September 12, 2018 • 47 mins
Defense counsel Scott Sanders shares his legal insights on the Daniel Wozniak double homicide capital case. He'll take us through his perspective on what he believes were some of the most troubling aspects of the prosecution effort to get the death penalty.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Please be advised this story contains adult content and graphic language.
As Daniel woznia X defense attorney, you have said you
feel you didn't receive a fair trial INNIX case. Can
you give us an example of what you consider an
unfair ruling that prevented evidence from being introduced? Well, you know,
(00:30):
one of the examples, certainly is the sam Her evidence
Samer having killed somebody in his past. Welcome to Sleuth everyone,
I'm Linda Sawyer. We're here with Scott Sanders Daniel wassnia
(00:53):
X defense attorney. The trial began in late December of
and then went into the penalty phase early January, and
did mid January. Would you say of one of the
most important timing elements that's going on in this case
right now is that there is a trial taking place
(01:15):
of Daniel waznia x X fiance Rachel Buffett. Daniel Wozniak
was in fact convicted of the crimes he committed and
confessed to uh the capital case. The penalty was in
fact death and he is on death row at this point.
But from what I've learned over the years I've been
working on this case is that I feel in many
(01:37):
ways Daniel would have never committed these crimes if he
had not met Rachel Buffett. So with her trial coming up,
I really wanted to talk to you about the case
and the charges and how you feel about the likelihood
that there might be a conviction here, and so if
we could go over these uh in more detail, I'd
(01:57):
appreciate it. So the first felony charge involves Rachel Buffett
lying to police about a fictitious man in a black hat,
and the basis for that charge something I know that
you in court spoke about with Judge Connolly regarding an
issue where you felt Prosecutor Matt Murphy was in fact
(02:18):
committing a double argument, if you will, about the same person.
And you can't move from one court room and say
one thing and move to another court and would say another.
Let's talk about that. Well, right, there's there's case law
out there that talks about the fact that you can't
make inconsistent arguments in two different cases. And so our
argument to Judge Connley when we came back after the
(02:39):
verdict was to say, that's precisely what took place was
that he made arguments about Rachel Buffett, and the preliminary
hearing and Miss Buffett's case that were vastly different from
what he was arguing in um Mr wazni next case.
So let's just tell listeners the preliminary hearing for Rachel
Buffett was on December and in essence, that was where
(03:04):
Matt Murphy was trying to get an indictment on accessory
after the fact. So you're saying, in that particular hearing,
that's where Mr Murphy really painted a picture of her guilt, right,
I mean, he's he's bringing home both in terms of
how he presents the witnesses at the preliminary hearing and
(03:24):
then in terms of argument to Judge McKenna, who's the
judge hearing about her responsibility, and he's not only saying
that she's responsible as an accessory, but actually continually um
suggesting that she's responsible for something more. But yeah, he
very much is trying to convince the judge that she
should go to trial because she's aware of the crime
(03:46):
and she's trying to help um Dania wasna but at
the same time always hinting that there's something more. So
do you feel like his purpose and his intent was
to convince the judge that perhaps she was more involved
than just an accessory. But I think he I think
he believes that. I don't that's that's part of it.
(04:06):
It's not so much that he was just playing lawyer there.
I mean, I think Matt Murphy absolutely believed what he
was saying in the preliminary hearing, that she was more involved,
that she had absolute knowledge before the death of MS. Kiboshi.
I think that's what he believes. I think that's what
he argued. He argued very passionately about it. He cited
all sorts of information um that he thought was supportive
(04:28):
of it. So I don't think it was an act.
I don't think it was just to get her over
to a trial. I think that's what he believes. I think, um,
I think he has for a long long time. And
Matt Murphy was quite convincing in Rachel Buffett's preliminary hearing
because the judge said, you have enough to go to trial. Yeah,
I mean, he's he's pointing to all of these incidents,
(04:50):
but this one in particular, the one he's looking at,
is are these contacts that take place shortly after the
first crime that they're going back. They're looking at the
self phone. He's making this point again and again to
the judge that it is unbelievable that Rachel Buffett was
unaware of this introduction into their household of a new
cell phone. And he talks about the fact that you know,
(05:11):
these are folks that are struggling economically, that their their
paycheck to paycheck, and here he is sitting up sitting
with her um and he suddenly has a new cell phone.
And the notion that he would that she'd be unaware
of that is unreasonable. Even more so, she talks to police.
It was I think March of when police come to
(05:33):
issue her a subpoena. She tells police and that in
that exchange that she admits that she saw Daniel sitting
next to her on the couch while he was texting
Julie Kibi she to lure her to Sam's apartment that night.
That she admits that he was on a totally different phone,
that he was on a more archaic flip phone versus
(05:54):
his fancy new phone that he had um that obviously
was way more advanced technologically. So she admits the police
she saw him on a different phone, which turns out
to be Sam's phone, and he argues about it compellingly.
I mean he that probably was a big argument that
allowed that case to proceed, a key argument that allowed
it to proceed to trial. About the preliminary the preliminary hearing,
(06:17):
he's very much focused on the phone and the significance
and it being absolutely unbelievable that she was unaware of that,
and that she wouldn't have asked questions and things wouldn't
have followed from that. Earlier today, I learned a new
piece of evidence that was shared to me in an interview.
I will aeron full on a future episode that Rachel
Buffett had actually told a gentleman by the name of
(06:40):
Daniel hulk Yard, who was a friend of Dan Wisnia's
and would visit him often when he was waiting for
his trial in Men's County Jail. She said to Daniel
al Yard that she had sent a Facebook message to
Julie Kabuishi at eleven ten that night, the night that
(07:00):
she was murdered, basically saying we'll get together after the
wedding and we'll catch up and we'll share some summer
sunshine together at the pool. And she told Daniel Hulkyard
that Daniel Wozniak was standing right behind her when she
sent that email, and well, that email was part of
you know, that email was part of the package of evidence.
(07:23):
And then the question just became and it was an
important one. You know, where were people located at the time.
And again, it was a very oddly timed email that
she was sending. And what Daniel Hulkyard seems to be
insinuating is because Rachel slipped and told him that Dan
Wozniak was over her shoulder when she sent this message
(07:45):
to Julie. So Daniel Hulkyard suggests that Dan and Rachel
must have been in cahoots together. Yet Rachel never told
police Dan was by her side. She said she was
in bed alone on her laptop when she sent that message.
I thought that was a very interesting, telling piece of
evidence that I hadn't learned before today. Daniel Hulkyard shares
(08:08):
with us that moment Rachel told me in no certain terms,
you know, the night that that lady was killed, I
was on an email to her and I felt so
suspicious and scared because Daniel was standing right behind me,
and I about dropped my job. Linda, I said, you
what she Yeah, that was so speaking I looked at
(08:29):
her mom, and her mom just clammed up real quickly,
and I told her in our little talk, I said,
you had no idea. It was going why no idea?
You had no idea? And in three sentences later she
says what she said, No, only think she knew what
she said. It was basically an alibi email, is how
I felt when I read it, both exactly. But then
when she told me that I haven't told anybody illegal
(08:49):
world what I just told you about that conversation. I haven't,
and I will tell you because I know what you
want to do with this the truth behind us. And
remember Ray, she was sending this message to Julie on
her Facebook at eleven ten, Friday night of the murders.
It makes you wonder was this an alibi message to Julie?
(09:14):
I mean, it was a really nice message, and could
one possibly imagine that someone would be diabolical enough to
send such a sweet message and then fifty minutes later
be part of a plan to murder Julie. Well, it's interesting,
I mean, you know, without talking to him directly and
hearing it on, but it certainly makes sense, It certainly
(09:34):
fits sort of we know that this email went out
this unusual, unusually timed email. So here adds another element
that potentially she's acknowledge to someone else. Said Dan's near
by at the time. So I want to be clear
with our listeners what you meant when you uh spoke
in court about this double argument of Matt Murphy's the
(09:59):
preliminary here r he really framed her as not only
an accessory, but in fact perhaps an accomplice in these murders.
And he was very passionate and and and very convincing
in his argument about her role, which we believe he
believes as well as the customers of police. But then
in the actual trial of Daniel Wasniac, he sort of
(10:20):
shifted quite a bit, right, And so let's talk about
that shift and and how he presented Rachel to the jurors.
We can go into more about what happens to the trial,
but obviously it's kind of a general theme at trial.
Mr Murphy wants to diminish her responsibility and at every
turn from the beginning of the trial he is saying
(10:40):
things in his opening statement like Daniel Wasnac allied to
Rachel Buffett, and he's putting that in a group of victims.
He you know, he puts his brother in that list.
So he wants to separate Rachel Buffett and other people
from any level of culpability because I think quite obviously
he thinks the more more culpable um Rachel Buffett is,
(11:03):
the less likely he is to get a death verdict.
And I think that's kind of at the core of it.
He wants the death penalty, and I you know, obviously
our argument is that he wanted it way too much,
and he did some things that didn't match with what
he was doing at the preliminary herring. And you know,
just for people who don't know how preliminary herring is,
where it's like a grand jury proceeding, except you're not
(11:23):
speaking to a group of members of the public. You're
speaking to a single judge who's making that call. And
that's what's happening in Rachel Buffett's case. She's she's before
a judge named Judge mckeeno, um well respected judge in
the community. And Judge mckeino is asking questions at some
point about the case. I mean, he's very thoughtful and
he's asking he's kind of pressing and probing about why
(11:45):
she had more responsibility. So he comes back to the
subject of Rachel Buffett and why she's responsible, and he's
telling Judge mckinna, we have a situation here where these
people are living together, they're engaged to be married, they're
both employed, they have the same financial pressures, they're both
in the process of eviction. They've been described a very
(12:06):
various friends as being very close there together all the time.
