Kevin Pickett
Appearances
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
She was stabbed three, four times in the neck on the left side. She had a T-shirt wrapped around her neck. It appeared to be trying to choke her. It was kind of over her face. She was beaten. There was a curling iron with a cord wrapped around her neck. So this was a horrific, horrific crime. This was not just a beating. This was pure torture. That's what it was.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Katie's condition was very critical. She was essentially in a medically induced coma the entire time that she was at the hospital. It wasn't as if police were ever able to talk to her or get information from her after the fire.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Katie's body was burnt up all the way from her inner thighs all the way up to just above her breasts. And you don't have to be a great detective to figure out, okay, somebody's trying to cover something up here in areas of concentration would lead you to believe it's some type of sexual assault.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Those agencies all met and decided that Western's police department would take the lead in the case. Definitely, fire, arson investigations, and murder were not the kinds of cases that Western police handled with any kind of regularity or at all. The investigators' first steps were trying to figure out where Katie had been and who she might have been with.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
They interviewed Danica Jackson, who was Katie Autry's roommate. Details is huge in an investigation of this size. So Danica Jackson was filling in these details for us.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
According to both police records and an interview that I'd done with Danica, that night, the two of them had gone to the Pike party together, a fraternity house not too far from campus. And Danica told police that at one point, Katie got into a fight with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Maurice, and she slapped him.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
She was drunk, and after both of those things, just kind of had decided it was best for her to go home. Often at the fraternity parties, they would have either pledges or freshmen that were designated to be sober. And so they were kind of there to give people a ride home. Danica helped connect Katie with somebody to get a ride home from the party. It was about 1.30, two o'clock in the morning.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Danica was pretty protective of Katie. In addition to making sure she got home with a sober driver, she called Katie later that night to make sure she was OK after the fight with Maurice.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
So she calls her approximately 2.30 AM in the morning. Katie answers. Danica says, what are you doing? She said, I'm back, but somebody's here with me. And Danica says, who is with you in the room? And she said, I don't know who it is, but I just want to go to sleep. Danica Jackson says, put him on the phone. I want to talk to him.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Danica told police that Katie handed the phone to the man, and he told Danica that he was the person who took Katie home from the fraternity party. And so at that point, Danica said, OK, just make sure you put her on her stomach so she doesn't throw up. She's been drinking a lot. Or if she does throw up, then she's not going to choke.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Danica heard another man's voice in the background, but she couldn't hear what he was saying.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
According to Danica, we had two people in Katie Autry's storeroom.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Police had to figure out who those people were.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
It came out pretty quickly that it was more than just a fire, and there was a lot of shock. For me, as a 21-year-old student, you feel pretty invincible, you know? So the idea that this happened to somebody was pretty shocking.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Students were walking in groups and we talked to some students who were putting like chairs in front of their dorm room doors because they were scared that somebody was still out there.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
West Chester University was a late police department. University police are very small. And the chief of West Chester University says, you know, we need help. And so he went very high up on the chain. and then we were called in. We were playing with a crime scene not only just located in his dorm, but we were playing with a crime scene that spread the whole campus.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
The two voices that Danica said she heard on the call that she made to Katie seemed to be a really key part of the investigation. But police had to figure out who those people were. And to do that, they needed to start investigating, you know, who was with her, who might have seen them or talked to them.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Now everybody's got a video and security cameras and everything else. But I know the technology of 2003, 19 years ago, they didn't have no video. Some of us started doing the interviews in the dorm.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
The RA told police that they remembered Katie coming in around 1.30 or 2 a.m. and that she was alone and that she seemed in good spirits when she came into the dorm. That really lined up with their timeline of when Danica said Katie left the party. And none of the RAs or those working the desk reported seeing or hearing anything suspicious in or around that dorm that night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
