I think we've got a quorum here.
You're listening in to the Dateline story meeting.
So we will go ahead and get started.
Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news.
What clearly made the difference was they found the body.
She wants the GPS off because she wants to be able to become an influencer.
She's on a plane.
He'll have an update this week.
Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly.
I'm Andrea Canning.
It's December 4th, and here's what's on our docket.
In Mississippi, a stunning courtroom twist in the case of a college student accused of murdering his secret lover.
He went to the witness stand so he could look directly into Tim Harrington's eyes.
In Dateline Roundup, a new documentary about Sean Diddy Combs is making headlines.
And scenes from the courthouse at an important pre-trial hearing for Luigi Mangione.
One woman told me that she had started waiting in line Saturday night to get in for a Monday morning hearing.
Plus, we've got a special guest for you.
You may know Emily Simpson from the TV show The Real Housewives of Orange County, but she's also a lawyer on a mission.
That's when I reached out and just asked if I could be a part of it, if I could volunteer.
How could I help?
What could I do?
But before all that, we're heading back to a Massachusetts courthouse where the trial of Brian Walsh, the art swindler accused of murdering his wife, is finally underway.
A few weeks ago we told you about Brian Walsh, the Boston area man who dropped two bombshell guilty pleas just as jury selection was set to start in his trial for the murder and dismemberment of his wife Anna.
Her body has never been found.
You wish to offer a change of plea from not guilty to guilty.
I do.
Walsh pleaded guilty to disposing of his wife's body and lying to police about it.
What he did not plead guilty to was Anna's murder.
He denied having anything to do with her death.
This week, as Walsh's murder trial finally began, we heard for the first time what his explanation is for how Anna ended up dead in their home in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2023.
Here is his defense attorney, Larry Tipton.
One hour he's with her, he cleans the kitchen, he comes back up, and she is dead.
Returning to the show to bring us up to speed is Dateline producer Dorothy Newell.
Thanks for being here, Dorothy.
Happy to be here.
So, Dorothy, briefly set the scene for us for anyone who isn't up to speed on this case.
Okay.
So Anna Walsh worked for a big real estate firm in DC during the week, while her husband Brian, took care of their three kids in Massachusetts.
Okay.
He was home with the kids because he kind of had to be.
Walsh was under house arrest after pleading guilty to selling some fake Andy Warhol paintings.
Anna had come home for the holidays, but she didn't show up for work after the new year, so her employer called the police.
And just a few days after Anna was reported missing, Brian Walsh was arrested for misleading police.
Later that month, he was charged with her murder.
All right, so Dorothy, let's start with the prosecution's opening statement.
Assistant DA Greg Connor hit hard on some of the details we've known about for a while.
The fact that Walsh was seen on security camera shopping for a hatchet and cleaning supplies around the time Ana disappeared.
The prosecutor also talked about suspicious Google searches found on Walsh's children's devices.
Let's take a listen.
January 1st at 4.54 a.m., The MacBook searched best way to dispose of a body at 11.28 a.m.
Best way to dispose of body parts after a murder.
The prosecution also told the jury that a man fitting Walsh's description was seen throwing garbage bags into dumpsters.
Like we said, Ana's body has never been found, but her DNA was found on items in those bags, including a hatchet.
So pretty grim stuff.
Dorothy, what else have we learned?
What have we learned about any potential witnesses?
What I think will be really interesting is one particular witness, a man who was said to be romantically involved with Ana in DC.
Are prosecutors saying this affair was Walsh's motive for murder?
Basically, yes.
In their openings, prosecutors said that Walsh told investigators he didn't know about an extramarital affair, but his Google searches proved otherwise.
He looked up the man Ana was involved with and Googled...
Things like best strategies to divorce for a man.
And then it was the defense's turn.
This opening statement is one that we've all been waiting for to hear how they plan to defend Brian Walsh.
What happened, Dorothy?
Andrea, I've never heard anything like this.
The first thing the defense attorney said was that Brian lied to police again and again.
And they also said that, yes, he did go shopping at Lowe's and Home Depot.
And I guess the jurors could assume he did that for the same reason the prosecutor said he did to buy cleaning supplies and tools to get rid of Ana's body.
It seemed like the defense and prosecution were in agreement about a lot of things.
Except for the most important point.
The defense said Brian absolutely did not kill Anna.