He's building the argument for accessory, but it also sounds
very much like the argument for murder if he was
building an argument for accomplice or a partner in the
planning and the execution. Accomplice is the equivalent of a
murder charge, right, That's right, So you don't have to
be the person who strikes the deathblow. If you assist
(12:28):
in some way to have that crime take place, you're
treated the same way under the law. So to the
extent as we argued that Rachel Buffett was reasonably taking
steps that would have encouraged Dan, pushed Dan to act
at a time when he didn't want to. You know,
we argue, obviously in terms of the second crime, that
(12:48):
he's despondent before that and she doesn't really care and
she's pushing, and that's what logic says. So when I'm
making closing argument and I'm actually making this argument that
prosecution agrees with me, and he's objecting to it and
stating that I'm misstating his argument, and he was right.
I was misstating his argument in my case because I
(13:09):
was stating his argument in Rachel Buffet's case right here.
And so that's the problem that's not supposed to happen.
You don't get to flip around because you like to
have the death penalty on a man. The rules are
the rules, and the rules are the rules, and it's
just you know, that rule is based in common sense
logic about what's right. And let's give our listeners a
clear sense of just how he shifted in the trial
(13:31):
of Daniel Waznac, how he was portraying her in that trial. Well,
you know, it was pretty stunning. I mean, here we
are in the trial and he is presenting her as
a victim. One of the most dramatic things that he
did was to take his argument about what took place
outside the residents. So let me take the listeners through
that moment just so they understand the scene when Detective
(13:54):
Everett shows up in front of Rachel's brother no A
Buffet's apartment. When he walks in, he doesn't realize it's
in a partment. He thinks at the storefront. He walks
in and there's Daniel sitting on the couch and Daniel
asks can we please move outside to to talk? And
at that point, Daniel's telling the story about how the
last person he saw Sam Hair with was this guy
(14:15):
in a black hat. Later that night, Kasta Masa police
arrest Dan Wazniak for accessory to murder because they still
believe Dan is hiding and helping Sam Hair. So let's
listen now as Daniel is questioned by detectives and hear
what Daniel has to say about the mysterious man in
the black hat. I feared that I was the last
(14:39):
person to see him. So what I had told everyone
was because the last person even known that I knew
that I was with Sam to my wife, and the
last time that she saw and I saw was two
three o'clock on Friday, Okay, So I went to live
with that story, and then I made up this mystery
person just holding that that would you know, take the
plane off me? So I I mean of this guy
(15:00):
with a white white guy scuffled on a black baseball cap,
that he doesn't exist. That's a line, that's a life.
I apologize for that. He does admit to police that
he made up that man. He was an imaginary person.
So go back to that Wednesday, before he's arrested for anything,
and Rachel pops out of the apartment and walks over
(15:22):
to the detective ends to Daniel, and she repeats the
same story that Daniel was telling them at the time.
And so that's what Matt Murphy is referring to, right right,
And you have to it's I mean, I laugh, but
it's none of it's funny because you think about what
he then turns around and does in our trial. He
then puts on detective effort and he presents essentially the defense.
(15:48):
And this is fast forward. Now we're in the trial
of Daniel wast and here that comes Matt Murphy, and
he wants this event viewed completely differently. In fact, if
you look at what he's doing, he's saying, we're being
unfair to Rachel Buffett to draw the same interpretation that
he argued to Judge mckeow. Do you remember the line.
He said. He said, maybe she was leaning in in
(16:08):
the door and she was overhearing what Daniel said, so
she just repeated what her fiance was saying to police.
That is what Matt Murphy said to the jurors, and
he did, and he set that up through questioning what Everard?
He asked Everett, he being Murphy, asked Everard, and during
your interview with her, I believe you testified she echoed
the same lie for back lack of a better term,
(16:30):
that there was a third individual with Mr Wozniak and
Mr Her on the day that Mr Her went missing. Right. Answer, yes,
this is Everett saying yes. So how far outside the
door of the residence do you think you were when
you engaged in that conversation with Daniel Wozniak? Answer again, Everett,
maybe five or six feet? Question? Okay, so big picture. Now,
(16:52):
as an investigator and you get a potential suspect, you
step outside and Daniel Wasnick tells you the story, including
the lie about the third individual. Yes, and then a
few minutes later Rachel comes out and tells you the
same lie. That's the question. Ever says, Yes. Now, as
a police officer, it could be that Rachel has been
involved in this conspiracy, maybe even planned the whole thing,
(17:14):
and maybe this whole murder. That's one possibility, or that's
one realm of possibility. Answer yes, Or it could be
that she was listening on the other side of the door, right, Yes,
it could have been that sort either way, right under
under that piece of evidence, yes, Murphy says to Everett,
you're familiar with the term tie goes to the runner.
(17:39):
So here you have him suggesting that, in fact, the
exact same argument that he made at the preliminary hearing
is faulty. He's he's saying that what we argued to
Judge mckeeno really wasn't fair because the tie should go
(18:00):
to the runner and he doesn't end it there. He says, So,
in other words, when you have two pieces of evidence,
one that points toward innocence and one that points toward guilt.
As a police officer, you've got to kind of give
the benefit of the doubt, right, answer Everett. Yes, So
you can imagine a sitting in the courtroom knowing what
(18:21):
happened in the prior hearing and realizing this is how
far he's going to go. Now they're not in a
plot together everything that I just talked about in terms
of um, what they pressed Judge mckeeno to believes earlier
argument that you have to believe this. This is the
only logical interpretation that they're in a he says, this
is our cleanest argument. Obviously they plotted this. He calls
(18:44):
it a plot. Now, it's not a plot. Now. It
may have just been a very good listener who's sitting
at the door who then decided, Okay, I'm going to
match the stories to help my um my loved one
get out of harm's way. Um. But nothing in terms
of an intention to do anything further or that she
had knowledge before. That's the really bad thing, right. He's saying, Look,
(19:07):
she really may not have had any knowledge of this
crime before. You cannot reconcile that. There's no way you
can reconcile that with what he did at the preliminary hearing. UM.
In the Buffet case, it's similar to Matt Murphy's statements
that he's made in the past regarding Rachel Buffett, where
he said she just might have to be considered collateral damage. Yeah,
but as horrifying as it is, and it is, it's
(19:29):
exactly what took place here. He decided, Look, Rachel Buffett
is looking at a few years in prison on a
good day for them. Does he want any chance, just
even the slimmest chance of reducing the possibility that he
gets a death verdict. So he's sitting here worried that
(19:50):
if the jury believes that's somehow Rachel Buffett may have
been involved and is not going to be held responsible
for the higher crime, which we argue she was involved
with murder, which is murder. He thinks jury may go
this isn't quite fair. So what does he do? He
pushes back on any notion, even a semblance of a
(20:12):
of a notion that it's fair. We're the ones who
are being unfair. Now, that's the amazing thing in the trial.
We're the unfair ones because we're suggesting Rachel Buffint may
have more involvement, which is exactly what he said at
the preliminary hearing. Yeah, you're just reiterating what he said
earlier in at her preliminary hearing. But he doesn't like
those arguments anymore because those arguments are the type of
(20:32):
arguments that keeps someone from getting death. If all of
a sudden, the jury if we both spoke the same way,
and that closing. What if he had said exactly what
he had said in that preliminary hearing, how powerful that
would have been. Mr Sanders is right. All of these
things that he's saying are absolutely right. She wasn't coincidentally
sitting next to the door. She did know everything, She
did have the phone in sight, she knew about the phone,
(20:54):
and all of this happened an earlier point. He knows
that verdict may have turned out differently. So it's Rachel's
own words, it's her lies that are the blueprint to
the truth. Rachel Buffett tells the Coast of Masa police
that when Dan came back with the first installment of
money that they owed Chris Williams for helping them stave
(21:16):
off the eviction. Rachel tells police that the Friday afternoon
of the murders, Daniel came back with the four dollars
and he possibly gave it to Sam or the loan
Sharks outside their apartment, but she was sitting there at
the table. Chris Williams tells me in an interview that
she was right there when Dan gave Chris Williams the money.
