Hey, there we go.
You're listening in to the Dateline story meeting.
We will just dive in.
Our team is catching up on breaking crime news.
I'm curious about the rest of the investigation.
You know, everybody's talking about mom blowing him a kiss in the courtroom.
The cops are like, why were you acting so strange?
You were there the whole time.
Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly.
I'm Blaine Alexander.
It's November 20th, and here's what's on our docket.
In Connecticut, Michelle Traconis wants a new trial.
The woman convicted of conspiring with her boyfriend to murder his estranged wife filed a 1000-page appeal.
We'll boil it all down.
The defense claims that those police interviews should have never been let in.
In Dateline Roundup, we've got details on Karen Reid's explosive new lawsuit.
And we'll bring you the latest in the murder of the Last Chance U football coach.
The two men were aware of each other in some capacity, but they were not closely connected.
Plus, Smallville actress Allison Mack breaks her silence on the sex cult NXIVM.
I feel like I at least have to say it out loud for myself, like once, you know?
But before all of that, we're heading to the Norfolk County Courthouse in Massachusetts, where there has been a stunning development in the case of Brian Walsh.
39-year-old mother of three, Anna Walsh, has been missing since New Year's Day, 2023.
Her husband Brian, initially told police that Anna had taken a rideshare early New Year's Day to catch a flight to Washington DC where she worked, but there was no record that she ever took a flight and no evidence that she ever used her credit cards or her phone after that morning.
When they searched Brian's home, investigators found blood in the basement and a knife.
A week after Ana's disappearance, Brian was arrested and charged with misleading an investigation.
And a few days after that, prosecutors hit him with two new charges first-degree murder and improper conveyance of a body.
Brian denied it all and in the almost three years since his arrest he has maintained his innocence.
That is, until Tuesday, when this happened.
Do you wish to offer a change of plea from not guilty to guilty?
I do.
Ryan did not plead guilty to Ana's murder, but he did plead guilty to all the rest.
Joining us now is Dateline producer Dorothy Newell, who has been following this case.
Dorothy, thanks so much for joining us.
Happy to be here.
Dorothy, did you get any sense that something was brewing, or did all of this come as a complete surprise to you?
Absolutely no idea that this was brewing.
Yeah, it was a complete surprise.
But I have to think that this was in the works for a while.
Now, quickly remind us, who was Anna Walsh?
Tell us a little bit more about her.
So Anna was an immigrant from Serbia, and she came to the United States in her early 20s.
She was talented, ambitious, charming by all accounts.
She met Brian.
They had three young kids.
She started working in real estate.
She worked in Washington DC during the week, while Brian took care of their three kids in their home in a Boston suburb.
Now, the reason he could take full-time care of the kids is because he was on house arrest awaiting sentencing for art fraud.
He pleaded guilty to selling some fake Andy Warhols.
How did investigators start piecing together this case against Brian Walsh?
It all sort of started when her employer reported her missing when she didn't show up for work.
So police went to the home to do a welfare check, and they met with Brian.
And according to prosecutors, Brian seemed cooperative at first.
He handed over his cell phone and his electronic devices for them to check out.
That's when the missing persons case became a murder investigation, because right there on one of the kids' iPads there were some strange Google searches with titles like 10 ways to dispose of a body and how to stop a body from decomposing.
Oh, gosh.
And those searches were on the kid's iPad?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Wow.
They also learned from Brian's phone that he had visited some places that he had not told them about in the days after Ana's disappearance right
Yeah.
On the day after she disappeared, his GPS data on his phone showed that Brian had made a visit to Home Depot, where he bought cleaning supplies, a mop goggles, a hatchet and baking soda.
Prosecutors also say that a man who looked like Brian was caught on camera throwing a heavy garbage bag into a dumpster.
And they didn't find that garbage bag, but they did find others at a dump in the town where Brian's mom lived.
And those bags contained some of her belongings.
And some of those items were covered in blood.
Ana's body has never been found.
Dorothy, do prosecutors have an alleged motive here?
So prosecutors have a few theories.
They say she told a friend that her marriage was in trouble and that she was thinking about moving the kids to Washington DC.
They also say that Brian's mother hired a private investigator to follow her around to see if she was having an affair.
Another theory is that prosecutors say Brian was the beneficiary of her 27 million life insurance policy and he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in his federal art fraud case.
So was money a motive?
His defense says he was already paying back the money that he owed in that case.
And as far as the alleged infidelity, they say Brian didn't know anything about that.
Dorothy, of course this week we saw this unexpected plea, but there was drama in this trial even before we got to this week.
