Mary Winkler on Oprah

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Listen to and watch Mary Winkler on trial and during her interrogation here. In the audio segment found from the link above titled “My Ugly Came Out” Mary says, “…And it just came back out for some reason, and that’s the problem. I have nerve now and I have self-esteem now. And so my ugly came out.”

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There are two potentials for Mary Winkler: Either her husband abused her and she could no longer take it, and she snapped. Or, it is the unthinkable: Mary’s husband Matthew wasn’t as cruel as she’d like us to believe, and she killed him in cold blood.

I personally believe Mary killed Matthew in cold blood. I felt that way from the day I saw her in court on a video. Her behavior was peculiar. She displayed a microexpression grin contrary to her spoken words when she was asked if she “intentionally” killed her husband that was flat out haunting. Her statements to police were odd and inconsistent as well. And now again, Mary’s behavior on the Oprah show doesn’t fit with her scenario. Her words and behavior are odd and inconsistent another time. Her facial expressions out-of-place. Except on the Oprah Winfrey show, Mary forgot her facts this time and Oprah caught it. Let’s begin there.

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Point #1:

Look at the inconsistencies in Mary’s different testimonies/statements.

OPRAH: According to Mary’s statement to police, just after 6:00 in the morning, the Winklers’ house on Molly Drive was quiet. Mary and Matthew were asleep in their bed. The Winklers’ youngest daughter, one-year-old Brianna began crying from her crib. According to Mary, Matthew woke up in a rage and stormed into Brianna’s room.

MARY: So I went in there after him and took the baby…took Brianna from him, asked him to let me have her. And got her settled back down.

OPRAH: I had read–I don’t know if it’s true — that’s why I’m interviewing you — that he literally kicked you out of bed.

MARY : Mm-hmm.

OPRAH: So when I read that, I thought, like, with his feet, kicked you out of bed? Is that true?

MARY: That’s correct.

(moments later)

OPRAH: He was trying to suffocate her (Brianna)?

MARY: He was trying to get her to go back to sleep. He…I don’t think he had intentions of killing. He just…trying to get her to pass out.

OPRAH: So what was he doing? What was he doing? Get her to pass out? Really, you have to explain that because that doesn’t make any sense to me or anybody else who’s hearing this.

MARY: Well, I don’t understand it myself.

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): What did he do?

MARY : Just covered her mouth and her nose.

(moments later)

OPRAH: …cover the baby’s mouth and cover the baby’s nose and then you take the baby from him. And you were obviously upset and, what, he walked away?

MARY: Mm-hmm. Yeah, he just–hmm.

OPRAH: And then what?

MARY: Just…I got her…got her situated, and I just wanted to talk to Matthew.

OPRAH: Mm-hmm.

MARY : And there’s just that awful…awful sound.

Yet oddly, in Mary’s police confession to the police, this is what she said:

“I don’t know of anything he specifically said or did to me to upset me, but I had an uneasiness about me. I remember not sleeping well (the night before the murder). The next morning, the alarm went off 6-6:30 and I got up. He was still in bed. I don’t think I left the room. He had a shotgun he kept in the closet just in case. I don’t remember going to the closet or getting the gun. The next thing I remember was hearing a loud boom, and I remember thinking that it wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be.”

Furthermore, in Mary’s police interrogation transcript on the bottom of page 14, the conversation goes like this:

The police asked Mary,” Had ya’ll talked yet that morning? Had he woke up or did you wake up and do it before he got out of bed?”

Mary says, “He had gotten up but I want to say he’d just gone back for a few more minutes.”

Clearly, Mary is not telling the same story to us. There are big inconsistencies here. Furthermore, what really stands out to me is when Mary says “I remember thinking that it (the gunshot) wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be.” If you don’t anticipate shooting a gun, you have no anticipation for how loud it would be, do you??

Point #2:

Again, look at the inconsistencies in Mary’s different testimonies/statements.

Once Mary shot Matthew, she tells Oprah the following:

OPRAH: Was he dead when you went back into the room?

MARY: That’s what I thought so.

OPRAH: Yeah. Did he say anything?

MARY: No.

OPRAH: To you?

MARY: No, there was nothing.

Yet in Mary’s transcribed statement on March 24, 2006 Mary said:

“I heard the boom and he rolled out of the bed onto the floor and I saw some blood on the floor and some bleeding around his mouth. I went over and wiped his mouth off with a sheet. I told him I was sorry and that I loved him, and I went and ran.I do remember me holding the shotgun, hearing the boom, and then the smell. He asked me why and I just said I was sorry.”