(21:41):
In fact, Chris Williams tells me that he specifically asked
them if they had any food money, and Dan said,
that's all we have, pointing to the money that he
just handed to him, and so Chris decides to give
them a twenty, passes that twenty across the table so
that they had some food money. He left that apartment
(22:02):
so quickly. There was just this weird energy, this this
darkness that was sort of looming in the apartment. So
he said he couldn't get out of there fast enough
and then he that he's on a call with Rachel
within minutes, and she's trying to lure him back, telling
him that he dropped a twenty, and at that point,
(22:24):
he said, is this about the money, because I wanted
you to have that for food? Is is this about
the money that you want me to come back to
talk to you about? And she said, no, it's something
else I need to talk to you about. And it
was then that he said every bone in his body
just shook because he had no idea at that point
(22:45):
why she wanted him there, but she he just didn't
have a good feeling about it. So we're Rachel and
Dan perhaps worried because Chris Williams was the only witness
who saw Dan leave alone with Sam, because there really
was no third person in a black hat. One of
(23:05):
the other statements that Matt Murphy made to jurors during
Dan Wozniak's trial was his portrayal of Rachel Buffett as
almost a hero in this case, because if it wasn't
for her, he says, they wouldn't have had this cornucopia
of evidence to accuse and convict Daniel for these murders,
(23:27):
and that just wasn't true. Violet Randolph, who was a
neighbor and a friend who actually Rachel ended up living
with for quite some time after the murders, she was
in that car and when they left the Waznia home,
after Rachel came and spoke to Darryl Wosnia, Daniel's father,
she told him that he was arrested and tried to
(23:49):
take him through what had happened. They left there, and
Tim Wozniak and Lisa Goldge, his girlfriend at the time,
showed up and Rachel went over to the car and
he's sharing with her that he has gone and he
has all this other evidence, and she's like putting her
hands up on her ears like I don't want to
hear this whatever, and when she got back into the car,
(24:09):
Violet basically said, like, what's going on? He has evidence?
She said yes, he said he has a gone and
she said, you're going to bring that to police, right
and Rachel said no, and Violet said, if you don't,
I'm going to because that gun is going to disappear.
And she picked up her cell phone as she tells me,
and she calls her mother to get Jose Morales's number,
(24:31):
at which point that's the very moment that Dan calls
in from the holding cell and I just talked to him,
and I need to make a phone called the detective.
Now what Cautin's involved, because I need to call the
detective first because I need to call him and by
(24:53):
him now before they catch me on its recording device,
because it looks like I'm not trying to tell him
right away. Tim says he has evidence with them, or
or he knew where it was or something. Then I'm doomed.
What yeah, do you know that Tim had some evidence? Scott,
(25:19):
what did you think about the jailhouse calls between Dan
and Rachel when you heard them for the first time?
She's not expecting this call, right and as the call goes,
here comes Dan and he's worried. Oh god, oh god,
oh god. Okay, well this is this is ridiculous and
(25:44):
I have to go tell the detective the truth. Um, come,
come do kick up only to me so far, and
it was in casting. I said, I'm going to police
station right now. Danny's in arrested. He starts for being
out and it's really frantic and he said something and
something slips that he had evidence. So I have to
(26:05):
I don't, don't, don't, don't, no, Rabe, I'm going to
do it. I needed to pull over to the art
second get the phone number for the infective out what
you realize they recording the song conversation. Anyways, if you
(26:28):
look at what she's doing, she's not planning. When she's
driving down the street. She is not planning to call
the police. There's no chance in the world. And then
she realizes Dan is unraveling and we're on a recorded
conversation and she has this interesting moment where she says,
I need to call the detective right now. What do
you mean didn't you need to call the detective the
(26:50):
moment you took this evidence so that that's one of
the tells. There's about five or six tells in there.
If you look at it closely, you can see she
was hoping just to do whatever she was gonna do. Well,
it's a performance for Violet too. I mean, the girl
was sitting in the passenger seat saying to Rachel, if
you don't call detective Morales, I will, that's right. And
(27:11):
so she's driving. All of a sudden, Dan is doing
what he's doing, and she needs to perform for Violet.
She needs to perform for what she knows. Are the
police listening and she points that out. Dan, You're an idiot.
The police are listening to this conversation, and I've got
to make sure I assist the police. Well, I don't
know what that is. I thought it was a murder weapon.
(27:34):
I don't know what you're talking about other evidence. I
don't know what him how decides that Dame said he
had a murder weapon? You realize the recording the song conversation. Anyways,
I need to call the detective first, because I need
to call him and by him no before they catch
me on its recording device, because it looks like I'm
not trying to tell him right away, and her mind
(27:56):
is twirling, going, if I don't say this soon, I'm
going to be in big trouble. So that's exactly what
Tim told me. So I'm going to go tell the
detective now. So so she's doing this in steps because
her brain is flying. She's saying to herself, they're going
to know in a millisecond. And I'm deeply involved in this.
(28:16):
So I'm so I better say something. Okay, what do
you want me to do? I don't want you to
tell the detective of anything, and I don't want them
involved up. I mean now I'm no, I'm dead. Now
I'm really dead. Maybe you are already dead when you
deconstructed and kind of look at it closely, you can
see what she's doing. And she does this kind of throughout.
(28:37):
You know, she's trying to reel Dan back even after
he says I did it. There's no way back. They're
thinking that you pre meditated a murder of both of
your friends because you were telling me beforehand that you
had a class that you knew you didn't have. You're
already making an excuse in an alibi. Do you see
(28:59):
what I'm saying? Like I'm done I'm done. I'm really done.
Um what I was trying to cover it up and
now I'm going away for life. It necessarily means that
when that call took place on the she knew he
was involved, She was plotting with him. It means the
(29:19):
whole call is a lie. It's well done. It's a
kind of an amateurish level, right, you know, kind of
low level theater. Why on earth would you try and
cover for him? We needed the money? No, we never
need money. You need to be good people and just
(29:40):
have each other. O. Sorry, it's well done for a minute,
unless you look at it pretty closely. And Murphy knows
that that phone call had to be completely fabricated. Maybe
when did when did we fall asleep last night? And
where were you? When did you leave lust or not?
Last night? That Friday night? Friday night? We got home
(30:03):
probably around I don't know, midnight? Yeah, remember that. What
did we do? Did anyone come over? I don't remember?
Or did we just crash? Did eye craft? We crapwer together? Uh? Huh?
Family guy? And then in black wait wait where I
(30:27):
can't we're walking then black and I can hardly hear
you on this Funday spak a little bit louder. What
about Black and Family guy? Okay? That night? Okay, so
when did you go over and meet Sam? And when
did you help Sam? Saturday morning? Saturday morning? She is
(30:48):
pretending as she's going as if she knows nothing, And
then when Dan Wozniak switches and says, I've got to
tell you the truth about what happened. You can hear
it and you can kind of hear what she's doing.
And at the very end of that tape, she tries
to pull him back one last time. Are you sure
you're not taking the blame for someone else? She tries
to recover him from himself. Are you trying to cover
(31:11):
for somebody? Me? Um, listen to me. I'm gonna go
do something right now, and you're not gonna see me
for the rest of your life. Do you understand that? No? No,
(31:33):
I have to tell the truth on what I did.
And I think you now know what it is and
it's bad. Imagine the word and that's what I did.
H Do you want to tell me first or are
you gonna go tell them? If you tell them, can
you tell me back and tell me? To my faith?
(31:55):
Can you can? You can probably tell them first? To
come down to position right now. Yes, yes, I'm coming
down to the station right now. You should buy them first.
But I want to hear it from you. It's her though.
I mean, you talk about who's worse. There. He's going,
I'm done. I'm you know, I'm not. There's no coming
back from this. And she's thinking to herself, if you
(32:16):
don't come back from this, you may take us both down.
That's what she's doing very clearly. And I'm not saying
anything other than what Matt Murphy would have said in
two thousand and twelve in the preliminary hearing. We would
have sounded almost identical. We just don't now because in
two thousand and sixteen he wanted a death verdict very badly,
so he decided it was okay to switch his theories.
That's what he did. It was surprising how Matt Murphy
(32:38):
characterized Rachel Buffett during Dan Was the next trial. Yes,
but only because you knew more. If you don't know more,
and I'm making arguments that are being stopped and and
you're right right, you don't you don't know. I don't
blame the jury for not getting what he was doing
to them and the rest of the media didn't have
a word to say about it because I just didn't
(33:00):
know that. And this is, you know, this is the
difficulty sometimes in a trial. It's you've got to have
so much information to really get it. And really what
he was starting to do there was kind of beyond
the pale. It wasn't something that even anybody would envision
and think back at the time, what else, what was
he's saying before? But you know, after the trial, we
get a chance to go to the judge and we
(33:21):
did our motion and and tell us about his ruling
and how you felt about it. Well, you know, the
ruling is only memorable to the extent we lost. I
don't remember what he said specifically, and I don't think
he committed a lot of writing to it, other than
to say, um, we lose. And so I'm not going
to tell you that it's surprising that we lost. And
(33:43):
I'm not saying that because I think we should have lost.
We shouldn't have. I just we didn't have a lot
of success and litigation in that courtroom. We weren't successful here.
And you know, I've second guessed all sorts of things.
That's just the nature of the beast but I'm also
still angry because there wasn't complete truth in that courtroom.
I don't sit here trusting that we've gotten everything. There's
no reason to. They don't have a history of disclosure,
(34:04):
and it's not going to surprise me if ten years,
twenty years down the road something gets found out in
addition to all the things you've found out, And that's
that's a big problem. That's had a big problem with
this process here. It's just I have no faith whatsoever
the tricks that were pulled here. The notion like I
found all of the tricks, I don't think so I
don't have I don't know that kind of faith in myself.
(34:27):
You know. The notion that Rachel Buffett was protecting him
is insanity, and that this was her goal. I can't
even believe someone's going to say that in the courtroom
just because it's going to help them get a win.
None of this has to do with protecting Dan Wasnext.
She's done with Dan Wasney. She thinks Dan Wasny next time.
