Episode 368
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What does the episode’s opening disclaimer and intro reveal about the tone of the case?
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I'm too drunk to even really rowing. What do I do? Oh my god. This is actually happening right now.
Episode 367. Episode 267. Episode 276. Who gives a shit? Will you quit correcting me? It doesn't really matter. Just listen to the goddamn show and enjoy it. Or don't. I don't care. Stop telling me things. I don't want to hear it.
I am not having a good week. As you can tell. But, that's not your problem. A duck keeps shitting in my pool, if you must know. I can't get rid of it. Anyway, um, that's not your problem. Let's get to some murder. Shall we?
Michigan State Police Detective Chris Hayward walks into a cluttered interrogation room in the Van Buren office. It's been 16 months since the body in the field was discovered back in November of 2022. He checks the thermostat setting and then starts preparing for his next interview. It's the one he hopes will finally explain how a dead man ended up in that field.
Mr.
Ochoa was taken into custody for what he assumes is a traffic violation. But he won't be surprised by what Detective Hayward wants to discuss. He's hoping Ochoa can provide all the answers.
Yes, we're hoping to talk to you about another case, one of our many cases we've got going. It's a case that ties you into it with some DNA.
Detective Hayward has been doing this for quite a long time. He's served the state of Michigan for 25 years and is close to retirement. This case might very well be his last. But his years of experience taught him a gentler approach to interrogation.
It
was November 3rd, 2022, when he had been called to a field in Van Buren County, just east of South Haven. A man had called in and said that he found a body while scouting for hunting locations. The field wasn't easy to access, not by vehicle anyway. The only way into the field was a muddy path cutting through the woods.
Based on some of the background that we've done on you, I kind of have my thoughts on, we do too, on our thoughts on maybe how this thing went down. But we still got to put it together. So yeah, your DNA was found right there at the scene. So you know which one I'm talking about? No, sir.
In this field, next to a large pond, was the body of a man. The first thing Detective Hayward noticed was the man's position. His body lay east to west directly between a set of tire tracks. Everything about the scene suggested that the body was dumped in that field. A theory further supported by the lack of shoes on the body. No one walks into a field in their stockings, especially in November. The man's t-shirt was pulled up under his arms as if he'd been dragged. His clothes were disheveled and badly worn. It was the kind of wear that looked older than the night he died.
Because I ain't gonna lie, the stuff y'all talking about, a friend of mine did bring something up to me about something like that.
The body was beaten and bruised, but the most noticeable injury was on the leg. His right leg was contorted in an unnatural position. It appeared his femur was broken. Identifying the body wasn't difficult. In one of his socks was his wallet, which contained his license. His name was LaShawn Keith. He was a 33-year-old, 310-pound, 6'1 man whose only relatives lived in Georgia. The only clues as to where he came from and who put him there were the light-colored sand covering his body and a single glove found nearby.
You know, he said somebody that he knew needed something. Hayward
hadn't mentioned a glove yet, but Ochoa did. It was a small thing, easy to miss, except it suggested that Ochoa already knew exactly which piece of evidence had brought him into that
room. At first,
the whole scene where they found the body confused Detective Hayward. It seemed like a spot that you would have to know about to find. While forensic techs took impressions of the tire tracks and sent off samples from the gloves, Hayward tried to eliminate his first person of interest, the man who reported the body. His whole story about scouting hunting locations didn't really make sense.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What does the episode’s opening disclaimer and intro reveal about the tone of the case?
0:00–10:15
2
How does Detective Chris Hayward first describe the discovery of LaShawn Keith’s body and the evidence at the scene?
10:15–17:18
3
What clues (the glove, tire tracks, and DNA) tie the crime to the three suspects?
17:18–27:17
4
How did the DNA match from the glove finally point investigators to Mr. Ochoa?
27:17–43:26
5
What happened on the night of the assault – who swung the hammer and why did the melee spiral out of control?
43:26–59:29