I usually want to tell somebody that I work in homicide.
It's one or two reactions.
Either one, I think it's the coolest job ever, or else it's completely abhorrent.
I think it's the worst thing that you could possibly do.
But I've found that there's nothing more rewarding in a homicide investigation than to be able to reach out to the families.
You know, we've identified the individual that was responsible for killing their loved one.
That's what makes it all worthwhile.
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation.
Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murders.
Most of you have heard the phrase the first 48 hours and how it refers to the first two days of an investigation that are the most critical.
Well, today we're going to talk about the last 48 hours, how reconstructing the final moments before a person dies can be the most crucial.
Last year, while filming an episode of our show True Conviction, Anastasia and I met with homicide detective David Fugen.
I've been an officer with the Austin Police Department for a little over 28 years.
I've had 68 homicides as lead investigator.
So when I think back to the time that we spent with him, I always think about as I was walking outside of a crime scene with him, I was thinking about OK, he is a detective I would love to have on the stand, because there's something about him that's very unassuming.
There is a soft spokenness about him that I knew would work well on the stand.
But you also know how very seriously he takes his work.
Now let's move on to today's case.
April 13th, 2010 was a Tuesday.
And on that morning, just before sunrise, a person named Eric Franklin walked out of his condo, heading for work.
And as he's leaving the apartment building, he discovered that there was a unresponsive black male that was laid out in the courtyard of the apartment complex, just out in the open.
His first reaction wasn't murder.
And at first he thought that maybe this individual had passed out, thought that possibly he was drunk.
And so he continues to walk by her, but then he noticed that the male was not moving at all.
So then he walked up on him, just take closer inspection and discovered that this individual had sustained a significant injury to his face.
At that point, Franklin immediately summoned 911.
When first officers arrived, along with EMS, it was determined that the victim was in fact deceased and showed visible signs of trauma to his face.
Just so you can visualize this a little bit.
Just picture the type of apartment complex with multiple buildings, and they all share this common courtyard.
Well, it was in the middle of that common courtyard that this body was discovered.
So the decedent was laying supine in the elevated bed of foliage.
He appeared to be in his mid to late 40s, appeared to be well-dressed.
He was wearing a plaid, Van Heusen brand button-up long-sleeve shirt, burgundy-colored Mississippi State Bulldogs jersey, black dress, shorts and Nike's tennis shoes.
In assessing the injuries, David noticed several things.
There was a deep cache that was observed below the left eye and outside of the left eye.
A laceration was also observed along the left nostril.
It's not something that I would have expected to have been sustained by one individual merely punching another.
There didn't seem to be any defensive wounds, so it did not seem to investigators that any sort of a fight or anything like it actually occurred.
With no sign of defensive wounds on the victim's body, it seems like two things.
Number one, he likely wasn't the aggressor.
And number two, he didn't have an opportunity to defend himself.
In other words, he may have been startled or walked up behind and not knowing that he was about to be attacked, giving him an opportunity to put his hands up, to put his arms up to stop a potential blow.
A large stellet.
Shaped laceration was observed on the back of the head.
When I say stellar, it's almost like a star shape.
It's not indicative of a gunshot wound.
Now, a gunshot wound is a very specific shape.
It's a circular puncture wound.
But a star pattern, also known as a stellar blood force.
Trauma to the back of the head creates a fracture pattern which causes the skin to just essentially split.
So we believe that he likely struck him with a handgun.
We didn't see any ground disturbance or anything like that.
So we believe that he was being held at gunpoint.
Then he was pistol whipped.
We also noticed that he had a black leather cellular phone pouch that was clipped horizontally to the front of the black short.
It's also not what they found, but it's also what they didn't find.
The pouch was empty.
We did not locate a phone, but we did not find a wallet or cash currency either on his person.
The black shorts that he had on.
He had two front lap pockets and a pocket on the right leg, and we noticed that all three pockets were rabbit-eared, which means that they had been turned inside out, which suggests that somebody had shuffled through the pockets in a hurried manner.
So no wallet, no phone.