This is about protecting her, and it makes sense. I
(34:49):
remember that you revealed in court a conversation that Rachel
had with police during those early morning hours after police
arrested Dan. They had brought her in for questioning. It
was there she mentions how he really wasn't a great lover,
and she wasn't over the moon about him, and she
even said he wasn't well endowed down below. She's saying
(35:14):
all these things, and she's supposed to marry this guy
that next day. It just seemed like she was done
with him. Then. I mean that there's a level of
cruelty in that. I mean, it's not the cruelty obviously,
you know. I I want to make it clear. I
mean I represented Dan and then believe very deeply that
he should not have gotten a death penalty. You know,
I don't think it was fair. I don't think the
(35:35):
trial was fair. I don't think anything about this process
was fair whatsoever. And I don't think we have all
the evidence in the case. Why do you feel Daniel
Woznia didn't deserve the death penalty? Well, look at the
first place, any pursuit of death should start with his fairness.
Just should be a fair process. You shouldn't have a
prosecutor arguing two different theories to get death all. I mean,
(35:59):
I have a lot of adentury issues, things that I
think should have come in his evidence. But there are
a lot of things that I thought, UM made this
whole process unfair. Are you referring to Sam's past? Um,
that's that's one of them. UM, for our listeners, Sam
Hair at one point in his life was charged with
murder and he was acquitted. I think his defense lawyer
(36:21):
did a great job and they were able to keep
out all of the key evidence and kind of a
unique theory and should be commended for that. But in
the standard that's used in most cases, and then when
I think is a legal standard, once the prosecutor took
certain steps in our litigation, we should have had the
right to introduce that evidence. And the way they the
(36:42):
prosecution chose to kind of present Mr her which they
didn't have to do. They went further and kind of
presenting him as a solid citizen. We had the right
to answer that. But there's all sorts of other places,
including you know, more what we've been focusing on today.
You know, if I look at all of that, I
keep coming back to the same spot too often. In
(37:03):
this county, evidence hasn't been turned over, and UM, I
look at this and wondering what else wasn't turned over,
and don't I think it's reasonable. If you have a
prosecutor that's making the type of arguments he's making, why
on earth would I believe he It's it's beyond him
to just keep some evidence that he thinks Um might
be beneficial to us. And what I know, you talked
(37:26):
about how you felt for the Daniel Wozniak trial. You
felt that in many cases it wasn't a fair trial.
What was the most egregious example of where you thought
you did not get a fair break? Well, you know,
one of the examples, certainly is the sam Her evidence.
I mean we thought that we The interesting thing was
(37:49):
we didn't anticipate getting into that because we thought the
prosecutor was going to actually limit himself. And you can
do that because basically what the prosecutor's option is just
to put on evidence about his impact on human lives.
So you could put on people and talk about how
sad it was, and that wouldn't have allowed us, arguably
to get into this next spot, which is Um Samer
(38:12):
having killed somebody in his past charged with it. Well,
I mean he's charged with that crime. I mean he was,
he was charged. He was acquitted and I and I
appreciate the process, but I don't. Yes, I hope so yeah.
I mean, I appreciate the process, but I don't. I
don't agree that he didn't kill you know, I'm just
(38:34):
the evidence doesn't point to that. It's just the evidence
all got kept back. I mean, he confessed in statements,
the statements just didn't get introduced. I know that this
was an important point for Scott that he did not win.
The argument of introducing Sam's passed in the Dan Wozniak trial,
(38:55):
and although the jurors didn't have a chance to hear
the facts, I thought my listeners deserved to know what
happened in Sam's past when he was in fact charged
with murder, and so I spoke at length with retired
Sergeant Gilbert Anderson, who was the lead detective on Sam's
murder case, and suffice to say that there were eighteen
(39:19):
defendants that were charged with the murder of Byron Benito,
who was an MMS gang member, and he was in
fact the victim that was lord. As Sergeant Anderson says,
he was lured by his best friend at the time,
(39:40):
Sam Hair, and Sam brought him to undisclosed location where
rival gang members from the Brown Familiar Family were waiting
to attack Byron, and Sam at that time was growing
increasingly frustrated with his and Byron. Byron was acting like
(40:02):
a bully in many instances, beating up members of the
Brown Familiar gang for no apparent reason, and so Sam
was starting to distance himself. We may never know with
absolute certainty if Sam believed that the Brown Familial gang
intended to murder Byron or simply wanted to rough him
(40:26):
up give him a scare, and everyone that knew Sam
would tell me he would never run away from a fight,
which is why Sam himself was injured from the attack. Eventually,
Byron Benito did pass away from his injuries, and eighteen
people stood charged with that murder. Six of them, including Sam,
(40:48):
were acquitted. And the reason that Sam Hare was acquitted
of these charges were because there was a technicality that
the judge at the time felt there was a illegal,
as he called it, arrest after a traffic stop. The
police had stopped Sam because they saw some scooters in
(41:09):
his car, and at the time a lot of scooters
were being stolen, and so the actual traffic stop, the
judge said, was was fine it was the it was
the arrest afterwards that the judge felt was far reaching.
So therefore anything after the arrest was thrown out, and
that included Sam's confession. He was haunted by this, it
(41:30):
was his friend. I think he felt bad. I think
in many ways he was self medicating because he felt
so bad. But he did, I guess after many hours
with the sergeant, he did finally confess to his role.
And Steve Hair told me that while he and Sam's
(41:51):
attorney that Steve hired, we're waiting outside the interrogation room.
For whatever reason, police did not allow the attorney access
to Sam. I don't know if it was because Sam
didn't ask for an attorney, but that is what Steve
Hair had mentioned to me. And ultimately, because that confession
(42:13):
was thrown out, Sam was acquitted of all charges. And
I just think it's important to mention that that same officer,
the same sergeant that I spoke to, he said that
he wanted it to be clear that Sam never went
back to a life of crime. Sam, you know, from there,
really turned his life around, joined the army, and he
(42:38):
he never he never looked back and tried to continue
on that path. That was going to only lead him
to prison at some point. Sam's past was something that
he used as a litmus test often because he he
would share this past with with people that he barely
knew at times. In fact, Sam's fiance at the time
(43:00):
had told me in a later interview that that he
had this paperwork that he would show people and they
would read it and and they would see what his
past was about and what he had been through. And
if they reacted in a way that they said, well,
you know what, you're our guy, you're our friend, and
we're not holding that against you, then he would become
(43:21):
friends with that person. Or if they were turned off
by what they read, then he knew that they would
never be real friends. So he did the same thing
with Daniel and Rachel, and this happened a weekend before
the murders. Daniel had been arrested by the Coast of
Masa police ironically for an outstanding do you I warrant
(43:41):
and he was the lead in a musical called nine
at the time, and so Rachel was scrambling to get
his bail money raised because he was the lead and
they weren't going to be able to perform the next night.
If she couldn't get him out of jail. So Dave
Barnhart and John Randolph, friends of theirs, a neighbors at
the camp to Martinique, called around to try to raise
(44:04):
the bail money, and one of those people that they
called was Sam Hair, but he refused to give money.
I don't know them very well and I have no
interest in participating in this dude's bail money. Sam's friend
Ruben Manacho recalls the story. Sam received a phone call
from Dave Dave and Dave was obviously I wasn't listening
(44:26):
to the conversation, but after they were dawn talking and
Sam told me about what the conversation was about. Essentially,
Dave was asking for money to bail Dan out of
out of jail. And I said, no, why would you.
Why are they even calling you to ask, you know,
to ask you for money. Doesn't seem fair. Do you
(44:47):
even know this guy that well? And he said like, yeah,
he's a friend. And I know that because if it
would have been a friend friend and he would have
hung out with us a lot more often. And that's
the reason why I say that. So and I advise
Sam to not to give him the money. I don't
actually remember if he did or not. Hopefully he didn't,
(45:08):
so that's yeah, um, but yeah, that was it. So
that upset them because in fact, Dave Barnhard said to Rachel,
and he's the he's the one guy that has more
money than all of us. I guess Rachel told Dan
that Sam did not contribute and when they saw Sam,
because eventually Rachel was able to raise the money and
(45:30):
Dan got out of jail the next morning and that
afternoon they went to the hot tub and that's where
Sam was, and Sam, you know, responded to a complaint
that Dan was making, saying, I never want to go
to jail again. That was a horrible experience. It was awful.
I can't even believe I made it through the night.
And basically Sam was like, you know, you gotta be
(45:51):
kidding me, dude, Like I was. I was sitting in
the Los Angeles County Men's jail for two years waiting
for my trial when I was charged with murder. At
that moment, Dan and Rachel found out this past of
where Sam was in fact himself once a defendant being
charged with murder. So that's what ultimately put the target
(46:13):
on his back. That's why they had used that pass.
They kept referring to that past when when Dan was
first arrested by Costa Masa police, So that in essence
is the story of sam has past and why it
plays a relevant role in this case. In the end,
I've always felt that Prosecutor Matt Murphy had a far
(46:36):
better case for accomplice or murder charges rather than the
accessory charges that Rachel now faces. I want to thank
you Scott Sanders for your time today and we look
forward to having you back next week for all your
legal observations on Rachel Buffett's trial proceedings. Thanks very much
for the opportunity. Yeah, On the next episode of Sleuth,
(47:11):
we go straight to Santa Anna Superior Court for our
gavel to gavel coverage of the trial we've been waiting for.
It's the State of California versus Rachel Buffett, So tune
into Sleuth and you won't miss a moment of the
witness testimony. If you enjoyed this episode of Sleuth, share
(47:31):
it with a friend and be sure to leave a
rating or review. Follow Sleuth on I Heart Radio, or
subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so that you never
miss an episode
Please be advised this story contains adult content and graphic language.