Clearly two different accounts.

Point #3:

I think this is self-explanatory.

OPRAH: Did one of your daughters come into the room?

MARY: No.

OPRAH: I’d read that one of your daughters came into the room.

MARY: Right. She said that she looked in the room, I believe. This is off the top of my head. I don’t think came in. And I could not tell you from my memory…

OPRAH: And you said, daddy had been hurt.

MARY: Mm-hmm.

OPRAH: Do you recall that?

MARY: I’m sure–I don’t remember that exactly, but I know that day, I did say that he was hurt.

Yet Court TV reports the following:

The 9-year-old daughter of a Tennessee preacher was reduced to tears Monday as she described the morning she heard a “boom” in her parents’ bedroom and discovered her father wounded and dying.

“I went in and I saw my daddy face-down on the ground,” Patricia Winkler quietly testified Monday in the first-degree murder trial of her mother, Mary Winkler. “He was just groaning.”

Patricia testified that, before her mother closed the bedroom door on her, she noticed a telephone “behind” her father. When investigators arrived at the scene later that evening, Matthew Winkler was lying face-up and the telephone was unplugged at his feet.

…”She said we were going somewhere special,” said Patricia, describing her mother’s demeanor as “normal” for the next day that they spent driving to Orange Beach, Ala. “She said Daddy was in the hospital.”

Point #4:

Here are a handful of oddities. You have to read the statement first to follow this. I will explain it afterwards.

OPRAH: In court, you also said you felt that you were sexually abused.

MARY: Mm-hmm.

OPRAH: How so?

MARY: You know, when two people have tastes and likes, it’s fine for each person in their own home who agrees. But just…at some point, when there’s one person saying no, not to do something, then the other person who’s just pushed himself on that person and made them do that.

OPRAH: So he would force you to do what? (Mary almost breaks out into a laugh, but works hard to stop it by biting her lip).

MARY: Do sexual acts that I didn’t wanna do.

OPRAH: Uh-huh. I think in court you said you watched pornography…

MARY: Mm-hmm.

OPRAH: …which you didn’t wanna do, oral and anal sex, which you thought were unnatural acts, correct? And when he would force you to do it and you didn’t want to do it, would you tell him? Would you say to him, I don’t want to do it?

MARY: In the…at the moment… I know…I know there were certain times where my natural reaction would have been to push him off and he would stop that. When we were not in the heat of the moment and he would say, what do you think about this or that? And I would say no, don’t like that. Let’s not. And he’d say, okay. But he just would get going and that was just it.

Here during the interview when Oprah started talking about being sexually abused, and says, “So he forces you to do what?” Mary reacts with a grin like a cat who ate a canary. You can tell she wants to laugh. And no, it is not a nervous reaction. Mary was not nervous during this interview. I can guarantee, if you were sexually abused, talking about it would not make you want to laugh. If anything you would want to cover your face, or cry — not laugh.

Furthermore, Mary’s testimony is inconsistent. She says at times her “natural reaction would have been to push him off and he would stop that”. Then she says “he would get going and that was just it.” These are inconsistent number one. Number two, if she was the meek mouse she claims to be who never stood up for herself, would she really push him off? It doesn’t fit with the image she is portraying. And last, her words give her away, “I know there were certain times where my natural reaction would have been to push him off and he would stop that.” This is not how people recollect a story. “Would have been” indicates what she would do in that situation — not what she did do — but then she ends the sentence as if she did do it — because Matthew stopped.

This is a mound of red flags!

Point #5:

Here, I think you can see Mary’s story is absolute nonsense.

OPRAH: Did you wanna hold the gun to get his attention?

MARY: That’s what I would think. That’s just…just wanted to talk to him.

OPRAH: And you wanted to talk to him holding a gun?

MARY: I was so afraid.

OPRAH: Because you thought he would do what?

MARY: At that point, it was…I didn’t think…at that point,I felt like my life was in danger.

OPRAH: So you chose to speak to him by getting the gun. What did you wanna say?

MARY WINKLER: Just to stop. Just–be happy. He just…he had to be miserable the way he acted, and just to stop being so mean.

OPRAH: Mm-hmm.

MARY: And just relax and enjoy life.

OPRAH: That’s what you’d wanted to say to him?

MARY: Mm-hmm.

Here are other clues that Mary exhibits on the Oprah show that I believe strongly point to deception:

ONE
Mary displays classic “thinking-on-your-feet” behavior throughout the majority of her interview. Her sentences are spliced and all chopped up. She says little snippets of information — but not complete sentences. She pauses at odd times — over and over. All of which are red flags.

