speaker 14 She was lonely. She wanted somebody for sure.

Speaker 8 So Judy's family was happy when she started dating Jamie Baldwin, a former police officer and 911 operator. The couple had a whirlwind romance.
And after just eight months, they married in 2012.

Speaker 8 How did you feel that your mom was with a former police officer?

Speaker 19 Safe, you know, protected, somebody that would help her if she was in need, you know, somebody that had her back.

Speaker 8 Did they seem happy?

Speaker 19 Oh, yeah, that was extremely happy. And, you know, her being happy, I'm extremely happy.

Speaker 8 Detective Chris Reynolds, who knew Judy personally, was looking into her death as part of a routine investigation.

Speaker 20 I knew Miss Judy for a very long time, ever since I was a child.

Speaker 8 Did you like her?

Speaker 20 Oh, yes. Everybody liked her or loved her.

Speaker 8 The detective had never met Judy's husband, but wanted more details on what happened that night. So about a week after her death, he asked Jamie to come down to the sheriff's office.

Speaker 12 Why do you bring him in, even though you believe that this is an accident?

Speaker 20 We're crossing our T's and dotting our I's. I want to make sure I have everything covered.

Speaker 18 I mean, she was just one of those people that as soon as you met her, you were a friend of her. You loved her.

Speaker 18 That smile, she was just bigger than life.

Speaker 8 Jamie said he had mostly recovered from his minor injuries. Emotionally, though, he said he had a lot of healing to do.

Speaker 18 See, I could have done that to zipper.

Speaker 18 Oh, God.

Speaker 8 Jamie said the night Judy died, he and his wife were decorating their Christmas tree. He then briefly stepped outside to put some tools away in his shed.

Speaker 18 When I came back in, she was there too. Fireplace and the floor.
I don't know if she decided to fix something on the tree.

Speaker 18 I don't know. I was in the shop.
And

Speaker 18 I never even asked her what she was doing.

Speaker 8 Jamie said he assumed Judy fell off the ladder and hit her head on the mantle. On the floor were two stocking holders.
One of them was broken.

Speaker 18 I got her up.

Speaker 18 I got her in the bathroom.

Speaker 18 and I cleaned her up and it was bleeding bad.

Speaker 8 Jamie told the detective he grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom and put pressure on her wound, but the bleeding didn't stop. He thought Judy needed stitches.

Speaker 18 I was like, can I take you to hospital? And she looked up at me and she said, I am not going to Chester. She hated Chester Hospital.

Speaker 8 Although Chester Hospital was a few minutes from their house, He said the couple got into their Jeep and started driving to a bigger hospital 30 minutes away.

Speaker 18 I asked her, I said, how you feeling? She said, my head's hurting.

Speaker 18 I said, just come in, okay? We're going to get some stitches.

Speaker 18 And she looked up at me, she said, I love you. I said, I love you too.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 18 I looked up, I'm pretty sure it was a truck. It was like three-quarters of the way in our lane.

Speaker 18 And,

Speaker 18 I mean, if I wouldn't have swerved to the right to miss it, we'd have hit head off.

Speaker 8 And that's when he said they went flying down that embankment, ending up in the creek. Jamie said the impact of the crash knocked him out.

Speaker 18 We hit something.

Speaker 18 And then it was a big, just, just giganticness.

Speaker 18 Like a stop. So I reached out for Judy.

Speaker 18 She ain't there.

Speaker 18 And I finally found her. She's way near the creek.

Speaker 8 How long did I get that normal here? After about an hour, the interview was finished.

Speaker 8 Jamie's story seemed to match what the seasoned detective had seen for himself. Like that bloody washcloth in the Jeep, and when he went to the house the night of the accident.

Speaker 20 I see blood around the mantle and blood on the floor. And I did see the ladder leaned up toward the Christmas tree at the time.

Speaker 8 Does the blood look consistent with a possible fall from the ladder?

Speaker 20 Yes. It's an accident.
As of right now, it's an accident.

Speaker 8 While Detective Reynolds was continuing his investigation, the coroner was still trying to figure out what caused Judy's death. He wanted to know more about the large wound on her forehead.

Speaker 7 There was no damage to her legs, to her arms. All of it was concentrated around her head.

