Shearin was outraged. I wasnt going to leave him., She then told me something she had not mentioned before. Burnsides father showed up to let her in, and when Lord tried to tell him she had not murdered his son, he cut her off. Leave them blank to get signed up. After the service, she told Burnsides friends that she hadnt returned any of their calls because she had been overwhelmed with grief. These laws are especially important when those being questioned are already emotionally reeling from the events themselves like Ms. Lord who first dealt with the discovery of her boyfriends body, calling 911 for help, and that loss then to face questioning by police while vulnerable and upset like Lords being questioned by Thompson as if she had committed a crime for several hours. Whos that? Thompson asked, pointing to a man kneeling beside Lord in the front yard. Why did you let my son bleed to death on his own kitchen floor? I know that he could get dramatic and a little crazy when he drank. In Lords case, while she was arrested by Dallas police it was soon shown that there was no murder; her boyfriend had committed suicide. As one Dallas County prosecutor put it, They can, even for the most well-intentioned of reasons, get too focused on making an arrest at the detriment of the true story., Mitchell began evaluating Thompsons case against Lord. . After The First 48. Dressed in one of his dark suits, Thompson strode toward his seat. Or maybe, as Thompson theorized, Lord had missed some of the residue on her hand and her shirt when she cleaned herself up after pulling the trigger. It was Lundberg, who had gone to Parkland to examine Burnsides body. Come on., Lord closed her eyes when I asked her about those detractors who continue to believe shes hiding something. I do believe you killed him. Chip Gaines Bought Larry McMurtrys Historic Texas Bookstore. Im still going to suffer for the rest of my life for this, she said. I had the impression that she told me that [Burnside] had nothing to do with it and she did it. But he refused to say, like he had said on his porch, that he had definitely heard Lord confess to the shooting. 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Police questioned Lord at the police station and then released her. Thompson picked up his cellphone and called Burnsides father, John, a successful Dallas business analyst. According to Jaffe, Lord overheard the conversation and started to get upset. She told Burnside she was hurt that he would go to the trouble of organizing a friends birthday party when he had done next to nothing for her own birthday a few months earlier. Only Burnside and Lord were in the apartment where they lived at the time. I cant undo what hes done.. When he finished, he left a packet of evidence that hed compiled for the grand jurors to peruse, including the results of two polygraphs that concluded that Lord had not shown deception when she said she had not shot Burnside. He knew it. Ive talked to her many, many times, and if she is lying about what happened, shes a hell of an actress, said one friend, Eric Love. Burnside had been involved in a couple of accidents. Or maybe the two had struggled for the gun before it went off, leaving residue on both of them. Burnside told her that he was under financial stress, having to pay both his mortgage and his income taxes. Instead, he gave Brandi Mitchell everything he had.. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. Comments are moderated and these will not be published. In the taped interrogation, the detective asks Lord some general questions about what happened on the night that her boyfriend died then Thompson changed things up. I wasnt going to leave him. Why the bottles of cleaning products and the bloody towels? She fell to her knees and said it was an accident and that she didnt mean to shoot him. I was leaning over my future husbands body, Lord said. The Dallas City Council on Wednesday approved a settlement of more than $1 million to a . And even if he took a shortcut or two, he adds, he didnt hide or invent evidence. 1983 claiming that she was wrongfully arrested for a killing that she did not commit, which landed her in jail for nine days. Tittle maintains that Thompson never considered the idea that Burnside may have accidentally shot himself, despite evidence that he was drunk at the time and had a history of being reckless with firearms. He asked her why, after finding Burnside on the floor, she had first called Jaffe but then waited seven minutes before calling 911. . Lord shook her head. Testimony continues Friday, during which Lord may take the witness stand. | Link Errors He wasnt stressed-out, Thompson said. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Thompson, a 21-year veteran of the Police Department, has been a homicide detective since 2006. Theres no way my son shot himself,John said. Physical evidence can be more baffling than conclusive. The case was then sent to the Internal Affairs division for an administrative review. If the review, which is ongoing as of press time, finds that Thompson violated departmental policies, he could be fired, suspended, or demoted. After she graduates, she hopes to go to law school and perhaps someday work for the Innocence Project. Thompson has still destroyed my life and hes still out there working cases. Was there a chance he was involved in the shooting? When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. In fact, when Tittle asked Thompson, Is it still your belief that Olivia Lord murdered Michael Burnside? the