As Daniel woznia X defense attorney, you have said you
feel you didn't receive a fair trial INNIX case. Can
you give us an example of what you consider an
unfair ruling that prevented evidence from being introduced? Well, you know,
(00:30):
one of the examples, certainly is the sam Her evidence
Samer having killed somebody in his past. Welcome to Sleuth everyone,
I'm Linda Sawyer. We're here with Scott Sanders Daniel wassnia
(00:53):
X defense attorney. The trial began in late December of
and then went into the penalty phase early January, and
did mid January. Would you say of one of the
most important timing elements that's going on in this case
right now is that there is a trial taking place
(01:15):
of Daniel waznia x X fiance Rachel Buffett. Daniel Wozniak
was in fact convicted of the crimes he committed and
confessed to uh the capital case. The penalty was in
fact death and he is on death row at this point.
But from what I've learned over the years I've been
working on this case is that I feel in many
(01:37):
ways Daniel would have never committed these crimes if he
had not met Rachel Buffett. So with her trial coming up,
I really wanted to talk to you about the case
and the charges and how you feel about the likelihood
that there might be a conviction here, and so if
we could go over these uh in more detail, I'd
(01:57):
appreciate it. So the first felony charge involves Rachel Buffett
lying to police about a fictitious man in a black hat,
and the basis for that charge something I know that
you in court spoke about with Judge Connolly regarding an
issue where you felt Prosecutor Matt Murphy was in fact
(02:18):
committing a double argument, if you will, about the same person.
And you can't move from one court room and say
one thing and move to another court and would say another.
Let's talk about that. Well, right, there's there's case law
out there that talks about the fact that you can't
make inconsistent arguments in two different cases. And so our
argument to Judge Connley when we came back after the
(02:39):
verdict was to say, that's precisely what took place was
that he made arguments about Rachel Buffett, and the preliminary
hearing and Miss Buffett's case that were vastly different from
what he was arguing in um Mr wazni next case.
So let's just tell listeners the preliminary hearing for Rachel
Buffett was on December and in essence, that was where
(03:04):
Matt Murphy was trying to get an indictment on accessory
after the fact. So you're saying, in that particular hearing,
that's where Mr Murphy really painted a picture of her guilt, right,
I mean, he's he's bringing home both in terms of
how he presents the witnesses at the preliminary hearing and
(03:24):
then in terms of argument to Judge McKenna, who's the
judge hearing about her responsibility, and he's not only saying
that she's responsible as an accessory, but actually continually um
suggesting that she's responsible for something more. But yeah, he
very much is trying to convince the judge that she
should go to trial because she's aware of the crime
(03:46):
and she's trying to help um Dania wasna but at
the same time always hinting that there's something more. So
do you feel like his purpose and his intent was
to convince the judge that perhaps she was more involved
than just an accessory. But I think he I think
he believes that. I don't that's that's part of it.
(04:06):
It's not so much that he was just playing lawyer there.
I mean, I think Matt Murphy absolutely believed what he
was saying in the preliminary hearing, that she was more involved,
that she had absolute knowledge before the death of MS. Kiboshi.
I think that's what he believes. I think that's what
he argued. He argued very passionately about it. He cited
all sorts of information um that he thought was supportive
(04:28):
of it. So I don't think it was an act.
I don't think it was just to get her over
to a trial. I think that's what he believes. I think, um,
I think he has for a long long time. And
Matt Murphy was quite convincing in Rachel Buffett's preliminary hearing
because the judge said, you have enough to go to trial. Yeah,
I mean, he's he's pointing to all of these incidents,
(04:50):
but this one in particular, the one he's looking at,
is are these contacts that take place shortly after the
first crime that they're going back. They're looking at the
self phone. He's making this point again and again to
the judge that it is unbelievable that Rachel Buffett was
unaware of this introduction into their household of a new
cell phone. And he talks about the fact that you know,
(05:11):
these are folks that are struggling economically, that their their
paycheck to paycheck, and here he is sitting up sitting
with her um and he suddenly has a new cell phone.
And the notion that he would that she'd be unaware
of that is unreasonable. Even more so, she talks to police.
It was I think March of when police come to
(05:33):
issue her a subpoena. She tells police and that in
that exchange that she admits that she saw Daniel sitting
next to her on the couch while he was texting
Julie Kibi she to lure her to Sam's apartment that night.
That she admits that he was on a totally different phone,
that he was on a more archaic flip phone versus
(05:54):
his fancy new phone that he had um that obviously
was way more advanced technologically. So she admits the police
she saw him on a different phone, which turns out
to be Sam's phone, and he argues about it compellingly.
I mean he that probably was a big argument that
allowed that case to proceed, a key argument that allowed
it to proceed to trial. About the preliminary the preliminary hearing,
(06:17):
he's very much focused on the phone and the significance
and it being absolutely unbelievable that she was unaware of that,
and that she wouldn't have asked questions and things wouldn't
have followed from that. Earlier today, I learned a new
piece of evidence that was shared to me in an interview.
I will aeron full on a future episode that Rachel
Buffett had actually told a gentleman by the name of
(06:40):
Daniel hulk Yard, who was a friend of Dan Wisnia's
and would visit him often when he was waiting for
his trial in Men's County Jail. She said to Daniel
al Yard that she had sent a Facebook message to
Julie Kabuishi at eleven ten that night, the night that
(07:00):
she was murdered, basically saying we'll get together after the
wedding and we'll catch up and we'll share some summer
sunshine together at the pool. And she told Daniel Hulkyard
that Daniel Wozniak was standing right behind her when she
sent that email, and well, that email was part of
you know, that email was part of the package of evidence.
(07:23):
And then the question just became and it was an
important one. You know, where were people located at the time.
And again, it was a very oddly timed email that
she was sending. And what Daniel Hulkyard seems to be
insinuating is because Rachel slipped and told him that Dan
Wozniak was over her shoulder when she sent this message
(07:45):
to Julie. So Daniel Hulkyard suggests that Dan and Rachel
must have been in cahoots together. Yet Rachel never told
police Dan was by her side. She said she was
in bed alone on her laptop when she sent that message.
I thought that was a very interesting, telling piece of
evidence that I hadn't learned before today. Daniel Hulkyard shares
(08:08):
with us that moment Rachel told me in no certain terms,
you know, the night that that lady was killed, I
was on an email to her and I felt so
suspicious and scared because Daniel was standing right behind me,
and I about dropped my job. Linda, I said, you
what she Yeah, that was so speaking I looked at
(08:29):
her mom, and her mom just clammed up real quickly,
and I told her in our little talk, I said,
you had no idea. It was going why no idea?
You had no idea? And in three sentences later she
says what she said, No, only think she knew what
she said. It was basically an alibi email, is how
I felt when I read it, both exactly. But then
when she told me that I haven't told anybody illegal
(08:49):
world what I just told you about that conversation. I haven't,
and I will tell you because I know what you
want to do with this the truth behind us. And
remember Ray, she was sending this message to Julie on
her Facebook at eleven ten, Friday night of the murders.
It makes you wonder was this an alibi message to Julie?
(09:14):
I mean, it was a really nice message, and could
one possibly imagine that someone would be diabolical enough to
send such a sweet message and then fifty minutes later
be part of a plan to murder Julie. Well, it's interesting,
I mean, you know, without talking to him directly and
hearing it on, but it certainly makes sense, It certainly
(09:34):
fits sort of we know that this email went out
this unusual, unusually timed email. So here adds another element
that potentially she's acknowledge to someone else. Said Dan's near
by at the time. So I want to be clear
with our listeners what you meant when you uh spoke
in court about this double argument of Matt Murphy's the
(09:59):
preliminary here r he really framed her as not only
an accessory, but in fact perhaps an accomplice in these murders.
And he was very passionate and and and very convincing
in his argument about her role, which we believe he
believes as well as the customers of police. But then
in the actual trial of Daniel Wasniac, he sort of
(10:20):
shifted quite a bit, right, And so let's talk about
that shift and and how he presented Rachel to the jurors.
We can go into more about what happens to the trial,
but obviously it's kind of a general theme at trial.
Mr Murphy wants to diminish her responsibility and at every
turn from the beginning of the trial he is saying
(10:40):
things in his opening statement like Daniel Wasnac allied to
Rachel Buffett, and he's putting that in a group of victims.
He you know, he puts his brother in that list.
So he wants to separate Rachel Buffett and other people
from any level of culpability because I think quite obviously
he thinks the more more culpable um Rachel Buffett is,
(11:03):
the less likely he is to get a death verdict.
And I think that's kind of at the core of it.
He wants the death penalty, and I you know, obviously
our argument is that he wanted it way too much,
and he did some things that didn't match with what
he was doing at the preliminary herring. And you know,
just for people who don't know how preliminary herring is,
where it's like a grand jury proceeding, except you're not
(11:23):
speaking to a group of members of the public. You're
speaking to a single judge who's making that call. And
that's what's happening in Rachel Buffett's case. She's she's before
a judge named Judge mckeeno, um well respected judge in
the community. And Judge mckeino is asking questions at some
point about the case. I mean, he's very thoughtful and
he's asking he's kind of pressing and probing about why
(11:45):
she had more responsibility. So he comes back to the
subject of Rachel Buffett and why she's responsible, and he's
telling Judge mckinna, we have a situation here where these
people are living together, they're engaged to be married, they're
both employed, they have the same financial pressures, they're both
in the process of eviction. They've been described a very
(12:06):
various friends as being very close there together all the time.