Speaker 8 So this was going to be the key area in the autopsy.

Speaker 8 He concluded Judy died from a skull fracture caused by some sort of blunt force trauma to her head, and those raccoon eyes were the result of a large amount of blood accumulated in her skull.

Speaker 8 But the coroner struggled to figure out what caused that fracture.

Speaker 7 I need to know what do you think she fell against, what was told by Mr. Balwin.

Speaker 7 She struck her head on the mantle, she might have fallen on the stocking holder, but all this stuff's got to be added up.

Speaker 8 He had to determine if the fatal injury happened during that fall at her house or during the car accident.

Speaker 8 Even though Judy had two autopsies before she was buried, the coroner couldn't reach a conclusion. So her death certificate read, pending investigation.

Speaker 8 Jessie becomes suspicious about her aunt's death and takes matters into her own hands. You decided to record the call.

Speaker 5 I did record it.

Speaker 8 And then, was someone in this family harboring a secret? An eye-popping story. Sex lies in a Christian bike club.
Exactly.

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Speaker 8 It appeared Judy or Baldwin had been involved in two accidents on the same night.

Speaker 8 Most people, including Detective Reynolds, seemed to agree. Sadly, it looked like Judy was the victim of bad luck.

Speaker 8 One person, however, wasn't buying it, Judy's niece. When she thought about what happened, it seemed suspicious.

Speaker 14 I had a very weird feeling in my stomach.

Speaker 8 Although Jamie had an explanation for why he took his wife to that faraway hospital, it didn't make sense to Jesse.

Speaker 14 I'm like, why would you not go to Chester Hospital? It was so close to the house if she just bumped her head, you know?

Speaker 8 And why did Jamie take a dark, rural back road to the hospital when he could have taken a much faster nearby highway? Do you think that was odd?

Speaker 17 That was super odd to me.

Speaker 8 So Jesse decided to take a bold step. She put her amateur detective hat on and called Jamie.
You decided to record the call that you had with Jamie.

Speaker 5 I did record it.

Speaker 8 What in your gut was telling you to record this call?

Speaker 14 I'm not sure what exactly told me to do it. I'm surprised I did it because I was in such shock, but I knew in my heart that something else had happened, and I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Speaker 14 Hey, Jesse. Hey, Jamie.

Speaker 8 She asked Jamie how he got knocked out when the Jeep crashed.

Speaker 14 What'd you hit your head on?

Speaker 14 Tell me to run a bar.

Speaker 14 Most likely or the door on the back.

Speaker 8 But Jesse was most concerned about her aunt's final moments.

Speaker 14 I just don't want her to suffer.

Speaker 14 She didn't suffer, Jesse.

Speaker 14 She did.

Speaker 14 You know how much me and her loved each other. Yes, sir.

Speaker 18 Awesome life together.

Speaker 14 Yes, sir.

Speaker 8 How would you describe his demeanor?

Speaker 14 I would simply say he had zero remorse. He was talking just how we're talking.
No emotion, really.

Speaker 14 She's inherit.

Speaker 8 She's inheriting. Yeah.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 that's good news.

Speaker 8 One thing that struck me was he said, that's the good news. Yeah.
Which seemed a little like the language was a little odd.

Speaker 14 Yeah,

Speaker 14 it didn't make any sense to me either. And it was just like an eerie feeling.
Like kind of, why would you say that in this phone call?

Speaker 8 Jesse couldn't get the phone call out of her head.

Speaker 14 I sat there and I replayed that recording so many times.

Speaker 8 Are you expressing your concerns to Judy's sons, your cousins?

Speaker 14 I let them listen to the phone call and I told them, I was like, y'all, this just isn't sitting right with me.

Speaker 8 After Judy's sons started to think about it, they too had serious doubts.

Speaker 11 We're sitting there trying to figure out what really happened to our mom.

Speaker 15 Yeah, because nobody would tell us anything.

Speaker 8 But soon, one of Judy's friends would tell the brothers more than they ever wanted to know. Kay Black and Judy were nearly inseparable and shared their most personal secrets with each other.

Speaker 8 You said you were like sisters.

Speaker 5 We were.

Speaker 13 I miss her a lot.

Speaker 5 A whole lot.