It was obvious to police that they needed to look at him as a possible suspect and make sure that he had a clear alibi, something that could be backed up by several other people.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Danica told police that at the Pike House party, Katie had gotten in a fight with Maurice.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
When we talked to him, he said Katie slapped him. I never hit her. I've never hit her back.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
He told police that after the party, he had been with friends playing video games and watching, I think, a slam dunk contest. Maurice's doormates confirmed that he was with them that night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Maurice had alibis. He covered every minute, every hour, every single time. And we just kept working the case, doing some interviews, and trying to get leads on this case.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
In the initial interview with police, Danica wasn't even able to tell police the name of the person who gave Katie a ride home. She just described what he looked like and, you know, what he was driving. The police talked to people at the fraternity party who would have seen her or been around Katie that night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
They learned that Ryan Payne was one of the designated drivers that night and he was the one who took Katie home from the party. So he may have been one of the last people to have seen Katie alive.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Ryan told police that he dropped her off at Poland Hall and that she walked in alone. He said that he was not the one who spoke to Danica that night on the phone, and that after he dropped Katie off, he went back to the party, but that things had pretty much cleared out. And so he went and hung out with some friends until I think 5 a.m.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Ryan's friends corroborated his alibi, saying that he was with them playing video games.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
While Ryan was talking to police, telling them about dropping Katie off and what he did afterward, he also said that there was somebody else in the truck. Ryan was borrowing another fraternity member's car to take people home, and the guy whose truck it was, one of his friends, Steven Sewells, was passed out in the truck.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Well, when Katie gets in, he's been out there long enough to kind of detox a little bit and come to his senses. So they drive to Poland Hall, which is not that big of a distance. It's on the other side of campus from the Pike House, where the fraternity was. So they drive across there. Ryan Payne, Steven Sosa's in the middle, and Katie's on the passenger side.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
And so he drives her down there, and she gets out.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Brian told police that he dropped Katie off at Poland Hall and that she walked into her dorm. Brian also dropped Stephen off nearby, and he was walking in the same direction as Katie's dorm.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
OK, now I'm on to Stephen's house. Still don't know where Stephen went. I don't know where he went, it says Ryan Payne. I drove off.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Police first interview Stephen on May 7th. During that interview, he had said that he was blacked out, drunk, and doesn't remember really any interaction with Katie. He said that a friend picked him up from the dorms and he went back to his house and stayed with him for the rest of the night.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
So police have interviewed lots and lots of people, but at this point, they're kind of at a standstill. Because there wasn't a lot of action in the investigation, police were trying to find out more about Katie's whereabouts and just Katie in general, you know, who she was and if anybody would have any reason to want to hurt her.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
It became public knowledge that Katie had been working at Tattletales, a local gentlemen's club in Bowling Green.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
And that was the subject of a lot of rumors. Was her work there a part of this?
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Police have the responsibility to follow leads and to investigate people that might know anything. The folks at her job might know of people who were around her or had something, you know, against her.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
police very quickly determined that her employment at Tattletales had nothing to do with what happened to her.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Because of the Grizzly murder, new rules have been instituted.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
When word got out that Katie had passed, the police investigation at that point had kind of hit a roadblock. They had interviewed several people and gotten some potential suspects, but each of those potential suspects had seemingly been cleared. The day after Katie died, on May 8th, the man who was the alibi for Steven Sewells. He called police back saying that he wanted to talk to them again.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
After learning more about Stephen's possible involvement, the police know they need to talk to Stephen again and get some more information from him. So they go to his family's house to try to find him.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
The West Kentucky University Police, they have no power outside of that university. And so they had to go with us. We were the state police. We have statewide jurisdiction in 120 counties in the state of Kentucky.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