Here is one example:

OPRAH: Was it what you expected marriage to be?

MARY : Well…um…no. I just remember at some point… the….just being shocked…um… at the yelling and the…just this different person.

TWO
Mary also doesn’t speak in a manner that is consistent with memory recall. When we recall our past, we tell a story. We explain what happened in a coherent manner. We don’t pause because the story rolls off the top of head. Often times, in memory recall, the words flow faster than we can speak them. I see none of this with Mary. Instead, I see someone who appears to be brainstorming. She strangely doesn’t use pronouns much of the time which is another trait of liars.

Example 1:

OPRAH : Yes. And what surprised you the most? Did you see a side of him that you hadn’t seen when you were dating?

MARY: Mm-hmm. And the things that he would say… just off the wall. And … I didn’t understand where he was coming from. I didn’t understand his train of thought.

OPRAH WINFREY: Like what?

MARY: Um…he just…one day…he may encourage me to be with family, and… then… another day, he may say… we’re…you’re never talking to them again. It just…it was just sad. I mean… I don’t think he… knew exactly all that he was thinking all the time.

Example 2:

OPRAH: And how did that rage show itself in other ways? Would he rage against you?

MARY: Mm-hmm. Just certain thing…see…I couldn’t tell you one thing…what was the reason was. If something upset him…if he’s having a bad day that was just all there was about it. There was no…it was just get out of the way. He was just…he verbally could just say some very horrible things.

Mary’s words don’t even make sentence or answer the question she is being asked. Mary’s answers also lack detail and personal identity as well — which is also inconsistent with memory recollection. Each of these things mentioned above hints at deception.

THREE
Also, throughout the interview with Oprah, Mary makes expressions with her lips that are odd. She purses them together at times which is an indication she is holding things back. I thought she came onto Oprah to help other women. Why is she holding back?

Many times, she purses her lips together and drops the outer edges of her lips down like when you say, “Hmmm…I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

This facial expression indicates that Mary likely doesn’t know the answers to the questions she is being asked — which fits with her speech pattern of talk-pause, talk-pause and her inability to give precise, clear definitive answers. I suspect it is because she didn’t experience what she is telling us.

People never turn the outer edge of their lips down when they are certain of what they are saying. It’s one of the biggest clues I see on a regular basis that someone is hedging on me and not being honest when they use words to try to tell me otherwise.

Mary makes several more expressions which are odd.

FOUR
Mary also lacks any emotions or caring. She shows no signs of having an attachment to anyone — not even her children. She shows no regard or pain for what her children endured, or are enduring because of what she did. Did you notice her children don’t even enter into the equation — and supposedly she wants her kids back!

She even suggests that Matthew smothered the children with a pillow to shut them up, and that doesn’t even evoke emotion. This is abnormal and odd. It makes me question what she says, over and over again.

FIVE
Also, Mary tells us she “loves” Matthew still — which is really off the mark. If someone abuses you, and then you kill them in self-preservation — you can say you still love them. That is absolutely a possibility — I’ve seen people do it and say it honestly. But if Mary was being honest in saying this, wouldn’t she be the slightest bit remorseful? When we love someone and we hurt them, it devastates us. Why is Mary not feeling this emotion?

I can even accept a woman who kills her abusive husband, and has no remorse due to the fact she suffered dearly at the hands of sick man for years. But then, I would not expect to hear the words “I love him”.

You can’t have it both ways. It’s inconsistent. It’s like saying you love the guy who cracked your skull open with a bat, but you hope he gets the death penalty and dies. It’s nonsense. We never wish to harm or kill those we love. Ever.

SIX
Mary also acts like she is answering questions for a job interview — not telling the most painful story of her life. This is a huge red flag! Even if she was emotionally vacant and overwhelmed by her situation, we would still see snippets of emotions — feelings of pain and violation or expressions of love for her children – but strangely this is not the case for Mary.

So many people have said, yes, but that is because she is traumatized and emotionally withdrawn. I’m not buying that. If she was that traumatized still, would she be coming out saying that she wants to help other people on the Oprah show — and go on TV in front of millions of people– when she herself is still in shambles? It’s highly unlikely.

SEVEN
Compare Mary to Susan Still. Susan was a battered woman, who was soft-spoken and subservient to her husband, like Mary wants us to think she was. Yet the behavior between the two is drastically different. Susan has emotions, expresses feelings and complete thoughts. She expresses how she cares about her children, and how this will effect their lives — and how it has affected hers. Susan genuinely recollect her horrible ordeal and it shows.