Speaker 8 Kay and her husband Randall considered themselves Judy and Jamie's best friends. The four belonged to a biker group called the Carolina Thunder Christian Motorcycle Club.
Helping Hands and Harley's.

Speaker 8 They spent nearly every weekend with the couple, and Kay knew something something about Judy and Jamie that almost no one else did.

Speaker 13 Talking with Judy, I knew their marriage wasn't like he was making everybody believe.

Speaker 4 You'll find out.

Speaker 8 Jamie told others, including Detective Reynolds, in that interview, he had a strong, happy marriage.

Speaker 18 Is there anything that I need to know about that may come up in the future?

Speaker 18 Like what?

Speaker 18 I mean, just anything I need to know about?

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 18 We had a great life.

Speaker 18 We never got an argument. Everybody has disagreements.

Speaker 18 Please get talked to some of my friends. You'll find out.

Speaker 18 We were perfect. I mean, we're just perfect.

Speaker 18 Everybody's perfect, Jack. Everybody's perfect.

Speaker 18 It's about as perfect as you could get.

Speaker 18 I mean, we had a great relationship.

Speaker 8 Kay says, a few months before her death, Judy confided in her that her marriage was on the rocks.

Speaker 8 She thought something was going on with Jamie and another woman, a single mom named Terry King, who also happened to be the bike club's treasurer.

Speaker 13 She started having her suspicions.

Speaker 8 What is she thinking?

Speaker 13 She was thinking Jamie and Terry were having an affair.

Speaker 8 The club treasurer.

Speaker 5 Yes. And Jamie.
Jamie.

Speaker 13 If one went to smoke, they would look at the other one and say, come on, let's go smoke. Judy didn't like that.
Little things like that, Judy had started picking up on.

Speaker 7 We'd send a lot of touchy-feely stuff that

Speaker 10 we didn't quite look right.

Speaker 13 And Judy would ask me about it and I'd say, maybe, maybe not. Nobody knows for sure, but everybody's talking about it.

Speaker 8 So Judy decided to find out for herself.

Speaker 13 She even confronted Terry.

Speaker 8 And what did Terry say?

Speaker 13 Terry said, we're not doing anything. She confronted Jamie and he told her the same thing.
She said, but Kay, they're so calm about it. She said, I know they're doing something.

Speaker 8 Within about a week of Judy's death, Kay sat Judy's sons down and told them everything. As they absorbed it all, they remembered something strange.

Speaker 8 Terry King was at the hospital the night their mom died. In fact, she got there before they did.

Speaker 19 Why are you here before us? I mean, that's your mom.

Speaker 11 Our flesh and blood.

Speaker 15 We're talking about one or two o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 8 And there was another, even more awkward story Kay felt she needed to share with Judy's sons.

Speaker 15 I don't want to tell you this, but I'm going to tell you that your mom, she said that Jamie's been trying to get your mom to have a threesome with him and Terry.

Speaker 5 What?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 This is not something your mom wanted.

Speaker 5 No, no.

Speaker 8 Or something that you want to think about.

Speaker 19 No, no, I don't want to think about it either.

Speaker 8 Sex lies in a Christian bike club. Exactly.
Who would have thought? Exactly.

Speaker 8 Soon after Kay opened up to Judy's family, she called Detective Chris Reynolds.

Speaker 13 I said, Chris, I have some texts from Judy. I said, and I think you need to say them because she tells in there that she suspected.

Speaker 13 Jamie and Terry.

Speaker 8 He said, I'll get back with you, Kay.

Speaker 13 I said, okay, and I never heard from him again.

Speaker 8 The brothers and Jesse also felt they weren't getting anywhere with the detective.

Speaker 19 We got to find somebody to help us and we got to, you know, get some answers.

Speaker 5 I'm like,

Speaker 14 why? Why is nobody doing anything?

Speaker 17 Just didn't make sense.

Speaker 8 But soon, it would all start to make sense with some bombshell news.

Speaker 8 A disturbing revelation about Jamie's alleged girlfriend and important evidence. What happened to the blood at Judy's house?

Speaker 16 What we found out was that Terry went to the house and cleaned it up.

Speaker 8 Two months had passed since Judy's death, and her family was questioning Jamie's story about what happened. Then they heard something stunning about Terry King and Jamie.