Rising to the top of my list of possible theories would be a homicide which may have begun as just a simple robbery.
You know, no wallet also means something else.
That means no ID or identification.
So this man who's laying deceased in a courtyard at that time is a nameless John Doe.
We were starting from ground zero.
So it's just probably one of the most difficult things for homicide detectives, because we have to first of all determine who this person is and then try to develop the victimology.
What investigators soon honed in on was his wrist.
We just saw that he had this wristband on the right wrist.
It was yellow and white in color, and it just had that number on it, 350525.
Now, the wristband was the temporary type you may get when you go to a club or a concert.
There weren't any other distinguishing characteristics, so we weren't quite sure where he had obtained that from.
The ultimate question is, where did he obtain it from?
It wasn't one that I had recognized.
And it could have come from a wide variety of different places.
And that's what we needed to go back then and try to establish.
But here's the thing.
This isn't happening in a small town or out in the countryside somewhere.
It's in the middle of Austin, Texas, which is the fourth largest city in Texas.
Yeah, Austin's a huge city.
It's just under a million population.
He could have obtained this at any number of venues.
So obviously we're kind of scratching our head to determine where was he?
And while it didn't have the name or the location on it, it did have some information.
And also one other thing to think about.
This is the kind of wristband that you get and then you take off immediately when you leave or when you get home.
So now this is helping David and his team develop a potential timeline.
This man was most likely at an establishment that used these wristbands on the day or the night before he was killed.
Let's head back to the crime scene for a moment.
Victim was found at the Canyon Ridge apartment complex.
Investigators would fan out and begin their canvas, knocking on doors to see if he lived there, or perhaps he was visiting someone.
Again, that could answer a lot of questions, namely... who the victim was.
One of the things I wanted to know right off the bat was whether this individual resided at the apartment complex.
And then if not, how did they get there and when did they get there?
And who may they have been with?
This happened in a somewhat public place and there's always going to be upsides and downsides when anything happens in public, especially in a place like this, an apartment complex.
But one of the things we had not thought about before was that a potential downside here was the sprinkler system.
We noticed that there were large water droplets on top of the leather cell phone pouch and that his shorts and his shirt were damp.
Well, there was an irrigation system at the apartment complex that had activated at some point while he was laying there.
And at the crime scene.
While forensic investigators were able to recover items of clothing, even a cell phone case which was still attached to the victim's belt, none of those items would be useful in swabbing for touch DNA.
The reason the complex had sprinklers which covered the body with water, as it lied there hours before the victim was even discovered.
And I think when I heard sprinklers I laughed a little bit, because of course we know that water can be evidence's worst nightmare.
But, you know, you just don't even think of all the facets that that can come in.
And I don't even know that I've ever actually had sprinklers being the thing that I had to deal with in a case.
When I first read that, I thought they could probably get past that.
But based on the fact that it had been there for so long and so much water had covered the body not just small little droplets, but the body was actually wet that would prevent them from really gaining any evidence from those smaller items.
Now let's flip to the upside for a moment, because one of the upsides of this happening in a courtyard surrounding by this apartment complex was buildings buildings, buildings.
And that equals tenants, which equals people, people, people.
The first was, remember the 911 caller, a man named Eric, the one who found the body.
So when I conducted the initial field interview with Eric Franklin, he indicated that he had never seen this individual before, didn't recognize him.
And as the canvas continued, David found an ear witness that could prove important to this case.
We interviewed another tenant who told us that she had just retired for bed a little after 2 a.m.
And about 2.30 a.m., she heard someone brush past the bushes just outside of her window.
And it startled her to the point that she woke up her boyfriend and notified him.
And we found that, where her apartment was located at, there was a small alley that led from the courtyard to the opposite side of the apartment complex where there was another parking lot.
So investigators took pictures to show this man to the building management to see if they knew who he was.
And they didn't.
But they did provide information about someone.
It wasn't until I informed them that...
Eric Franklin was the complainant on the 911 call that they said that he had been known in the past to have some iffy characters hang out at his apartment.
