Amber Spradlin, Aliza Sherman, & Amy Hooper ////// Updates

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Welcome to True Crime Garage.

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today in the garage we are drinking mothman hazy double india pale ale by the cool cats over at ogo pogo brewing so hazy typically means that the beer is unfiltered which i love i think it unfiltered beer has much more character and while he is a creature of few maybe even no words at all few have more character than the mothman himself you'll like this one it has enough citrus in it that you'll want to order up another.

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All right, everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer.

Let's talk some true crime.

This week, we are very excited because we get to do something different that we don't always get to do here in the garage.

We can check in and do this from time to time, but today we are loaded with some case updates for you.

These are cases that were previously covered here in the garage and they are making their way, making some movements.

And in all three cases, we have arrests that have been made.

And with some of them, we even have some trial dates upon us.

So this is the rare occurrence where we are bringing you good news.

Usually our news is not the kind you want to have to hear.

It's somebody was a victim.

Somebody was victimized and we're looking for the perpetrator.

Today, we are proud and happy to present to you cases that have been covered here.

They have significant updates and hopefully some of these folks will be getting justice and let's let it be sooner rather than later.

Let's start with Amber Spradlin.

Amber Spradlin was 38 years old.

She was found dead in the home of a prominent Prestonsburg dentist, Michael McKinney II.

This was back in June of 2023.

This is in the state of Kentucky.

Now, our coverage on this case was episode 687 on your True Crime Garage radio dial.

That was from July of 2023.

And unfortunately, she was killed in June of 2023.

So we were pretty quick on this one.

There was a lot of this that stood out to us as a case that needed to be covered right away, even though we were still sifting through the facts and learning a lot more about the case as it kind of the investigation kind of drug on.

And the reason why it drug on, I believe, is because there are multiple people that seem to have some involvement in this homicide.

There are multiple people that wanted to confuse the crime scene and confuse the sequence of events for the investigators in this one.

Now, from our show notes, we wrote on June 18, 2023, first responders arrived at the scene of a residence on Arkansas Creek in Martin, Kentucky.

Martin is a tiny community near Prestonsburg.

Later, the KSP, that's the Kentucky State Police, announced that they had found Amber Spradlin dead at the scene due to a knife attack.

The initial reports coming out were that Amber had been stabbed at least 11 times, this in her head, her neck, and her throat.

The community, rightfully so, was in an uproar right out the gate with this one, right from Jump Street, because there was more than one 911 call that was made before anyone showed up at the scene.

And we pondered right away, just like the community did, could Amber's life have possibly been saved that night?

Had first responders been able to arrive sooner?

Prestonsburg interim police chief at the time was Ross Shirtleff.

He said that the 911 center didn't receive any calls from Amber Spradlin on June 18th.

He said all the calls from that day had been forwarded to the Kentucky State Police for their investigation.

So you have one group saying, hey, multiple 911 calls and the interim police chief at the time, who,

from my understanding, From the interim police chief at that time, his statement was that they didn't receive any.

They were all being forwarded to the Kentucky State Police.

Regardless, what we do know of this situation beyond the 911 call center and the mishaps that took place there, this lady, Amber Spradlin, was a very nice woman, and it seemed like it had to be her family, as it is in most cases, to come to her defense, to raise the alarm, not with a disappearance.

or finding her body.

They are raising the alarm saying, hey, something's going on here because that that night she was supposed to be with people that she considered to be friends and co-workers.

And something horrific happened to this woman.

The short of it here, Captain, as you remember, is that she was at work.

She worked at this place.

It's a restaurant that is called the Seasons Restaurant.

The Seasons Inn and Restaurant is the name of the business.

She's essentially at an after hours party, an after-work party with some people that she works with and some others that happen to be at this after-hours party there that night, but it's at the home of a prominent dentist, of a well-to-do individual.

His name is Michael McKinney II,

and he is also the owner of said business.

Now, by the time, regardless of whatever happened with the 911 stuff, By the time that the first responders are on the scene, they find her lifeless body there at that party, at the home of that dentist.

There is a lot of speculation in this case, some of it that made its way to the internet and made its way to the different news outlets.

And really,

the speculation was pretty spot-on here in this case.

And I don't think you have to be a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that obviously somebody there at that party was responsible for what happened to Amber.

There's no arguing this was a homicide.