Speaker 8 They moved in together. So what are you guys thinking? He's moving in quickly with her.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 15 That's what we think. Okay, the police is going to hit on this something.
I mean, somebody's looking into this.

Speaker 8 The brothers had been pushing the Chester County Prosecutor's Office to look deeper into their mom's death. In fact, Deputy Prosecutor Candace Lively was keeping tabs on the sheriff's investigation.

Speaker 16 We were just being told through the sheriff's office that they were doing what they were supposed to do.

Speaker 8 Turns out they weren't. The prosecutor would learn there were serious problems with the sheriff's investigation.
They're basically saying, we got this, we don't need your help right now. Exactly.

Speaker 16 And we were hearing from the family that people hadn't been interviewed yet. They were concerned that evidence hadn't been collected.

Speaker 8 Chris Reynolds said that he truly believed it was an accident. And so he just didn't feel that need to investigate this as a crime, a potential crime.

Speaker 16 And that is something that with his experience, he should have known that you don't make those kind of assumptions up front. When someone dies, you treat it as it's a murder until you know otherwise.

Speaker 8 We asked Detective Reynolds about how he handled the investigation. Did you collect Jamie's clothes? Did you take Judy's clothes? Did you take her cell phone? Did you take Jamie's cell phone?

Speaker 5 No, ma'am.

Speaker 12 Why not?

Speaker 20 We didn't collect anything at the house.

Speaker 20 That was just a judgment call.

Speaker 8 Some considered that a questionable call because there was something else.

Speaker 8 Early in the investigation, the coroner told the detective he thought Judy's death looked suspicious, that it might even be a homicide.

Speaker 8 Wouldn't you, as just being overly cautious, as a detective, say, we should do a little more here. We should get evidence.
And even if it's not a murder, at least we have it. We did our job.

Speaker 5 I agree. We don't need it, maybe, but let's get it.

Speaker 8 I agree 100%.

Speaker 8 And those photos the detective took inside Judy's house? This is how a number of them came out. Some of them were so blurry and bad.

Speaker 20 Yeah, the camera we had wasn't good at the time.

Speaker 8 But I mean, even if a camera's not that great, you could still take still shots.

Speaker 20 I struggle with that camera that we have.

Speaker 8 He also failed to collect critical forensic evidence. Did you say to your supervisor, I think we should have someone come in and look at this blood?

Speaker 20 No, I didn't.

Speaker 8 Do you think you should have done that?

Speaker 20 Absolutely. I've never denied that.

Speaker 8 Reynolds never sealed the house after he photographed it so anyone could go in. And someone did.
Terry King. Remember, she was in Jamie's hospital room the night in question.

Speaker 8 What happened to the blood evidence at Judy's house?

Speaker 16 Well, according to what we found out in our investigation was that Terry left the hospital and she went back to the house and cleaned it up.

Speaker 8 With permission from Detective Reynolds. Yes.

Speaker 8 Not only did he give her permission to clean it up, he offered help.

Speaker 20 I even gave her a number to a company. They specialize in crime scenes and disaster restorations.
I said, somebody has to clean it up.

Speaker 8 So you're giving her advice about how to clean up a potential crime scene?

Speaker 23 No, she asked.

Speaker 20 She asked for help. And that's with anybody else in the case, if they ask, you know, advice on how to

Speaker 20 do it.

Speaker 8 Right, but you're giving her advice on how to clean up a potential crime scene.

Speaker 20 Yeah, but at the time, the crime scene, we were done with.

Speaker 8 So she's literally erasing the crime scene.

Speaker 16 And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 8 Whether she was intentionally erasing a crime scene or not. Exactly.
Is this the most bungled? evidence collection handling of a scene that you've ever seen?

Speaker 16 Yes, and I think bungled might be being a little nice because there was no evidence collection.

Speaker 8 Even though there was a lack of evidence, the prosecutor spoke to the coroner about Judy's severe head injuries and came to the conclusion this was no accident, but a murder.

Speaker 16 At some point, I'm going to have to look at this family and possibly tell them that we're not going to have what we need to get justice for your family member.

Speaker 8 Judy's family was losing hope. And weeks are going by.