The defense told the story of how they hosted a New Year's Eve dinner with an old friend.
After Anna went to bed, Walsh cleaned up the kitchen and headed upstairs.
And this is what the defense says happened next.
But he nudged Anna, his wife.
She didn't respond.
He nudged her again, a little harder.
She didn't respond.
You'll hear evidence that now he is panicking and he doesn't understand what has happened and what is happening.
It didn't make sense that somebody that he had just been with and enjoyed New Year's Eve into New Year's Day would suddenly be dead.
You will hear evidence in this case.
A sudden, unexplained death.
So he's saying Ana died of natural causes?
Sudden, unexplained death?
That's right.
The defense attorney said it's something that is not well understood by non-medical professionals and that when it happened to Ana, Brian just flipped out.
This is how the defense is explaining the cover-up that instead of calling 911, Brian Walsh thought it would be better to dispose of his wife's body in a dumpster.
I mean Dorothy.
I think a lot of people listening to this will feel like it doesn't really make sense.
I think that's what a lot of people are saying, Andrea.
But the defense said he was desperate.
He feared that somebody would think he'd committed murder, and that's why he tried to hide the body for fear of losing his children.
Did the defense say anything about the alleged affair?
Yes.
The defense said Brian and Anna were happy that Brian didn't even know about the relationship and that they were planning for their future together and that their biggest struggle was the federal case against Brian for selling fake Andy Warhol paintings.
As to why he Googled about the best way to get a divorce.
The defense said that came down to the art fraud case too, that Walsh knew he was heading to prison and was worried about the well-being of Anna and the kids, so he was considering a divorce to free them up.
The evidence in this case is that Brian Walsh loved Anna Walsh.
We are already hearing from witnesses in this trial.
The prosecution called an investigator who interviewed Brian Walsh and the jury got to hear some of that interview.
You have Brian Walsh.
So I thought this was fascinating.
The jurors were listening to the audio recordings of Brian's early interviews with investigators.
And he seems, you know, chatty, comfortable.
The kids are playing in the background.
He sounds so incredibly normal, Andrea, almost unconcerned.
Please, if you have any other questions, please ask me.
Don't hold back.
And yet the jury knows, as they are listening to Brian talk about his happy life with his beautiful wife, that she was already dead and that he knew it.
Presumably the prosecution wants the jury to believe that you can't trust anything he says.
But maybe Walsh's attorneys are hoping that if Brian admits to some lying maybe the jury will give him the benefit of the doubt when he says he is telling the truth about Anna's death.
I'm curious to see how it all plays out.
And you got a possible little hint that Brian Walsh himself might testify?
Yeah, the defense attorney said at least one time, as Brian Walsh will tell you.
So does that mean he's going to testify?
I couldn't say for certain, but it definitely caught my attention.
Dorothy, we will be sure to check in as the trial continues.
Thank you so much for filling us in.
Thanks, Andrea.
Coming up.
The Mississippi college student accused of murdering his secret lover makes a game-changing decision on the eve of trial.
This time last year we brought you inside a Lafayette County Mississippi courtroom for the murder trial of Sheldon Timothy Harrington Jr, the grandson of a renowned pastor.
Harrington had been accused of murdering a 20 year old University of Mississippi student by the name of Jimmy J Lee.
Prosecutors argued Harrington, who pleaded not guilty, killed Lee back in 2022 to cover up their secret relationship.
But the defense said there was no evidence a murder had even taken place.
Jay Lee's body had never been found.
After nine and a half hours of deliberation, the jury was deadlocked.
So the judge stepped in.
I'm going to declare a mistrial.
I appreciate your effort.
This week, prosecutors were back in court armed with new witnesses and new evidence, ready to make their case against Harrington for a second time.
But on Monday, a stunning twist stopped jury selection in its tracks.
Dateline producer Isar Harpaz was there and is joining the podcast to bring us the latest.
Hey, Isar.
Hi there, Andrea.
So Isar, this case has been filled with so many twists and turns over the course of the last three years.
Before we get into what happened this week, give us some background.
Tell us a bit about who Jay Lee was.
Yeah.
So Jay Lee had graduated University of Mississippi with honors in three years was about to go into graduate school for social work.
He was very active on social media.
And he was sort of, you know, out and proud.
He was a LGBTQ plus activist.
