Dateline NBC
Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.
Thu, 5 Dec 2024
Listen to this week's episode of the Dateline: True Crime Weekly podcast with Andrea Canning. A jury in San Francisco begins deliberations in the trial of the accused killer of the Cash App co-founder. And in suburban New Jersey, science takes center stage in the courtroom ahead of the trial of a man accused of killing his own brother and his brother's family. Plus, 15 years after the trial of Amanda Knox, Dennis Murphy reflects on the case. Find out more about the cases covered each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.comTo get new episodes every Thursday, follow here on Apple and Spotify:Apple: https://apple.co/3Vx5THGSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5utP1NZyMUlyaUUv7XNq7j
Chapter 1: What happened in the San Francisco tech exec trial?
Dennis Murphy covered the case from the very beginning and is here to tell us why this case got so much attention and what happened next. Hey, Dennis.
Hey, Andrea. How are you?
Good. So, Dennis, your first report came out in December of 2007. So let's take a listen.
The awful crime here on Via San Antonio would quickly have been forgotten as yet another head-shaking statistic. Sad, but not all that uncommon. Except for the authorities' chilling theory of the murder.
You flew out to Perugia, Italy for this first report. In fact, in that clip we just played, you're standing outside the student housing cottage where Amanda Knox and her roommate Meredith Kircher lived. Do you remember what was going on when you filmed that?
Oh, I so well remember standing there looking at that little building, Andrea. Here's Perugia, this medieval beauty of a town known for making chocolate and educating students. And yet here I was before this house that was all over the headlines called the House of Horrors. And it turned out to be all of that.
So remind us, what exactly was the prosecution's theory about what happened, what they say she did?
Well, our most interesting stop on that trip, we went to the office of the chief prosecutor. And he sat us down and he took us through this very lurid operatic theory of the crime. He said there were three people involved here. It was three on one. It was a sex game gone wrong.
Amanda Knox holding the victim with a knife under her chin, her boyfriend of just a few days, an Italian boyfriend, and a third man who sexually assaulted the roommate. And it all took place in that little cottage, the House of Horrors.
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Chapter 5: How does the courtroom drama around Amanda Knox continue to unfold?
According to the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, his defense attorney said his client was persisting in a course of action that he reasonably believed is criminal or fraudulent. That's a quote from the document. And two, that his client was insisting on action that, quote, he considers repugnant or has a fundamental disagreement with.
The attorney didn't say what that action was, which he found so repugnant, but something happened the next day which could give us a clue.
That's right. So the following day, prosecutors filed two new charges against Craig, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury. He allegedly tried to persuade an inmate to commit murder for him. Do we know who his alleged target is? The Aurora Police Department says the intended target was an Aurora police detective who investigated his wife's murder case.
Major twist there.
So when do we expect this trial to begin? Great question. Court documents show the trial has been postponed indefinitely, so we shall see.
All right, so next we've got two sentencings out of Florida to talk about from two big cases we've covered on the podcast. The first one we're going to talk about is Sarah Boone. She is the defendant in the so-called suitcase murder trial.
Yeah, so Sarah Boone was accused of zipping her boyfriend, George Torres, into a blue suitcase and leaving him to suffocate. Sarah pleaded not guilty, and she testified on the stand that she acted in self-defense. She alleged she'd suffered previous abuse at the hands of her boyfriend. The jury didn't buy that and convicted her after less than two hours of deliberation.
The sentencing was earlier this week. We heard victim impact statements from George's children and his mom.
You know, my son, I love him. And I miss him a lot, and my family miss him a lot, too.
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