Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    October 20, 2024 2:30am-3:01am PDT

2:30 am
eczema specialist about dupixent.
2:31 am
pete g. writes, "my tween wants a new phone. eczema specialist how do i not break the bank?" we gotcha, pete. xfinity mobile was designed to save you money and gives you access to wifi speeds up to a gig. so you get high speeds for low prices. better than getting low speeds for high prices. right, bruce? -jealous? yeah, look at that. -honestly. someone get a helmet on this guy. xfinity internet customers, ask how to get an unlimited line free for a year. plus, a free samsung galaxy s24 fe.
2:32 am
i'm jessica layton with the hours top stories. we start in israel where a drone strike was launched toward the home of prime minister benjamin netanyahu north of tel aviv. that's according to his office. netanyahu and his wife were not in the building at the time and we're told there were no casualties. back here in the u.s.,
2:33 am
crews are working to put out the oakland hills fire in california. authorities have ordered evacuations in that area. officials with the california department of forestry and fire protection say that fire was about half contained as of saturday morning. and now back to dateline. i'm andrea canning. in a taped interview, ciara ingram's young son said he heard his mother both laughing and screaming inside her home on the day she was murdered. police were looking into ciara's ex-husband, jarod. now, a team of supporters was about to rally to jarod's defense, taking their own look at what the kids told detectives. continuing with "what they saw," here's dennis murphy. dennis murphy: in the weeks following ciara's murder, investigators compiled their evidence. there were those police interviews with the children, and they had ciara's cell records showing her phone went silent around the time
2:34 am
jarod was at her apartment. there wasn't a single phone call or text after 6:39 pm on june 2. and the only wisp of a lead-- that guy from indiana who was going to help ciara move. dennis murphy: well, his alibi checked out, and that left one person-- jarod. so on july 1, a month after ciara's murder-- i was leaving to go to work. and then, people started getting out of their cars and putting their hands up like this, saying, you know, don't move. you're under arrest. dennis murphy: jarod was charged with murder and spent the next 15 months in jail before posting bond and being released. by then, he'd lost custody of his son and daughter. they'd moved to indiana to be with ciara's mom. are the kids taking your phone calls? because i'm sure you're trying to reach them. at this point, a part of my bond agreement is that i cannot speak with anyone in ciara's family, including my children. so-- so that's a whole area of your life that's-- no contact. yes.
2:35 am
dennis murphy: jarod says he started attending church and began reaching out to old friends, like katie duke, a girl he knew from high school band days. katie duke: i always had a thing for him, even in high school. but it was just not good timing. it never was. dennis murphy: this wasn't exactly great timing either. after all, jarod was accused of murdering his ex-wife. what did you think? if you're asking, did i think he did it, it was an absolute no. why would they even think this? and how could it have possibly come to this? and you're saying that because of the guy you knew, the character of the man. the character-- just, how could it-- how could it possibly-- anyone think this? dennis murphy: their relationship grew from a friendship into something more. how did you decide you're going to get married? we started talking about it, and it was a lot of back-and-forth. because with something like this hanging over your head, do you wait till everything is over, and then get married? that sounds sensible, right? dennis murphy: katie disagreed. katie duke: i basically told him, i'm ready.
2:36 am
i'll marry you, you know. dennis murphy: they began their married life together in a kind of limbo, waiting for jarod to go on trial. he still hadn't been indicted. what was taking so long? jarod and katie kept their anguish quiet. a lot of people in the church didn't even know his story, right? no. dennis murphy: then, january 2017, 4 and 1/2 years after the murder, the indictment came down, and a trial date was set. no more secrets now. what did you think when you heard? in my mind, initially, it was just, it's impossible. debbie duke is katie's mom. laura duff and jim o'donnell are church friends. did you ever think, my goodness, this young man is a killer? no. debbie? mm-mm. not for a second. the very notion that somebody could consider jarod capable of this was beyond my belief. there's just simply no way i could apply my brain to that. dennis murphy: the support wasn't just moral. the church friends offered to help any way they could.