And we'll let you know now, one of those iffy characters that Eric knew was the killer.
Homicide investigator David Fugate does not know the identity of his victim, but he does go about trying to learn the name or identity of his victim in a way you might not quickly suspect.
So we start doing research, and one of the things that we did was go through and note all of the vehicles that were in close proximity to where the body was at.
And we had our admin at the homicide unit start running those license plate numbers, specifically looking for the identity of a black male that does not reside at that address.
And there was one vehicle in particular that was registered to a male, that did not reside at that complex.
The owner of the vehicle was Elmore Allen Jr.
Elmore was 49 years old from a small town on the edge of the city of Austin.
Myself and Detective Greenwald drove out and made contact with Elmore Allen's girlfriend.
Even though Elmore's girlfriend was obviously distraught and trying to process the information she had just learned, she was able to provide investigators with some interesting details about Elmore's life.
She told us that he had worked for Allen's Transport Freight Service, where he would transport and deliver furniture.
Police already knew about the white pickup truck that was registered to Elmore, but that wasn't the only one.
He had another vehicle that was located on her property.
That was a black pickup truck, and she gave us permission to search that vehicle.
And in that car, David found business cards.
Lots of business cards.
And some of these cards included businesses such as Hot Bodies, Men's Club, Ecstasy Cabaret, Rick's Cabaret, Joy of Austin Cabaret Palazzo.
And these business cards were all bound together with a metal binder clip in the driver's door pocket.
This could be the link to that wristband found on Elmore's wrist.
Each one of those cards are a potential lead that needs to be checked.
Which establishment did he visit?
And could that visit be tied directly to his murder?
OK, we have to talk about the white elephant in the room just for a moment is the fact of what this club was.
It was a gentleman's club.
And so, again, I don't care what people are into.
It could be a gentleman's club, a ladies club, you know, whatever type of club you want to go to.
And again, these were legal.
Most people don't want to think about their other half necessarily going to them, at least not regularly, as it appears that Elmore did.
So Anastika, let me ask you this.
Elmo was found on Tuesday morning.
So the theory that he would have gone out to one of these establishments the night before, on Monday night.
Now, I got to ask you, do you find that a bit odd?
The person that's going on the Monday night is also not just.
You know you're going for a bachelor party or birthday party.
It might be something more of a regular event, right?
Because a Monday night is not the you know.
Hey, let's go really out on the town type of night, at least not usually.
Right.
The thing about Monday nights in those establishments is that they do have football on.
OK, I want to go backwards Scott, into your uniform days, and just you know what, if anything, can you talk about the type of crime that you saw in these gentlemen's clubs?
Because, again, you were down in Florida.
Yeah, so my experience in uniform is that the environment tends to breed all types of criminal activity, from drugs to sexual favors in exchange for cash.
But as a member of law enforcement, if you're looking for information on a person or a crime.
The people who visit these clubs tend to be very talkative.
And the folks who work there, they turn out to be really great informants.
First place we went to was a place that was called the Pink Monkey.
We met with management there.
We showed him a picture of the wristband and they indicated that they did not use wristbands that matched it.
However, suggested that we check hot bodies.
So we went to hot bodies.
We met with the manager there by the name of Lefty.
Lefty confirmed that the wristband was provided by their establishment.
They're on the right track.
So they asked the manager, Lefty, about Elmore Allen.
And without hesitation, he indicated that he knew Elmore Allen, considered him to be a good friend.
He recalled seeing Allen at the club on Monday, the day prior, which was April 12th, and proceeded to give us the names of several female dancers who had entertained Elmore Allen throughout the course of the day on the 12th and into the night.
When we showed them the photo, several of them indicated that they did see him in the club.
They also said that he had been drinking quite heavily that night, so much so, that he intermittently actually fell asleep at his table.
And had been teasing dancers by flashing a large amount of cash in front of them.
However, he was stingy with pain.
Elmore bragged about having a lot of money, because he'd actually just recently cashed a pretty big check.
It was for eighteen hundred dollars.
It was his paycheck.