I mean, a few weeks ago, the entire thing came to a halt.
That's right.
So Brian Walsh was stabbed in jail this past September, and he recovered.
But following that attack his attorneys were concerned that he may not be mentally or emotionally capable of participating in his own defense.
So they stopped everything and he spent about 40 days undergoing psych evaluation and was only just last week declared competent to stand trial.
And so that led us to this week.
Tell me what happened there.
It felt like it was all steam ahead.
There was a hearing on Monday.
The attorneys were sparring over opening statements. and about what the jury could hear.
Reporters noticed that Brian's mom was in the courtroom.
She even blew a kiss to her son.
The very next day, though, that Tuesday, everything changed.
Right.
Jury selection was supposed to start.
Brian came in, then the judge.
And then, similar to the Kohlberger plea hearing for those who watched that, the judge made extra sure that Brian was sound of mind and understood what was about to happen.
And then it became clear that he was pleading guilty something.
Mr Walsh, did you in fact willfully mislead various law enforcement with the intent to impede or interfere with a criminal investigation of Anna Walsh's disappearance?
Yes, Your Honor.
And you were pleading guilty to willfully conveying away a human body, in violation of Massachusetts general laws.
Do you understand that?
Yes, Your Honor.
So it's the two lesser charges misleading the investigators and improper conveyance to the moving of a body.
So just to be super clear here, he is not pleading guilty to murder.
What happens with that charge?
Will that trial still get underway?
Yeah, he's still heading to trial at this moment on the murder charge.
In fact, not long after he entered the plea, jury selection got underway.
Is that jury going to be hearing about these pleas that Brian just entered?
And how will all of this work, Dorothy?
Yes, they will hear about the pleas that Brian entered.
And some experts are saying that by taking responsibility for some of his actions, Walsh could be trying to establish some goodwill with the jurors and hope they find him guilty of a lesser charge like second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Then he might have a chance of parole way down the road.
You know, listening to that, some could say that that sounds risky, right?
Brian is basically admitting that he, in fact, got rid of his wife's body.
How will he try and convince a jury then that it wasn't murder?
That's the question on everybody's mind.
You know.
The fact is, if his defense is going to be that it was an accident or self-defense or suicide, Brian would have to tell that story on the stand, because he's the only one who was there.
And if he testifies, he faces cross-examination, and that could certainly be brutal.
So jury selection, of course, is still proceeding.
Have they made any progress?
The crazy thing is they made a lot of progress on the day that everything blew up.
On the day that Brian pled, they actually sat nine jurors.
Wow.
Well, Dorothy, there is a lot to follow there.
Thanks so much for joining us to break it down today.
Thank you.
Coming up, a lengthy appeal from the woman at the center of the Jennifer Dulos case.
But is it enough to overturn her conviction?
Seven years ago, Connecticut mom of five, Jennifer Farber Dulos, was in the middle of a bitter divorce and custody battle when she disappeared.
The search for this missing mother.
It's a story that has captured national attention.
Jennifer Dulos was last seen taking her kids to school.
She's never been found.
Investigators quickly suspected that her estranged husband, Fotis, might have killed her.
They tracked down security camera video showing him dumping garbage bags in the hours after Jennifer's disappearance.
Inside those bags, they found zip ties, a razor blade, and bloody clothes.
DNA on the items matched back to Jennifer.
Fotis was eventually charged with his wife's murder, but before he ever went to trial he died by suicide.
That might have been the end of the investigation except, according to prosecutors, Fotis wasn't the only person involved in Jennifer's death.
Almost overnight she went from a possible witness to a person of interest in the case of a missing mom of five.
Prosecutors accused Fotis' live-in girlfriend, Michelle Traconis, of conspiring with him to commit the murder.
Last year she was convicted after a seven-week trial and sentenced to serve more than 14 years in prison.
But outside the courtroom, her family insisted that she was innocent and vowed to fight on.
My sister will eventually come out.
She has to because she's innocent of everything that she's been charged for.
Their day to prove that finally came last week when her defense team filed a thousand-page document asking a judge to overturn her conviction or give her a new trial.
We're joined today by NBC Connecticut's Kevin Geist, who covered every day of Michelle's trial and is here now to bring us up to speed on this case.
Kevin, thanks so much for being here.
Absolutely.
Thank you guys for having me.
Of course.
So, Kevin, before we dig into the appeal itself, we'll certainly get to that.
But let's just remind all of our listeners of the main points that prosecutors made against Michelle during this trial.