He liked to perform in drag shows.
He was who he was.
All right.
And this relationship with Timothy Harrington.
Tell us about that.
There was this sexual relationship going on.
They weren't dating.
They weren't out together because Tim was not out.
He was somebody who didn't talk or reveal his interest in men, his sexuality.
Isar investigators say, based on phone records, Timothy Harrington was the last person to see Jay Lee alive.
And they arrested Harrington just a few weeks after Lee disappeared, charged him with murder.
What evidence did prosecutors say they had against him?
They had very powerful circumstantial evidence.
They had this Google search that Tim had typed into his computer literally minutes after Jay left his apartment on his way to him.
And it was, how long does it take to strangle someone?
And I remember you telling me last time you were on the podcast that police found some surveillance footage that shows Tim Harrington driving a moving van to his parents' house.
He loads up a wheelbarrow and shovel and then leaves.
What happens next on the footage, Isar?
For 54 minutes, he was gone.
And when he came back, he unloaded the wheelbarrow and the shovel.
But they couldn't find any sign that Jay Lee had been in touch with any of those items.
They didn't have any sign of struggle.
They didn't have any sign of violence.
They couldn't find Jay Lee's body.
Yeah, and you don't see him transporting a body either on any of this surveillance footage.
You were there in Mississippi last December when Harrington went on trial for the first time.
That didn't go as planned for the prosecution.
This jury really struggled with this case.
It seems that it was one juror who struggled with the case, in particular, that there was no body.
At one point, they said they couldn't come to an agreement, and the judge brought them out.
And he asked them, without telling me which side you're going for, tell me what the breakdown is of the jury on the issue.
And they said 11 to 1.
Later on, it turned out that it was 11 for capital murder and 1 for not guilty.
And the judge was essentially forced to declare a hung jury.
Prosecutors made it clear soon after that they planned to retry Harrington.
Isar, there was a big discovery in February which really upended the case.
Tell us about that.
Yes.
A couple of hunters.
Deer hunters were hunting in an isolated stretch of forest about an hour and a half from Oxford.
And they came upon human remains.
And the human remains turned out to be Jaylee.
So that was huge.
And some say it was the hand of God guiding them.
And there was something that really very strongly connected the human remains to Tim.
There was a duct tape. that was around the moving blankets that hid the body.
And that duct tape matched directly the duct tape that they found in Tim Harrington's apartment.
Issa, you went to court on Monday as jury selection was set to begin.
Jury selection did get underway, but very soon after, there is a major twist in the courtroom.
Absolutely.
Tim Harrington pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and to tampering with a body.
Yeah, much lesser charges than capital murder, which he was going to face at trial.
Isar, what was the reaction when this happened?
I understand that the family was very relieved, and they didn't want to go through the second trial.
And Jay Lee's father spoke at sentencing?
Yes.
So obviously nobody had prepared any victim impact statements.
This happened on very short notice.
But Jay Lee's father went to the witness stand so he could look directly into Tim Harrington's eyes.
And he talked a lot about forgiveness.
He's a pastor as well.
And he talked a lot about the faith that helped him survive these years.
But he also spoke about forgiveness.
Jay Lee and how his face and how his voice and how his son could only exist in his memories, how he would never be able to see him again or look him in the eyes again.
Tim Harrington received 40 years.
He got the maximum.
And the judge also made a powerful statement about the case and about the state of Mississippi after handing out the sentence.
Yes, that is correct.
I remember this was a murder of a member of the LGBTQ plus community.
The community felt that a lot of times law enforcement was not interested in solving or bringing to justice those who committed these crimes.
And the judge gave voice to that.
When I heard that we'd been getting national publicity over Mr Lee's death and the fact that he lived a lifestyle that was different from most people in Mississippi, I assumed that a lot of people in this country thought that there will not be justice in this case.
I want the world to know that Mississippi got it right this time.
This case was investigated more thoroughly than any case I've ever dealt with in my 35 years in the criminal justice system.
And Jay Lee's family was nodding.
They thanked the Oxford Police Department with all their hearts for the work that they had done.
Isar, thank you so much.
This is such a sad story.
Thank you for bringing it to us.
Thank you so much, Andrea, for having me on.
Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup.
We've got the latest on Luigi Mangione and Sean Diddy Combs.
Plus, the real housewife who's also a lawyer.
