See production, box office & company info. He thought he had a mild case of COVID-19. Jaffe said he had been at the house earlier that evening, helping Burnside install a dishwasher while Lord was painting the doors and baseboards, and that he had left before midnight. Shearin went to see Brandi Mitchell, a prosecutor with the Dallas County district attorneys office who was in charge of the Burnside case, and claimed that Thompson had perjured himself. Thompson started his career in law enforcement as a corrections officer in a maximum-security prison in South Carolina. Both have worked numerous murders and each has been featured on the popular A&E reality television show, And in Cleveland, an argument among friends spins out of control when one of them makes a deadly decision. Dwayne Thompson (born October 6, 1950) is an American politician. "The goal is to arrive at the truth." And then Thompson pounced. He said that based on Burnsides victimology, there was no way that a young man with a bright future would put a bullet in his brain simply because his girlfriend was peeved at him. Reddit - Dive into anything. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. But what did you actually tell Michael during the argument? I dont remember the exact words that were used, he told Lundberg. Testimony continues Friday, during which Lord may take the witness stand. Or maybe Mikey did it, Jaffe said. She did her own interviews, speaking, for instance, with a firefighter who said he believed he had accidentally kicked the gun away from Burnsides body. Ill tell you this about Mikey: his motto was I love my life. Every time something worked out, hed be like, I love my life. In fact, Jaffe said, Burnside had used that very phrase that evening because his company was about to bill $70,000 for work it had done in a single week. He first worked in patrol, where he was assigned to some of the citys tougher neighborhoods, and then spent ten years as a detective in the robbery and property crimes division before being promoted to homicide, in 2007. Texas Lege Watch: A House Republican Fights for Chicken Freedom, Texas Monthly Recognized by ASME in the 2023 National Magazine Awards. John, who had already been informed by Jaffe about the incident, could barely maintain his composure. In the video, Rastegar initially seemed to confirm what he had supposedly told Thompson and Lundberg on the porch. At Christmas, you thought you were going to get a ring. Shearin got Lord out of jail on bail. She claimed that Thompson show a reckless disregard for her rights in having Plaintiff arrested in 2010 for the shooting death of her . Another detective, Dwayne Thompson, charged into the interrogation room. Dwayne Thompson and Kim Sanders are both grizzled veterans of the Dallas police homicide unit. The First 48 (2004- ) Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson hunts for a band of carjacking killers that are terrorizing a neighborhood. Thats what you did! Of course not, she said. But after her arrest, Lord read The Count of Monte Cristo, the Alexandre Dumas novel about a wrongfully imprisoned man who seeks revenge against those responsible for his imprisonment, and she memorized one of the books famous lines: May the god of vengeance now permit me to punish the wicked! That was her goal, she said. She needed pills to go to sleep. Thompson stormed out of the room and asked Lundberg to see what he could get out of Lord. He insisted that what Rastegar told him in the homicide office was the same and consistent with what he said out on the porch. Thompson testified that Lord had little blood on her hands and that she smelled of cleaning solution, which led him to believe she had washed her hands. Im just as baffled as you are, she said. He says he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he got the goods on Lordand she not only avoided prosecution, she made a lot of money. I cant say unequivocally whether the young woman did or didnt do the shooting because I wasnt there., At the same time, Mitchell and other prosecutors in the DAs office were not convinced Thompson had committed any serious wrongdoing. She was on an airplaneon her way to California. She works at a clothing shop, making $14 an hour, far less than what she was earning when she was in the mortgage business. In this trial, Lord was definitely the underdog. Or he mistakenly pulled the trigger thinking the Beretta was unloaded., Jaffe shook his head. But, he added, his friend wasnt the type to get married at any point.. But Detective Dwayne Thompson. He told Lundberg that he wasnt sure this was a suicide. But, Jaffe added, Burnside didnt wave the gun around. He is one of the most popular detectives in the Dallas Police Departmenta charismatic man, big and boisterous, with a powerful deep voice, says Craig Miller, a former deputy police chief who served as Thompsons lieutenant in the homicide unit in 2010. | Privacy Statement. And then she burst into tears. Lord hired Don Tittle, a high-profile Dallas lawyer who specializes in civil rights litigation, to file a lawsuit against Thompson, which he did in late 2011. What other results could you have with the police policing themselves? she said. Personal details. I cant say any more, but its insane.. But she maintained her innocence, claiming that he committed suicide. Thats the exact type of case that might have been portrayed on The First 48, right? Tittle asked. This has been kind of a sexy case here: an attractive female shoots the boyfriend, you solve the crime. He was not a depressed type of person at all. Self - Detective; 2009-2014 2 eps; Credits. Okay, fine. He called Jaffe, who had also turned against Lord, to see if he could help him locate her. As Lord hugged Tittle and members of her family, Thompson stood at the defense table, his mouth open. W.D. He walked into the kitchen and nodded at Dale Lundberg, a detective who was on call that night to work as Thompsons backup. He eventually learned about my arrest, and he was so bothered by what he read that he never called me again. But the man I loved is gone forever. She had always insisted that she had not fled from the police. Im a person who just lost her boyfriend, Lord wailed. On May 9, 2010, plaintiff Hephzibah Olivia Lord, 36, who works in mortgaging, was alone with her boyfriend at his home, in Dallas. He asked Thompson if he had told one of Burnsides friends that this was the case of a lifetimethe kind of case that could make him famous. Hephzibah Olivia Lord, distraught and sobbing, sat across from Detective Dwayne A. Thompson in the Dallas Police Departments interview room several hours after her boyfriend had died from a gunshot wound to the head. As the interview continued, however, Rastegar said that he wasnt certain what he had heard. They too had been talking to Thompson and they were furious. texasmonthly.com And the bullet had exited toward the top of the left side of Burnsides head. . Lord