Furthermore, Susan gives us details and facts. She explains what she thought, how she coped and how she got through her ordeal. She gives advice and insight. She speaks in a way that is consistent with memory recall. She doesn’t tell us how she loves her abuser now either, does she? You can feel her resentment towards him which is natural.

EIGHT
Mary got her facts wrong, which I find incredibly disturbing. It wasn’t like when Oprah asked her the question, she didn’t hear her, or got confused. It wasn’t like she struggled to answer the question. Oh, no. She went right into her story, and oops, forgot the details.

FINAL NOTE
In the end, this is really just the tip of the iceberg of what I see when I look at Mary. I see pages and pages more, but if I wrote it all up, I’d have a book on my hands, not a blog post. This post is long enough as it is. If you are interested in this interview, you can purchase the transcripts from Oprah.com to see more detail.

Phil Spector: As the Jury Deliberates

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As I write this, the jury is still in deliberation on the Lana Clarkson/Phil Spector murder trial. I have been asked to review this case for months, and with no intent to upset anyone, I just had no motivation to look into the case: Quite simply because Spector never made a public statement nor did he testify on his own behalf, and Clarkson was dead.

With that, I didn’t want to shift through all the videos on Court TV.com to determine who was who, and who was honest. I actually don’t spend much time researching case facts. I much prefer to simply watch suspects and victims talk: it’s much more accurate and requires less time. But luck has arrived for those of you who are still interested. Dateline NBC did a nice roundup of the case for me yesterday, and I watched it today. They titled it aptly Facing the Music.

Read moreDateline gave brief facts of the case, and then showed a fair amount of people testifying about their relationships with both Spector and Clarkson, which is just what I need. With testimony, I can usually pick out the honest people, and from their testimony surmise the truth with decent accuracy. I don’t need to hear all the case details. The facts of the case, while they enter into my ears, are usually taken with a grain of salt, especially in a case of a wealthy person. There is an expert to support every belief, somewhere, if you have time and money to seek them out. I’ve seen it one too many times, unfortunately. As Dateline says, “…no Hollywood jury has ever found a major celebrity guilty of murder.” Eerie.

______________________________

Perhaps money was his lure,
but his company the distraction?
______________________________

With that, do I think Clarkson killed herself? I do not, and I say that confidently and without hesitation. I think most people with reason can come to this determination. You don’t need wizard insight here. This is a case of logic and listening to people’s accounts of their relationships with both Spector and Clarkson, and applying logic. It doesn’t take much more than that.

Spector was a social misfit from a very young age. He was “off beat” and “awkward” until he started producing music. That’s when life came easier to him to a degree. He got the opportunity to enjoy the company of woman, and married four times. Obviously, staying married was difficult for Spector. Perhaps money was his lure, but his company was the distraction?

Add to that that Spector’s father committed suicide, and he himself had been diagnosed as a manic-depressive. Spector’s medical past doesn’t stand on stable ground, and through testimony in the trial, many women attest to this fact for decades. Many women testify about how Spector would surprise them with a gun, often when they were leaving and tell them that they weren’t going anywhere. He’d threaten them in attempt to gain control of what he had no control over: women.

(from Dateline NBC)
Dianne Ogden: He was screaming at me. He was screaming the f-word. You’re not f-ing leaving … He had a gun to my face, a pistol of some sort. I wouldn’t look at it. I couldn’t, you know. I was afraid to touch it, I was afraid it would go off. I wasn’t sure if it was loaded, and he had it here (moving her finger like a gun over her face) here, he put it all over me.

Melissa Grovsnor: He walked right up to me and held the gun right to my face. With just inches between my eyes and said if you try to leave I’m going to kill you.

Dorothy Melvin: He took his right hand that was holding the revolver and smacked me in the side of the head and said I told you to get the f- back in the house. Eventually he got up and he back handed me with the pistol again and said I told you to take your f-ing clothes off.

When I watched the women talk, it was cement on the block against Spector. They were honest in their accounts of how Spector treated them. Why would we believe Spector would act any different this night?

Add to this that Spector’s driver saw Spector in the doorway with a gun in his hand, and he heard him say, “I think I killed somebody.” That’s pretty damning alone but seeing the driver say it nails it for me. He is confident about what he heard and saw that night. He had no doubts. What would be his reason for lying be anyway? To lie would be to cut off his left arm– sending himself into the unemployment line.

Spector was a serious social misfit, outcast by his oddities, and I believe Spector had great anger inside him that had been brewing over a lifetime. He had it all, but the company of women, women who liked and wanted to be around him. And as he aged, fewer and fewer could handle a dirty old man who I suspect lusted after them. More and more women flew out that door than he could handle, and I think he finally pulled the trigger in a fit of rage.