He's building the argument for accessory, but it also sounds
very much like the argument for murder if he was
building an argument for accomplice or a partner in the
planning and the execution. Accomplice is the equivalent of a
murder charge, right, That's right, So you don't have to
be the person who strikes the deathblow. If you assist
(12:28):
in some way to have that crime take place, you're
treated the same way under the law. So to the
extent as we argued that Rachel Buffett was reasonably taking
steps that would have encouraged Dan, pushed Dan to act
at a time when he didn't want to. You know,
we argue, obviously in terms of the second crime, that
(12:48):
he's despondent before that and she doesn't really care and
she's pushing, and that's what logic says. So when I'm
making closing argument and I'm actually making this argument that
prosecution agrees with me, and he's objecting to it and
stating that I'm misstating his argument, and he was right.
I was misstating his argument in my case because I
(13:09):
was stating his argument in Rachel Buffet's case right here.
And so that's the problem that's not supposed to happen.
You don't get to flip around because you like to
have the death penalty on a man. The rules are
the rules, and the rules are the rules, and it's
just you know, that rule is based in common sense
logic about what's right. And let's give our listeners a
clear sense of just how he shifted in the trial
(13:31):
of Daniel Waznac, how he was portraying her in that trial. Well,
you know, it was pretty stunning. I mean, here we
are in the trial and he is presenting her as
a victim. One of the most dramatic things that he
did was to take his argument about what took place
outside the residents. So let me take the listeners through
that moment just so they understand the scene when Detective
(13:54):
Everett shows up in front of Rachel's brother no A
Buffet's apartment. When he walks in, he doesn't realize it's
in a partment. He thinks at the storefront. He walks
in and there's Daniel sitting on the couch and Daniel
asks can we please move outside to to talk? And
at that point, Daniel's telling the story about how the
last person he saw Sam Hair with was this guy
(14:15):
in a black hat. Later that night, Kasta Masa police
arrest Dan Wazniak for accessory to murder because they still
believe Dan is hiding and helping Sam Hair. So let's
listen now as Daniel is questioned by detectives and hear
what Daniel has to say about the mysterious man in
the black hat. I feared that I was the last
(14:39):
person to see him. So what I had told everyone
was because the last person even known that I knew
that I was with Sam to my wife, and the
last time that she saw and I saw was two
three o'clock on Friday, Okay, So I went to live
with that story, and then I made up this mystery
person just holding that that would you know, take the
plane off me? So I I mean of this guy
(15:00):
with a white white guy scuffled on a black baseball cap,
that he doesn't exist. That's a line, that's a life.
I apologize for that. He does admit to police that
he made up that man. He was an imaginary person.
So go back to that Wednesday, before he's arrested for anything,
and Rachel pops out of the apartment and walks over
(15:22):
to the detective ends to Daniel, and she repeats the
same story that Daniel was telling them at the time.
And so that's what Matt Murphy is referring to, right right,
And you have to it's I mean, I laugh, but
it's none of it's funny because you think about what
he then turns around and does in our trial. He
then puts on detective effort and he presents essentially the defense.
(15:48):
And this is fast forward. Now we're in the trial
of Daniel wast and here that comes Matt Murphy, and
he wants this event viewed completely differently. In fact, if
you look at what he's doing, he's saying, we're being
unfair to Rachel Buffett to draw the same interpretation that
he argued to Judge mckeow. Do you remember the line.
He said. He said, maybe she was leaning in in
(16:08):
the door and she was overhearing what Daniel said, so
she just repeated what her fiance was saying to police.
That is what Matt Murphy said to the jurors, and
he did, and he set that up through questioning what Everard?
He asked Everett, he being Murphy, asked Everard, and during
your interview with her, I believe you testified she echoed
the same lie for back lack of a better term,
(16:30):
that there was a third individual with Mr Wozniak and
Mr Her on the day that Mr Her went missing. Right. Answer, yes,
this is Everett saying yes. So how far outside the
door of the residence do you think you were when
you engaged in that conversation with Daniel Wozniak? Answer again, Everett,
maybe five or six feet? Question? Okay, so big picture. Now,
(16:52):
as an investigator and you get a potential suspect, you
step outside and Daniel Wasnick tells you the story, including
the lie about the third individual. Yes, and then a
few minutes later Rachel comes out and tells you the
same lie. That's the question. Ever says, Yes. Now, as
a police officer, it could be that Rachel has been
involved in this conspiracy, maybe even planned the whole thing,
(17:14):
and maybe this whole murder. That's one possibility, or that's
one realm of possibility. Answer yes, Or it could be
that she was listening on the other side of the door, right, Yes,
it could have been that sort either way, right under
under that piece of evidence, yes, Murphy says to Everett,
you're familiar with the term tie goes to the runner.
(17:39):
So here you have him suggesting that, in fact, the
exact same argument that he made at the preliminary hearing
is faulty. He's he's saying that what we argued to
Judge mckeeno really wasn't fair because the tie should go
(18:00):
to the runner and he doesn't end it there. He says, So,
in other words, when you have two pieces of evidence,
one that points toward innocence and one that points toward guilt.
As a police officer, you've got to kind of give
the benefit of the doubt, right, answer Everett. Yes, So
you can imagine a sitting in the courtroom knowing what
(18:21):
happened in the prior hearing and realizing this is how
far he's going to go. Now they're not in a
plot together everything that I just talked about in terms
of um, what they pressed Judge mckeeno to believes earlier
argument that you have to believe this. This is the
only logical interpretation that they're in a he says, this
is our cleanest argument. Obviously they plotted this. He calls
(18:44):
it a plot. Now, it's not a plot. Now. It
may have just been a very good listener who's sitting
at the door who then decided, Okay, I'm going to
match the stories to help my um my loved one
get out of harm's way. Um. But nothing in terms
of an intention to do anything further or that she
had knowledge before. That's the really bad thing, right. He's saying, Look,
(19:07):
she really may not have had any knowledge of this
crime before. You cannot reconcile that. There's no way you
can reconcile that with what he did at the preliminary hearing. UM.
In the Buffet case, it's similar to Matt Murphy's statements
that he's made in the past regarding Rachel Buffett, where
he said she just might have to be considered collateral damage. Yeah,
but as horrifying as it is, and it is, it's
(19:29):
exactly what took place here. He decided, Look, Rachel Buffett
is looking at a few years in prison on a
good day for them. Does he want any chance, just
even the slimmest chance of reducing the possibility that he
gets a death verdict. So he's sitting here worried that
(19:50):
if the jury believes that's somehow Rachel Buffett may have
been involved and is not going to be held responsible
for the higher crime, which we argue she was involved
with murder, which is murder. He thinks jury may go
this isn't quite fair. So what does he do? He
pushes back on any notion, even a semblance of a
(20:12):
of a notion that it's fair. We're the ones who
are being unfair. Now, that's the amazing thing in the trial.
We're the unfair ones because we're suggesting Rachel Buffint may
have more involvement, which is exactly what he said at
the preliminary hearing. Yeah, you're just reiterating what he said
earlier in at her preliminary hearing. But he doesn't like
those arguments anymore because those arguments are the type of
(20:32):
arguments that keeps someone from getting death. If all of
a sudden, the jury if we both spoke the same way,
and that closing. What if he had said exactly what
he had said in that preliminary hearing, how powerful that
would have been. Mr Sanders is right. All of these
things that he's saying are absolutely right. She wasn't coincidentally
sitting next to the door. She did know everything, She
did have the phone in sight, she knew about the phone,
(20:54):
and all of this happened an earlier point. He knows
that verdict may have turned out differently. So it's Rachel's
own words, it's her lies that are the blueprint to
the truth. Rachel Buffett tells the Coast of Masa police
that when Dan came back with the first installment of
money that they owed Chris Williams for helping them stave
(21:16):
off the eviction. Rachel tells police that the Friday afternoon
of the murders, Daniel came back with the four dollars
and he possibly gave it to Sam or the loan
Sharks outside their apartment, but she was sitting there at
the table. Chris Williams tells me in an interview that
she was right there when Dan gave Chris Williams the money.
(21:41):
In fact, Chris Williams tells me that he specifically asked
them if they had any food money, and Dan said,
that's all we have, pointing to the money that he
just handed to him, and so Chris decides to give
them a twenty, passes that twenty across the table so
that they had some food money. He left that apartment
(22:02):
so quickly. There was just this weird energy, this this
darkness that was sort of looming in the apartment. So
he said he couldn't get out of there fast enough
and then he that he's on a call with Rachel
within minutes, and she's trying to lure him back, telling
him that he dropped a twenty, and at that point,
(22:24):
he said, is this about the money, because I wanted
you to have that for food? Is is this about
the money that you want me to come back to
talk to you about? And she said, no, it's something
else I need to talk to you about. And it
was then that he said every bone in his body
just shook because he had no idea at that point
(22:45):
why she wanted him there, but she he just didn't
have a good feeling about it. So we're Rachel and
Dan perhaps worried because Chris Williams was the only witness
who saw Dan leave alone with Sam, because there really
was no third person in a black hat. One of
(23:05):
the other statements that Matt Murphy made to jurors during
Dan Wozniak's trial was his portrayal of Rachel Buffett as
almost a hero in this case, because if it wasn't
for her, he says, they wouldn't have had this cornucopia
of evidence to accuse and convict Daniel for these murders,
(23:27):
and that just wasn't true. Violet Randolph, who was a
neighbor and a friend who actually Rachel ended up living
with for quite some time after the murders, she was
in that car and when they left the Waznia home,
after Rachel came and spoke to Darryl Wosnia, Daniel's father,
she told him that he was arrested and tried to
(23:49):
take him through what had happened. They left there, and
Tim Wozniak and Lisa Goldge, his girlfriend at the time,
showed up and Rachel went over to the car and
he's sharing with her that he has gone and he
has all this other evidence, and she's like putting her
hands up on her ears like I don't want to
hear this whatever, and when she got back into the car,
(24:09):
Violet basically said, like, what's going on? He has evidence?