She was stabbed multiple times.

Somebody was aware, and likely more than one person was aware of what happened that night.

So the difficulty becomes sifting through who at this party had knowledge of the attack, who participated in the attack, and who participated in ways to cover up what happened that night.

Now, I do know that early on in this investigation, one of the problems that they were having was simply getting these folks that were there to talk and then being able to confirm that what they were being told is the truth because they were getting conflicting stories from the individuals that were at this party.

And it was a difficult case to cover because, obviously, the misinformation coming out, then law enforcement trying to keep everything close to the chest so then they can sift through this information and then also the rumors coming out from this community.

One of the first updates that we do get in this case was

a complaint that was filed in Floyd Circuit County by Melissa Sammons.

She was the and is the administrator of Amber's estate.

So this was a wrongful death.

A civil lawsuit was filed in connection with Amber's murder in Floyd County.

This was June of 2024, so last year.

And the Floyd County Chronicle listed the persons that were named in that lawsuit.

Now, we We got to be perfectly clear here.

Don't make the hop, skip, and jump leap to assuming that every person named in this lawsuit was present at this party.

That's not the case at all.

What this lawsuit is doing is it's saying that in some form or fashion, this individual, any individual named here has some accountability in this and is responsible in some way

for the wrongful death of Amber Spradlin.

Now, people that are familiar with lawsuits are aware that typically what you do early in a lawsuit is you cast a wide, wide net.

If, let's say that you have a situation where

a trucker spills, there's an oil spill on a thoroughfare, and civilian A is driving their vehicle and loses control because they slide on the oil and they smash into a lamppost.

And unfortunately, they died at the scene in this horrible accident.

Well,

if there were a lawsuit in that regard, you would sue the trucker,

the company that he works for, any of the companies involved in the delivery, right?

The pickup, the receiving of said products.

You would maybe even attempt to sue the city.

because they have some responsibility with the lamppost, maybe even the electrician or electric company that put in the lamppost.

So you can see where this can snowball very quickly.

In this case, what we have is the persons named as defendants in this lawsuit, one was the city of Prestonsburg, the Prestonburg Police Department, the Prestonsburg Police Chief, they named Randy Woods here.

And again, we had an interim police chief at the time, so I'm a little confused as to who was the chief of police at that time.

The Prestonsburg mayor is named.

A Floyd County judge executive is named.

A Floyd County magistrate, two of them are named.

One is Mark Critter, and the other is George Osley or Osley.

And then, of course, you have the local dentist, Michael K.

McKinney, individually and in his capacity as the owner of the season's inn and restaurant, and of course, the owner of the house.

You have Michael McKinney Jr., and you have Roy Kidd and Chris McKinney, who

had some involvement, of course, with the seasons in motel and restaurant as well.

All of those persons named in that lawsuit.

And then the next update we get is a little bit of so part of it is we get updated information about the crime scene and what took place that night.

So later, investigators would update their information that was released to the public to state that Amber had, in fact, been stabbed 12 times, this in the the head, neck, and torso.

And then later, we have suspects that were arrested.

So the persons that were arrested in connection with Amber's death were Michael McKinney III and Michael McKinney II and Josh Mullins.

So this next part here, Captain, is from LEX 18 News.

And the summary of it is stating that more than a year after the murder of Amber, police charged McKinney's son, Michael McKinney III, with murder and multiple counts of evidence tampering in the case.

Michael McKinney II and family friend Josh Mullins were also charged with multiple counts of complicity to tampering with evidence.

Early court proceedings were three motions by Michael McKinney's attorneys.

His attorneys were asking for a bond reduction for additional discovery and for prosecutors to produce polygraph results in the case.

So let's ignore, for the sake of today and the sake of brevity, let's ignore this bond reduction and the additional discovery because that's pretty typical stuff, right?

And that stuff all worked itself out.

The portion here that I think would be of interest to the listeners, and thank you for joining us here in the garage today, you beautiful, beautiful listeners, would be this polygraph results.

Because the polygraph results request is the defendant's attorneys requesting that the prosecutors turn over the results from this polygraph exam that was conducted on Roy Kidd.

So, Roy Kidd is one of,

he's not being charged, from my understanding.

He's not one of the three people being named as

one, one person's being named as the person responsible for the murder, and two, others being named as complicity, complicit in tampering with evidence.