Sepctor is a man with wealth and power, but little ability to keep women in his life for a satisfactory relationship that mends the wounds of life. Something so simple, that every poor man can enjoy, and all the money in the world couldn’t buy: true companionship.

Clarkson, while certainly facing a difficult time in life, hits me as a woman who endured and forged on. Sure, she may have spoken of a need to pull the plug to a friend, but many women will tell you they feel they can’t go on, but don’t mean a thing by it.

Clarkson had fought to make it in Hollywood for years, without ever making it big, and she was still trying, still hopeful underneath it all. As a matter of fact, she had just landed another part that she had yet to complete. If she was contemplating suicide, why would she still be trying? People who commit suicide often plan it out, slowly withdrawing from life. It didn’t appear that Clarkson was withdrawing from what I could see? She was still calling her friends and going out, too.

The majority of women statistically don’t kill themselves with a gun, either. Nor would I suspect women who do use a gun for suicide, use it in front of other people. They do it when they are alone, so they can be sure to get it right and won’t be talked out of it.

And last, I bet it is exceptionally rare, if even documented before, that a woman has gone to a stranger’s house and pulled the trigger on herself. That’s just out of the logical ball park, folks. It doesn’t happen, or if it has, it is statistically one-in-a-million odds.

I suspect Clarkson saw Spector that night and realized the enormity of the situation before her. Here was a powerhouse in Hollywood, and I suspect she thought perhaps if she shared a drink with him, he might return a favor to her in hopes of kindling a relationship with her. Perhaps he would connect her to the right people. Perhaps she thought her good looks might help her. Little did she know, they may have been the reason for her end.

Matthew Gretz Arrested

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A neighbor of Kira Simonian informed me today that Matthew Gretz has been arrested for her murder. Thank you for the notification, Daydream Nation.

I am sad to say that I am not surprised as Gretz’s behavior at the vigil was odd and perplexing to me. I write about it here.

Unless more news breaks, I will be back next week as stated below.

Looking at Matthew Gretz (Kira Simonian)

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Matthew Gretz is the husband of Kira Simonian. Simonian was a graduate student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. On June 28, 2007, Simonian’s landlord found her dead in her Minneapolis apartment. She was 32-years-old and an art student. Police are not saying exactly how she died, but they are calling the case a homicide and they are saying there are “multiple causes of death”. No one has been called a suspect, yet no one has been ruled out either.

That leaves us to look at Gretz. Where was he the night before and the day that Simonian was found dead?

According to news reports, he left town for business on Thursday morning before Simonian’s body was found later that evening. So, I would think by the time line, if reports are accurate, Gretz could still be a suspect.

Read more Gretz has only spoken publicly one time that I am aware of and there is only a tiny snippet of him speaking at a vigil held for Simonian several weeks after her death.

Does it tell us anything?

We know he is not lying in this video simply because he doesn’t say anything that is worthy of a lie. He makes the most generic statements which I personally find a bit odd. Usually at vigils, people talk personally about the loss of someone they love. That’s not to say that Gretz did or did not say more personal things. We really can’t discern this from the tiny snippets of vigil shown in this clip. He may have and the camera crew may not have caught it, or showed it on TV — which would be odd in itself. I would think the camera crew was looking to get him talking emotionally about Simonian, wouldn’t you? With that, we have to wonder and ask is this all he said at the vigil? If this is all he said, I’d find it perplexing.

What Gretz does say is this:

“Since my wife was murdered, everyday it gets a little bit harder in some ways…But it’s kinda days like today or moments like this: seeing your faces and seeing your support and knowing were all in this together, that makes it a little bit easier.”

He continues:

“I know that we all appreciated Kira in different ways. It’s not just my loss, it’s friends losses, it’s student’s losses, it’s neighbors losses. Going forward, let’s tell good stories about Kira because that’s what she would have wanted.”

Can we glean anything from this?

We can glean, at this point, Gretz is not in denial about his wife’s murder by the fact he uses the word “murder”. It’s a strong word. If Gretz were to try to play the part that he couldn’t accept her death , I would find that odd and contradictory — but we don’t know how Gretz is behaving at this point. If we did, we could see if his behavior is consistent. That’s key.

I do find the fact that he says, “…everyday it gets a little bit harder in some ways…But it’s kinda days like today or moments like this…” interesting. These statement shows that Gretz is having some confusing and conflicting feelings.