So how does she fit into this case?
Absolutely.
So they were able to weave together a narrative around Fotis being the individual who physically did the act of murder.
Michelle was... essentially an agent to help in the cover-up.
So prosecutors allege that she was in charge of things like manipulating Fotis Doulos' phone.
She was involved with him in the disposal of evidence.
She helped come up with what were referred to as these alibi scripts, a rundown that they came up with and they wrote down in the event that they would be questioned about where they were.
Now, the problem with those so-called alibi scripts was that They would catch Fotis on, you know closed circuit television or security cam footage that told a completely different story than what was written down in those scripts.
Well, speaking of security cam footage, I mean, that's another piece of evidence right there, right?
We mentioned that up top, that Fotis was caught dumping bags.
The prosecutor said that you can see Michelle on it too.
You can.
And at one point you watch her lean out of the truck.
She says she was just in the truck with Fotis on that afternoon.
She didn't know what was going on, but-
You watch her at one point lean out of the truck.
The defense says she was trying to scrape gum off of her hand onto the sidewalk.
But when police investigators went back, they actually found some falsified Connecticut license plates that were dumped into a storm drain right in that area.
And the state again sort of rolls that, as you know, we have you on security camera disposing of physical evidence.
Whether you knew what you were doing or not, that's still disposal of evidence.
Right about some of the interviews, because I understand that when she was interviewed by investigators, her story changed.
Her story changed again.
So she went back to meet with police investigators three times.
And every single time either had some sort of new detail or a detail would change regarding where she was, or what time, or how this worked.
And the defense claims that she was just trying to be helpful.
And the more she thought about it, the more details that came to light.
But of course, from a prosecution standpoint, you're looking at these as inconsistencies.
Walk us through what Michelle's defense was at trial.
Yeah.
So throughout the entire trial the defense attorney, John Schoenhorn, sort of said you don't have any concrete evidence tying her to the case.
You don't have any sort of smoking gun, so to speak.
And they also leaned pretty hard on the idea that Fotis Doulos was a manipulator.
Fotis Doulos was someone that you know may have done it, but she was just sort of caught up in this love triangle.
So that was her trial.
But last week, Michelle filed her appeal with the Connecticut Supreme Court.
I mean, we talked about it earlier, a thousand pages.
Yeah, it's a long document.
Boil it down for us, though, Kevin.
What's the argument here?
The main arguments that she makes is that there was insufficient evidence as well, as you know, rulings on the police interviews.
So.
The defense claims that those police interviews should have never been let in.
Yeah.
At one point Michelle and her team say those interviews were coerced, that she was only there because investigators threatened to charge her with murder if she didn't talk right?
Let's listen to a clip of that interview.
This is your chance.
The defense is basically saying that playing those interviews warrants an overturned conviction.
Right?
Exactly.
Because there was a lack of ability, according to her defense attorney, during the trial, to really sort of defend how those interviews were used in court and It was a last second decision that they would be let in.
I mean, prosecutors really kind of dove right into those interviews and said hey, let's take a look at these and highlight every single inconsistency.
So really sort of a tough thing for the defense to to capitalize on from the get go.
Who is going to rule on this appeal and when can we expect that ruling?
Right.
So it's in the hands of the appellate court.
Every defense attorney I have been able to contact about this says this is going to be a long appeal.
We're looking at potentially a year appeal.
Well, Kevin, we'll continue to talk to you as we follow this.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you.
Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup.
We've got the latest on Karen Reid and the shooting of Last Chance U coach John Bean.
Plus, the story of Allison Mack, actress and former member of the sex cult NXIVM, in her own words.
Welcome back.
Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline producer Marissa Meyer.
Hi, Marissa.
Hi, Blaine.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
It's so good to see you.
Thanks for joining us today.
We've got a lot to talk about.
Our first story is a big update in the Karen Reid saga.
She's filed a major lawsuit in Massachusetts claiming she was framed for the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe.
So, Marissa, just walk us through all of this.
What is she alleging here?
Yes.
So, In this civil lawsuit, she lays out a long list of accusations.
You know, of course, you remember, a lot of people remember, Reed was acquitted earlier this year.
Prosecutors had tried and failed to convince the jury to convict her of murdering O'Keefe by backing her SUV into him.
And now she is suing the investigators that were on the case, along with several people who were inside the Canton home where she says she last saw O'Keefe alive.
So, of course, the big question here has been what actually happened that night.
What is she saying happened that night?
Yeah, so it's very similar to what she alleged at her criminal trial, too.