Emily Simpson will be here to talk about her work with the wrongfully convicted.
Welcome back.
Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline producer Mario Garcia.
Hey, Mario.
Hey, Andrea.
How are you?
Mario, you were there for some of the hearing.
Describe the scene to us.
He's, you know, becoming something of a cult figure almost with these people who are supporting him.
Yeah, Andrea, I mean, it was kind of a wild scene.
There was a large crowd waiting outside to get in.
One woman told me that she had started waiting in line Saturday night to get in for a Monday morning hearing.
And this hearing was pretty high stakes, Mario.
The defense was trying to persuade the judge that statements Mangione made at the time of his arrest and evidence officers took from the scene should not be admissible, because Mangione didn't know what was going on.
What kind of evidence are we talking about?
Yeah, I mean there is body cam footage from the police officers and his attorneys are trying to get a bunch of these videos tossed out and they don't want his what they're calling the notebooks to be entered as evidence.
The notebooks, Mario, are from his words?
They're his words.
They've been colloquially referred to as his manifesto.
They're kind of set at the center of all this.
Those two notebooks were in his backpack when he was detained in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
You actually heard from some of the officers who took part in the arrest?
That's correct.
There was a police officer, Joseph Detweiler, who's one of the first to respond to the scene.
He first approached Mangione, and he testified that, in his opinion, Mangione looked nervous.
He initially claimed he was homeless, first showed officers a fake New Jersey ID.
Officer Detweiler said he was trying to keep things calm.
Even at one point whistling Jingle Bells Rock as Mangione just kept eating his Egg McMuffin or whatever he had ordered.
His defense team says that officers started asking Mangione questions before reading his Miranda rights.
That's why they say his statements to the police should be thrown out.
What is the prosecution saying?
Prosecutors kept emphasizing that the body cam video shows Mangione being read his Miranda rights clearly and can be heard saying that he understood what that meant.
OK, so the hearing continues.
We'll wait to see what the judge decides about allowing what evidence can go to trial and when the trial will be.
For our next story.
We're talking about Sean Diddy Combs, the rap mogul convicted of transportation to engage in sexual prostitution earlier this year.
He's serving his sentence in a prison in New Jersey.
So, Mario, a new Netflix doc about Combs produced by Curtis 50 Cent Jackson is making headlines.
What do we know about this series?
Indeed it is, Andrea.
It's a four-part series.
The title Sean Combs.
The Reckoning a little dramatic, dropped on Tuesday and it traces Combs' rise in hip-hop alongside a wave of new allegations.
The documentary digs into everything from unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and claims from former Danity Kane singer, Aubrey O'Day, who shared explicit messages she says he sent to her while he was her boss.
Representatives for Combs told NBC News that they won't comment on individual claims and argue that many people featuring the documentary have longstanding grievances.
And there's a secret video that a lot of people have talked about.
Tell us about that.
That's right.
Indeed, the documentary includes a never-before-seen clip of Combs, filmed just days before his arrest, where he's talking about his legal troubles.
And Mr Jackson.
50 Cent sat down with NBC News entertainment correspondent Chloe Malas to discuss the series, but stayed pretty tight-lipped about where he got his information.
How did you get that footage of Diddy?
I figured most journalists would not disclose their sources.
Combs' team, are they pushing back?
They are vigorously pushing back.
His publicist calls the footage private and unauthorized and says Netflix had no right to use it.
Combs' attorneys even sent a cease and desist letter.
Netflix, though, and the director insist they obtained everything legally.
What is 50 Cent saying about why he decided to do this?
Mr Jackson.
50 Cent says he felt someone within the hip hop community needed to speak out and that silence could be looked at as complicity.
All right.
And Combs, of course, is in prison.
On November 4th, the judge granted his request to fast track his appeal and his opening brief is due in December.
Thanks so much for the roundup this week, Miriam.
For our final segment this week.
We are joined by someone you might recognize from a favorite reality series.
Kelly, that's my husband.
That's my husband.
You don't talk to my husband.
Emily Simpson is a cast member on Bravo's Real Housewives of Orange County.
But something you may or may not know about her she's also a lawyer and hosts a podcast called Legally Brunette with her husband Shane.
They dissect the top crime stories of the day and they also use their platform to advocate for the wrongfully convicted.
When you were in prison and you absolutely had nothing to do with this.