So Anastiga, let's pause for a second, because we know right now, at this point in the investigation, the best theory of what happened to Elmore in those final moments may have been this
You know, he's flashing all this cash around while consuming large amounts of alcohol.
Perhaps someone saw him as a mark, an easy target for a robbery.
We did not find a wallet or any money on his person led us to believe that he could have been robbed at that apartment complex by someone who was at the club or somebody who had followed him from the club to that apartment complex.
We all come up with our certain phrases or thing.
And I always just think about the one that is so simple, even though it causes such devastation.
And it starts with follow, and then it's usually Rob killed or killed Rob.
And you don't necessarily know what order the last two happened in until you put all the pieces together in a case.
Because that's really what it is, right?
In this circumstance, it's so obvious, at least it seems, that he was followed and it was for that money.
And so there's a robbery component.
And based on where he was found and how, there is that killed component too.
But I think the question remains is who would that be?
So we're going back through, we're trying to establish what time he had arrived at the club.
And obviously we want to know when he left the club.
Let's just talk about where we are for a moment because it's going to factor in.
It's the type of potential evidence.
You know, we're talking about a gentleman's club.
The dancers aren't wearing much.
In this case, it was an all-nude club.
So there is usually very tight and strict security, you know, and of course we can all figure out why,
Scott talked about the types of crimes that come out of there all too often.
There is the robberies.
You know, unfortunately, you have attempted sexual assault or even completed assaults, various assaults along the way.
So in this case they certainly did have surveillance footage and it was going to prove very useful.
So we looked at surveillance video footage from the Hot Bodies Club itself.
That security footage shows that he didn't walk out alone.
And it was at that point we were able to determine that one of the female club dancers, around closing time on Tuesday morning, got into the truck with Elmore Allen when he departed.
And just before leaving the club with Elmore, surveillance video caught this dancer talking on the phone to someone.
The question is who?
Management was able to look at the surveillance video footage and identify her.
Get this, the dancer's nickname was S-I-N.
Sin.
This is a female that went by the stage name of Sin.
Sin.
Sin's real name was Jessica Krause Patterson, a 19-year-old woman who, David learned, not only may have been the last person to see the victim alive, but did already have a connection to this case.
Jessica Krause Patterson at one point had lived with Eric Franklin at that apartment complex.
Eric Franklin, the 911 caller, the same person that found Elmore in that courtyard.
You're shaking your head like no way could this be just a coincidence.
I mean, like, what would the odds have to be?
I cannot think of a case we've covered where a person happens to come across a body and they have some type of connection with that person.
Typically, it's an unfortunate random circumstance.
But maybe this time it wasn't so random.
Immediately there were red flags because we spoke to Eric Franklin before and he indicated that he had never seen the victim before and management had told us that he is known to associate with iffy characters.
So now that we know that Jessica Krause Patterson has some association with Eric Franklin, there was no question we needed to go back and we need to talk to Eric Franklin in further detail.
OK Scott, we start to put these pieces together.
And now we have to talk about the Jessica Krause, Patterson or sin component too.
You know what's your best leading theory about what might have happened to Elmore in his final hours?
Well, robbery still is my leading theory.
I'd want to know, was this a setup?
And could Franklin have played any part of this at all?
When we contacted Eric Franklin, he confirmed that yes indeed, Jessica Cross Patterson had lived with him at the apartment complex, but stated that she had moved out several months earlier.
She essentially was bouncing from job to job.
She would dance at these nightclubs for money, but it was not steady work.
Yeah, for me, this is a field of red flags.
I mean, you find the victim and now police find out that the last person he was with was your former roommate.
It's too coincidental for it not to be something more sinister.
So Eric Franklin indicated that he had not had contact with Jessica Cross Patterson in some time, since she had moved out.
Eric Franklin did deny any involvement, but he did give David a lead.
He tells police that Jessica moved out to live with her new boyfriend, JT, or John Tyler Banks.
John Banks was 23 at the time.
He was unemployed and that he had been dating Jessica Krause for a short period of time, although they've known each other for a couple of years up to this point.