2:37 am
we had two or three people come up and says, what can we do? i'm like, well, pray. i don't-- but one of them said, well, come on. there's something we could do. what about all that paperwork? couldn't you use help with that? and i'm like, that would be wonderful. dennis murphy: that paperwork was the case against jarod-- mounds of documents, police reports, audio and video recordings. and to mount a defense, they would need to understand it. my lawyer was very good, but he has a small practice, just him and his wife. and so as far as legwork, there's not 100 paralegals going around to do legal research for him. dennis murphy: jarod and katie transformed their kitchen into a war room. and those church friends became legal assistance of sorts. they vowed to be objective. i was a true believer in jarod's character, ok? but if the evidence had persuaded you otherwise-- if the evidence persuaded me otherwise, i would have gone with the evidence. dennis murphy: the ad-hoc church team divvied up the work. jim, a software wiz, took a crack
2:38 am
at the cell phone records. jim o'donnell: and it took me some studying and everything to try to figure this out. but it came down to numbers, simple math. dennis murphy: according to the cell records, ciara was alive and on her phone at 6:39 pm. three minutes later, 6:42 pm, jarod's cell records indicate he is still at ciara's apartment. and 26 minutes after that, jarod's phone pings off a tower that the friends estimate is a good 15- to 20-minute drive away from ciara's apartment. there's not enough time here for him to have committed the crime. and the telephone traffic persuades us of that. jim o'donnell: yes. the math doesn't work. it just simply doesn't work. dennis murphy: at least, by their calculations. then, jarod's supporters looked at the bloody crime-scene photos, which raised more questions in their minds. how do you walk out of an apartment without completely showering, changing your clothes, and doing all that? that would add even more time. because, tick-tock, tick-tock, he's got to get to that other tower. absolutely. he wasn't wet, and he didn't change clothes.
2:39 am
and there were none of his clothes ever found with any evidence on them. dennis murphy: the friends then turned to those interviews with the kids, and they transcribed every word, including the interview where jarod's son says he heard screaming. dennis murphy: they noticed that interview took place five days after ciara's body was found. but in the police file, the friends found an earlier interview. the son's story about what he heard on that occasion was completely different. here's that interview. dennis murphy: jarod's supporters wondered where his son could have gotten the idea of screaming. the first time it comes up on the tapes is in a question from police just hours after they found ciara;s body. there's absolutely nothing incriminating about
2:40 am
their initial testimonies. those statements that come out later are, in my opinion, conditioning. what do you mean? i mean that the police are suggesting something for the children to say. and if you suggest something to a child of that age, who's impressionable, it's possible that they may say, yeah, i guess it could have been that. dennis murphy: and there was something else laura picked up on. i could hear it-- one of the investigators whispering, under their breath, trying to tell the children to say something on their recorded interviews. dennis murphy: was the officer putting words in his mouth? it's hard to say. but the children would speak about that day again-- this time, in court, where they'd be the chief witnesses against their father. andrea canning: coming up-- dennis murphy: what's the little girl see? julia slater: she sees her father standing. he is changing his shirt, and he has a white bottle beside him. andrea canning: two young witnesses with powerful stories to tell.
2:41 am
dennis murphy: were those children coached to give details of their story? never. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. alright, we got your home and auto bundled and you saved hundreds. oh, that's nice, with the economy and all. what's the economy? [chuckling] where do we start? what isn't the economy? yes. [ laughter ] uh, it's -- it's so many thing. right. look, all you really need to know is that progressive can save you money without sacrificing quality coverage. you follow? i'll just look it up. hmm. that went well.
2:42 am
2:43 am
dupixent can help people with asthma breathe better in as little as 2 weeks. so this is better. even this. dupixent is an add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma that's not for sudden breathing problems. dupixent can cause allergic reactions that can be severe. tell your doctor right away if you have rash, chest pain, worsening shortness of breath, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor about new or worsening
2:44 am
joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines including steroids, without talking to your doctor. ask your specialist about dupixent. without talking to your doctor. dennis murphy: in the spring of 2018, nearly six years after ciara ingram was brutally murdered, jarod ingram entered a muskogee county courtroom in columbus, georgia, to stand trial as her accused killer. but he wasn't alone. you're behind your husband in the-- mm-hmm. dennis murphy: --church pews there in the courtroom, huh? yeah. was it important that you show solidarity, that you have a lot of people? we felt so. yes. we invited anybody to come and just let the jury see
2:45 am
how much jarod is loved and how much support and love that he has sitting behind him. dennis murphy: muskogee county district attorney julia slater and her team hoped the jury would be persuaded not by jarod supporters, but rather by the cold, hard facts of the case. is it your belief that jarod ingram murdered his ex-wife, ciara-- yes. dennis murphy: --while the kids are waiting in the car? julia slater: yes. and the motivation for this crime was what? he did not want ciara to move with the children to indiana and would do anything to prevent that. dennis murphy: the prosecution called friends, like samela payne, who testified that ciara told her numerous times that jarod was threatening, violent. was that unnerving for you? no, because i wanted justice for ciara. it's too long. it had been too long. i just had to do what i had-- you know, my part. he's sitting there. yeah. to the left of me. you couldn't look at him. no, i was so disgusted. i hate him. i hate to say it, but i do.