So, Roy Kidd, who is he?

He,

according to this, is the person who claims to be the one that found Amber Spradlin's body.

There was also some allegations of his, Royal Kidd's, quote, violent and out-of-control behavior prior to Amber Spradlin's death.

So my guess here is that what the defense wants the opportunity to do once this thing gets to trial is to say, look, we have statements that were given to police, and police at least seem to run these statements down,

right?

So they believed them or at least believed that they had some credibility at the time that this other guy who's not been charged was violent and out of control before Amber was killed.

This implying that there might be either another person involved or maybe somebody else is completely responsible for this, not the person charged.

What is interesting to note is that the prosecutors in response to that motion and that request,

they state that Roy Kidd passed the polygraph exam on the question of whether he stabbed or cut Amber,

but the results would not be admissible at trial.

Still, the prosecution wrote that they would provide the results to the defense.

Normally, you see the defense kicking out anybody trying to put polygraph results in a trial.

Here you have them requesting them.

We know that they will not be admissible at trial, but the prosecution willing to pass this along because it seems to be with this short, kind of vague statement about what took place is that yes, Roy Kidd was given a polygraph examination.

And when asked if he was responsible for killing Amber or stabbed her or cut her in any way, his answer was truthful.

And he's not the person that's being charged with her murder.

Do we have a set date for this trial?

No, that's what's a little puzzling about this, but because part of that is that they are either having trouble with

or still

sifting through the evidence.

Okay.

Depending on who you talk to, which side of

the aisle for this trial.

depends on what is the delay.

So part of this, though, that we know that took place that would slow this down a bit is

after these charges are brought, we later get more charges of tampering that were brought forward.

And this is something that we do not get much of here in the garage.

We get, for a lack of better term, we get a fake murder weapon charge, fake murder weapon charge.

The prosecutors say this is due to, quote, fabricating physical evidence, end quote.

That indictment, this was brought forth late last year, suggests that a knife had been planted on the couch where the

act of murder, the attack took place.

So they're saying that somebody went out of their way to go and find another knife that was not the murder weapon and place it on the couch where the attack happened to suggest to investigators that this was the weapon.

This was the murder weapon.

They state, the prosecutors state that the knife that was used to kill Amber Spradlin was actually broken during the attack.

They believe that they have evidence that will show, this is part of that tampering with evidence and complicity to tamper with evidence charges.

They're stating they have evidence to show that this, the actual murder weapon was broken in the attack and then later destroyed, concealed, and or removed from the scene.

to hinder the investigation.

Now, you asked about a trial date there, Captain.

The latest update that we get was from very recent.

This is from April of this year.

Good coverage coming from the folks at WOWK.

They say the case of three men facing charges in the death of 38-year-old Amber Spradlin is officially being moved to another county.

So in March, the defense for Michael McKinney III filed a motion to have the trial moved out of Floyd County.

Does make sense because this has been in the news a lot.

We've seen the community in an uproar right from Jump Street here.

So, if you live in this county, very difficult to not have any prior knowledge.

All parties agreed that it should be moved.

They all approved, with the judge then recommending Pike County for the location.

That motion was not on that day, but was later granted.

Now, what remains up for some debate is the trial date, as we said.

So, we have Judge Edie Coleman, who is serving as a special judge for the case.

the judge said ideally the trial would begin December 1st, 2025, and will wrap up by the end of the year.

So the Commonwealth attorney says suspects' DNA was found under Amber Spradlin's fingernails.

But there's a debate between the prosecution and the defense that took place in court over the progress of the DNA testing.

So this is one of the reasons for the delay in setting the trial date.

The prosecuting attorney's office says that there were around 25 pieces of evidence submitted for testing, but many allegedly showed signs of being tampered with, which is making it difficult to get the actual results.

To put it short and sweet, they're saying we have all this evidence saying that they were tampering with evidence.

That is why it's slowing down the testing process to get these results.

And we, the prosecution, don't want to take this thing to trial until we have all the evidence that was collected at the scene.

And look, if they can prove that any of the defendants on any of these charges did, in fact, tamper with evidence, then they should absolutely have the right to not go to trial.

Delay the trial as long as you can, hoping for that you do get these results for the evidence and for the DNA and such to be presented at trial.

These guys shouldn't be rewarded for contaminating the scene, contaminating the victim, contaminating physical evidence.