Speaker 19 Oh, weeks. Months are going by.

Speaker 8 Then, a breakthrough. Eight months after Judy's death, the sheriff's office agreed to allow Sledd to take charge of the case.
That's South Carolina's top law enforcement agency.

Speaker 8 What does Sled do now that they're taking this over?

Speaker 16 They jumped in.

Speaker 8 Agents went to Judy's house and took hundreds of photos, detailed measurements, took another look at the vehicle and re-examined the autopsy findings.

Speaker 8 They came to the same conclusion as the prosecutor. It all added up to homicide.

Speaker 16 We said we definitely have enough to present to a grand jury at this point. And

Speaker 16 Tree Build indictment for murder.

Speaker 8 For Judy's family, it was a long time coming. In August of 2018, a year and a half after her death, Jamie Baldwin was arrested for the murder of his wife.
You get a call, finally,

Speaker 8 that Jamie has been arrested.

Speaker 24 Were you shocked?

Speaker 19 You could breathe a little bit. I mean, he's arrested for the murder of my mom.

Speaker 8 But now came the hard part. How to prosecute a case with little physical evidence.
This was no slam dunk.

Speaker 16 It was far from it. And the family knew going in that we had a real battle.

Speaker 8 The jaw-dropping story told by the Jeep. Most people are aware that planes have black boxes.
Vehicles have them too. And in this case, Judy's Wrangler had a black box.

Speaker 6 It did.

Speaker 5 Hey, weirdos!

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Speaker 8 October 2019. It was a story that gripped the people of Chester County, South Carolina.

Speaker 8 It had been almost three years since the death of Judy Orbaldwin, and now her husband was about to go on trial for murder.

Speaker 8 Were you worried that because the investigation wasn't handled the way it should have been, that that could impact the trial?

Speaker 19 I thought it'd get thrown out or yeah, I thought it was going to have a huge impact.

Speaker 15 We are from a plea deal.

Speaker 8 There was a plea deal.

Speaker 5 He turned it down. He turned it down.

Speaker 8 Jamie Baldwin pleaded not guilty. It was probably

Speaker 16 the most substantially circumstantial evidence I've ever tried in a murder case.

Speaker 8 With what little evidence the prosecution had, Candace Lively set out to prove that Jamie killed his wife and then tried to cover it up.

Speaker 28 He faked that car accident.

Speaker 16 This is unfortunately simply about someone who wanted to get rid of his wife, who wanted to have control of what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it.

Speaker 8 Lively told jurors the couple had argued multiple times about Terry King. And on the night of Judy's death, she believes Judy demanded her husband end his relationship with Terry.

Speaker 16 He got extremely angry. He has a temper.
and he attacked her at that mantle.

Speaker 8 The prosecutor prosecutor alleged that in a fit of rage, Jamie took one of those stocking holders from the mantle and hit Judy so hard, it caused her brain to bleed, leaving her with those raccoon eyes.

Speaker 8 When I actually hold it in my hands, this thing is heavy.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it is very heavy.

Speaker 8 The stocking holder's shape closely matched the irregular cut on Judy's head.

Speaker 16 Whenever you look at the picture of that Santa stocking holder, it really fit the ridges in that unusual laceration.

Speaker 8 A medical expert for the prosecution testified that after Judy was attacked, she probably died within five minutes.

Speaker 8 Lively argued that's when Jamie came up with his elaborate plan to cover up his crime.

Speaker 16 He comes up with this idea of, you know, maybe her falling off the ladder isn't going to be a good explanation as to why she has these horrible injuries.

Speaker 8 So she said Jamie took his wife's dead body, put it in the jeep, and then took that dark rural road so he wouldn't be seen when he staged the accident.

Speaker 16 He comes up with the idea that she was ejected from the vehicle. He pulls her out and stages her.

Speaker 8 To prove the car crash was staged, the prosecution relied on Lance Corporal Brian Trotter. He's an accident reconstruction expert with the State Highway Patrol who was on the scene that night.

Speaker 6 What this tells you, if you're...

Speaker 8 He testified and showed us how a device in the Jeep recorded the last seconds of the vehicle's movements. Most people are aware that planes have black boxes.

