Within a few miles of this area. within weeks or months? within weeks. within weeks. as police canvassed the neighborhood for leads and witnesses, the investigator also had to consider the perpetrator may have been someone julie knew. you re not ruling anyone out or in. you re simply going through the motions. you re speaking to the immediate family first. working your way out. the sheriff s department did not tell the griffiths julie had been murdered. we were not told anything by the police at that point. but anyone at the scene might have guessed foul play was somehow involved. there was just cops all over the property. you said, why the cops? exactly. yep. naturally the first person detective carter interviewed was julie s husband, keith. first of all, we are sorry for your loss. appreciate that. at first, keith talked about what everyone perceived was the cause of the inferno, an accidental fire set off by a new
For enough time to commit the crime, the prosecutor said, it also caught him in a lie. remember in his interview, keith told police he hadn t swapped clothes that night? change clothes? no. but a look at the security footage showed he had. he left wearing one set of clothes. one of his work shirts. he came back dressed in all black. the prosecutor also showed security video captured from a residence near the griffith home. it caught a glimpse of an suv pulling into the subdivision shortly before the fire. it was a little blurry. it was a few seconds long, but it sure looked like keith griffith s car. and another circumstantial bit. who else but keith, the prosecutor said, could have gotten by the griffiths aggressive great dane cleo? certainly not an unknown intruder. the dog and keith were very close. a burglar couldn t have come in. a family member could have. as for the why question, how could keith, a man who by all accounts loved his wife, actually do it? the
the news hit zach griffith particularly hard. since coming out to his mother, his relationship with her had been strained. and now this. i guess you re just beating yourself up something terrible that you had been sideways with her. yeah. and i know that if we were just given more time, that we would have been close again. that we would have been, you know, that mom and son duo that we were. but we just we didn t have the time. it was ripped away from us. and we never get it back. aaron, the elder son, had more of a take-charge reaction. got to take care of my brother, i got take care of my dad. you ve got logistics. before the grief that you can absorb. yeah, for me, it s just kind of the way my brain is wired i guess. within hours, the griffiths would head from all directions toward what used to be an anchor in their lives, the family home. just gave my dad a big hug and we were both crying. we re like, i can t believe this. you know? what happened? keith s good
I had no idea what could have happened. no enemies. i mean, it made no sense. just who would want to kill her. after keith was released the night of his interview with detectives, he headed straight to his friends, the bradleys. they were floored to hear the line of questioning that he recounted. what was up with his marriage, his alibi, the gun he owned? he had been questioned to the point that he almost felt like they thought he had done this. son aaron also got called down to the station that same evening. and he, too, was questioned about his parents marriage. notice anything lately in their relationship as far as any problems or anything like that? that you re aware of anything? no. nothing. was there any money troubles? was there any relationship, things that we knew of? but to a person in the griffiths circle, the very idea that keith might know something about julie s death was, well, just flat-out crazy. i knew he didn t do it.
Had to consider the perpetrator may have been someone julie knew. you re not ruling anyone out or in. you re simply going through the motions. you re speaking to the immediate family first. working your way out. the sheriff s department did not tell the griffiths julie had been murdered. we were not told anything by the police at that point. but anyone at the scene might have guessed foul play was somehow involved. there was just cops all over the property. you said, why the cops? exactly. yep. naturally the first person detective carter interviewed was julie s husband, keith. first of all, we are sorry for your loss. appreciate that. at first, keith talked about what everyone perceived was the cause of the inferno, an accidental fire set off by a new newly installed heating unit. you had it installed tuesday? it was a whole new system. keith explained the contractor was a friend of his who had done the work just a few days earlier. they put a rush on it.