But the argument you have is that they are, in fact, due to the right of a speedy trial, which

they may not get.

Because the defense's rebuttal in this is that Amber was killed two years prior to this, even this argument about the DNA evidence.

And they're saying, look, the lab workers have had plenty of time to figure out the results by now.

So they're saying, the defense is saying, we're ready to move forward with the trial, which, of course, no duh, because they want as little evidence to be presented at that trial as possible.

And right now, they know that the prosecution doesn't have what the prosecution wants for that trial.

Yeah.

Smart play by the defense, but I think smart play by the prosecution to have those charges of tampering because then you have chips, and maybe you can negotiate or use those chips as leverage to get somebody to turn and stop trying to tamper and

stop trying to hold back information.

And if you can get more of these individuals that have charges that aren't the murder charges for them to just come forward and then maybe they'll just make a deal with everybody in this case.

Well, and I think that the way that this is playing out with the judge and with the courts and the different arguments that are going on.

I really think that this is playing out the way that it should, and good for the judge because the judge is keeping an eye and keeping tabs on the situation.

The judge isn't just simply saying, nope, not going to happen till December.

No, they're keeping an eye on it because that judge can set that trial date.

And what the judge knows is that the defense is pushing for a trial sooner rather than later.

And the prosecution is pushing for a trial once they have the results from the lab, which may not be until late this year.

So,

the next step here in the courts and in getting justice for this young woman is all three suspects are due to appear in Pike County Court.

This will take place, it's scheduled for July 24th of 2025.

So, just next month, this will be for another hearing.

And Judge Coleman says that on that date, he would like to hear updates on the evidence, the DNA testing, and set the starting date for this trial.

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High potential premieres Tuesday at 10.9 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

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All right, we are back.

Cheers, mates.

To the windows, to the walls.

Cheers to you, Colonel.

He's back.

I'm back.

We're all back.

And cheers to you all for being back as well.

Cheers to you, Captain.

Our next update comes from a case that is,

you know, many people think that we live in Cleveland.

I think it's because,

you know, we talk about Cleveland.

We've covered a lot of Cleveland cases.

Cleveland rocks.

Yeah, we will get emails from people or when people are,

when we request their information so we can give them a beer shout out, they'll say, oh, I live here now, but I'm from Cleveland.

And it's like, that's awesome.

We do love Cleveland, but the captain.

Congratulations.

We're not from Cleveland.

So there's many other cities you could say that you're actually from that we would also be like, that's awesome because we love that city as well.

So we're going to go back to March of 2013

when 53-year-old Eliza Sherman was, she's supposed to be arriving for a meeting with her divorce attorney in downtown Cleveland.

Now, while she's outside of the building, she's later found stabbed lying on the sidewalk.

And the person that finds her, this witness, didn't witness the attack, but finds her, says that Eliza was trying to speak, but the only thing that the witness could make out was

hearing her say,

I'm dying.

The witness called for medical assistance, and Eliza was transported to Metro Health Medical Center, where she

sadly passed away.

Crime Stoppers

was at one time offering a reward of $100,000

for information leading to an arrest.

Well, this attack was also caught on CCTV footage, right?

The fleeing.

Whoever attacked her was seen running from the scene.

And that was something that we analyzed to a great deal, to a great degree when we covered the case in episodes.

It was a four-part series, episodes 167 to 170, way back when we were still figuring out how to turn on the microphones.

This was in December of 2017.

Well,

the thing is,

we figured out how to turn them on.

We've not figured out how to turn them off.

Now,

many of you, longtime listeners, will remember that on that episode, I predicted that the Chiefs would win three Super Bowls in the next seven years.

I also predicted a global pandemic was just two or so years away, and that Sherman's own divorce attorney likely killed her because he was not prepared to go to trial.

Turns out, the Colonel,

as crispy as he is, three for three, baby.

Yeah, Now, crystal ball.

Yeah, so

our show notes for that episode.

And we recommend if you want to do a deep dive on any of these and you've not heard those episodes on any of these cases.

Go back and listen.

There is some YouTube stuff that we have on this case as well that you can view.

And in fact, it was so early into our YouTube career that has paid us a whole $19

that I saw some of the comments when I went back to look at some of our old coverage of the Sherman case.

And there were several people that were very nice and kind that said, You guys are doing an awesome podcast.