was accused of murder countless times, and she always denied it. Im not even sure the word accident was used. He said he later surmised that Lord had shot Burnside because he had heard a story going around the neighborhood that Burnside had been shot in the back of the head, which would suggest he had been murdered. A lab technician had been unable to find any fingerprints on the Beretta because the gun had been covered in blood. A Shooting on Spring Grove Ave: When Michael Burnside was found dead in his Dallas home in 2010, detective Dwayne Thompson decided that the victim's girlfriend had pulled the trigger. Its insane, he was overheard saying one afternoon at a restaurant near the police department. Police questioned Lord at the police station and then released her. He asked her again about what she was doing during that seven-minute gap between phone calls in the house that night. She told her parents that Thompson had brutalized her. And now you have this thing where he was spending a lot of money on his friend, but he didnt spend near as much money on your birthday. Merritt had an uncanny knack for catching killers. Thompsons interrogation of Lord was videotaped. An officer came over to Thompsons cubicle and handed him Lords and Jaffes cellphones. Yes. They began talking about planning a surprise birthday party in a few weeks for one of their friends and flying to Las Vegas later that summer to attend a bachelor party for another. Comments: Editor's Note: Plaintiff will probably file an application for attorney's fees and costs, which will be substantial. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. The report could be interpreted several ways: Maybe, as Shearin believed, after Burnside had pulled the trigger, some of the gunshot residue had been transferred onto Lord when she held him in the kitchen. Anonymous Nevertheless, as far as Thompson was concerned, that did not eliminate her as a suspect. But Tittle said the evidence simply did not point to that conclusion. We were joking around about somethingI dont remember whatand I said, Hey, wheres your Beretta? And he opened up [a kitchen drawer] and said, Its right here.. There was another, longer silence. Something is definitely not adding up, Thompson thought, as he walked into one of the interview rooms where Brian Jaffe was waiting. Why, for instance, were there bottles of cleaning products scattered on the kitchen floor? The lawsuit also claimed that Thompson had permanently damaged Lords reputation in Dallas and caused her to suffer extreme emotional and mental anguish, including depression, insomnia, nightmares, and constant anxiety of the most extreme nature. Lord was asking for monetary damages, and according to courthouse gossip, Tittle was not willing to settle for less than seven figures. Five years later, Lord clearly remains tormented by that conversation, haunted by the idea that she might have said something that pushed her boyfriend into committing an impulsive act that no one could have imagined him doing. Basically she said, I know the kind of stuff that goes on in Vegas, Jaffe told Thompson. He then asked them to ride down to Dallas police headquarters in separate squad cars to give their statements. (The autopsy report revealed that he had at least a .17 blood alcohol level when he diedtwice the legal limit to drive a vehicle.) Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation. Lundberg also took the stand, testifying that he too remained convinced that Lord was guilty of murder. Lord said that she and Burnside had gotten into an argumentsomething about a birthday party. Scattered around the floor were a few bottles of household cleaning products. When he finished, he left a packet of evidence that hed compiled for the grand jurors to peruse, including the results of two polygraphs that concluded that Lord had not shown deception when she said she had not shot Burnside. He was wearing a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. You did! Shearin then asked if she was included in Burnsides will or his life insurance policy. At the end of the interrogation, he had discarded her like trash.. She had started dating Burnside, the co-owner of a company that retrofitted homes to make them energy-efficient, about a year earlier. 1983 claiming that she was wrongfully arrested for a killing that she did not commit, which landed her in jail for nine days. Michael Lowe is Celebrating Over 20 YEARS of Service. No, said Quinton, Thompson hadnt mentioned either of those things. You were very disappointed. [4] Do I want to know an answer? Shearin was outraged. A police officer receives a high degree of protection when he conducts a criminal investigation. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. As Tatia Wilson, one of the City of Dallas attorneys representing Thompson, explained to the jury in her opening statement, Sometimes homicide detectives may make mistakes in their evaluation of the evidence. See full summary . It was so hard for us to believe that she was doing this, said Jaffe. Then Shearin got his big break. The officer identified him as Brian Jaffe, a thirty-year-old civil engineer who had been Burnsides best friend since high school. Thompson picked up his cellphone and called Burnsides father, John, a successful Dallas business analyst. Lord has just been awarded $800,000 in a jury verdict from a Dallas jury that has found Lord to be the victim of false arrest. Alternative . And now hes dead, he said. They had not laid eyes on each other since he had interrogated her. She has also enrolled in college for the first time. Mitchell realized that the evidence against Lord was weak, but she wasnt prepared to say that Lord was innocent. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. But, said Lundberg, there was no sign of blood spatter on Burnsides right hand or arm. Jaffe told him that Mikey was a good ol boy who liked hunting and fishing. Although she had her own apartment, she was planning to move in with him as soon as he finished remodeling the house. I had the impression that she told me that [Burnside] had nothing to do with it and she did it. But he refused to say, like he had said on his porch, that he had definitely heard Lord confess to the shooting. Or maybe in the midst of the argument, Burnside had pulled the Beretta out of the kitchen drawer for a second time, handed it to Lord, and said, in an effort to be dramatic, If you hate me so much, then just shoot me. And she did. In fact, she had purchased the airline tickets for herself, her nieces, and her nephew to go to California thirteen days before the arrest warrant had been filed. Thompson is the one whos gotten away with the crime., Lord told me that she was not surprised to hear that the police departments Public Integrity Unit had ignored the civil jurys verdict and cleared Thompson. They make honest, reasonable mistakes. 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