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What you see with Katie is what you get.
She was a very genuine person and just a kind soul.
And what a loss. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Yes. So this episode of Morbid is going to be kind of a bit different than your typical Morbid episode.
Yeah. This is a call to action episode, really.
Yeah. The voice you just heard at the beginning of this episode is the voice of John Palmer, who we were fortunate enough to be able to interview about his wife's case.
He's like such a sweetheart. He was. This family just will like make you love them immediately.
Yeah. This family reminds you of your family.
It really does. Yeah. This could be anybody's family.
Exactly. Well, John Palmer lost his wife, Katie, on April 21st, 2020.
That morning, the two of them just decided to start their day together.
They just wanted to go on a walk together before the crazy day started.
Something we all do, something we all take for granted.
Yeah. So they head down Glenwood Drive in Grayson County, Texas, while they're out for their walk.
And while they're doing so, another man in their neighborhood was also starting his morning.
Corey Todd Foster had spent the better part of the night before up late drinking whiskey.
And I wouldn't say that he was necessarily in the right frame of mind to be operating a vehicle that morning.
And we'll get way into that later, don't worry.
Sure will. That morning, it was a particularly dewy morning.
A lot of condensation had built up on Corey's windshield.
And instead of waiting for that to clear, for his windshield to clear, he made the decision to head out for the day with very limited visibility because not only was his windshield all, you know, condensationed up, but it was a pretty foggy morning and a very bright morning.
And he was driving directly in the direction that the sun was coming up.
He was. And he was heading to pick up some guys for work that day.
He actually was traveling in the same direction that the Palmers were traveling in.
Now listen, the Palmers were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
There's no sidewalk on that particular road, so they were walking alongside the road against traffic, just like they were supposed to.
But somehow, as he was making his way down Glenwood Drive, Corey Todd Foster recklessly drove onto the wrong side of the road and struck both of the Palmers.
Katie was unfortunately killed from the impact, and John sustained major, major injuries.
And Corey Todd Foster received absolutely no consequences, despite having a 20-year history of vehicular crimes, including DWI, reckless driving, and speeding.
It is the most infuriating thing you will ever hear.
It's... I can't get over it. He got nothing.
Not even a slap on the wrist. He killed a woman, and he got nothing.
But before we get into all the details that make this case so incredibly infuriating for this family and for anybody that's going to listen to this episode, I think we should begin at the loss at the center of it.
We're going to let Katie's husband, John, who survived this traumatic accident, tell you exactly who his wife, Katie Palmer, was.
Katie was kind and beautiful both inside and out.
A lover of science and nature. Again, she taught middle school science at Scott Middle School, brought a STEM program to Scott Middle School because again, she loved teaching, but she also loved learning.
And I think that STEM program was as much for her as it was for the kids because she enjoyed her job so much.
She looked at those kids like they were her own kids.
She was constantly bringing clothes up to the school for kids that didn't have the essential supplies they needed or the clothes that they needed.
And in fact, last year at Scott Middle School, they renovated a room and filled it full of clothes for kids that needed clothing items and named it Katie's Closet.
Yeah, that's who she was. She brought... a children's program to the National Wildlife Refuge, Hagerman Wildlife Refuge, to get kids interested in the outdoors and science.
She had studied biology at Austin College.
That's where we met and fell in love with ornithology.
So she loved birds. So again, going out there to go teach those kids, you know, she got just as much out of it as they did.
And earlier this year, they built a It was an educational pavilion, and they dedicated that to her.
So she's made an impact throughout this community.
And I've said this many times. She was an excellent teacher, but she told me that being a mom was her most important job.
She loved our kids, loved Bella and Brandon.
They were always the most important things in her life and our life.
Um, absolutely love, love those kids. You know, when, um, when she was hit and killed by Corey Foster, that was about the time that COVID was starting to shut everything down.
Teachers were doing remote teaching. Kids are doing remote learning and, um, there's a golf course bias.
Um, it, it was a golf course. It had been shut down, but, um, you know, her and the kids would go on, on walks out there.
You know, she was, she was introducing them all the time to nature.
And they loved it. They loved her and she loved them.
And it was, it was great. She was, she was such an outstanding mom, such an outstanding mom.
She loved her family. Her mom was her best friend.
She spoke with her dad every day. Her mom and her would go to lunch or dinner or just go run around town.
They always loved to be in each other's company.
And if there was any kind of... of weather cell that came into our area.
Katie was on the phone with her dad and I've never met two people that could talk so long about an upcoming storm.
And then my gosh, oh man, just have you seen this?
Well, there's a low pressure front coming in.
I don't even know the correct words. And I'm just sitting here going, have you guys really talked for an hour? over this thunderstorm that's like is it gonna rain though that's it that's all i need to know yes or no do i need an umbrella but um loved her family again mom dad sisters brothers cousins um family was always first and um katie was just an exceptional person and she's going to be greatly missed by our family and by this community as well So now that you have a better idea about who Katie was and really just what a significant loss this is to not only those who knew her personally, but the entire community.
I mean, she did so much for her community.
Truly. But now that you have a better idea about that, let's talk about what exactly was happening that morning on that road.
Now, the posted speed limit on Glenwood Drive is 30 miles an hour.
There is literally no way on this green earth that Corey Todd Foster was traveling at that speed.
None. None. Logic tells us this. Math tells us this.
Science. Reality tells us this. No, we know that he wasn't because of how far Katie and John were both thrown.
Now, had Corey been traveling the posted speed limit, Katie and John would have been thrown about 50.6 feet for a forward projection trajectory.
But instead, they both were launched about 70 to 75 feet before making impact with the ground.
That meant that Corey Foster had to have been traveling way over the posted speed limit.
Way over. Yeah. Like nowhere. This was definitely.
And I think like he claims and I think John says it in the next clip we're going to play of John that he claimed it was like he was going 15 miles per hour.
Yeah. Wow. What a lie. Not on this earth.
What a brazen lie. And the thing is, speeding was not the only factor in this crash, because later, cell phone records would show that Corey was on the phone when he struck John and Katie Palmer.
And he himself said that he should not have driven that morning because of the limited visibility. which is already breaking a law because according to the Texas Transportation Code 552.008, the drivers to exercise due care, the operator of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian on a roadway, meaning that Corey making the decision to drive his F-250 that morning when he himself could not see and he said so, that's not exercising due care.
No, and it's like he's driving when he can't see.
He's driving, like, at least slightly intoxicated from the night before.
And he's on the phone on top of it. So you can't see out your windshield.
And you are admittedly telling me you can't see.
And the sun was coming up. And that made it even worse.
You're on the phone while this is happening?
And you're looking down, dialing the number, as John Palmer is going to tell us.
Manually dialing. Yeah. Yeah, it's... There's so much here that points to him making so many multiple bad choices.
It's outrageous. And for me, the alcohol is one of the biggest factors here.
The responding officer, Tarif Al-Khatib, is heard on body camera footage saying that he smelled alcohol on Corey's breath even as he was making his way up to the vehicle.
Making his way to the vehicle. Not even in front of the man yet.
Yeah. Now, Corey said to the officer, because immediately Tarif was like, have you been drinking?