I wish you would do more on YouTube.

But yeah, as I said, that was 2017.

So we were somewhat new to it.

We can't afford the plastic surgery.

No.

And

you know how many episodes it would take us to figure out how to turn on the camera?

So

our show notes read as follows: Cleveland, Ohio, Sunday, March 24th, 2013, Eliza Sherman, a 53-year-old mother of four, mother of four, stepped out into the cold to run some errands.

She promised her youngest son she would not be gone very long and she would return home with dinner that evening.

But hours and hours go by.

Her son, Jeremy, tried calling his mother's cell phone, but she did not answer.

Then he called his older sister.

Her name is Jennifer.

Jeremy explained to Jennifer that their mother had gone, had been gone far too long and he could not reach her.

Jennifer tried many times to get her mother on the phone to no avail.

Jennifer decided to take the search to the streets and look for her mother, but before she could locate her mother, the Cleveland Police Department notified her that they would like to speak with everybody in the Sherman family.

It was then that detectives notified the family that Eliza had been killed.

in downtown Cleveland, Ohio in broad daylight.

This was a case and it was certainly something that we circled around when we talked about it and it was something that was

should be considered by all, right?

The husband was a longtime suspect

in this case of having some kind of involvement in the death of his wife, who he was soon to be divorced.

One thing we stated, we took a look at the physique of the individual fleeing the murder scene and the physique of the husband.

And we said, well, if the husband had involvement, he hired somebody because that's not the husband in that puffy winter coat that is seen fleeing from the scene.

Looked like a small individual.

Yeah.

Yes, it did.

The coroner's office went on to say that the victim had been stabbed 11 times.

We know that surveillance cameras in the area captured.

You might be right there, Captain, because there are statements that say captured the attack.

I've not witnessed that,

the footage of that.

I've only witnessed the fleeing portion.

They might not have released the full video.

That video is in the hands of the Cleveland Police Department, which once this thing does go to trial, now that there is an arrest and has been an arrest, it will go to trial eventually unless this guy pleads guilty.

Yeah, do you think it's actually this guy or do you think he actually hired somebody?

That's a great question.

I personally thought that it was him.

I remember I'm thinking back to our coverage,

and I thought at the time that it was him, or at the very least, he had some involvement.

And that is exactly what he's being charged with.

So

the extra sad layers of this case is that she,

beloved mother of four, she was a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic.

And again, this was in broad daylight in Cleveland, Ohio.

And just last month,

Mr.

Gregory Douchekanu Moore, former divorce attorney for Eliza Sherman, was arrested for her 2013 murder.

He was indicted on a number of charges, including aggravated murder and conspiracy.

With the update, we have a brilliant article by Tracy Carlos and Courtney Shaw titled, How Technology Led to an Indictment in the Eliza Sherman Cold Case.

This is from the good people at News 5 in Cleveland.

And News 5 used to be my go-to for Cleveland Browns News.

And they state, Attorney General Dave Yost said his office was called in 2021 to help Cleveland solve Eliza Sherman's cold case, BCI.

That's the Bureau of Criminal Identification here in Ohio.

Their cold case unit has extra tools, Yoast said, technology and the bandwidth to help bring a fresh set of eyes to the case and new insights.

The article continues 12 years after Eliza Sherman's murder, after she was brutally stabbed to death in broad daylight.

The attorney representing her in a divorce case, Gregory Moore, has been indicted for her death.

When it came to this case, Yoast said new technology and fresh eyes help unlock this mystery.

Quote, the analytics on the digital fingerprints, so to speak, from the electronic devices and a number of transmissions gave us the keys, end quote, Yost said.

Yost said that anytime a person uses their cell phone, it leaves a fingerprint.

Anytime a cell phone connects to the nearest Wi-Fi, there is a record that can help police with their investigations.

According to Yost, more in-depth information will be released at the trial.

And that was part of the reason why we were circling around the possibility of this divorce attorney being involved because he's the one that schedules this meeting.

And it's on a Sunday.

Look, no offense to any lawyers out there.

No offense to anybody in any career out there.

Most people don't like to work on Sundays.

From my understanding, lawyers, if they're worth their salt, they're doing everything they can not to work on Sundays.

They got everything wrapped up.

so they can be with their families on Sundays.

He's calling this meeting on a Sunday.

The divorce proceedings are supposed to take place the very next morning.