2:46 am
and i just didn't look. dennis murphy: the prosecution said jarod had another motive, to the tune of nearly $13,000 in back child support payments. the prosecution also argued that the forensic evidence pointed squarely at jarod ingram. police found jarod's fingerprint on ciara's cell phone. a cell phone last used about the same time jarod's cell phone placed him at her apartment. so did he have enough time to do this? yes, he certainly had enough time. we know that his phone was at the apartment at the time that her phone went silent. there's enough time to have killed her. he knew where the bleach was. he could get to the bleach-- the cleanup that he attempted to do. we're not talking about extensive cleanup here, are we? - no, we are not. a little bleach here, a little bleach there, right? julia slater: throwing bleach a few places in the apartment, trying to clean her up a little bit. dennis murphy: jarod ingram steadfastly maintained to anyone who would listen that he had not killed ciara. but the prosecution found someone who said jarod told him a different story.
2:47 am
dennis murphy: a confession-- jockas gilchrist testified that jarod confided in him when they shared a cell at the county jail. he detailed jarod's words in this police recording. julia slater: this witness was able to give details-- this particular person, who was in jail at the time of the murder. no way that he would have known any of this information, unless he received it from someone who knew it. dennis murphy: but the star witnesses for the prosecution were jarod's own children. you hadn't seen them in years at this point. that's correct. they even look the same to you? no. are you making eye contact with them? are you trying to send them any messages? i'm looking at them. they're not making any eye contact with me. i did mouthe, i love you. and that was about all that i thought i could get away with. dennis murphy: the children, then 12 and 13 years old, told the jury, with clear-eyed detail, what happened that last day they saw their mother alive.
2:48 am
and the details were more damning than ever, as when jarod's daughter testified about peeking through that mail slot. what does the little girl see? she sees her father standing. he is changing his shirt, and he has a white bottle beside him on the floor that she doesn't know. she doesn't know what it is-- but a white bottle beside him. dennis murphy: a white bottle, bleach, a change of clothes. those sounded like new elements. were those children coached to give details of their story? never. dennis murphy: was it different years later than it had been at the beginning? there were more details years later, and there were some things that were clarified. but no, the children were never coached. they were forensically interviewed intentionally, so that they would not have ideas put in their heads. and they were never coached with what to say on the stand. are you persuaded that little girl saw her father changing his clothing and doing a cleanup? absolutely. dennis murphy: and that the little boy heard screams? absolutely. heard his mother's dying declaration, as it were? yes. so sad that they had to see and hear that, but yes.
2:49 am
that's what they saw and heard. dennis murphy: but there was another version of what happened that day, and the jury was about to weigh the credibility of that storyteller. andrea canning: coming up-- why did you take a stand? i've been waiting six years to be able to stand up in front of a jury and stand up in front of a judge, and say, i didn't do this. andrea canning: who would the jury believe? the children, or their father? what if this jury says you're guilty? what if? andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. thanks to skyrizi, i'm on my way with clearer skin. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms had a vaccine, or plan to. nothing on my skin means everything! ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save.
2:50 am
dupixent can help people with asthma breathe better in as little as 2 weeks. so this is better. even this. dupixent is an add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma that's not for sudden breathing problems. dupixent can cause allergic reactions that can be severe. tell your doctor right away if you have rash, chest pain, worsening shortness of breath, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor about new or worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines including steroids, without talking to your doctor. ask your specialist about dupixent.
2:51 am
protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and joint pain. arexvy is number one in rsv vaccine shots. rsv? make it arexvy.
2:52 am
it's our son, he is always up in our business. arexvy is number one in rsv vaccine shots. it's the verizon 5g home internet i got us. oh... he used to be a competitive gamer but with the higher lag, he can't keep up with his squad. so now we're his “squad”. what are kevin's plans for the fall? he's going to college. out of state, yeah. -yeah in the fall. change of plans, i've decided to stay local. oh excellent! oh that's great! why would i ever leave this? -aw! we will do anything to get him gaming again. you and kevin need to fix this internet situation. heard my name! i swear to god, kevin! -we told you to wait in the car. everyone in my old squad has xfinity. less lag, better gaming! i'm gonna need to charge you for three people.