detective didnt hesitate. But Detective Dwayne Thompson. She identified herself as Olivia Lord, Burnsides girlfriend, and said she had just found Burnside lying on the kitchen floor with a gunshot wound to his head. Toward the end of the year, he finally saw the video recording of Rastegars interview at police headquarters. Im innocent, Lord kept saying. However, Lord wasnt done with the situation and after she was released, she filed her civil lawsuit for damages. But as the case made its way through the courts, she maintained her innocenceand claimed Thompson was the one who should go to prison. Thompsons interrogation of Lord was videotaped. If you have or may be questioned by the police, know your rights. And, Thompson guessed, she had wiped down her hands and arms with the towels he had seen on the kitchen floor. Why, he wanted to know, would a man suddenly shoot himself after what seemed to be a routine argument with his girlfriend? The only thing I can tell you that might make any sense to anybody is that when hes drunk, hes very irrational, she said. She has also enrolled in college for the first time. It was now 5:44 a.m. And thats hurtful. As he nodded sympathetically, she again talked about how hurt she had been on her birthday. Bring on the Shiplap? A police officer receives a high degree of protection when he conducts a criminal investigation. Then U.S. district judge Barbara Lynn gaveled the court to order. He saw no high-velocity blood spatter. Lundberg also took the stand, testifying that he too remained convinced that Lord was guilty of murder. By then, a couple of those friends had talked to Thompson, and he had made it clear to them just what he thought of Lord: he said he would stake his career on his belief that she had killed him. She had always insisted that she had not fled from the police. Although she had her own apartment, she was planning to move in with him as soon as he finished remodeling the house. Im a person who just lost her boyfriend, Lord wailed. Its difficult to go out in public without thinking someone is saying, Theres the girl who killed her boyfriend., Right at that moment, a waiter walked up, clearly taken with her, and asked if she was ready to order. And now hes dead, he said. She told her parents that Thompson had brutalized her. Strapped around. Shearin questioned Lord about the drops of blood around the house. Why wasnt that enough? Thats the exact type of case that might have been portrayed on The First 48, right? Tittle asked. Another particle had been discovered on the front of Lords shirt. Look at it! The detective was 47 years old and built like a linebacker at six feet two inches and 230 pounds. What this trial is about is whether this detective had probable cause to believe that she did it. Then Schuette began listing all the reasons that would make a detective like Thompson believe Lord had killed her boyfriend. In fact, she had purchased the airline tickets for herself, her nieces, and her nephew to go to California thirteen days before the arrest warrant had been filed. Or maybe Mikey did it, Jaffe said. He said that Michael had called earlier in the week, telling his mother, Cindi, that he was looking forward to coming over to their home for lunch on May 9, which was Mothers Day. He is a Democrat representing District 96 in the Tennessee House of Representatives . Jurors in a civil trial on Thursday got to watch a dramatic video of that tense and aggressive interrogation of Lord, who is now suing Thompson for false arrest in a federal civil trial. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. A uniformed officer walked over and told Thompson that the house belonged to a man named Michael Burnside, age thirty. Comments: Editor's Note: Plaintiff will probably file an application for attorney's fees and costs, which will be substantial. In that small house, she mistook the sound of a pistol shot for a glass falling to the floor? Maybe, Jaffe speculated, when Burnside and Lord had started arguing, he had declared that he was never going to marry her, which sent Lord into a tailspin and led her to grab the gun. The First 48 (2004- ) In Dallas, when a good Samaritan is gunned down trying . Will detectives be able to catch the killers before they strike again? IMDbPro. Several months later, when he called Lord to refinance his home, their other relationships had ended. Lord told her friends and family that Burnside definitely liked to have a good time. . Tittle then had the jurors watch Thompsons interview with Lord and Lundbergs interview with Rastegar. And Im a person who thinks your behavior tonight doesnt add up. He pointed his finger at her. | Store Thirty seconds passed as she wept before she added, There are still nights when I drive by our home just to look at it. Something did not add up. They had not laid eyes on each other since he had interrogated her. Compared with Thompson, Lundberg was a quiet man who wore glasses and spoke slowly. Burnsides parents say that they still cannot believe that their son took his own life. He called Jaffe, who had also turned against Lord, to see if he could help him locate her. Thompson stared at a copy of Burnsides drivers license. Lord, who is now 37 years old, still lives in the same apartment, and she has barely spent any of the money she won in her lawsuit. He thought he had a mild case of COVID-19. (For a philosophy class, she wrote a paper on Socrates being sentenced to death under false charges.) Okay, fine. Testimony. He was wearing a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. And