Because I can smell the whiskey coming off of your breath.
Corey claimed that he had stopped drinking at 7 p.m. the previous night.
But Officer Al-Khatib is heard again on body camera footage saying himself that he does not believe this to be true.
Yeah. So he even goes to give Corey a field sobriety test, which he did pass, and then also a breathalyzer.
Now, this is something that's important to note here.
This breathalyzer test was taken about 50 minutes, so close to an hour, after Corey had already struck the palmers.
So the test comes back at a 0.06. 0.02 points under the legal limit.
Yeah, that's, come on. I mean, let's be real here.
Had he taken that test an hour before when he struck the Palmers, I guarantee it would have been either at or above the legal limit.
He was still intoxicated from the night before, which should tell you a lot.
And Officer Al-Khatib's own report states that the three major contributing factors in the collision are all due to Corey's negligence.
It's the impaired visibility cited in the report, wrong side not passing cited in the report, and again, Corey Foster's intake of alcoholic beverages may have contributed, excuse me, did contribute to the crash.
Yeah, and Al-Khatib says it in his report that he believes that alcohol and his intake of alcohol the night before may have been part of this crash.
He acknowledges it right there. In writing.
And nothing happens. How? Nothing happens.
He just killed a woman and critically injured her husband.
And it's like nobody's going to give him a blood test.
Right. Like he's not going to be taken somewhere where they can really find out how much alcohol is in the system here.
And that is something that we're definitely going to get to later.
But before we get there, let's have John Palmer kind of walk us through what he can remember from this morning.
Katie and I were on the opposite side of the road.
We were walking alongside the road and we had our backs to where Corey was coming from because we were on the correct side of the road facing oncoming traffic.
Um, when we were walking and again, we did not hear his truck and he had a large truck.
Um, that's one thing that I keep on going back to, you know, we, Katie had such good hearing, um, I could be in our living room with the TV turned on like at a volume six out of 100.
And she would send me a text to turn the TV down.
Our bedroom was all the way in back. And I've just, that's one thing that, you know, you, you keep on going over these, these little things, these, these, these little things and just, you, you kill yourself with the what ifs.
Um, and we didn't hear it. And I don't know.
Um, I don't know. Um, when he hit us, I immediately knew as I was flying through the air, um, that we, we were hit and I'm walking with her and I remember her turning over her, over her shoulder and saying something to me with the smile.
And then, um, next thing I know I'm flying through the air and I could see his truck, uh, out of my peripheral vision and we were seem to be going about the same speed.
And then I hit the ground and rolled. And, um, he would tell the DPS that he was going 15 miles per hour, um, which obviously is one of many lies that he told that day.
Um, the troopers joked on scene that he told them he was going 15 and they all laughed and said 50.
They actually, they said bullshit 50, um, Funny how that didn't make it into the report.
His speed was not recorded on the little black box that everybody's vehicle has because what has to happen for Your vehicle to record speed is that there has to be a big impact, which I guess Katie's body wrapping around the hood of his truck was not a big enough impact.
And he did not slam on his brakes. He came to a rolling stop.
So there was no impact sensor that told that little black box to record, nor did he slam on his brakes.
Which says a lot. That says everything. It absolutely tells you what kind of mental state that he was in.
I don't know about you all, but I would believe that a person in a normal mental state, if you're already driving three-tenths of a mile, admittedly driving three-tenths of a mile blind, and you hit something, I think a again, a person in a normal mental state would immediately slam on their brakes and just hit something.
And that, um, that collision of Corey hitting us was heard by a neighbor that lived across the street from where the collision took place.
And he was maybe a hundred feet, feet away.
And he looked through his, um, Kitchen window while he was getting his coffee and saw Corey getting out of his truck.
He obviously didn't know that Corey had hit us.
He just thought that was Corey slamming his car door and thought he was getting his dog.
Corey's dog was always loose. So he just that's that's what he thought.
But it was enough for the neighbor to hear it.
Again, roughly 100 feet away. And have him look out and see what was going on, but it wasn't enough for Corey to rapidly decelerate.
Corey was going well over 30 miles an hour.
The third party report has it at 33 to 43 miles per hour.
But the issue that we have with that is that Tarif Al-Khatib, again, Tarif was the investigating officer for DPS last on scene.
He showed up and did not mark the scene at all.
We've had meetings with DPS and asked them why.
And they said too much had already been disturbed, which, pardon my language, that's just a bullshit excuse.
Yeah, it certainly is. I'm sorry. No, don't be.
You don't have to be. Okay. Well, I just... Let it fly.
If I need to clean it up, I absolutely will, but... You let it fly.
I'm just going to call it what it is, just a bullshit excuse that...
Had he had marked where the truck had stopped, which had he had done his job and talked to the neighbor who was out there talking to every other DPS officer, letting them know that Corey Foster is always drinking and he can be seen talking to DPS officers.
I think he spoke with Jack Hill at length, but Jack didn't have his body camera turned on. uh, Tarif did.
And you can see Jack Hill speaking to this neighbor.
Um, and if Tarif had actually talked to any one of the neighbors that, that were on site that either heard the collision or were there minutes after, maybe he could have got some additional information, but if he had marked where the truck had stopped, where the neighbor had solved the truck, if he had interviewed the other neighbor to find out exactly where Katie's body was, um, if he could have asked, um, even Corey Foster, uh, where he picked our shoes up at, because, you know, we were hit so hard, we were knocked out of our shoes.
Oh my gosh. So, you know, 30 miles per hour.
No way. No way. But if he had done all this and done his job and had properly marked the scene to the best of his ability, that would have given the third party, um, expert, More information to more accurately determine how fast Corey Foster was going that day.
But again, systematic failure from day one.
Since DPS didn't do their job, that pretty much set the tone for this entire case moving forward.
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Babbel, language for life. Now, we have all at this point mentioned some body camera footage that came out.
In Officer Al-Khatib's body camera footage, a lot of joking can be heard.
It's just not appropriate. No, it does not warrant that.
And this kind of joking that is happening here and this kind of like very light attitude towards it is honestly like really, it's like a little scary to watch because it's right in their faces.
This scene is right there. Katie is right there.
John is right there. I mean, at one point, John was crawling towards his wife while he was like critically injured.
And they can stand there with that energy and that scene in front of them and kind of just like shoot the shit.
And that's the thing, watching that, you think of your loved one and how you would feel watching the body camera footage.
It's just, this is not, this is not right.
It's not right. And instead of taking Corey Foster somewhere for a blood test to show just how intoxicated he truly was, Officer Al-Khatib can be heard again on that body cam footage offering Corey a ride home.
Says, it ain't no problem. Just like a good old friend would.
Because as it turns out, Corey Foster and Officer Al-Khatib, They knew each other quite well, actually.
We'll let John explain that piece of the puzzle.
And also, it should be noted that Corey Todd Foster is remarkably calm on that body camera footage, especially being someone who has just hit two people with their truck and didn't even realize that they had killed somebody.
And after having to sit through hearing all the jokes made on body camera footage, Katie's family still had more to go through other than just dealing with the loss of their family member.