He has, he's MIA.

He's got some,

some, a blank window of time on his cell phone information.

Yeah.

So according to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, this is still from the good folks over at News 5.

51-year-old Gregory Moore was charged with one count of aggravated murder, one count of conspiracy, six counts of murder, and two counts of kidnapping.

According to the secret indictment, so he was, there was a secret indictment that was then very quickly made public.

This was, they indicted him, I think because they were convinced they did the secret indictment because I believe they were convinced he would flee.

And now you hear that, those words put together, and it sounds like it's something so very special.

It's not.

It's not that special.

It happens very often.

Now, it's made public after he was apprehended, but according to this indictment, they state that he allegedly lured her to where he worked, saying that he needed to meet with her,

but they're saying he never intended to meet with her at all.

The indictment states this was part of a plan that was hatched months earlier.

That's the strange part.

That's the part that we need, the door that we need to unlock.

Yeah, because the motive of just not being prepared never made a lot lot of sense to me.

This would seem like there was something else at play.

If there, if, if they have evidence that's suggesting to them that a plan was hatched months earlier to kidnap her, all right.

This is, this is their word, this is the words of News 5 reporting on the situation from the indictment.

They are stating that a plan was hatched months earlier to kidnap her to avoid having her try her divorce case in court.

Hmm.

Hmm.

That makes you really start to think.

And we do know,

I'm not trying to just float this out here.

This has certainly been talked about many times.

And this is one of those horrific situations, horrible situations, where mom is murdered, mom and dad are in

the process of a divorce.

And we said there are four kids.

There are four kids, and it was a house divided on a a house divided on if they thought their dad was up to anything shady, or

do we stand by dad?

Do we stand by dad and defend him here against the eyes of the public?

Now, unfortunately, regardless of what happened, that man has passed away.

Her husband has passed away.

We reported on that on Off the Record about a week or so after

he had died.

The indictment goes on to say that as Eliza Sherman waited for someone to unlock the doors at Moore's office building, air quotes, well, I'm reading from paper, so it's actual quotations.

Quote, an individual who was either Moore

or an unknown co-conspirator, end quote, approached Sherman on East 12th Street, circled behind her, chased her, and then stabbed her more than 10 times, the indictment states.

It also states that Moore allegedly disconnected his phone from the cell phone network for three hours around the time of Sherman's death in an attempt to avoid creating cell tower location evidence.

He later turned on his phone and made several calls to Sherman's phone, Eliza Sherman's phone, to cover his tracks.

So

he's calling, saying, Where are you?

We were supposed to meet.

You know, you never showed up, according to the paperwork.

Now, they also state that he went out and purchased a new phone just a few days after her death.

The prosecutor, this is Michael O'Malley,

said

through

the diligent work of the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation, new evidence was obtained.

After meeting with these investigators and reviewing this evidence, a decision was made to present the case to a grand jury.

We look forward to presenting all of the evidence in this case at trial.

We are confident that jurors will come to the same conclusion as to Gregory Moore's orchestration and participation in the murder of Eliza Sherman.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the Sherman family, who have never given up hope that the truth would be uncovered.

The Ohio AG

Yoast does say when being interviewed by News 5 that this is not a traditional open and shut kind of DNA case.

So

that means we're going to have to see how this will play out at trial.

The bond was set at $2 million.

Moore was arrested in Austin, Texas.

Remember one thing we discussed when we covered it, twice,

twice, he called in bomb threats to the courts.

Now,

was that because

something else was going on or because he wasn't prepared or what?

Hard to say.

Right.

But we do know that that happened.

So his defense team or attorneys are saying

they're pushing back.

They're like, look, you guys don't have any evidence that's any different than the evidence you had 12 years ago when you didn't charge him with the murder.

So

we don't understand why he's being charged now.

Well, they're going to find out.

And that's one of the things about these all these case updates.

These cases are bizarre.

And the individuals involved are bizarre.

And there's a bunch of unanswered questions.

And hopefully, those answers

get answered, or those questions get answered during the trial.

Yeah, and I think if you're an investigator, well, more importantly, if you're the prosecutor in this case, you're probably looking at the other stuff that he did that's illegal to help you get to an indictment in the murder, right?

Even if you have evidence suggesting it, but

you're on the fence of, well, do we charge him and risk losing the trial?