the bullet had exited toward the top of the left side of Burnsides head. Whats more, he said, Thompson had left out of the affidavit the fact that Burnside, who was right-handed, had been shot at point-blank range in his right temple, which would give a judge another reason to believe he had committed suicide. She certainly had not used them to wash herself off, she said. He insisted that what Rastegar told him in the homicide office was the same and consistent with what he said out on the porch. We understand that people get upset, get scared, get angryand when all those emotions are happening at once, people do things., He paused and kept his eyes on Lord. I cant say unequivocally whether the young woman did or didnt do the shooting because I wasnt there., At the same time, Mitchell and other prosecutors in the DAs office were not convinced Thompson had committed any serious wrongdoing. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide Read allWhen Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. When Shearin asked if he had told anyone that there was blood spatter on Lords clothing, he replied, I may have said it, but I dont know whether I said it or not. Shearin then asked about the trajectory of the bullet through Burnsides skull. Videos 1. S8, Ep2 8 Jan. 2009 Lord was charged with murder a month after Burnsides death, based on Thompsons affidavit, and spent nine days in jail. Thompson and Lundberg drove to Rastegars house. Dallas homicide Detective Dwayne Thompson sits at his desk in 2010, looking over material he collected in the death of a 42-year-old mother who was shot in front of her home. At around twelve-thirty, the officer continued, a woman had called 911 from the house. You realize, dont you, that if I didnt have money from my family to fight back, I could have been wrongfully convicted, fighting this from prison. Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation. The lawsuit claimed that Thompson had violated Lords civil rights by engaging in malicious prosecutionin particular, that he had intentionally misrepresented the facts about Burnsides shooting and omitted significant exculpatory information that would have proved Lord innocent of any wrongdoing. Im not even sure the word accident was used. He said he later surmised that Lord had shot Burnside because he had heard a story going around the neighborhood that Burnside had been shot in the back of the head, which would suggest he had been murdered. Thats Olivia Lord, he told Thompson. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. There hasnt been one bit of evidence in this case that has caused you to pause in your opinion that she murdered Michael?. And now you have this thing where he was spending a lot of money on his friend, but he didnt spend near as much money on your birthday. There was no question in her mind, she said, that she and Burnside would soon get married. She was on an airplaneon her way to California. Will detectives be able to catch the killers before they strike again? She glanced around the dining room. Her voice shook when she spoke. Were missing something, he said to her. Dwayne Thompson (born October 6, 1950) is an American politician. Yes. Still, Thompson had only a theory. He is one of the most popular detectives in the Dallas Police Departmenta charismatic man, big and boisterous, with a powerful deep voice, says Craig Miller, a former deputy police chief who served as Thompsons lieutenant in the homicide unit in 2010. Lord hired Don Tittle, a high-profile Dallas lawyer who specializes in civil rights litigation, to file a lawsuit against Thompson, which he did in late 2011. For her part, Lord said that she would gladly give up any money in return for Thompsons being sent to prison. Thompson thanked John and told him he would be back in touch. When she flew back to Dallas, she went straight to Shearins office. They began talking about planning a surprise birthday party in a few weeks for one of their friends and flying to Las Vegas later that summer to attend a bachelor party for another. The idea that she would put a gun to his head and pull the trigger is just unfathomable.. Lets make a bad thing right. His fellow detectives nicknamed him D-Train. But, Jaffe added, Burnside didnt wave the gun around. W.D. She said Burnside had been drinking heavily, and at some point, in the midst of the fight, he had walked into the kitchen and shot himself. I had to cover my mouth I was so appalled, Judy Durbin, an accountant who was the foreman of the jury, would later recall. I grabbed him and held him.. Did she, in fact, tell him that she was leaving him? Not only that, Sanders also pointed out Thompsons failure to read Ms. Lord her Miranda rights including specifically her right to remain silent after it was clear that Thompson considered Lord to be a suspect in a crime. She had desperately run from room to room trying to get better reception. Thompson testified that Lord had little blood on her hands and that she smelled of cleaning solution, which led him to believe she had washed her hands. But a Dallas County grand jury later declined to indict her. Then she looked at Thompson. Thompson stormed out of the room and asked Lundberg to see what he could get out of Lord. Any money in return for Thompsons being sent to prison these will be. 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Make a detective like Thompson believe Lord had killed her boyfriend, Lord said hopes to to.
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