But he did not have a particularly violent background.
Eric Franklin told us that he had overheard a conversation months earlier between Jessica Krause Patterson and her boyfriend John Banks, where they were orchestrating a plan to rob an individual under the ruse that they were going to lure this particular person to the apartment complex to buy Xanax and that her boyfriend was going to jump out from behind cover and rob the person.
So, of course, I'm thinking in my head, like, do I believe Franklin when he's talking?
And he says he had nothing to do with it.
He doesn't know.
But without more, it's just going to remain a bigger question mark.
And they're going to need to look further.
But I think now, rather than looking at Franklin, you really have to focus more on Jessica.
Anastasia, here's where my spidey sense really went up.
Eric knew there was a plan, just like this had been discussed in the past.
Our listeners may be asking what responsibility would he have to come forward once he discovered the body?
There is no duty to report right, it's not a crime.
You know, i've had cases that people have actually tried to make it a law because they've been so outraged and someone knew something and didn't say something.
Well, It's just not the law.
You don't need to report.
But you know I'm going to play devil's advocate or the defense side in this, because as a prosecutor you need to think of what the other side would say is yes, he did know this conversation.
But I don't know that you necessarily put them together because right, that conversation happened a while ago.
It wasn't about killing anyone.
It was about drugging them and robbing them.
Here, he just sees a guy dead in a courtyard sometime later.
And I don't know that you necessarily think robbery drugged with Xanax when you see someone who very easily could have just hit their head.
So again, in all fairness, while later on the pieces come together and you say well, of course this has something to do with it.
I don't know how fair it is to assume that he would necessarily have put that together based on finding Elmore the way he did.
One other piece of evidence that David discovered in that surveillance tape.
Remember, they saw Jessica talking on the cell phone before she was leaving with Elmore.
So we don't know who that call was with.
I mean, is it possible it was with John Banks?
Sure.
But also, is it possible she was talking to Eric?
So I'm not ready to scratch him off my list just yet.
Again, all things are possible, but I don't know that the person that committed that crime is likely going to be the one who calls the police to analyze the evidence of that crime first.
At this point we needed to obviously have a conversation with Jessica Krause, Patterson and John Banks.
So police didn't just knock on their door and ask them to come down for an interview.
Just think about it.
One of the most powerful weapons a detective has when doing an interview is to hold the cards and not reveal them until it's absolutely necessary.
So when a suspect is in a victim circle, it's easy for an investigator to say hey, We want to learn more about the victim.
Come on down to the station and, you know, let's talk more.
And catching them off guard really when police start looking at them is an advantage, and how police end up holding the cards during those situations.
So if police mention the fact that John and Jessica need to come down to the station and talk about Elmore Allen and they don't know who Elmore Allen is,
I think their spidey sense will be up and realize that they're going to be questioned specifically about this case.
So we had APD Tactical Intel follow their vehicles and initiate a traffic stop.
You know, I've conducted dozens of what they call felony stops, asking people to come out of the vehicle not knowing whether they have weapons or maybe they're suspected in a murder investigation.
You never know how someone's going to react.
And even just for the prospect of asking questions.
And at that point, we approached them and indicated we wanted to talk to them.
And they agreed, then escorted down to the Austin Police Department homicide unit.
This traffic stop was a great move.
And you know we always talk about like presence is half the battle whether it's a witness that I have that doesn't want to testify.
It's like, just get him to my office and we'll take it from there.
Well, the same thing here.
You know, like Scott talks about, like, investigators are potentially in the best position they will ever be of getting one or both of them to tell them at least some sort of story and maybe admit to what they just might have done.
Detective David Fugate interviewed John Banks, while another detective simultaneously interviewed Jessica Patterson.
John Banks told me that he's currently unemployed and that he and his girlfriend, Jessica Krause Patterson, have been dating off and on for about a year.
However, he's known her since 2007.
They began dating in September or October of 2009.
Banks also confirmed that Jessica worked as a dancer at Hot Bodies Gentleman Club under the stage name of Sin and was working on the night.