Katie's family reached out to literally every level to try to find justice, and they came up empty-handed, more than empty-handed at each turn.
Doors were slammed in their face, essentially.
Yeah. There's a lot of lies, there's broken promises, and there's a whole bunch of people protecting their own instead of doing what was right and what they were elected to do.
That's a big thing in this whole story, what they were elected or given the job to do.
And decided to take on themselves as humans.
Now, this family's case really is a perfect example of our justice system failing at a systematic level in such a huge way.
Massive. But honestly, little did they know who they were dealing with.
John Palmer and Katie's mother, Rhonda, are two forces to be reckoned with.
They have no idea. That day was... Worst day of my life.
Um... And one statement that always goes through my head, my wife's body is being flown to Plano.
And I say her body because, you know, her She was declared dead on the 22nd.
So we were hit on the 21st. She was declared on the 22nd because that was the earliest available time that they could perform that test.
She died out there on Glenwood. They were keeping her alive.
They were hand pumping oxygen um, into her body, um, to keep her alive.
They were doing it. The EMTs and the fire department did everything that they possibly could.
Um, but her brain had swelled too, too much and, um, snapped her brain brainstem.
Um, my wife's body is being flown to a trauma center in Plano, Texas, approximately 60, 70 miles away.
I'm loaded up in an ambulance. being driven to the ICU at our local hospital.
And I was trying to get somebody when I was being loaded up to make sure that they could get ahold of my mother-in-law to check on my kids.
Of course. I couldn't remember her number.
I mean, if you had asked me any other day, absolutely could have rattled that, that off.
Um, you know, I, I gave him her address.
I just, I just couldn't remember the number and, um, got to the hospital and I had asked, there was a Denison police officer there who was outstanding and, um, asked him to You know, make sure my kids are okay.
Please send somebody by. So in Jack Hill's body camera, he is driving.
He had already crossed the highway. He was probably minutes away from our house.
He got a call from the Grayson County Sheriff's Office asking that one of the officers that were on scene go back and do a welfare check. on our kids.
They were saying that the husband is distraught, obviously wanting to make sure that his kids are fine because in all this chaos that's going on, I don't want my kids to wake up at 8.30 or 9 and no one's home.
Jack Hill calls Tarif Al-Khatib on the radio asked him to do a welfare check and Tarif was so put out by having to go back.
His response was they probably won't even come to the fucking door.
That's the professionalism that that officer for DPS has.
When I heard that as a parent, You just want to make sure your kids are okay, that they're fine, that someone has them.
You know, I was concerned about Katie. I was concerned about my kids.
And to hear an officer say that, an officer that's supposed to protect us, supposed to You know, I was always brought up in a family that we respected officers.
And I still do. I absolutely 100% still do.
Because, I mean, if there's anything wrong, I'm going to dial 911.
I'm going to call law enforcement. I mean, they're protectors.
That's not what Tarif Al-Khatib is. There's no excuse for him saying that.
There should never be a time when an officer... is put out by having to go check on two kids who lost one parent and the other one's in the ICU.
And that to me just reiterates the fact that Al-Khatib should not be an officer.
Absolutely not with the way that he conducted himself.
Again, You've got a woman who's just being flown to a trauma center, and you're making jokes about how much body spray she used that day.
I don't know if you guys saw that clip or not, but there was one officer that had her bag and said, hey, if you guys take her clothes, and he was laughing the whole time, you guys need to make sure to put it in the bag.
I think she put on too much body spray this morning.
Man, all this is stout. Are you kidding me?
No. And that's all on body camera footage.
And that was said by, I believe it was Jack Hill.
I'm so sorry that you had to hear that. Yeah.
No one should ever have to hear that. They make jokes about collecting insurance money about, you know, hey, if it was me and I was walking, you know, my wife would want me.
Closer to the roadside. That way, if I get hit, she can collect all the insurance money.
That was a big, big joke there. Again, they all laughed that we were neighbors.
And they all were pretty much enamored with Corey Foster's wealth.
You know, Tarif Al-Khatib. instead of driving Corey Foster to the hospital for a blood test, which he should have done, he loaded Corey Foster up in his own vehicle with his loaded handguns and turned off his body camera and drove him home and came back.
And the topic of discussion wasn't about reckless driving, wasn't about...
How is this report going to be written up?
Nothing of that nature. It was, Corey's got a big-ass house.
Guy's real successful. He sells medical equipment.
Man, he's got a big-ass house, dude. That's exactly what Sharif Al-Khatib said.
Which, again... just puts that level of distrust in my head and anybody else's head that sees that full body camera footage because you just got an officer that after he was asked by another officer if they're going to get blood, declines, and then Corey Foster's going to walk home roughly, again, about three-tenths of a mile.
He's going to walk home. He said he wanted to clear his head.
He could see his mailbox. And Tarif... basically told him that he was going to take him home.
Corey said, no, I'm going to walk. No, no, no, no.
Let's just go ahead and get my car. And then turns off his body camera footage.
And then he comes back, um, bragging about how large this, this man's house was.
What was the conversation on the way home?
Exactly. Yeah. You know, um, there's, um, it puts a big shroud on any type of integrity that that officer has.
Absolutely. And it continues to do so to this day because, again, no one's been held accountable.
None. You know, we had a meeting with DPS this last Thursday.
The chief of the Highway Patrol actually came up to North Texas to speak to our family, and they stated that – the language that Tarif used, um, you know, was unacceptable and that he was, uh, reprimanded for it, but, um, they, they couldn't tell me how he was reprimanded.
Of course. And they gave him a promotion after this, didn't they?
Oh, two. Two promotions. He's, he's been promoted twice.
Yeah. And in fact, um, cause I've, I've requested his personnel file, um, His direct superior, Sergeant Jim Bob Walters, put in his personnel file basically a commendation stating that he's done such a very good job of not reacting to how critical our family has been against him on social media.
So... Not only did he fail that day, but he's being lauded by Sergeant Jim Bob Walters on how well he's handled.
Try to state this the right way. He's been lauded on how well he has handled this community speaking out. against him and his failures.
What kind of sense does, does that make?
Wow. You're bad at your job, but you're good at taking shit for it.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Which, you know, in basically he's shown leadership that junior officers can look up to.
I've had numerous current Texas State Troopers reach out to me and have seen the body camera footage and have wanted to make sure that me and my family are aware that Sharif did not act in accordance with DPS policy.
Of course. That he absolutely failed. Yet DPS will not...
We'll not admit to it. And this whole cycle that we've gone through, this exercise of frustration that we've gone through with DPS, you know, we put a complaint together against Free Falco T back in November of last year.
DPS reviews it. Then DPS investigates it, right?
They investigate it in February, right? Then DPS basically sends it to Tariq's chain of command.
And then they look at it. And then it's sent to, I guess, an executive committee that then looks at it and then decides what kind of punishment Tariq is going to get.
So DPS investigates DPS, which... Seems legit.
Right, right. Of course, right? I see nothing wrong with that.
Because he wasn't given a reprimand that cost him a day of work, they don't have to release anything.
So... So DPS investigates DPS. We don't know what evidence DPS has because they can't release it.
Uh, we don't know what the findings were from their review of the evidence because DPS cannot release it.