Things are getting harder “in some ways”? They either do, or do not get harder after the murder of a loved one. When emotions run high, things become stark black and white. I can accept either answer, but I would expect a definitive answer. You either will or will not face challenges — but you don’t face them “in some ways” at a highly volitile time in your life. It’s a half-baked answer. It’s odd. It’s unusual. It’s a raised-eyebrow but nothing more.

I would like to ask Gretz what has gotten harder in some ways? His answer might be telling.

Gretz goes on with his wishy-washy response when he says “But it’s kinda days like today…” It kind of is, but it isn’t? This is another odd answer. It’s unusual. This response doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Either you find solace in the gathering of Simonian’s friends, or you don’t. You don’t sort of find solace, do you?

Is he not finding solace– but trying to act like he is?

I also find Gretz’s word choices odd here when he says, “It’s not just my loss, it’s friends losses, it’s student’s losses, it’s neighbors losses. ” This statement lacks personal connection. It’s almost as if Gretz is distancing himself. You have to wonder. It’s just unusual again. I would expect to him to say something like, “It’s not only my loss, but your loss too. We all lost…”.

And last, when I watch Gretz talk, I see fear in his eyes and in his face. He looks frightened: really frightened. You can see he is trying to comfort himself by rubbing his chest. His voice quivers and he sounds as if he is out-of-breathe when he starts talking. Why? Is it due to the cut of the video, or is this how he started talking? I’d be curious to know. It would give me more information because if this is how he started talking, his voice pitch is strange.

Can I determine why he is frightened? No. I can only speculate. Why would he be afraid? Well, he could be deathly afraid of the person who murdered his wife, if he is a victim here. If that is the case, would he go to or hold a vigil after dark in the same neighborhood — a block away — if he feared for his life? That makes me ask the question who organized the vigil? I’d be interested to know.

All these answers would give me more definition.

Perhaps Gretz would be the type to push his fears aside and go to a vigil to honor Simonian. I can’t determine that from the little I know about Gretz. He doesn’t hit me as the type to take risks for his safety when I look at him, but I could be wrong. That’s simply just a guess.

Another scenario is that Gretz is an extremely shy guy — and going to this public vigil was too much for him. Could that be why he was afraid? When I watch Simonian’s video on CrimeBlog.us, I see Simonian was a strong character. I don’t believe such a timid guy would be attracted to someone like her, if that was the case. She hits me as the type to make him deal with situations — not avoid them. With that, I don’t believe Gretz was that shy and hence simply afraid of being on TV.

I’d be interested to talk to Gretz to ask him why he was so afraid. I think his responses would tell us a lot.

We can only guess at this point what is going on inside Gretz’s head. I’d love to ask him some questions, but I am not sure if I would like the answers I got back.

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Update:

September 2007:
Matthew Gretz has been arrested.

June 2008
Gretz Confesses
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Click on the labels below to see the most current posts.

Dale Fullwood

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Click here for an update on this case 8-12-2008

Click here for an update on this case 3-03-2009

Earlier this week, a reader asked me to look at the case of Coralrose Fullwood. Coralrose was a 6-year-old little girl who was reported missing by her parents shortly after they woke up on the morning of September 17, 2006. Within a few hours, a local resident was walking his dog two blocks from the Fullwood house when he stumbled upon Coralrose’s body at a new home construction site.

Nine months later, police have not named any suspects, but have not ruled anyone out as a suspect, either. Apparently, DNA was found on Coralrose’s body that does not match any of the family members.

The reader pointed me to some videos of Coralrose’s father, Dale, here.

I watched the three videos yesterday, and I must say I got a horrible pit in my stomach. It really upset me and bothered me- so much so that I had to walk away for a few hours. Nothing in the video sat right with me. Dale is not a person I trust. He makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable. And while his DNA was not found on his daughter’s body, I still don’t believe Dale is telling us what he knows to be true.

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  1. The first thing that struck me about Dale was his demeanor. It brought me right back to Adam Saleh. You don’t get a hint from his demeanor that he has just suffered a major life tragedy within the past two weeks. Instead, he jabbers on and on like he is talking about remodeling his house or something inane. You don’t get a clue that his children were taken away and his daughter was murdered— that this man’s life is in (or should be in) total chaos. His emotional response is completely in contradiction to his circumstances. Why isn’t he feeling normal emotions? That’s a big question.

    I know many of you are thinking that someone could go into denial about a situation like this, and it’s absolutely possible, but we would see other behavioral traits that would support this. With Dale, however, we see the exact opposite. He is willing to conjecture with you about all the “what-ifs”, which is not someone who is in denial. It’s hair-raising!