She said yes, he said he has a gone and
she said, you're going to bring that to police, right
and Rachel said no, and Violet said, if you don't,
I'm going to because that gun is going to disappear.
And she picked up her cell phone as she tells me,
and she calls her mother to get Jose Morales's number,
(24:31):
at which point that's the very moment that Dan calls
in from the holding cell and I just talked to him,
and I need to make a phone called the detective.
Now what Cautin's involved, because I need to call the
detective first because I need to call him and by
(24:53):
him now before they catch me on its recording device,
because it looks like I'm not trying to tell him
right away. Tim says he has evidence with them, or
or he knew where it was or something. Then I'm doomed.
What yeah, do you know that Tim had some evidence? Scott,
(25:19):
what did you think about the jailhouse calls between Dan
and Rachel when you heard them for the first time?
She's not expecting this call, right and as the call goes,
here comes Dan and he's worried. Oh god, oh god,
oh god. Okay, well this is this is ridiculous and
(25:44):
I have to go tell the detective the truth. Um, come,
come do kick up only to me so far, and
it was in casting. I said, I'm going to police
station right now. Danny's in arrested. He starts for being
out and it's really frantic and he said something and
something slips that he had evidence. So I have to
(26:05):
I don't, don't, don't, don't, no, Rabe, I'm going to
do it. I needed to pull over to the art
second get the phone number for the infective out what
you realize they recording the song conversation. Anyways, if you
(26:28):
look at what she's doing, she's not planning. When she's
driving down the street. She is not planning to call
the police. There's no chance in the world. And then
she realizes Dan is unraveling and we're on a recorded
conversation and she has this interesting moment where she says,
I need to call the detective right now. What do
you mean didn't you need to call the detective the
(26:50):
moment you took this evidence so that that's one of
the tells. There's about five or six tells in there.
If you look at it closely, you can see she
was hoping just to do whatever she was gonna do. Well,
it's a performance for Violet too. I mean, the girl
was sitting in the passenger seat saying to Rachel, if
you don't call detective Morales, I will, that's right. And
(27:11):
so she's driving. All of a sudden, Dan is doing
what he's doing, and she needs to perform for Violet.
She needs to perform for what she knows. Are the
police listening and she points that out. Dan, You're an idiot.
The police are listening to this conversation, and I've got
to make sure I assist the police. Well, I don't
know what that is. I thought it was a murder weapon.
(27:34):
I don't know what you're talking about other evidence. I
don't know what him how decides that Dame said he
had a murder weapon? You realize the recording the song conversation. Anyways,
I need to call the detective first, because I need
to call him and by him no before they catch
me on its recording device, because it looks like I'm
not trying to tell him right away, and her mind
(27:56):
is twirling, going, if I don't say this soon, I'm
going to be in big trouble. So that's exactly what
Tim told me. So I'm going to go tell the
detective now. So so she's doing this in steps because
her brain is flying. She's saying to herself, they're going
to know in a millisecond. And I'm deeply involved in this.
(28:16):
So I'm so I better say something. Okay, what do
you want me to do? I don't want you to
tell the detective of anything, and I don't want them
involved up. I mean now I'm no, I'm dead. Now
I'm really dead. Maybe you are already dead when you
deconstructed and kind of look at it closely, you can
see what she's doing. And she does this kind of throughout.
(28:37):
You know, she's trying to reel Dan back even after
he says I did it. There's no way back. They're
thinking that you pre meditated a murder of both of
your friends because you were telling me beforehand that you
had a class that you knew you didn't have. You're
already making an excuse in an alibi. Do you see
(28:59):
what I'm saying? Like I'm done I'm done. I'm really done.
Um what I was trying to cover it up and
now I'm going away for life. It necessarily means that
when that call took place on the she knew he
was involved, She was plotting with him. It means the
(29:19):
whole call is a lie. It's well done. It's a
kind of an amateurish level, right, you know, kind of
low level theater. Why on earth would you try and
cover for him? We needed the money? No, we never
need money. You need to be good people and just
(29:40):
have each other. O. Sorry, it's well done for a minute,
unless you look at it pretty closely. And Murphy knows
that that phone call had to be completely fabricated. Maybe
when did when did we fall asleep last night? And
where were you? When did you leave lust or not?
Last night? That Friday night? Friday night? We got home
(30:03):
probably around I don't know, midnight? Yeah, remember that. What
did we do? Did anyone come over? I don't remember?
Or did we just crash? Did eye craft? We crapwer together? Uh? Huh?
Family guy? And then in black wait wait where I
(30:27):
can't we're walking then black and I can hardly hear
you on this Funday spak a little bit louder. What
about Black and Family guy? Okay? That night? Okay, so
when did you go over and meet Sam? And when
did you help Sam? Saturday morning? Saturday morning? She is
(30:48):
pretending as she's going as if she knows nothing, And
then when Dan Wozniak switches and says, I've got to
tell you the truth about what happened. You can hear
it and you can kind of hear what she's doing.
And at the very end of that tape, she tries
to pull him back one last time. Are you sure
you're not taking the blame for someone else? She tries
to recover him from himself. Are you trying to cover
(31:11):
for somebody? Me? Um, listen to me. I'm gonna go
do something right now, and you're not gonna see me
for the rest of your life. Do you understand that? No? No,
(31:33):
I have to tell the truth on what I did.
And I think you now know what it is and
it's bad. Imagine the word and that's what I did.
H Do you want to tell me first or are
you gonna go tell them? If you tell them, can
you tell me back and tell me? To my faith?
(31:55):
Can you can? You can probably tell them first? To
come down to position right now. Yes, yes, I'm coming
down to the station right now. You should buy them first.
But I want to hear it from you. It's her though.
I mean, you talk about who's worse. There. He's going,
I'm done. I'm you know, I'm not. There's no coming
back from this. And she's thinking to herself, if you
(32:16):
don't come back from this, you may take us both down.
That's what she's doing very clearly. And I'm not saying
anything other than what Matt Murphy would have said in
two thousand and twelve in the preliminary hearing. We would
have sounded almost identical. We just don't now because in
two thousand and sixteen he wanted a death verdict very badly,
so he decided it was okay to switch his theories.
That's what he did. It was surprising how Matt Murphy
(32:38):
characterized Rachel Buffett during Dan Was the next trial. Yes,
but only because you knew more. If you don't know more,
and I'm making arguments that are being stopped and and
you're right right, you don't you don't know. I don't
blame the jury for not getting what he was doing
to them and the rest of the media didn't have
a word to say about it because I just didn't
(33:00):
know that. And this is, you know, this is the
difficulty sometimes in a trial. It's you've got to have
so much information to really get it. And really what
he was starting to do there was kind of beyond
the pale. It wasn't something that even anybody would envision
and think back at the time, what else, what was
he's saying before? But you know, after the trial, we
get a chance to go to the judge and we
(33:21):
did our motion and and tell us about his ruling
and how you felt about it. Well, you know, the
ruling is only memorable to the extent we lost. I
don't remember what he said specifically, and I don't think
he committed a lot of writing to it, other than
to say, um, we lose. And so I'm not going
to tell you that it's surprising that we lost. And
(33:43):
I'm not saying that because I think we should have lost.
We shouldn't have. I just we didn't have a lot
of success and litigation in that courtroom. We weren't successful here.
And you know, I've second guessed all sorts of things.
That's just the nature of the beast but I'm also
still angry because there wasn't complete truth in that courtroom.
I don't sit here trusting that we've gotten everything. There's
no reason to. They don't have a history of disclosure,
(34:04):
and it's not going to surprise me if ten years,
twenty years down the road something gets found out in
addition to all the things you've found out, And that's
that's a big problem. That's had a big problem with
this process here. It's just I have no faith whatsoever
the tricks that were pulled here. The notion like I
found all of the tricks, I don't think so I
don't have I don't know that kind of faith in myself.
(34:27):
You know. The notion that Rachel Buffett was protecting him
is insanity, and that this was her goal. I can't
even believe someone's going to say that in the courtroom
just because it's going to help them get a win.
None of this has to do with protecting Dan Wasnext.
She's done with Dan Wasney. She thinks Dan Wasny next time.