And we don't know what type of reprimand or punishment Tarif Al-Khatib received because DPS can't release that.
If that is just the most untransparent thing, um, That's unreal.
It's crazy. I don't even know how you wrap your brain around that.
I mean, you can't. There's just a complete lack of transparency.
And it's not only with DPS. I mean, we've been facing that with our local DA, Brett Smith.
I'd like to bring that up real quick, if you don't mind.
Absolutely. So... One thing during this whole investigation against Sharif, DPS, in a letter they sent us, stated that they found, and I'm paraphrasing this, no misconduct by Corporal Sharif Al-Khatib, that basically hindered the prosecution or subsequent prosecutions of Corey Foster.
Our family met with Brett Smith in June of 2020, roughly, gosh, two months after Katie was run over by Corey Foster.
And our district attorney, Brett Smith, told us, that missteps were made in this investigation, that Tarif Al-Khatib did a horrible job, did a very bad job, should have gotten blood, they don't know why he didn't get blood, and then said that his report was... very lacking.
It was a bad report that got submitted multiple times, just a bad, bad report.
And then Brett Smith went off to basically throw mud at a lot of smaller police departments and letting us know how hard his job is because a lot of these smaller police departments were horrible at writing reports.
And this is what they're stuck with. Okay.
So our district attorney pointed the finger at, DPS, stating that DPS did a horrible job.
DPS interviewed Brett Smith. And that letter that we got back basically tells us that Brett Smith lied to DPS and told DPS that Trey Falkerty did did a, did a fine job.
Um, we're, we're waiting to see if we can get any type of documents.
I have requested that our district attorney in the month of July, I sent five emails to Brett Smith and our carbon, our carbon copied our, uh, state representative and state Senator, um, on those emails.
And I asked him five times for him to put his words that he said to our family. in June of 2020 on his letterhead so we could present that to DPS.
Of course, we haven't heard anything from Brett because Brett got caught in a lie.
Wow, a huge one. Which is... I would say very damning for a district attorney to be caught lying in an official investigation conducted by a state entity on another state employee.
So we'll see how that turns out. That's outrageous.
I truly can't. That's wow. Which, you know, again, if you go back to Brett Smith's involvement.
Oh, and just to go back on that. So he made those statements in June.
He was interviewed in February. And then in a phone call to Katie's mom, Rhonda Nail, just hammered down the fact that DPS, quote, messed up.
And there should have been a blood test.
And because there wasn't, there's nothing that he could do.
So he... tells victims and their families one thing, tells DPS something completely different, and then goes back and tells the victim and their families something that, again, contradicts what he told DPS during their investigation.
And then thinks it'll never cross. Like, do you really think that's never going to overlap ever?
Yeah. And do you think that us finding this, this out, you, you think that we're going to stop?
You think that we're going to go, well, there's nothing we can do.
No, that's not who we are. That's not who we are at all.
And, um, just to, there's a great triangle in all this.
Um, so Brett Smith, um, represented Corey Foster's family in the DWI prior to becoming DA.
Corey Foster and his wife were, driving a vehicle.
She was driving the vehicle. Corey was sitting shotgun.
Pardon me. He was riding in the, in the, in the passenger seat and, uh, they were pulled over.
Um, wife was arrested for DWI. Corey was, was, um, I guess cited for public intoxication and, um, the wife, um, well, the family hired Brett Smith as their attorney for the DWI and really liked to know what kind of advice he gave Corey Foster on that PI.
Um, so Brett Smith has represented this family before in an alcohol related matter, uh, failed to disclose that to us, but he was very active in meeting with us and, um, contacting us about this case.
And I'd love to go into that later with, with you guys as well.
Um, uh, And then Brett Smith is related to Tarif Al-Khatib through marriage.
Oh, the plot thickens. There's just a whole triangle.
And then we also uncovered... I'm sure you guys have seen the pictures of... uh, Tariq and Corey, uh, months before, um, well, Tariq's wife and Corey Foster pretty much arm and arm at a Halloween party.
Both wives got together hours before the party dressed up together, put makeup on together.
They're, they're, they're friends and they all went to this party together on Halloween months before Katie was killed.
And then again, they were at another Christmas party together.
Um, Picture says a thousand words. And there's only one word that comes to mind when I look at those pictures and that's friendship.
And that's exactly what I believe caused Tarif to do his buddy a solid.
Good old boy system. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And that actually leads me into another question that we have for you.
Brett Smith was called when Judge Bill Majors was involved in an alcohol-induced incident as well.
Can you tell us about that? I absolutely can.
All right. So a little background on Bill.
I had gone to go speak with Bill back in –
I believe it was 2021. Um, I, I went to go speak with, with bill.
Um, and bill majors is the County judge.
Um, he's not an actual judge. Uh, he is de facto mayor of Grayson County.
Okay. Um, so almost a year after Katie was killed, nothing had been done.
Um, I went to Bill Majors to ask for help.
I met with him at his office, and he placated me.
You know, I'll do everything I can. You know, if you got anything, come back to me.
He just took the meeting, okay? left that meeting and just, it was what it was.
Bill was politically tied to everybody else in the county and vice versa.
But I had to try to speak to anybody about this, anybody that could offer us help.
And then June or July, I went with my son to go get his birth certificate, uh, from the County courthouse and, uh, judge majors stops me, uh, right by the County courthouse steps.
And we got into a conversation about our, our meeting and bill majors was, um, defending DPS defending Brett Smith, defending Carrie Ashmore.
And, uh, basically just stating that, uh, you know, um, I don't see the political gain for, for them doing this.
And, um, Bill and I got into, I don't want to say a heated exchange, but a very loud exchange to where I, I, I told my son to go walk, walk away.
And, um, The exchange ended up with Bill Majors telling me that if I don't like what's going on in this county, that's why we have elections.
And that if you don't like the job that someone's doing, then, you know, maybe you should get somebody to run against him.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I mean, that's our county judge.
Wow. I'm not going to fix it. You can just vote someone else in.
You can fix it. Why? I mean, we had a good old boy system here in Grayson County, and I'll tell you why I say had.
So maybe two weeks later, I get my hands on Bill Majors, the body camera footage from when Bill Majors was arrested.
Um, it was sent over to me and I reviewed it.
And that's when I noticed that, um, as they were arresting bill for DWI, his fourth DWI arrest.
Okay. Fourth. Um, the first one he had, he caused serious bodily injury in that DWI.
They got one soon after, um, And then I believe also got one while he was the mayor of Sherman, where he was arrested in Florida, and then just got one now. where he was three and a half times over the legal limit, hit a light pole, and then drove across the highway and basically was run down by a Sherman police officer and a state trooper.
Oh my God, the amount of people he could have killed.
And how does this have a license? That's outrageous.
Well, I mean, again... I think we've all kind of found out it's all about who you know and who you are.
Absolutely. So as they were arresting Bill and putting him into the DPS unit to be taken to a hospital for blood work, one of the troopers, the trooper on scene, went to go retrieve his phone and saw that he missed a call from Brett Smith, which...
Tells me, I am assuming that Bill placed that call to Brett prior to, you know, stepping out of his car as a last-ditch effort.