Speaker 8 I personally wasn't aware that vehicles have them too. And in this case, Judy's Wrangler, like this one, had a black box.

Speaker 6 It did. So I took this one out of a retired police car to show you what they look like.

Speaker 8 In simple terms, when there's an accident, a car hits something, it triggers the black box to start recording information. What did you learn from Judy's black box?

Speaker 6 Well, the one for this case came back with no data.

Speaker 8 So no data is actually really important.

Speaker 6 In this case, it is.

Speaker 8 No data means no crash. The corporal's theory is that Jamie slowly and purposely drove his Jeep into the creek.

Speaker 3 Ms. King.

Speaker 8 The most surprising witness was Terry King, the woman at the center of the alleged love triangle.

Speaker 16 I was hoping that when she finally was put under oath in court, that she would come clean.

Speaker 8 Terry was no longer living with Jamie.

Speaker 28 Are you wanting to be here today? Just know.

Speaker 8 Even though she was a witness for the state, the prosecutor immediately faced a big challenge. Terry flat-out denied having a romantic relationship with Jamie.

Speaker 28 Is it fair to say that you were both in love with each other?

Speaker 18 No, no, no, no, fair.

Speaker 18 I wasn't in love with him, but I did love him.

Speaker 28 You were in love with him, but you did love him.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 28 And how long had you loved him but not been in love with him?

Speaker 18 I've never been in love with him.

Speaker 28 Now Ms. Kane, were you having a sexual relationship with the defendant?

Speaker 18 No.

Speaker 8 But the prosecutor did have text messages sent between Terry and Jamie.

Speaker 28 I'm going to show you this highlighter portion here.

Speaker 8 The judge ruled she couldn't show them to the jury, but she could question Terry about them.

Speaker 28 What kind of things would y'all say to each other about how you felt about one another?

Speaker 28 I would tell him I liked it.

Speaker 28 Okay. He would say the same to me.
He would say the same to you.

Speaker 28 Not only did you said you loved each other, that you missed each other.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 28 And did you ever tell him, you can tell me a thousand times a day and I'll never get tired of hearing it.

Speaker 8 Terry testified she and Jamie were just platonic roommates, nothing more.

Speaker 12 You felt that Terry was misleading the jury.

Speaker 16 Absolutely. And she had tried to mislead us for months as well.

Speaker 8 Lively said she had suspicions Terry may have played a part in the murder, but never found any evidence to prove it. Terry denies any involvement.

Speaker 8 The defense was up next, and they were ready to exploit all the holes in the prosecution's case. Would it be enough to set Jamie free?

Speaker 8 An expert witness says Judy's blood in the Jeep proves the prosecution is wrong about when she died.

Speaker 2 If she's actively bleeding, she is technically alive.

Speaker 8 After she left the house. After leaving the house.
And then the verdict.

Speaker 14 And you can just hear everybody gasp.

Speaker 8 Jamie Baldwin, the former police officer, was facing life in prison for the murder of his wife.

Speaker 8 His attorneys, Philip Jameson and Brad Jordan, argued Terry King's testimony undermined the state's entire case.

Speaker 23 Terry King testified that there was no affair and there was no evidence of an affair.

Speaker 8 The defense asked Terry to further explain her living situation with Jamie.

Speaker 18 When Mr. Baldwin moved into your house, did he have a separate feather? Yes, sir.
And did he say in that separate feather? Yes, sir.

Speaker 8 And she said there was an innocent explanation for those text messages between her and Jamie. The ones where she said she loved him.

Speaker 18 Would you say to friends that you felt strongly about I love you? I say it every day to almost everyone I talk to. Doesn't mean you're having to be fair with me, though.

Speaker 18 You ever tell Judy you loved her? Every time I talked to her.

Speaker 8 Not only that, but she told jurors she would never betray Judy.

Speaker 18 How would you describe your relationship with Miss Baldwin?

Speaker 18 That spin right in.

Speaker 18 You sometimes stayed in their house, is that correct? Yes, of course. Was Judy always there when you stayed?

Speaker 27 Yes.

Speaker 8 Most importantly, the defense insisted, there was no crime, just two tragic accidents. And they said the state didn't have any evidence to prove otherwise.

Speaker 23 There was no DNA, there were no fingerprints, there was no weapon.