How do you get through a day like this?
I think I just breathe.
It was gut-wrenching every day.
This week we wanted to have Emily on the show to talk about her journey from reality TV to true crime.
Emily, thank you for joining us.
Hi, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Big Dateline fan.
We love that.
I don't know if I told you this, but we here at Dateline have a Real Housewives of Dateline text chain.
All the ladies here at Dateline who are into Real Housewives.
We talk about all things Real Housewives.
So we're big fans.
Talk about how this even started, you becoming a lawyer.
Yeah, you know, I actually, I graduated from college, oh my gosh, back in 1998.
That's how old I am.
But then, you know, I immediately started working.
I taught high school, Spanish, actually.
And I did that for about four years.
And then I was like, this is not what I want to do the rest of my life.
I always wanted to go to law school.
So I just, I did.
I just, I applied to lots of different law schools.
And you were inspired by a movie?
Yeah.
Oh, yes.
Well, I mean, okay.
So Legally Blonde came out right in 01, I think.
I started law school in 02.
So I watched it.
I was like, if Elle Woods can do it, I can do it.
I was very inspired by the movie.
I still love the movie.
Okay.
I'm right there with you.
And I actually named my fifth daughter Elle after Elle Woods.
She doesn't believe me.
She thinks that's ridiculous.
And I tell her, nope, actually, you're named after Elle Woods.
I'm not joking.
Okay.
All right.
So what kind of law did you practice?
You know, I did family law for a while.
And then once Shane and I were married and we had kids, I did copyright.
And then in 2018, that's when I joined season 13 of Real Housewives.
And I actually did practice the first two years I was on the show.
I practiced part time and filmed the show.
And it became very, very difficult for me to to continue to do that.
So then I just kind of segued out of practicing into reality TV.
And then during COVID, I didn't know what was going on with my life or TV or anything at that point.
So that's when I reached out to the Innocence Project and just asked if I could be a part of it, if I could volunteer.
How could I help?
What could I do which helps with that need to have that legal tie, even though I don't practice anymore?
And also the podcast kind of gives me that nerdy element that I'm missing.
Tell us about your cases that you choose.
You told me you get a lot of feedback from fans, right?
With information as well.
I do.
I'll tell you, Karen Reed was not initially on my radar.
I don't know why, but I didn't really, I hadn't really heard of it.
But I had gotten so many DMs from fans on my Instagram saying, you have to talk about Karen Reid.
Have you heard of Karen Reid?
And so that's when I started to dive into it.
Obviously, because I'm kind of in that pulp cultural type of world, we do try to stick to whatever is current.
We try to stick to what people are currently buzzing about.
I love how on the show and again I'll remind people I have not missed one episode of Of the Real Housewives of Orange County.
I love how you always integrate the Innocence Center and your work into the show, because you're the only – of all the franchises, you're the only one talking about such a very heavy subject right of people who are wrongfully accused.
To be in prison for that long and then to come out –
And to reintegrate with society, but with your family, and to find a job, but to explain that you've spent the last you know, 20 years in prison and then to explain but you were wrongfully convicted.
It's just, I can't fathom.
That's why I still do a lot of fundraising, but I also really focus on the afterlife effects once they come out, because I've gotten to know a lot of exonerated persons and I know how important it is that it's not just the release but how to help them assimilate back into society.
Absolutely.
Emily, thank you so much for all your good work.
Thanks, Andrea.
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly.
Make sure to check out Keith's brand new podcast series, Something About Carrie.
After single mother, Carrie Farver disappeared, her boyfriend and his ex started getting threatening texts and emails.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
So this is the woman from hell now.
All of a sudden.
Yeah.
Or in the course of a couple of hours.
The first two episodes are available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Or you can subscribe to Dateline Premium and get early access to new episodes and listen ad-free.
And coming up this Friday on Dateline, Lester's got an all-new episode.
After a man called police to report his father missing.
A tumultuous interrogation turned the case upside down.
We just told you we found your dead dad, and you don't give a f***.
Not a tear.
I'm sorry, what?
Watch The Ruse this Friday at a special time after Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, at 1016 916 Central Time on NBC.
Thanks for listening.
Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Keone Reed.
Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone-Groth and Aria Young.
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.
Thanks very much, Jane.
Yeah, thanks, Chuck.