  2. In the video interviews, the reporter talks about how Fullwood’s number one mission is to clean up the filthy house so he can get his children back into the home. Dale tries to act like the house wasn’t all that bad. The reporters continues, “Reason number two is obviously trying to find out who did this,” to which Dale responds:

    “Who is the person who just took my daughter away from me? Yeah, and…”

    I find this statement perplexing. Most parents whose daughter gets murdered violently — don’t say “take my daughter away from me” so matter-of-factly. There is an anger in people who are violated to this extreme. There is a resentment, or at least a deep sorrow and pain –but with Dale, he isn’t feeling any of this. Why?

  3. The reporter goes on, “Are you surprised it’s taken this long?” (It’s been approximately two weeks):

    Fullwood: In all honesty, I think they are moving along at a very rapid pace. I mean…uh..the first 48 hours, you’re kind of hoping and praying that it’s a quick fix – that there was something… that the person dropped…a….a cell phone or something like that, that has his phone number on it. I mean or I mean… you could…you could…you could come up with scenarios. The first 48 hours is basically what the police did is sealing off the whole area.

    Dale is showing classic thinking-as-he-speaks-clues, with his word-stuttering and speech repetition.

    Rapid pace? When you endure life’s tragedies, time usually stands still, or moves at a snail’s pace. It doesn’t speed up during nightmares, tragedies or huge losses. Only when we have fun does time fly. Is Dale enjoying this? He sure makes you wonder. This is another red flag.

    Quick fix? A quick fix for a murder? This is simply nonsense. Normal people who feel normal emotions don’t believe that a quick fix can ever happen after someone they loved is murdered. It’s ludicrous. I suspect this is just Dale rambling off the top of his head, without thinking.

  4. The reporter: What do you think happened after you went to sleep?

    Fullwood: Um… (long pause) There were a couple of strange things, and the more I think about this, that and the other – it’s…it’s kind of weird. Um…I notice when I took the dog out, there was like….you know how the dews in the morning and when something crosses the path, it …it leaves…you could actually see a visible trail. I noticed a trail like that…and at first I thought it might have been an ATV or something like that, but they’re erratic. Um……(long pause) And it was kind of strange – because there was two trails. So, if….you’re walking you normally make one trail…and I don’t know there’s …. there could have been a second person. Eh..Uh… Everything is just speculation and everything like that.

    There is more classic thinking-on-your-feet speech again. When we recollect things, we do not talk like this.

    When a parent of missing child gets asked this, they typically don’t conjecture. Number one: it’s way too painful. Number two: what purpose does it serve? And when they do talk, they usually tell what they saw and know in order to help people crack the case. Dale isn’t doing that here. First he hints that he saw “a trail”. He suggests he thought it might have been an ATV, but ATVs are erratic. What? Where is the logic in this that ATVs are erratic? It’s quite illogical and nonsense again. And then he pauses a long time before suggesting there were actually two trails! Yeah, right. I wonder if Dale is hinting there were two people involved in this crime.

    I suspect people who have known Dale in the past would tell you he changes everything he says to suit his needs. He says whatever works for him. I suspect Dale has been telling tall tales for a long, long time. The thing is, he comes across as happy-go lucky and nice, and he isn’t threatening looking in any way, so he probably got away with it a lot.

  5. The reporter: I’m sure you have been …you know, working it over and over in your brain. How often do you think about that night?

    Fullwood: Every night.

    He only thinks about her at night? That’s ODD. Most parents in his situation would tell you they think about a situation like this constantly…every waking moment, all day long, every day… but they usually don’t say “every night”.

    Furthermore, most parents would tell you that being at the home where the abduction occurred would be unimaginable, because they would keep reliving the nightmare. Yet Dale has no problem being at the home where this occurred, cleaning it up, building shelves — getting everything ready so they can live again as if nothing ever happened. Dale makes you feel like he is ready to get back to everyday life. So soon? It just doesn’t fit.

  6. Fullwood continues:

    I mean, since I’ve got into this house, ah…I really don’t think I have slept more than two hours — an hour and a half at time without waking up, hearing something or something that just shocks me, and I take a walk around the house, even though the house is not there, and nobody else is here right now….um…double-checking, triple checking—quadruple checking the doors – making sure they’re locked. Um…as I said…I don’t think I locked the front door.