Then you might go, hey, this other stuff that he is accused of, let's really push hard and apply pressure here.

See how this shakes out and see if it leads us to any more information or a statement or an admission of guilt by the accused.

So,

Moore

had been licensed to practice law starting in 2003.

He went to Cleveland State University.

According to this article, records are not clear on when Moore started and ended practicing law at the company.

He worked for Stafford Law Company in Cleveland.

But he says that this article states that he at least worked for Stafford Law Company from 2011 to 2014.

His license to practice law was suspended in 2017 as he was facing felony charges.

And he resigned

his legal license in 2018 pending discipline for his crimes.

When we covered it,

his license had been suspended and they were threatening to take it away.

This is from Cleveland News 19, where they listed some of this guy's criminal history according to the court records.

And this article states that Gregory Moore has a criminal history dating back to 1998.

The offenses started with traffic offenses in the 90s and early 2000s.

Okay, no big deal there.

Then the charges escalated in 2013 when Gregory Moore was first charged with three counts of inducing panic.

Those charges are connected to the bomb threats that Gregory Moore would call into court to avoid court appearances, according to this indictment.

The indictment also said Gregory Moore's company, Stafford Law Company, were aware of the bomb threats as of May 24th of 2013.

In the years after 2013, more charges would come against Gregory Moore, including at least six counts of inducing panic, three counts of terrorist threats, telecommunications fraud, obstructing official business, falsification, two counts of forgery, possessing criminal tools.

Moore eventually pled down to charges of two counts of felony inducing panic and one count of falsification this in May of 2017.

So the falsification count comes from lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his whereabouts during the murder of Eliza Sherman.

So he lied about where he was.

He lied about what he was up to that day.

We know he's done some just strange.

This is one of those stranger

fiction stories.

I mean,

it's not easy to get a license to practice law.

No.

You usually have to be a fairly disciplined, smart individual.

But I mean, this guy's calling in bomb threats to the courts.

Again, I would be surprised based off, you know, I'm re-watching that footage right now and I'm, I'm just going to, this does not look like a male to me.

You know, this looks just the movements and everything

and so i wonder if there's going to be more charges brought against other people yeah it's it's it's difficult to say then why so much with his phone you get somebody to help you and you're you're the getaway driver so you're still involved right and and that's where it gets confusing for me and and having experience with those cameras and those systems, I know that the those videos are not usually great.

They usually are coming from weird angles.

It's difficult to determine how high that that's certainly coming from an elevated vantage point.

It's difficult to say how high up that would be.

A lot of times those buildings have large and high entranceways, and usually those cameras are placed near the entrances to those buildings.

So,

I mean, that camera could be 20, 24 feet in the air, which would give give the appearance of a smaller person than what they actually are.

Right.

I agree with that.

But what becomes an issue, though, is you go, well, this guy wasn't prepared.

Well, calling a bomb threat makes sense, right?

I'm not prepared.

If I call on a bomb threat, they'll have to cancel the hearing.

But

that's that's a

you know, that's a bad thing.

It's a federal building, so that's a bad thing.

But you go, but nobody's getting physically hurt.

And so to call on a bomb threat is quite a bit of a big leap to become a murderer.

And what gets me is, like you said, well,

they have some kind of evidence that says that this has been planned for months.

Yeah, that's the tricky part of it.

That's the part of it that kind of throws me off a little bit to

saying that

it was absolutely him that was the murderer wielding the knife.

Maybe I'm giving him too much credit.

Maybe he's just not smart.

I mean, he's

because he's just crazy.

If I were using their word, orchestrating

this homicide, this murder,

then my phone being on would be my alibi.

Right.

But again, you know, the prisons are filled with dumb, dumb people, dumb criminals.

Maybe he's of that variety.

I don't know.

But this one,

look,

to be honest with you, Captain, this was one of those cases that seemed so, it seemed so clear who the person either responsible or involved was when we covered it.

But as time drag on and with the passing of her husband and with this guy facing other charges and serving time for those charges and then being released.

I mean, we know he was released because when he was apprehended for the murder charge, he was down in Austin, Texas.

You know, this is a sad situation, regardless of his level of guilt.

His father was

in the process of passing away.

So he was down there to visit with his father, from my understanding, and he's arrested down there.

So

we'll see what comes about with this at trial.