Elmore Allen was there.
He says that Jessica made good money while working at the Hot Bodies Club on Monday, April 12th.
She made good money that night.
Well, why would you ever even give that when investigators asked you like where you were and what you did the night before when, talking about you, picked up your girlfriend?
Or could it be that now we know that that really is like this tacit admission trying to give this innocent explanation of where she got this windfall of money?
Remember, she's working at this club on a Monday night.
Management told us that Monday nights were typically a slow night for them.
I mean, the first thing I thought of in reading, that is him maybe thinking in his mind that she didn't need the money.
So why would she be involved in the robbery?
She had plenty of money.
She was making money on her own.
So she wouldn't need to be involved in some type of robbery.
At that point we were just trying to really tie him in to their timeline with regards to the last 12 or 24 hours.
Now, I was inquiring as to how she ended up at that apartment complex.
He proceeded to tell me that they had made plans previously.
John Banks was claiming that he and his brother picked Jessica up shortly after she got off work at 2 am on Tuesday morning and therefore did not have a conversation with her immediately beforehand.
So let's talk about some of the holes in this story, right?
Why was he meeting his girlfriend after she got off work when he'd been at the club?
Why did he leave and then not meet her right there, right?
It doesn't necessarily make sense, at least not my common sense.
We know that she's seen leaving with Elmore.
So what happened to him?
Something's not adding up in the story that he's given, right?
We know that Jessica's tied to the building.
No one talks about that.
But again, you know, a very different story than what this guy is trying to sell.
He indicated that he and his brother had picked her up just down the street from Hot Bodies shortly after she got off work at 2 am on Tuesday.
But on video we are able to see her get in the passenger side of the victim's truck when they departed.
So there's no indication that she ever got out and got into the vehicle with John Banks.
In an interview room just down the hall, Jessica was also being pressed about what she knew about the events of April 12th.
Essentially, she's telling us that she did not have a ride from the club and that she did not want Elmore Allen to take her back to her residence because she didn't want him to know where she resided.
So instead she claims that she instructed him to drive her to her old apartment complex and have her boyfriend meet her there.
Banks is saying that he picked up Jessica, his girlfriend, at the club.
But Jessica, in the very other room, is saying that it was Elmore that drove her to the location she gave him, which she said wasn't her home, because she didn't want him to know her true address.
So two different things, two different rooms set at the same time.
Their stories are quickly already starting to crumble.
Jessica had denied calling John that night.
That piece of information, well, it didn't take long before David could refute that piece, too.
But we were able to later learn through call detail records that in fact she was on the phone with him just prior to leaving the club with Elmore Allen Jr.
In each instance, both John and Jessica's story are instantly falling apart.
And at each turn, David had evidence to disprove those statements right on the spot.
John's statement about picking her up, video evidence said otherwise.
Jessica's statement, same thing.
That door shut with video evidence.
At that point, we did point out the fact that we had more information that we had not divulged to them about the scene itself.
And John Banks flatly denied having any involvement whatsoever.
Now let's enter another player into this mix, and that is John Banks' brother.
So police wanted to know what, if any, role he had in this robbery homicide.
And now that his brother, John Banks, was facing capital murder charges, David approached the brothers' family, who had already had one son facing the most serious of charges.
And this was the time for Banks' brother to save himself.
His brother said that they did not pick her up and that John Banks directed him to drive to the apartment complex off of Bluff Springs Road, where we eventually end up finding the body of the decedent.
Now, he says that John Banks instructed him to stay with the vehicle, and then John Banks departed.
Shortly thereafter, John Banks and Jessica Krause Patterson came back to the vehicle.
And when they left, he said at a certain point, he was instructed they pulled over to the side of the road, and that property, he does not know specifically what, but that property was disposed of.
Police are slowly able to see this entire picture starting to form, but there was a pretty big piece still missing.
They were able to determine by the physical evidence that Elmore was likely pistol whipped.
But where was that gun?
We found through the course of the investigation that John Banks had a firearm.