    The house is not there? This is odd, and a sign he is just rambling for attention — not thinking things through.
  7. Why does he feel the need to say he doesn’t believe he locked the front door that night? He is trying to make sure people believe his story? Why isn’t he saying, “If only I had locked that door that night, my little girl would still be here!”
  8. Dale confuses me with his obsession about keeping the doors locked now. He doesn’t give any indication he is truly afraid. He says he wakes up frequently at night — which sounds more like a paranoia than fear, if you ask me. If there was an accomplice, could he be afraid of what they might do to him?

  9. Fullwood continues:
    As for a theory or philosophy of what might have happened? What seems strange is …um…on this side of the house over here – the screen was pulled out and left on the ground. So I don’t know if somebody tried pulling that screen out to break into the house at first and knowing those windows were locked … might of come around back here…and in coming back here, the only thing I can think of is this door was always kept unlocked, and I mean its not now, as you can see, I always keep checking things all the time. Somebody might have come in here, and I really don’t think, in my mind, they were out to grab her.     If it was a sole thing just to go grab her, they would have just grabbed and ran…and with the opportunities with five children here…ah…there’s a lot of things. I think it might have been like a quick robbery where the guy came up here…my wallet was sitting up here and he could have been grabbing my wallet and…I can’t tell you for sure if my daughter was in the bedroom. She might of waken up and come out. Or, if she was sleeping here on the couch right here and someone grabs a wallet and she wakes up there, the person might have panicked, or something like that seeing that okay this is someone who could identify me, or recognize me or something like that whether… I’m not saying it’s someone from our neighborhood or anything like that….ah but…

    Here Dale tries to play detective. It’s very unusual behavior for a victim to do this. Most parents are too overwhelmed with grief to play this game, but of course Dale isn’t. It’s hair-raising. Maybe it’s just his happy-go-lucky demeanor that is hair-raising at this point. I’m just not liking this.

  10. What are the “opportunities”, that Dale is speaking about, with five children? This is really perplexing. A man who is a sexual predator might see children as “opportunities” but would a normal person ever put the word “opportunities”, in the mix here? It’s quite strange and very out-of-place.
  11. The reporter says “Do you think it could be (a neighbor)?

    Fullwood: (pause) Nh…The possibilities are endless. I could say that. I mean the possibilities are endless. Do I have somebody that I suspect in my neighborhood? I would have to say honestly say at this time, no. I really don’t think somebody would go to that type of extreme, seeing we’ve only been here two months …um…to do something like this. You know, but it is something that was done.

    The first thing that struck me here is it appears as if Dale started to say the word “no” when answering the reporter’s question. That’s really important. If he has no idea of what happened, why would that come out of his mouth? It was a normal and natural response, and yet Dale stopped it. Then he repeated himself to be sure he was clear,”I could say that. The possibilities are endless”. How could he be so certain a neighbor wasn’t involved? Then his continued rambling is utter nonsense. Innocent victims of a crime like this don’t make such arguments. They just don’t do it. How could they possibly rule anyone out — so much without a thought? It’s inconsistent and illogical.

  12. The reporter “Does it make it harder for you because officially you guys have not been cleared as suspects?

    Fullwood: I think…in all honesty, the answer on that…the police department are trying to cover everything. I don’t think they are really looking at my wife or myself or the children. I do know there are a lot of ….detectives out there …that maybe a couple of them might be following up everything on me….

    Notice how he doesn’t answer the question directly? That’s a big red flag. Notice how he pauses at key points within the sentence? He is clearly thinking as he speaks, not talking from his heart and about his true feelings. Honest people would immediately talk about their innocence, how painful it is to have the finger pointed at them in a time like this. They would show emotions. Dale doesn’t. Why? Instead, he acts like he is at a party conversing with a friend.

  13. Reporter: “You don’t feel like they are putting undue heat on you, another words?”

    Fullwood: No, no, no

    Watch Fullwood as he answers that question. His body language is key here. When people are overly stressed or feel they’ve held composure through a difficulty or have been scared and manage to cope, many times, they collapse their knees in response to the situation. I don’t know if the response is subconscious or not, but it’s definitely odd for Dale to do this here. It’s not something someone would do if they felt there was no pressure.

  14. Somewhere I would expect Dale to stop and show some emotion for Coralrose — some compassion, some care, some feelings of loss, share some thoughts, some memories about her – but he doesn’t. Coralrose doesn’t seem to enter Dale’s mind AT ALL, and this is a double-triple-quadruple WHY NOT?

I’ll stop my assessment here. Do I trust Dale? I absolutely do not trust Dale. Do I think he killed his little girl? I cannot say. Was he involved somehow? I suspect so, because he isn’t telling us all he knows. In my opinion, Dale knows more than he is admitting to, sadly, and the implications of that are a little more than I can handle thinking about…