That's what I'm assuming. And when they went to go retrieve his phone, he missed a call from Brett Smith.
Brett Smith was calling him back. Hmm. Um, so absolutely we got that and I released that out on our justice for Katie Palmer page.
Um, and, um, before I did that, I sent an email to bill and I let him know that, um, that I had this, this video and it angered me that this is the guy that I, that I went to for help.
And it turns out that he absolutely put all these people at risk, and then he reaches out to the same guy that I am fighting against for justice for my wife.
Bill is trying to obstruct justice and go around and not be accountable for what he did.
And I just told him that this is the type of – system we have here in Grayson County and I'm going to fight for change in Grayson County.
And I think that needs to start at the top with you.
And then two days later, I put that video out there and this county had had enough of bill majors and those just like bill, um, got tired of the lack of accountability in this county and people were angry.
Um, People were angry. Rightfully so. And there was another man that, like the last day, I believe it was the last day or the last two or three days before you could announce that you were going to run, decided to run.
His name was Bruce Dossie, and he was the assistant police chief in Sherman.
Great guy. Absolutely. Great guy. I believe he's the scout master.
Again, he's assistant chief of police in Sherman, which is the county seat.
He serves on a city council and serves on a school board.
Just a good man. A very good man. And this...
This great guy, Bruce, ran against this incumbent, Bill Majors, who had every single political endorsement because he had been campaigning for so long.
Everybody figured that Bruce was a long shot.
Bruce ended up beating Bill 13,000 votes to about 6,000 votes.
Hell yeah, Bruce. Yes, Bruce. And completely demolished Bill Majors.
And it just shows that this county was fed up with it and this county was ripe for change.
Mm-hmm. And... The slogan that was coined was major change.
And so Bill Majors is now, well, soon to be now the former county judge of Grayson County.
Amazing. He's out, dude. we are going to do the same thing with Brett Smith.
In fact, in fact, about three months ago, we put up billboards, um, in Sherman, Texas that had a big help wanted sign for a new Grayson County district attorney.
And, um, I, I, I saw Brett about four months ago in, um, in the Grayson County justice center.
I was going to go get, um, I've, I've been requesting information for the last two, two years, um, From from the DA's office, whether it be on my case or similar cases and saw Brett Smith and we had a run in and I let him know I looked him right in the eyes and told him that we're going to get him out out of that office.
That's awesome. And I know that this county wants change in the DA's office, and we will get somebody to run against Brett Smith, and Brett Smith will have something in common with Bill Majors, and they both can be two former elected officials.
That's amazing. And that was some really good advice that Bill Majors gave me.
If you don't like the job that an elected official is doing, then you get somebody else to run and you absolutely change it.
And that's what we got with Bill. And that's what we're going to get with Brett also.
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ShipStation. Make ship happen. Now, with all of the contributing factors in this case, you would think that when it was brought before a grand jury, that they'd be ready to go forward and decide that Corey should be charged with something, some kind of offense, like anything.
Reckless driving, maybe? Vehicular manslaughter?
Anything? That's not at all what happened here.
Here's John on that matter. To go into the grand jury, I want to first talk about our relationship with Brett Smith.
So... after Katie was killed, um, it had been a couple of weeks and I reached out to the DA's office and got ahold of Brett Smith and asked him about the status of our case.
Brett told me that DPS has not finalized the report yet, that he was aware of it, but, um, couldn't speak on it because he didn't have the case in front of him and didn't have time to review it.
And I probably knew more than he did at, at that point.
And then I would have to just call back.
I was fine with that. Well, more time had passed on and Rhonda nail, who's Katie's mother had reached out to Brett Smith.
I believe at his office, Brett was not there.
So she got a number that she found on Facebook and, So she called it.
Turns out that was Brett's personal cell phone.
Well, if you don't want somebody calling your cell phone number, don't make it public on social media, especially if you're an elected official.
Yeah, seems pretty simple. Yeah. So Rhonda reached out to Brett and started talking to Brett about the case.
And he was angry that Rhonda called him on his personal cell phone, told her that you should never reach out to an elected official on their personal cell phone.
Um, again, she told him that the number was on Facebook and again, he told her that is unacceptable to reach out to, um, an elected official on their cell phone, which sidebar is.
Funny to me because I've got our state rep and state senator's personal cell phones.
They gave those to me when we got that House Bill 558 passed.
So that just goes to show you that, you know, Brett Smith is absolutely not up to the job of being a DA and not being accessible as well as accountable.
Anyway, I digress. I'm sorry. So... you can only imagine as a parent that your daughter's been killed and the person that is going to get her justice basically tells you, Oh, and he did tell her that he had no clue about this case at all, which contradicts what he told me.
Wow. Wow. You can't imagine the anger that somebody would have going, Oh, I just called you to ask what the case was and you chewed me out for calling you on your personal cell phone, which was public.
And now you're telling me you know nothing about her case and basically ended the phone call.
Well, again, we don't have a platform like you all have the platform or like the DA or anybody else has a platform.
So our platform is social media. So Rhonda took to social media and said, told everybody what her experience was with Brett, how rude he was, um, how he did know what was going on with this case and something didn't, didn't seem right.
Well, our family loved and still loves Katie.
This community loved and still loves Katie.
There was outrage. There was anger. So everybody else started to call up there and everybody else started to put, um, their feelings, their raw emotions on, on Facebook.
Um, And then I get a call from Brett Smith.
And it wasn't about the case. It wasn't about, hey, we finally got the files here.
We're going to look at it. We're going to sit down and have a meeting.
Brett was angry about how he was being perceived on social media.
Called me again. I just lost my wife six, seven weeks ago.
I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to Um, keep going on.
Um, we're still adjusting. Um, be honest with you.
I'm was still in shock. I was still trying to figure out what, what, what was going on.
Um, you know, and me and the kids are trying to adjust to life without our rock life without Katie was our glue.
And so, um, I apologize to Brett. Um, looking back on it now, um, probably would have had some other words for him, but apologize to him.
And, um, I said, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll see what I can do.
And, um, you know, called family and friends that, Hey, this, I guess this guy's working on it.
Like, you know, what's, you know, please.
Um, I understand that everybody is, um, angry and wants answers, but we just, Just can't do it now.
We've... I don't know. I mean, to be honest with you, I had no clue about who Brett Smith really was at that time.
And, you know, we, we just, we, we, we're going to back off.
Right. Well, then more weeks come by and people start getting more angry that nothing's been done, that nothing's been done.
And so they take, take back onto social media and I get another call to Brett Smith and it's the same thing.
Um, Brett Smith is more worried about his, um, about how he appears on social media than actually doing his job.
So basically two of the first three conversations I had with Brett over the phone were about social media.
Okay. Yeah. And you know, if this is probably not the job for you.
So, so we finally have a meeting with Brett and have a meeting over at the Grayson County justice center.
And it's Brett Smith, Don Hoover, Laura Wheeler, and those other two names, they are prosecutors.