So police could link John to a gun, but couldn't find the gun itself.
That firearm was never recovered.
Police decided to move forward at that point with charging John Banks and Jessica Krause-Patterson with the murder of Elmore Allen Jr.
But when Jessica's case goes to trial, she isn't found guilty.
But she's not found not guilty either.
As we mentioned at the beginning, this case really boiled down to investigators finding out what happened in the final hours of Elmore Allen Jr'.
's life.
So here's the timeline of what they were able to weave together.
Based on statements from several witnesses and the evidence.
Here's what investigators believed happened.
Elmore arrived to the Gentleman's Club with at least $1,800 in cash.
And investigators know this as he cashed his check from work on Monday during the day.
And inherently, it was a slow night at the club.
When Elmore began ordering drinks and flashing cash, he instantly stood out.
There was at least one dancer who took particular notice.
And so from there, when they put the pieces together, we know that Elmore's flashing the money.
We know that he had a lot to drink.
We see him actually leaving with her.
She says in her statements that he leaves with her under the understanding that they're going to go somewhere together and things are about to get more intimate.
We believe that Elmore Allen drove Jessica Krause Patterson to that apartment complex under the ruse that they were going to have some type of sexual liaison.
Unbeknownst to him, Patterson had a longstanding plan to find the right customer, solicit him to leave the club, with the promise of intimate relations, and lure him into that location where her boyfriend, John Banks, would be lying in wait to rob the unsuspecting customer.
And it was as he's walking up the staircase towards the cart yard that he's approached by John Banks.
He's got a gun in his hand.
So I believe that John Banks held him at gunpoint to rob him.
And so as he's robbing Elmore, he pistol whips him with that gun.
Elmore falls back and hits his head on that retaining wall.
And subsequently died from the brain bleed.
Now this is what police believed, but would a jury believe it too?
On June 7th of 2011, the murder and aggravated robbery trial of John Banks and Jessica Krause-Patterson began in the 390th Judicial District Court, Travis County.
There were still more surprises to come, because at trial Krause-Patterson and Banks took on a very different defense.
Krause-Patterson actually testified and she basically said that Banks was defending her from a impending sexual assault.
We didn't know that she was going to be using that as a defense.
That's certainly not anything that she brought up in our interviews with her early on.
But obviously, some time had passed from the time of the incident until we went to trial.
So she was able to come up with a scenario which she felt would fit the evidence and give her plausible reason to get her boyfriend off on the murder charge.
You know Scott, as soon as you hear that everyone's buzzwords up, they know that's a buzzword that everyone's going to kind of stop.
And we'll wait a second.
So was this a robbery at all?
Is this kind of every person's worst fear to be assaulted in this way?
And so is this Banks really just trying to help her?
So, you know, it was at least a smart tact, even if it wasn't a truthful one.
But would the jury buy it?
It's an opportunity for them to potentially see her side of it if it's true.
But would the evidence allow that story to really resonate to the jurors?
Could they believe that based on the fact that they knew that she had talked about doing this very thing in the past in the earshot of Eric Franklin?
So I think it's a tough sell.
And that's where prosecutors get to have our fun with cross-examination.
Just think about it for a second.
She's on the stand.
It doesn't even make sense.
And you can just start to pick that story again piece by piece.
I can think of one direct examination or redirect that you would do with a medical examiner.
You'd bring the medical examiner up and ask about the injuries.
Did he have an opportunity to defend himself?
Was this actually a fight?
And I think the evidence will show that there were no defensive wounds and that Elmore Allen did not have a chance to defend himself.
And that's where you go back to her original statement, the one that she made to police before she had time to think, before she and Banks potentially had time to plot together about what they would now say at trial.
And then it goes with exactly what the evidence was.
He was surprised.
He was pistol whipped.
He fell.
He had that brain bleed and he died.
It is not this fight that they seem to concoct for the jury at trial.
So let's put it out there.
Hearing this alternate version of events can make people think differently about Jessica's culpability.
And her jury didn't disagree.