The lawsuit claims O'Keefe got into an altercation at the Canton home.
He suffered a head wound and was attacked by the homeowner's German shepherd.
Reed points to the state medical examiner's autopsy which did note scratches and what the suit calls bruises, dog bite wounds.
So, according to the filing, people inside the home moved his body outside to make it look like he had been hit by her SUV and left in the snow.
So, since she has filed this separate lawsuit, have we heard from the people who were in the house that night?
How are they responding?
They have repeatedly denied any involvement in O'Keefe's death.
In fact, they say O'Keefe never entered the home that night.
And their attorneys said the allegations are entirely false, defamatory, and without merit.
So, Marissa.
The lawsuit also points the finger at somebody whose name will be very familiar to those who have been following this saga former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, along with two of his supervisors, Sergeant Uri Buchinnick and Lieutenant Brian Tully.
So what's new there?
So the suit accuses all three men of failing to conduct a meaningful investigation into other suspects.
And the lawsuit bashes Proctor's investigation.
When it comes to Proctor's supervisors, the suit accuses them of failing to intervene when they became aware of Proctor's misconduct.
Have we heard any response from them yet?
So all three men have denied any conspiracy in the past. or undermining the investigation.
NBC has yet to receive any comment from Proctor and Sergeant Buchanek about the lawsuit in particular.
But an attorney for Lieutenant Brian Tolley said he was looking forward to a civil trial and quote was never part of any so-called conspiracy and cover-up.
Well, Marissa, of course, that is one that we are going to continue to follow very, very closely.
Let's go to our next story.
We're going to go out to Oakland California, where there are major developments in the tragic killing of longtime Laney College coach John Beam.
He's somebody who became a familiar face.
A lot of people got to know him through the Netflix series Last Chance U Well.
Beam was shot on campus last Thursday and died the next day.
His suspected killer was arrested within hours.
So, Marissa, what do we know about the suspect who's now in custody?
So, What authorities have said so far is that the suspect is 27-year-old Cedric Irving Jr.
According to court documents, Irving confessed to the shooting.
Investigators say he told police he used a handgun that was found in his bag to shoot Beam inside the Laney College field house.
And that is where Beam worked every day as the athletic director.
I know that he appeared in court.
What happened there?
He did appear in court.
Irving made his first appearance, but he did not enter a plea.
He stood next to his public defender while wearing a padded safety vest, which is something the jail system uses when there are concerns about a person harming themselves.
He said very little, and then the judge scheduled his next hearing for December 16th.
Well, Marissa, do police have any sense of why he may have done this?
Yeah, that seems to be the big question in this.
Police have only said that Irving came to campus with intention, that the two men were aware of each other in some capacity, but they were not closely connected.
So beyond that, officials have not released any additional details about why this might have happened.
And Marissa, there was a very big turnout in the courtroom as well, right?
Yes.
The front rows were filled with Beam's family friends, and one very recognizable face was there as well.
NFL running back and Oakland native, Marshawn Lynch, attended the hearing to support Beam's loved ones.
Just a terrible story, Marissa.
Okay, we'll definitely stay on top of that one.
And then for our last story, this is a really interesting one.
We're turning to a group of criminology students who helped police crack a decades-old cold case in Texas.
It was a class of criminology students at the University of Arlington, and investigators are saying that these students uncovered evidence that has led to an arrest in the 1991 murder of 25-year-old Cynthia Gonzalez.
The Arlington Police Department had partnered with the class for the semester and gave the students access to hundreds of pages from the old case files and, And after they reviewed up to 500 documents, the students noticed a connection between Gonzalez and a woman named Janie Perkins.
Detectives had found this link decades ago, but had never moved forward with charges.
Earlier this month, Perkins was arrested on a capital murder charge.
She's now 63.
But police say that back in the 90s, she had no alibi for the night Gonzalez disappeared.
She failed two voluntary polygraph tests and she allegedly told several people that she was glad that Gonzalez was dead.
Wow.
So what happened next, Marissa?
So...
Perkins was released on bail after posting a $150,000 bond.
She is awaiting her next court appearance as the investigation continues.
And that same class is now reviewing two more cold cases.
So there could be other news from them in the near future.
Very interesting story, Marissa.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much, Blaine.
I was excited by the power that I felt having these young, beautiful women look to me and listen to me.
That's the voice of actress Allison Mack, who first became famous for her work on the hit TV show Smallville.
But in 2018, she made headlines for playing a far more sinister role.
Actress Allison Mack is out on bail after facing a judge in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors say she recruited women into a sex trafficking sorority.
