confession tape again. doe that make you nervous? it always makes me nervou because i m, like, oh god where are they goin with this? an hour after re-watching the confession the jury came back with a verdict, guilty. but now came the penalty phase when the jury would decide i this was a pre-meditated killing or one of sudde passion. how stressful was this case for you? oh, it was real stressful. mean, when you get a case like this where you have th perpetrator who can convince even some members of law enforcement that he might have been the victim in all of this then you worry about, what s jury gonna think, you know? how do you straddle this this thing? and i you know, i forgive the the thought, but it s, like, how do you not get seen as a woman? do you assess i don t know know what i mean and i think that cause it cause somebod you could be judged and - right, absolutely. and i i think i am seen like that by a lotta jurors, and there nothin
center stage, meaning the tape was now fair game. the defense played the tape to take the sting out active what erik and i did took courage beyond belief. detective zoller, remember, had never heard the tape befor and he was dumbfounded this was supposedly a candid confession tape but on it, the brothers never once mentione the issue that was now the ver core of their defense. why did you ever murder you parents? oh, because they were sexually molesting us that never came out. why wouldn t he tell his therapist? big deal? the prosecution thought so but, by then, the jury had already heard many hours o tearful testimony about abuse. and that is when, in decembe 1993, they retired to consider a verdict. we made a mistake, right of the bat. hazel thornton was on eri k s jury we took a show of hands a to what level of guilt w thought they were.
ends justified the means let s make up this story about abuse. but one thing jurors figure was not made up was that confession tape. this time, the prosecution got to use that wildcard the way they wanted to, as their smoking gun. and they highlighted a section where the brothers seemed to have no remorse about what the had done you miss just having thes people around? i miss not having my do around that really just was like a punch in the gut and then, just before the jury went out, judge weissburg s last ruling. and quite possibly, the most important one of all the jurors would not be allowed to consider an imperfect self-defense judge weisberg basing his decision on a california supreme court ruling that came down after the first menende trial said imperfect self-defense didn t appl because the brothers initiated the confrontation with their parents.
years. you heard from the victims s family members. 34 years is a long time to wait. two big questions we have had since the doj announced that mehsud would be in court today. first, how did he get into u.s. hands? we understand the doj charged him with two criminal counts two years ago. that was even three years after u.s. officials got their hands on a confession tape he gave in 2012. that is a long time even for victims to have to wait. and understood that was all happening. a lot of twists and turns in that. so there has been that s the first question, how did he get into u.s. hands. second, is that confession tape going to be admissible. that will be a legal question we will find the answers to in the next coming weeks and months. back in 2001, there has been an international lockerbie trial. one operative was arrested. but the investigation at the time was that he was not the
to take the sting out active. what erik and i did took a courage beyond belief. detective zoller, remember, had never heard the tape before and he was dumbfounded. this was supposedly a candid confession tape but on it, the brothers never once mentioned the issue that was now the very core of their defense. why did you ever murder your parents? oh, because they were sexually molesting us. that never came out. why wouldn t he tell his therapist? big deal? the prosecution thought so. but, by then, the jury had already heard many hours of tearful testimony about abuse. and that is when, in december 1993, they retired to consider a verdict. we made a mistake, right off the bat. hazel thornton was on erik k s jury. we took a show of hands as to what level of guilt we thought they were. and it became immediate that it was men against women, murder versus manslaughter. the main issue, said hazel, was the brothers story of abuse. the women believed them. the men did not. did