And then it's myself, Katie's mom, Katie's dad, and one of Katie's brothers. and start the meeting out i brought pictures of katie and i wanted to introduce katie to brett and uh don and laura they've never met her so i had these pictures and i was going to describe each picture you know one was a picture of katie and the kids one was was with her and um And in Maine, one was with her mom and dad or her mom, one was with her dad, one was with her family.
And I wanted them to get to know her because I wanted them to know who they were going to be fighting for.
Of course, you should have wanted to know her.
Yeah. So. Don and Laura looked at the pictures, listened to everything I had to say.
Brett Smith with his arms folded, leaning against a wall, wouldn't sit at the table.
And when one of the prosecutors handed him a picture, he said he didn't want to see it, that he's seen enough on Facebook.
And so I told him that that's fine. I'm going to keep on introducing her to you guys.
And then we'll just see what you have to say.
Wow. And then when I got, well, so when I got through, well, when I got through with that, Brett looked at Rhonda Nail, again, Katie's mom, Rhonda, and said, again, gave her a lecture on social media again, again.
And everyone's just sitting there letting him do it like his coworkers.
And there had just been pictures of Katie laid out and her mother is sitting and you're like, well, let me lecture you about social media.
The other two prosecutors, I mean, that's their boss.
And they seemed very engaged the whole time.
They were very professional. Yeah. After Brett made that comment, pardon me, after Brett commented on social media again, we all got to talking.
And the other two prosecutors engaged us again in a very professional manner.
And it seemed like things were going well.
Then Brett turns to Katie's mom and goes, well, you just need to call off your jihad.
Wow. And that fell flat. Uh, he left, he laughed about it.
The other two prosecutors, um, tried very hard not to show any kind of emotion, that comment.
And, um, yeah. Let that just roll off. Uh, you know, to be honest with you, um, Had I had known then what I know now and knew that there wasn't a chance that he was going to give us a fair shot, I don't know if I would have let that comment just kind of die the way it did.
But this guy was our only chance at getting justice for Katie.
So at that point, I had two meetings with Kerry Ashmore, who was the first assistant district attorney. who was going to try this.
He was going to present this case in front of grand jury.
Now, again, at that meeting that we had just had with Brett, that's when Brett makes the comments about the missteps.
So, met with Kerry two or three times, um, at which time I was told that they were going to get cell phone records on one of the two meetings that I met with, with Kerry, uh, that they were going to get cell phone records and review those.
And, um, obviously before the first grand jury, they did not, they failed at that.
And we had a grand jury on August 19th, 2020.
Um, I testified, Tarif Al-Khatib testified, and DPS never recreated this crash.
That was wild. Well, and their excuse from last Thursday was basically...
You know, too much stuff had been disturbed.
There really wasn't a point at doing it, which is, again, a bullshit excuse.
It is. Because they dropped the ball. Just overdue.
No one's going to get mad at you for going above and beyond.
Exactly. I mean, that's what DPS does. That's what they do.
Their whole job is to collect the evidence.
Exactly. And they failed at doing that. I mean, you know, I had meetings with the third party that Grayson County hired, and They were saying that there was just, there wasn't, DPS didn't do a good job.
You know, there wasn't enough pictures. They went off everything they had and they just said, you know, there wasn't, they didn't really collect a whole lot.
You know, the bodies weren't marked where they were supposed to be.
And, you know, just, it was a very poor effort on Tarif's part.
And it's your job. It's your job. It's your job.
And this is what you're there for. It's crucial.
Yeah. And this is what you wanted to do.
Yeah. So we all three testify, and Terry Ashmore comes out.
It's about three hours and tells me that the jury has no billed this case.
That was hollow, and I just... You know, we lost Katie four months before, and I just don't see how this is possible.
That, well, here's how it is possible. A grand jury in Texas is... comprised of 12, okay?
Only 10 people were on the jury that day.
You have to have nine people for, I guess, a vote to move forward to true bill it in order for there to be a true bill.
So already we were down two. We had to have nine out of 10 people.
Brett Smith and Kerry Ashmore failed at getting the cell phone records for Corey Foster.
And there was a third-party report that was done that you guys have referenced, right?
That wasn't dated until, I believe, August 25th.
So the grand jury was on the 19th, and the final report was done on the 25th.
So the grand jury didn't have that. And that report is damning to Corey Foster.
So, um, so Carrie Ashmore failed at properly executing his duties and failed at preparation, um, for this presentation and failed in general, uh, failed my family for the first time.
Um, so, um, through civil discovery, through our civil suit that we have ongoing, because again, we filed that soon after the no bill.
And this has been a very long process. Our depositions have been rescheduled numerous times because of Corey Foster and his attorneys.
So hopefully, I believe we're scheduled for those again in September and October.
So hopefully this time, nothing just at the spur of the moment comes up, and we can finally start to get some answers and start to get Corey Foster on record as to what happened that day.
So through our civil discovery process, my attorney, Britton Brooks, got the cell phone records, and...
Those cell phone records, if you base those upon what Corey Foster told DPS when asked, what did you do as soon as you realized that you hit the Palmers?
He said, I slowed down, I stopped, I got out, and then I immediately called 911.
Well, before that call to 911 was placed, approximately 31 seconds before he called 911, he called the 903 number.
903 is our local area code. He called a friend's mom because he was going to go pick up some guys to go help him do some work that day.
So assuming that he was off to go pick up some workers to help him with something he had to do with work, go deliver medical supplies, go deliver a large bed, I don't know.
So the timeline we put together shows that Corey Foster, um, because again, it was 31 seconds before, and we know that it takes, uh, 38 seconds to go from his mailbox to the point of impact going 32 miles an hour.
Okay. So he couldn't have called this number as he was leaving his, his driveway.
Um, he called this number as he was crossing over the roadway and hit us.
So, um, You know, a second or two before he hit us, he hit send on his phone because he was manually dialing.
And I'll tell you how I know that. He was manually dialing the number, hit us, slowed down, got out.
And then about that time, he heard me yelling for somebody to call the cops.
And he goes, oh, my God. Oh, my God, John, I didn't know it was y'all.
I couldn't see. I was trying to clear my windshield.
And I'm crawling over to Katie because I can't walk. yelling for somebody to call the police, to call the cops.
He had his phone in his hand. He ended the call.
And then two seconds later, dialed 911. It hit send.
And then we have a witness that said that as she came up and stopped, she got there about a minute or two after he hit us.
Corey was already on the phone with 911.
And so... We presented that timeline to the district attorney's office and they said, yeah, we'll look at it.
Okay, well, thanks. They finally called me, I wanna say on a Monday about 4.30 and said that they were gonna take these phone records to the grand jury.
And it was Kerry Ashmore that called me and said, we're going to take him to the grand jury and we're just going to see what the grand jury wants to do with him.
And then if they want any other evidence, we'll provide that to him.
I said, do I need to be there? I mean, because this is a brand new grand jury.
Grand jury has no clue about anything that happened at the first grand jury.
He said, no, it'll be all right. We're just going to see if they want to move forward.
And we ended the conversation pretty quickly.
I got to thinking, this doesn't sound right.
You call me 4.30 the day before you're going to present this to a grand jury the next morning.
What's going on? I tried to call him. He wouldn't take my call.
I had a cell phone. I texted him and asked him what was going on.