The jury deliberated for close to 11 hours over the course of two days and then reported to Judge Perkins repeatedly that they were deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
No one wants to think that someone would make up something as horrific as sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault.
And again, they didn't have videotape of the actual robbery.
So is there absolutely no reasonable doubt that this occurred?
They just couldn't agree.
So I do get it.
And while unfortunate, as prosecutors, we've seen something like this more than once before.
State Judge Bob Perkins, on the 13th day of June 2011, declared a mistrial in the case.
What happens from prosecutors when you get a mistrial?
First of all, you have to decide if you are going to take the case to trial again, and we usually do.
But you know it really gives you a gift in a way.
You get to analyze again the way you put it forth.
Did you miss something or is it just the way that you maybe didn't present it as clearly as it should have been to the jurors?
And it's interesting to me when I heard this as a young prosecutor that the numbers normally fall in the prosecutor's favor, that when we go to trial again after a mistrial, more often than not you prevail with a conviction versus an acquittal.
But you always have that opportunity now to look if there is something that can be done differently, especially now that they know what the likely defense would be.
Following the mistrial prosecution, then established contact with Jessica Krause Patterson and reached a plea agreement in exchange for her testimony against John Banks.
So you know there is some basic logic in offering her a plea deal and to cooperate versus taking this pair to trial again.
And that is because you kind of take this attempted or completed sexual assault offense out of the picture.
So I do get with them taking one of the players out of the mix.
The case against John Banks was a capital murder charge.
And even though Patterson shared in the responsibility for the death of Elmer Allen and, as you say Anastasia, in for a penny, in for a pound, Banks struck the fatal blow.
Patterson's testimony could seal his fate.
Under the plea agreement, she pled guilty to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and was subsequently sentenced to five years incarceration in Texas Department of Corrections.
Jessica Krause Patterson testified that she and John Banks conspired to rob Elmore Allen Jr.
She told jurors that this was a plot that was hatched way before she met Elmore Allen on the night of April 12th, and he was the perfect mark.
She said that the plan was to commit the aggravated robbery at the Colonial Village apartment complex and that she lured him to the apartment complex under the ruse that they were going to have sexual relations at that location in exchange for 100.
She detailed how banks confronted Elmore when they arrived at the apartment complex that night, robbed the victim and struck him so hard he fell back and hit his head on a retaining wall.
And as he lay unconscious...
The pair continued to rob him, taking his wallet, his cash, and his cellphone.
So they need to say, like, what can corroborate the various pieces?
And a big question mark is going to be the 911 caller, Eric Franklin.
Like he talks about this couple having made this plan about committing a similar robbery in the past.
But is there anything to corroborate it?
And lo and behold, there was because they found these text messages and photographs that were sent back and forth between them.
And it is clear that they talked about this robbery being deliberate.
It had nothing to do with sexual assault.
There was a text message from Jessica Cross Patterson to John Banks that in essence stated the bread is still here.
And then we later found a photograph off the cell phone cache from John.
This time, the results of the trial were different.
John Banks was convicted and sentenced to 23 years incarceration with the Texas Department of Corrections.
As of this recording, Detective David Fugate will retire in just a few weeks.
I think that Anastasia, you and I are both very fortunate to have spent time with David in his element, where we covered one of his cases in San Antonio.
He has had an amazing career 68 homicide cases as a lead investigator.
60 of those cases 60 cleared by arrest.
Four of them remain open.
That is a 95% clearance rate.
And that is amazing.
And my hat tips for him.
As we mentioned, he has worked a lot of cases, but today's case holds some special meaning for detective David Fugate.
Over the years, I've received greeting cards from the family on the anniversary of his death.
Again, thanking us for ultimately bringing justice to the family.
But you know, when I think about Elmore Allen for a moment and the crime committed against him well, here's the saddest thing about it is that they took advantage of someone based on what they saw.
But that night they stole so much more than just his wallet.
They stole his life.
Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original.
Produced and created by Weinberger Media and Fresetti Media.
Ashley Flowers and Sumit David are executive producers.
So, what do you think, Chuck?
Do you approve?