Speaker 8 They called Detective Reynolds to the stand and attacked his investigation as shoddy.

Speaker 18 And what do you feel would have been done?

Speaker 18 that

Speaker 18 the thing at home should have been processed to.

Speaker 8 How does that all play into your defense?

Speaker 23 Had they done a better job, we probably wouldn't find ourselves in this situation.

Speaker 23 They would have cleared up all those questions at that time and this would have gone down as an accident, which is what it was.

Speaker 8 The defense did agree the stocking holder may have caused Judy's fatal injury, but not because Jamie used it as a weapon.

Speaker 23 We believe that what happened was she was on a ladder at the mantelpiece. She fell and struck the ornament which was sitting on the mantelpiece and then fell to the floor.

Speaker 8 Ross Gardner, a crime scene analyst for the defense, testified and told us, all the blood found in Judy's Jeep proved something crucial, that she was alive when they crashed.

Speaker 8 He pointed to the blood on the bumper, the passenger door, and the saturation of blood on her seat.

Speaker 2 So we're looking at the passenger seat, and what we can see is there's saturation throughout.

Speaker 8 Gardner says, contrary to the prosecution's theory, that Judy died within five minutes at her home.

Speaker 8 The evidence in the Jeep proved that was impossible.

Speaker 2 If she's actively bleeding, her heart is beating. She is technically alive.

Speaker 8 In the Jeep. In the Jeep.
After she left the house. After leaving the house.

Speaker 2 Literally, this tells us that she was bleeding while in the Jeep.

Speaker 8 The defense also pointed to several experts, including the prosecutions, who all agreed Judy's injuries could have been accidental.

Speaker 4 Having three medical experts

Speaker 17 who can't say,

Speaker 17 hey, this is definitely not an accident. In my mind, there's reasonable doubt.

Speaker 23 We only had to convince one person.

Speaker 8 After seven days of testimony, the case went to the jury.

Speaker 8 The prosecutor felt there was a good chance Jamie could walk. So she turned to the family for support and Judy herself.

Speaker 16 I really felt like I had Judy on my shoulder. I really did.
I felt that family just really gave me a lot of hope and faith.

Speaker 8 Less than three hours later, there was a verdict.

Speaker 14 We were all, everybody was holding hands as tight as we could. And when they read that verdict, I mean, you could just hear everybody gasp.

Speaker 18 We, the jury, found the defendant James Carroll Baldwin Jr. guilty of murder

Speaker 18 on dated November 5th, 2019.

Speaker 19 I just broke down crying.

Speaker 19 I just couldn't believe it. We finally got justice for mom.

Speaker 8 Detective Chris Reynolds was in the courthouse that day, too. He believes the jury made the right decision, and he wants the public to know he did more than they think to look into Judy's death.

Speaker 8 Still, he realizes because of his incomplete investigation, a killer might have walked free. You get emotional over this.

Speaker 18 I do.

Speaker 20 I take it personal. This case was a big learning experience for me that I never dropped a ball on anything.

Speaker 20 And that night I did. And I'm sorry for it.

Speaker 8 Jamie never took the stand, but he did speak at his sentencing.

Speaker 18 She fell when they wrapped. I took out the time to get her to the hospital.

Speaker 9 I love my wife, I mean, more than anybody in this room. I mean, we have a great relationship.

Speaker 8 The judge sentenced the 60-year-old to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Speaker 8 But there's more to the saga of Jamie and Terry King. Whatever that relationship was, it didn't end well.
After living together for several months, Terry says she asked Jamie to move out.

Speaker 8 Soon after he did, her home mysteriously burned down. Police said Jamie torched it and charged him with arson.
Those charges were eventually dropped. Is he evil?

Speaker 14 Yeah, he's 100% evil. Satan spawn.

Speaker 5 100%.

Speaker 18 Thank you. Thank you.
Thank y'all.

Speaker 8 Judy's family says they can finally move on with their lives.

Speaker 8 And there's one thing that brings them peace. You're religious.
Does that give you any comfort to know

Speaker 8 that your mom and dad are now together? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 19 I mean, they're in a better place than we are.

Speaker 8 What would you say to Judy if she could hear you? I would just tell her I love her, and I would give her the biggest hug.

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