And he basically said, hey, everything I told you on the phone was how this is going to go down.
We're going to get, you know, We're going to give the fund records.
If they want any other information, then, you know, we'll, we'll provide that to him.
And I asked him not to go forward with this grand jury until he could assure me that I would be able to testify again in front of this grand jury, that the third party report was going to be presented to the grand jury.
Unlike how it was last time. Yeah. A full report. presentation was going to be given not some bastardized abridged version of what he presented the first grand jury and that uh you know these cell phone records and all the other footage that they haven't seen was going to be presented to the grand jury wouldn't respond back to me so About 6 a.m., I called up to the district attorney's office and left a message for Brett Smith saying that Rhonda Nail, again, Katie's mother, and I would be up there and that we absolutely would like to speak with them and know what's going on prior to them presenting anything to this grand jury at all.
So... We left... at about 7.30, got there at 7.45 in the morning, got there before the grand jury and asked to speak to Brett Smith and Kerry Ashmore.
And I think we asked two or three times, nothing.
Kerry Ashmore comes walking out of the grand jury room and says, what's in the grand jury's hands now?
And I said, what do you, you know, it was, they tried to railroad us, which they successfully did. when we questioned him on why he was doing it this way, um, he looked at Katie's mom in the face and told her that, um, he didn't have to explain anything to her and that he was damn good at his job.
And he, right. And he walked back into the grand jury room and then he comes out, um, 20, 30 minutes later and says they, um, decided to not move forward with the phone records.
I don't believe that Kerry Ashmore presented anything other than phone records and hell, he might've not even presented the phone records because in Texas, you know, whatever happens in a grand jury has to stay, um, stay, stay behind closed doors.
And, um, as soon as Kerry Ashmore told me that, um, I unloaded on that man.
Good. And, um, you know, the 18 months that have been built up, uh, the anger that I've had, the hollowness that I felt, um, from him not doing his job from Corey Foster, still being able to drink and drive all over Grayson County, putting everybody else at risk.
Um, You know, having to explain to my kids that I don't have an answer why that man still drives up and down our road.
I don't know what to tell you. You know, it's a failure.
You know, I'm sorry. Yeah. Which sorries don't cut it.
Of course, it should be coming from you, the sorry.
It should be coming from them. The people who are supposed to be protecting and investigating are not doing their jobs.
I'll say this. Everything that I told Kerry Ashmore that day absolutely meant it.
And my only regret is that I didn't yell it louder.
Good for you. That's unbelievable. Because that, yeah, it just, to me, I just, I don't, I can't understand this.
Like, like you were saying, like the systematic, just layer by layer failure to do your job.
It's like beyond a failure. There's not even a word for what they did.
It's so wild at every single turn. Well, and, and I think that, well, I think that egos came into play as well.
I think after... Again, after they failed the first time, that we became... hypercritical of the district attorney's office.
I don't think we became hypercritical. We became hypercritical of the district attorney's office in DPS.
And who wouldn't? Rightfully so. Rightfully so.
And so you've got these, these guys that had this God complex that, um, you know, what, whatever they, they, they say goes, um, you know, they're so knowledgeable on everything that how dare you question, um, how dare you question them at all?
Yeah. Um, well, our family did. And, um, I think that came into play.
I really think that came into play. And they were angry that, again, they were asked to be accountable for what they did and didn't do.
And they feel like they're above that. And I don't believe that there was anything that we could have provided that DA's office.
We probably could have had Corey Foster on tape admitting to everything.
And I think it still would have been... No bill, but what gets me is that you've got these prosecutors that work for Brett Smith in the district attorney's office that their whole job is to hold people accountable.
Their whole job is to hold people accountable, and they take away the one thing that's most valuable. to people, which is time.
So they take away time from people every day, two years, three years, 30 years, 50 years for various crimes, okay?
They hold people accountable, but yet when they're asked to be held accountable themselves, they can't do it.
That is exactly what you said, egos. Egos, absolutely.
Absolutely. Because it's like, it's just, it's just asking for you to be held accountable to do your job.
That's all anybody's asking for you for justice.
No one would fault you for saying, you know what?
Everyone messed up at a systematic level and it needs to be taken care of.
And like, we're going to do this. No one would fault anybody for just admitting something bad happened here.
And we're going to rectify it. And things weren't done, but we need to do it now.
Which I guess we'll just have to go back and rely on, um, The great advice that Bill Majors gave us, if we don't like the way that an elected official is doing their job, we'll find somebody else to run.
Absolutely. And that's what we're going to do.
Because if this has happened to my family, then it's happened to other families as well.
So, yeah. Yeah. With all the frustration and miscarriages of justice that this family has faced, somehow they managed to keep pushing forward.
And at the same time, they've worked on getting new laws set so that this doesn't have to be anybody else's experience.
We're going to have John talk to us a little bit about one of those laws, Colton's Law. we were contacted that there was a family that was, um, trying to get a law passed, uh, because of something similar that happened to their son, um, Colt Carney.
So we heard about Colton story, Colton's truck broke down early one morning and he had to walk to work and he got hit by a driver and was instantly killed.
Um, his mother, Michelle Carney had asked law enforcement, you know, well, did you guys get a blood test?
And they said, no, you guys do a breathalyzer.
Nothing because no one is drunk at, you know, seven 30 in the, in the morning that, that was there.
Wow. That's it. Well, yeah. And I mean, we, I, I know that firsthand and you know, Again, just the nonchalant, well, you know, it's too early in the morning.
That never happens. That's just somebody being lazy and not doing their job.
So she had reached out to every single member of the Texas House, and I believe there's 152, 154 members, and one representative, Terry Meza, uh, returned her email and they started in Terry Mays and was not even her, her rep.
And they started working on this and we heard about it.
And I've met Michelle Carney now numerous times.
I consider her very good friend. She is such a strong person.
Um, it took her years, years to get this done.
And so she finally got it ready. Um, and our family and our community and our friends heard about this and we assisted her in the lobbying for this, drove down to Austin numerous times, got our state rep and state senator involved and got it passed in one session.
So the spirit of this law would require that any motorist that hits a pedestrian and causes either serious bodily injury or death shall be given a blood test for drugs or alcohol.
That's what the spirit of the law is and had bipartisan support and passed.
And that's one thing that we can look back at and say that we made positive change.
Um, you know, I was telling, I've told Katie's brother and I've talked to Rhonda about this and, um, I mean, it just, it appears that the justice that we want, which is to have Corey Foster, have to go through criminal trial and stand in front of a jury, um, an answer for what he did.
That's, that's our, that's our justice. Okay.
Um, our justice is for there to be a criminal trial.
Now the outcome of that is, is up to the jury.
We can't control that, but at least that all that is out in the open, all that is out in public, and it's not behind closed doors to where a prosecutor can say or do whatever he or she wants to.
We want a public criminal trial to hold Corey Foster accountable.
I'm always optimistic, but At some point, pessimism just kind of overtakes you.
Of course. And you start to realize that, hey, maybe Corey never gets held accountable in a criminal court.
And I told Katie's brother and mom, I said, you know, the justice that we want, we might not get.