This is about protecting her, and it makes sense. I
(34:49):
remember that you revealed in court a conversation that Rachel
had with police during those early morning hours after police
arrested Dan. They had brought her in for questioning. It
was there she mentions how he really wasn't a great lover,
and she wasn't over the moon about him, and she
even said he wasn't well endowed down below. She's saying
(35:14):
all these things, and she's supposed to marry this guy
that next day. It just seemed like she was done
with him. Then. I mean that there's a level of
cruelty in that. I mean, it's not the cruelty obviously,
you know. I I want to make it clear. I
mean I represented Dan and then believe very deeply that
he should not have gotten a death penalty. You know,
I don't think it was fair. I don't think the
(35:35):
trial was fair. I don't think anything about this process
was fair whatsoever. And I don't think we have all
the evidence in the case. Why do you feel Daniel
Woznia didn't deserve the death penalty? Well, look at the
first place, any pursuit of death should start with his fairness.
Just should be a fair process. You shouldn't have a
prosecutor arguing two different theories to get death all. I mean,
(35:59):
I have a lot of adentury issues, things that I
think should have come in his evidence. But there are
a lot of things that I thought, UM made this
whole process unfair. Are you referring to Sam's past? Um,
that's that's one of them. UM, for our listeners, Sam
Hair at one point in his life was charged with
murder and he was acquitted. I think his defense lawyer
(36:21):
did a great job and they were able to keep
out all of the key evidence and kind of a
unique theory and should be commended for that. But in
the standard that's used in most cases, and then when
I think is a legal standard, once the prosecutor took
certain steps in our litigation, we should have had the
right to introduce that evidence. And the way they the
(36:42):
prosecution chose to kind of present Mr her which they
didn't have to do. They went further and kind of
presenting him as a solid citizen. We had the right
to answer that. But there's all sorts of other places,
including you know, more what we've been focusing on today.
You know, if I look at all of that, I
keep coming back to the same spot too often. In
(37:03):
this county, evidence hasn't been turned over, and UM, I
look at this and wondering what else wasn't turned over,
and don't I think it's reasonable. If you have a
prosecutor that's making the type of arguments he's making, why
on earth would I believe he It's it's beyond him
to just keep some evidence that he thinks Um might
be beneficial to us. And what I know, you talked
(37:26):
about how you felt for the Daniel Wozniak trial. You
felt that in many cases it wasn't a fair trial.
What was the most egregious example of where you thought
you did not get a fair break? Well, you know,
one of the examples, certainly is the sam Her evidence.
I mean we thought that we The interesting thing was
(37:49):
we didn't anticipate getting into that because we thought the
prosecutor was going to actually limit himself. And you can
do that because basically what the prosecutor's option is just
to put on evidence about his impact on human lives.
So you could put on people and talk about how
sad it was, and that wouldn't have allowed us, arguably
to get into this next spot, which is Um Samer
(38:12):
having killed somebody in his past charged with it. Well,
I mean he's charged with that crime. I mean he was,
he was charged. He was acquitted and I and I
appreciate the process, but I don't. Yes, I hope so yeah.
I mean, I appreciate the process, but I don't. I
don't agree that he didn't kill you know, I'm just
(38:34):
the evidence doesn't point to that. It's just the evidence
all got kept back. I mean, he confessed in statements,
the statements just didn't get introduced. I know that this
was an important point for Scott that he did not win.
The argument of introducing Sam's passed in the Dan Wozniak trial,
(38:55):
and although the jurors didn't have a chance to hear
the facts, I thought my listeners deserved to know what
happened in Sam's past when he was in fact charged
with murder, and so I spoke at length with retired
Sergeant Gilbert Anderson, who was the lead detective on Sam's
murder case, and suffice to say that there were eighteen
(39:19):
defendants that were charged with the murder of Byron Benito,
who was an MMS gang member, and he was in
fact the victim that was lord. As Sergeant Anderson says,
he was lured by his best friend at the time,
(39:40):
Sam Hair, and Sam brought him to undisclosed location where
rival gang members from the Brown Familiar Family were waiting
to attack Byron, and Sam at that time was growing
increasingly frustrated with his and Byron. Byron was acting like
(40:02):
a bully in many instances, beating up members of the
Brown Familiar gang for no apparent reason, and so Sam
was starting to distance himself. We may never know with
absolute certainty if Sam believed that the Brown Familial gang
intended to murder Byron or simply wanted to rough him
(40:26):
up give him a scare, and everyone that knew Sam
would tell me he would never run away from a fight,
which is why Sam himself was injured from the attack. Eventually,
Byron Benito did pass away from his injuries, and eighteen
people stood charged with that murder. Six of them, including Sam,
(40:48):
were acquitted. And the reason that Sam Hare was acquitted
of these charges were because there was a technicality that
the judge at the time felt there was a illegal,
as he called it, arrest after a traffic stop. The
police had stopped Sam because they saw some scooters in
(41:09):
his car, and at the time a lot of scooters
were being stolen, and so the actual traffic stop, the
judge said, was was fine it was the it was
the arrest afterwards that the judge felt was far reaching.
So therefore anything after the arrest was thrown out, and
that included Sam's confession. He was haunted by this, it
(41:30):
was his friend. I think he felt bad. I think
in many ways he was self medicating because he felt
so bad. But he did, I guess after many hours
with the sergeant, he did finally confess to his role.
And Steve Hair told me that while he and Sam's
(41:51):
attorney that Steve hired, we're waiting outside the interrogation room.
For whatever reason, police did not allow the attorney access
to Sam. I don't know if it was because Sam
didn't ask for an attorney, but that is what Steve
Hair had mentioned to me. And ultimately, because that confession
(42:13):
was thrown out, Sam was acquitted of all charges. And
I just think it's important to mention that that same officer,
the same sergeant that I spoke to, he said that
he wanted it to be clear that Sam never went
back to a life of crime. Sam, you know, from there,
really turned his life around, joined the army, and he
(42:38):
he never he never looked back and tried to continue
on that path. That was going to only lead him
to prison at some point. Sam's past was something that
he used as a litmus test often because he he
would share this past with with people that he barely
knew at times. In fact, Sam's fiance at the time
(43:00):
had told me in a later interview that that he
had this paperwork that he would show people and they
would read it and and they would see what his
past was about and what he had been through. And
if they reacted in a way that they said, well,
you know what, you're our guy, you're our friend, and
we're not holding that against you, then he would become
(43:21):
friends with that person. Or if they were turned off
by what they read, then he knew that they would
never be real friends. So he did the same thing
with Daniel and Rachel, and this happened a weekend before
the murders. Daniel had been arrested by the Coast of
Masa police ironically for an outstanding do you I warrant
(43:41):
and he was the lead in a musical called nine
at the time, and so Rachel was scrambling to get
his bail money raised because he was the lead and
they weren't going to be able to perform the next night.
If she couldn't get him out of jail. So Dave
Barnhart and John Randolph, friends of theirs, a neighbors at
the camp to Martinique, called around to try to raise
(44:04):
the bail money, and one of those people that they
called was Sam Hair, but he refused to give money.
I don't know them very well and I have no
interest in participating in this dude's bail money. Sam's friend
Ruben Manacho recalls the story. Sam received a phone call
from Dave Dave and Dave was obviously I wasn't listening
(44:26):
to the conversation, but after they were dawn talking and
Sam told me about what the conversation was about. Essentially,
Dave was asking for money to bail Dan out of
out of jail. And I said, no, why would you.
Why are they even calling you to ask, you know,
to ask you for money. Doesn't seem fair. Do you
(44:47):
even know this guy that well? And he said like, yeah,
he's a friend. And I know that because if it
would have been a friend friend and he would have
hung out with us a lot more often. And that's
the reason why I say that. So and I advise
Sam to not to give him the money. I don't
actually remember if he did or not. Hopefully he didn't,
(45:08):
so that's yeah, um, but yeah, that was it. So
that upset them because in fact, Dave Barnhard said to Rachel,
and he's the he's the one guy that has more
money than all of us. I guess Rachel told Dan
that Sam did not contribute and when they saw Sam,
because eventually Rachel was able to raise the money and
(45:30):
Dan got out of jail the next morning and that
afternoon they went to the hot tub and that's where
Sam was, and Sam, you know, responded to a complaint
that Dan was making, saying, I never want to go
to jail again. That was a horrible experience. It was awful.
I can't even believe I made it through the night.
And basically Sam was like, you know, you gotta be
(45:51):
kidding me, dude, Like I was. I was sitting in
the Los Angeles County Men's jail for two years waiting
for my trial when I was charged with murder. At
that moment, Dan and Rachel found out this past of
where Sam was in fact himself once a defendant being
charged with murder. So that's what ultimately put the target
(46:13):
on his back. That's why they had used that pass.
They kept referring to that past when when Dan was
first arrested by Costa Masa police, So that in essence
is the story of sam has past and why it
plays a relevant role in this case. In the end,
I've always felt that Prosecutor Matt Murphy had a far
(46:36):
better case for accomplice or murder charges rather than the
accessory charges that Rachel now faces. I want to thank
you Scott Sanders for your time today and we look
forward to having you back next week for all your
legal observations on Rachel Buffett's trial proceedings. Thanks very much
for the opportunity. Yeah, On the next episode of Sleuth,
(47:11):
we go straight to Santa Anna Superior Court for our
gavel to gavel coverage of the trial we've been waiting for.
It's the State of California versus Rachel Buffett, So tune
into Sleuth and you won't miss a moment of the
witness testimony. If you enjoyed this episode of Sleuth, share
(47:31):
it with a friend and be sure to leave a
rating or review. Follow Sleuth on I Heart Radio, or
subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so that you never
miss an episode
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