Federal prosecutors accused Mack of being a top lieutenant to Keith Raniere, the founder of NXIVM, the self-help group that many have called a sex cult.
Ranieri was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges and sentenced to 120 years in prison.
Allison Mack admitted to recruiting some of his victims and pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.
She was sentenced to spend three years in prison.
Well, now she's free and she's rebuilding her life.
And in Uncover Allison After NXIVM, a new podcast series from the CBC.
Mack is breaking her silence on all of this for the very first time.
People can believe me or people can think I'm full of shit or whatever.
People can not listen, like whatever.
But I feel like I at least have to say it out loud for myself, like once, you know?
Dateline senior national producer Tim Ulinger has followed this NXIVM case for years and is joining us now to share more from Mac's interview and to give us his thoughts on what she has to say.
Tim, I am so glad to be joined by you today.
Thank you so much for breaking all this down.
Oh, it's great to see you, Blaine.
Well, before we get into her version of events Tim, I wonder if you could just give us a sketch of what NXIVM was.
It started as apparently a self-help group.
They began offering classes on self-improvement and said they could provide tools to help your career and your relationships.
And they apparently had about 17,000 clients worldwide.
Their leader was a man named Keith Ranieri.
And by the group, he was treated much more like a spiritual leader or a guru than a teacher.
Does Mack explain ever what was so appealing to her about the group?
Yeah.
In this podcast done by the CBC, she, you know, At the time, she was in her mid-20s.
She was working in Vancouver as an actress.
She was feeling a bit lost, and the teaching to her clicked.
And after a few years, she moved to Albany to take classes directly from Keith Raniere.
Max said that she had been part of NXIVM for about a decade 10 years when she learned about a secret sort of subgroup in NXIVM called DOS.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, DOS, D-O-S, is short for a Latin phrase.
Dominus obsequius serrarium, and it roughly translates as a master above female slaves.
And it basically meant that small groups of women who called themselves slaves were led by a female master, and the master required absolute obedience from their slaves.
But Ranieri was calling the shots, and he was the grandmaster.
Mack says that Ranieri was dictating almost every aspect of their lives.
Yes.
Mack says she was only allowed to eat about 500 calories a day, meaning that she was, you know, practically starving all the time.
She also had to get Ranieri's permission to travel and do anything.
So at one point, Tim, Mack talks about sending her slaves off to, quote unquote, seduce Ranieri.
And she says at the time, she didn't think that Ranieri would actually sleep with them.
That seems a little difficult to believe.
Very hard to believe.
Yeah.
Well, she admits it was naive, and she thinks it was willful ignorance, perhaps.
Really, from the hours of conversations that Allison Mack had with the reporter Natalie Robomit, I mean you can really hear her thinking this through and still trying to come to terms with things.
But yeah, you know, she admits it was naive and says she thinks that if she'd recognized Ranieri was manipulating them all, she would have had to admit that she'd hurt people too.
Has there been any reaction so far to her words from any of the women who were quote-unquote her slaves in all of this?
The one reaction I heard was from India Oxenberg, the daughter of the famous actress Catherine Oxenberg, who led a years-long campaign to get her out of NXIVM.
And India, in a quote to Vanity Fair magazine, said that she— appreciates the fact that Allison is now talking and that she has a right to tell her story.
What's really interesting about this series is how Mack describes breaking away from NXIVM.
It's not something that she says happened overnight, right?
Right.
She says even after she was arrested she still didn't know what to think, and that it's been an evolution for her and it's going to take time.
Can you tell us what is she doing with her life now?
Well, after prison where she served about 21 months, she was released early on good behavior.
She's now about 43 years old, and she's studying for a degree in social work and recently married.
This is just an unbelievable case, Tim.
Thank you for being with us today.
We appreciate it.
Well, thank you so much.
That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly.
Next week we'll be off for Thanksgiving, so we hope you have a great holiday and we will see you back here the week after.
And of course, to get ad-free listening for all of our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium.
Coming up this Friday, Keats got an all-new episode.
The brutal double murder of a young couple inside a Wisconsin farmhouse launches a decades-long quest for their killer.
He's not a man.
He is a monster.
Watch Raising the Dead this Friday at 9, 8 central on NBC.
Thanks for listening.
Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Kiani Reed.
Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurloff.
Production and fact-checking help by Audrey Abrahams.
Veronica Mazeka is our digital producer.
Rick Kwan is our sound designer.
Original music by Jesse McGinty.
Paul Ryan is executive producer.
And Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