The justice we get, we might not see. And I think that is going to be very evident in Colton's law, that if something like this happens again, then the person that took somebody's loved one away will be held accountable, that families like ours will have answers and just won't have question after question after question.
It'll be another district attorney that sees a case like this, and instead of letting ego get in the way, instead of not giving every single case their 100% attention, maybe they look and see, how this community reacted to Brett Smith and his incompetence and they actually give a damn.
Maybe it's another officer. And again, 99.99% of law enforcement, fantastic.
It's that 0.01 that paints law enforcement with a broad brush.
Maybe it's that, officer that, um, comes upon a scene and sees a family, family friend.
Um, maybe he recuses himself, uh, maybe he or she is not so complacent, um, on scene and does their job and does an actual investigation and, um, maybe they treat that scene with the professionalism and the respect that that scene deserves.
Um, because again, you know, that's, that's somebody's worst day.
And to see the body camera footage that we saw in a lack of respect for Katie's life and what our family was going, going through, um, I'm never going to be able to unsee that.
So maybe, um, Everything that our family has done and our community has done, maybe the justice we get is a justice that we don't see.
And those that are in the power to do the right thing, do the right damn thing.
In addition to Colton's Law, another amazing thing that came out of this horrific tragedy is the creation of the Katie Palmer Project, which aims to spread Katie's light as far as humanly possible.
Dustin Bortsfield and... when he listens to, to this, he's, he's going to be angry because, um, he, uh, he never wants his name to be mentioned, but, um, Dustin is such a great guy.
I mean, there's, there's no, there's no words for a guy like, like Dustin.
Dustin's a firefighter out in grapevine.
Um, I played football with Dustin in high school and, um, we, we both went our separate ways and, um, after he heard what happened to our family, he reached out to me on, on Facebook and said, um, you know, again, offered me his condolences and just said, Hey, if there's anything that I can do for you or the kids, let me know.
And I said, man, I appreciate you reaching out.
Thank you. Um, context, you know, a couple of months later, it was kind of getting towards Christmas time and says, um, you know, do you, do you usually put lights up on your house for Christmas?
And I said, well, yeah. And he goes, uh, man, I'd, I'd like to do that for you.
Um, that's what he does in his, oh, it is.
And so there's, there's a lot of firefighters that when it comes, you know, towards Christmas time, um, They do that as a job on the side.
They'll work one day, then they get two days off.
In their spare time, some of them have side jobs, and they'll put up lights.
He goes, hey, this is what I do. Again, as a side job in my spare time, when I'm not saving lives and running in a...
Running in a burning buildings. I put up Christmas lights.
Can I, can I do that? And I was like, man, I, you know what?
That, that would be awesome. Um, and so he did that for us.
And he told me, uh, actually before he did that, he called me and said, Hey, not only do I want to do that for y'all, but I want to do this for, for other families.
Um, He started the Katie Palmer Project.
We got nominations for families in Dallas, in Grayson County, and some up in Oklahoma.
I believe there were 10 families. We raised money.
And he got some other firefighters that did that as well.
And they donated their time. And there were families that have gone through a traumatic experience, have lost a loved one, have had a very rough year.
And... Again, these heroes take time out of their days, times away from their family, and they go put up Christmas lights on these houses for these families that have gone through this hardship.
It was a big deal for us. I believe I was driving... my daughter back from some something at the high school and, um, they had put the lights up and we were coming back and, um, it's already a hard time, time of year as, as you could, could imagine, especially it was going to be our first Christmas without Katie and just, you just got these emotions, you know, you're just, you're, I'm, I've been an emotional rollercoaster for two and a half years.
And so, um, We turn the corner from Highland on to Glenwood and Bella sees the lights and man, her eyes light up.
I love that. It's such a great idea. It really is.
Because again, it's something doable and something that makes such a huge impact.
And to see her eyes light up and just for that second, she wasn't thinking about anything else that was going on.
She was just like, man, they did a really good job.
It looks great because usually I'm, I'm the one that puts up the lights and it's just, uh, they're all different colors and stuff.
I was going to say, Oh, it's awful. It's awful.
And she was like, man, they did a really good job.
And, um, Dustin, that just shows you that, you know, there are good people out there.
And Dustin is just a fantastic friend and just the type of guy where...
You're just glad to have somebody like that in your life, man.
He's a overly positive guy and, again, outstanding person.
Last year, we got families in the Houston area and the Austin area, and it spread farther throughout the state, and Dustin wants to get that – as big as possible just because he wants to be able to spread Katie's light, wants to be able to help as many people as possible.
That's just the kind of guy he is. So it's a registered nonprofit, 501C.
I think that's what it is. And there's actually a webpage for it.
And there is a Facebook page for Katie Palmer project.
So if anybody wants to get involved with, with that, you are more than welcome to get on either the Facebook page or the website.
And there's places where you can donate or more importantly, where you can nominate families as, as well.
We just want to take a second and thank John Palmer for one, just speaking to us and two, for being like such an incredibly kind and just really wonderful human being.
Seriously. So even though this case feels like it is full of just dead ends and frustration and injustice. they're not going to let that happen.
And we're not going to let that happen. Right, weirdos?
No freaking way. We're not going to do it.
Because you know what? The Palmers are officially family now.
And we're going to raise up our voices just like you can do the same.
And we can help this family get justice because that's what it takes is a lot of people screaming for justice.
And here's how you can do some of this stuff.
We have a ton of resources for you to go to.
If you want to nominate a family to spread Katie's light, or if you want to donate to that at all, you can do so at the Katie, excuse me, katiepalmerproject.com.
It's K-A-T-I-E-P-A-L-M-E-R project.com. There is also a website, justiceforkatiepalmer.com.
There's a Facebook page, Justice for Katie Palmer.
That's a public group. You can get all the latest updates on the case there.
You could also follow the Twitter if you're not on Facebook.
The Twitter is at 4 underscore Palmer, and it's at F-O-R underscore P-A-L-M-E-R.
And we'll post links to all of these in the show notes as well, so you can just get them right there.
But I think it's definitely time that justice happens in this case.
It's gone on long enough. And I think we can do it, guys.
I think we can help get this heard. We definitely can.
And let's hand it to John Palmer for some final thoughts.
I just want to thank everybody for... standing with us, um, as we stand up to fight against this injustice that, uh, we've gone through for close to two and a half years.
Um, Katie could have been your wife, your mother, your sister, your daughter, your cousin, your, your friend.
And, um, if this can happen to one of us, it can happen to any of us.
And an injustice against one of us is an injustice against all of us.
And just family is so appreciative of all the support that we've received from our community and from everybody else.
These, these podcasts help tremendously.
And I, I, We'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you to you both.
You guys don't know how important this is to get her story out.
And without your platform, we couldn't do that.
Without your platform, we wouldn't have a voice.
Without your platform, our fight for justice would be... so much more of an uphill battle.
And just want to make sure that I thank you both.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Listen, we're friends now.
We're here for you. Anything you need, you let us know.
Anything we can do to help. I very much appreciate it.
I very much appreciate your time. And thank you for allowing me to tell Katie's story.
Thank you for telling us Katie's story. Thank you.
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