His family says that they haven't seen him all day, and it seems as if he's kind of trying to hide out, you know, lay low.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Then I have to establish rapport with somebody so I can get a hold of Steven. Older brother, I can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He's very concerned about Steven. I said, listen, here's the deal. I need to talk to Steven. I don't know what he's into. I don't know what he's doing. but I really, really need to talk to him.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Next day, at 10 o'clock that night, I'm sitting in my house after a very, very long day, and my phone rings, and he goes, Detective Pickett. I said, yes, this is Stephen Soales.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Stephen was definitely nervous, but he did agree to come in for another interview.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
I take Steven in. I'm reading his rights. I've got video cameras going. I've got tape recorders going. And so he starts. He said, I didn't do that to that girl.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
During that interview, he initially told police that he met back up with Katie in the dorm lobby and that he went up to her room with her and they eventually had consensual sex. And Steven said that he didn't know anything about the attack or the fire.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Police said that they didn't really believe this, so they kept pushing Steven for more details, knowing that there was more to the story than what he was sharing with them.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
At the time of Stephen's interview, police were able to use props as part of an interrogation as a way to make the person being interrogated feel like police already have something and it's in my best interest to just go and tell them what I know.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
So I made some props and I'm thinking, okay. Is there videos? No. Does he know that? No. So then I take VHS tapes and I write Poland Hall, security cameras, and I set them on the table. So I got Steven there and he's staring at them the whole time. From the minute he walks in, he's staring at them. And he's, I didn't do this to this girl. I said, the girl's got her name.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
And then I stood up, picture. I can't look at it, I can't look at it. I said, I bet you can. But I want you to see her. And he's pro dad. He said, somebody made me do it.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Stephen told police that he went into Katie's room, had consensual sex with Katie, but that while he was still there, a stranger entered the room and then attacked her. In hearing from Stephen that there was a second person that entered the room, police recalled their interview with Danica, where she talked about hearing a second male voice. And so police don't believe this version of the story.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
They suspect that Stephen does know who this person is and keep pushing him for a name.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Lucas Goodrum is another, you know, non-student who was known to come over to Bowling Green. He was in the same social group as Steven Sewells. Police knew that Lucas had been at the party because Lucas and Steven came together to the Pike party.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
So Steven says, Lucas made me do it. Lucas made me do everything he did. I said, what did Lucas do?
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Stephen told police that he went along with it and did this because Lucas threatened him and said that he would do something to his family if he didn't do what he told him to do.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
So after many hours of interviews, Stephen confesses that he raped Katie Autry, but he was made to do it. He's scared of Lucas Goodwin. So we've got to find Lucas Goodwin.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Lucas was kind of a small town kid who grew up in Scottsville with Steven. According to police records, Lucas had a history of domestic violence and had been ordered to go to anger management classes. Detectives eventually found him and brought him into custody. They brought him to the police station for the interview.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
After the party, they were pretty much close to Poland Hall, and they were kind of hanging out there at the other dorm in the common areas with the Scottsville crowd. This is what Lucas is telling me.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Lucas told police that he was looking for Steven. But he ended up driving back to Scottsville at that point, since he hadn't found Steven, and went to his dad's house. And he said he got there between 3.30 and 4.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
And I said, what about these tapes and stuff? And I said, you're on them. He said, show them to me. He called my bluff. He said, take my fingerprints, they won't match. Because my fingerprints ain't on there. Kind of like poker, he call you bluff, you either play your head or you fold. I had to fold.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Police seem to put a lot of weight on Danica's testimony that there were two men in that room. And they knew that Steven and Lucas had grown up together and were friendly with one another. Lucas did admit that he had been at the party and that Katie had come up to him and rubbed his stomach.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Lucas comes out at Western Connecticut University, late detective. He said, what do you think? And I says, guys, the only thing I know is we got a testimony from Steven Soules that he's there. And I said, it's not my call. It's yours. So they put him under arrest for murder and arson.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Lucas's mom was married to the grandson of the founder of Dollar General. And while Lucas didn't grow up with that kind of wealth in the media, Lucas was often identified as, you know, the heir to the Dollar General fortune. Although in reality, he was nowhere near getting the Dollar General fortune.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Police weren't releasing much of anything other than these two people have been arrested. And so the community didn't know if there was a lot of evidence or no evidence. And so the community kind of was making assumptions on guilt and innocence just based on names being released. It's not unusual for DNA evidence to take days, weeks, or even months to come back.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