And maybe with, I think there's some

evidence and I think there's some statements that have been released that are suggestive that this is much more complicated than

at first glance.

Well, and like I said, selfishly, because these cases,

some of these cases that are complex and bizarre.

And it seems like the more you dive in, the more questions you get.

Selfishly, by going to trial, maybe you will get some of those answers and I will be glued to figure out those, you know, what, what the heck is the motive here?

I mean,

was there something more going on

with his relationship with the victim?

Or

was there just more going on in his life?

You know,

but that's where it's like, normally the answer is simpler, but you go, okay, well, let's say he was having money problems or whatever.

You go, but she was his client.

She'd be paying him.

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yes, I'm curious to find out what led her to hiring him,

right?

Right.

Because who connected these two?

Was it as simple as she got on the internet or opened up the yellow pages and just called a defense?

You know, I keep saying defense attorney, but divorce attorney

and

really got unlucky with the random divorce attorney that she picked on that day?

Or

is this something larger, right?

Did somebody purposely put her in touch with this guy who sucks at his job, right?

I mean, there's no way for me.

I don't know what his record is in court.

I don't know how successful he was as an attorney, but I'm guessing, based off of calling in multiple bomb threats to the court that you're supposed to be showing up to, that you probably suck at your job.

So, how did she get connected?

Because she wasn't dumb.

She was a smart woman.

She was a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic.

So, yeah, there's a lot more to uncover and a lot more for at least the public to learn about this very bizarre murder case.

That at least thankfully there is an indictment.

At least, thankfully, there is a trial that will be happening.

But this one, too, I don't see

or could I find

an exact date where we should be learning more.

And that's kind of a good segue into our third and final case update for this week.

And as said,

it is a joyous occasion when we can present to you.

updates in these cases rather than just more doom and gloom of another case or another case that's gone cold or another family that can't find justice for their loved one.

But this case, there was an arrest.

We've touched on this a little bit on off the record and mentioned it kind of here and there.

The problem is, there's not a whole lot of details other than it was DNA evidence that led to the arrest.

We don't know a lot of the details of the other evidence in this case, but that is the case of 1992 Columbus homicide Amy Hooper, who was a young woman, lived in an apartment.

She was attacked and killed in her apartment.

And we did learn late last year that a DNA hit led to an arrest of a man named Bruce Edward Daniels, who lived all the way at the time of the arrest, all the way out in Washington state.

Later this month, there is going to be, there is a court date.

But to be clear here, from what I've been told, my sources all say don't expect a trial to start.

Don't expect to learn a whole lot about the case or the evidence.

This is simply just

another routine court date that has to take place before this thing can actually go to trial.

So we know it's a DNA hit that led to the arrest of this man.

It's many, many years, obviously, after the murder.

Curious to see what other evidence they have against this Bruce Edward Daniels and how this one plays out in court, if in fact it does get to court.

But whatever happens with the Amy Hooper case, expect to hear an update on True Crime Garage off the record, which is, if you're unfamiliar, if you're new to the show, make sure you subscribe, you like, follow, whatever you have to do to keep hearing us show up on your listening device.

Do that.

You can sign up for that on Apple subscription and on Patreon.

Yeah, another one that I don't know if we're going to get a lot more answers because it's pretty vague.

And then also, because of the DNA match, you wonder if there's just going to be a deal made.

But either way, those are three cases.

They're fascinating cases.

So go back and listen to the original episodes,

which will probably just lend you to have more questions.

And hopefully, we get those.

Yes, the Amy Hooper episodes, that was a two-parter, and

that was episodes 294 and 295.

All right, we want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage for a little bit of a different episode.

Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?

Recommended listening.

Go back and listen to those old episodes that we mentioned here today if you have not heard them already.

We'll take you through the case as we knew it at the time in all three situations.

And as we kept repeating, very bizarre cases, each one of them, they're all unique cases.

And with the Amy Hooper one, I really didn't think we would be sitting here having this conversation today.

So I'm, so that brings me a lot of joy.

And it just, look, these people shouldn't do this to each other.

People shouldn't treat each other this way and they shouldn't hurt other people.

But unfortunately, it's not a perfect world and it does happen.

There is evil out there.

There are bad people out there.

But at least we are making progress in these three cases, which gives me a lot of hope that we will be getting this kind of movement in other cases that we've covered here in the garage.

And until next week.

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