So at that point in the investigation, police really just had Stephen's word against Lucas's word. You know, Stephen's giving one version of events that involves Lucas, and Lucas is saying, I wasn't there. I had nothing to do with it. Lucas provided police with some evidence to help corroborate his whereabouts.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
They had the interviews with Lucas's dad confirming that he was there, and he also provided gas receipts that he had from getting gas on the way to Scottsville from Bowling Green.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
As far as Lucas Goodrum, I had Steven's statements. I had the Nika Jackson statement saying, I heard another male voice. I can put Lucas Goodrum in Bowling Green. I can put him at the Pike House in contact with Katie Autry. We know she rubbed his stomach. He admits to his own that he's at the other dorm in the common areas with the Scottsville crowd. He admits to leaving.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
And then I've got a gas ticket, and then I've got his dad as an alibi telling me, yeah, he's with me at the time. And you know, the gas receipt didn't mean it was Lucas by any means. They didn't have no video. The only thing I've got is a father's statement saying he's with me.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
What little evidence was recovered was some DNA, body fluids, some little blood, some hair. Every single piece of it went right back to Steven's house.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Stephen pleaded guilty to seven of the nine charges against him with the understanding that he would testify truthfully against Lucas. And also part of that plea deal was that he would not be sentenced to death. Even with Stephen testifying against Lucas, it wasn't going to be an easy case to prosecute. There was zero physical evidence against Lucas in connection with Katie's murder or rape.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
The key evidence or witness for the prosecutors was Stephen's testimony against Lucas. And for the defense, the key witness or testimony was the corroboration of his alibi by both evidence and testimony, as well as the fact that there wasn't any physical evidence placing him into that dorm room or, you know, connected to Katie at all.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
One of the problematic things was that Stephen's story had changed several times. That led to some doubt being put on Stephen's character and, you know, how much he could be trusted.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
I just think that you often see that not just in this case, but in lots of cases where someone is convicted by the court of public opinion before they're given a chance to face the actual court of justice.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
I believe in the justice system. Since he has a right to a trial by his peers, he has a right to representation. He was acquitted, so he's innocent.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
Western had a couple majors that they were pretty well known for. It certainly attracted students of all talents and academic abilities. It definitely had a reputation for partying. It had a pretty strong Greek life.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
They kind of described each other almost as like sisters, you know, in addition to being best friends.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
It was the end of the semester. And so a lot of students were preparing for finals, finishing up their last papers. There was a lot of like kind of end of the year partying as well.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
I was in my dorm room sleeping. I covered police that semester for the Herald. And so we had like a little portable police scanner that the police reporter would have. And so I just had that in my room and it just kind of stayed on. When I heard the alarm call, because I was so close to there, I just headed over just to see what was going on.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
My name is Kevin Pickett. I'm a retired Kentucky State Police Sergeant. At the time, in 2003, we were assigned as a team, the investigative team, to assist West Kentucky University in the case. On May the 4th, at approximately 4.08 a.m., the fire alarms went off at Poland Hall. The fire department were there in less than three minutes.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
This was a horrific, horrific crime. We were playing with a crime scene, not only just located in this dorm, but we were playing with a crime scene that spread the whole campus.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
The sprinkler has flooded the room, and fire is now smoldering. It's very contained at this point.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
She was still breathing and a firefighter took his mask off of himself and put it onto Katie's face to try to help give these life-saving measures there until EMS could arrive. One of the firefighters looked up and said, if you're a praying person, now is the time to pray. And that was pretty, you know, a moment that has stuck with me all these years later.
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Death in the Dorms Season 1: Episode 6: Katie Autry
When the archivist came in, the fireman, we look up on the sprinkler head and there's a rag over the sprinkler head to detain the heat. So there's a lot of thought that went into this fire. This is most obvious, she got a crime scene.