2:53 am
welcome back. jarod ingram was on trial for the murder of his ex-wife ciara. and the couple's two children were the prosecution's star witnesses. on the stand, their recollections of that traumatic day included surprising new details. but jarred had a surprise of his own, a risky move that he believed would prove his innocence. with the conclusion of what they saw, here's dennis murphy. dennis murphy: 12 jurors sitting in judgment of jarod ingram. so back to where we began. did you take a butcher knife and plunge it into ciara's neck and kill her-- - no, absolutely not. --while the kids were waiting outside? absolutely not. poured bleach on her? no. that did not happen? no. and that's been the story for your life for the last, what, how many years now? six years. dennis murphy: it had been six years since the crime, six years of suspicion.
2:54 am
but jarod's attorney mike reynolds says it had taken investigators mere hours to come to a conclusion. you get domestic cases. we get a lot of them. and there's almost an automatic that you go and go to the deceased's former spouse or current spouse. and that's my man. we're going to make it fit. dennis murphy: and, the defense argued, there wasn't a shred of physical evidence linking jarod to the actual murder, no dna, no prints on the possible murder weapon, nothing. in that bloody scene at ciara's apartment, all the prosecution pointed to was jarod's fingerprint on her cell phone. he was over at that townhouse quite a bit. it would not have been uncommon for his fingerprints to be all over this place. dennis murphy: jarod says, sure. he used ciara's phone that day. i just remember my daughter handing me the phone saying that it was her older brother in indiana and that he wanted to talk to me. dennis murphy: and they weren't worried at all about that jailhouse snitch. he was totally not credible, as most snitches are not.
2:55 am
because if you talk with any jurors, they don't want-- they don't believe them. i mean, you don't call somebody and talk about another crime unless you expect to get something out of it. do you live right here? dennis murphy: but what about the kids and their ever-important stories? the defense questioned the new details, dad changing his shirt, the white bottle of what could have been bleach. you're saying that the cops in this case are seeding the story. they're coaching the kids. i absolutely think that they were asking leading questions that were leading them to conclusions that they didn't originally have. dennis murphy: jarod's attorney was confident the jurors would understand the facts if they heard from jarod directly. i knew that he was going to make a good witness, most particularly, because he was well-spoken. you took the stand, always risky, rarely advised. but you did it. there was no question. why? why did you take the stand? i'd been waiting six years to be able to stand up in front of a jury and stand up in front of a judge and say, i didn't do this.
2:56 am
but it exposes you to aggressive cross-examination by the prosecutor. it does. and that was rough. it seemed like he was doing everything in his power to get a rise out of me. provoke you, so the jury could-- exactly. show the jury the monster. dennis murphy: jarod faced the prosecutor's questions for more than a dozen hours over three days. so this is a poor set of facts that have come together against you. you're the last known adult to have seen her. the kids are saying they've heard screaming in the house, the father acting very suspiciously, bleach. it's everything seems to be consistent with you going in and killing ciara and doing a rough cleanup and then coming out. absolutely not. if i had done a quick, rough cleanup, there would have been something on me. there would have been something in the car. the police had the car in their custody. they combed it inch to inch. they found no blood. they found no bleach. that's impossible. dennis murphy: jarod denied he'd ever been violent with ciara. the defense pointing out there has never been so much as a single report to the police.
2:57 am
and no. child support wasn't a problem. he said they were working on it. and he hadn't been upset about the ex's move to indiana either. his new wife katie watched from the gallery. jarod is calm, cool, very intelligent. he's our evidence. dennis murphy: the jury went out to deliberate. two days passed without a verdict. then, in an odd quirk of the court calendar, everyone took a week off. no decision. what if this jury says you're guilty? you know, i-- we couldn't stop hugging. i mean, we were pretty much always like that. but there's, i guess, a little more emotion behind it because of, what if? dennis murphy: jarod was charged with the commission of four felonies, including murder. what were you hoping for in the court? that he would be found guilty of what he did. dennis murphy: it took less than two hours once the jury
2:58 am
went back at it. you watching the faces as they file in? i am, very intently. and nobody's giving anything away. and then what? you hear the words? they start reading off the counts one at a time. and it's just not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. dennis murphy: jarod ingram, not guilty of the murder of ciara ingram. i started crying. i've never in my life cried in happiness, never. and in that moment, i cried in happiness. dennis murphy: for ciara's friends and family, the reaction was much different. i was surprised. and i think that my surprise came mostly from the children's testimony. i don't believe, for a minute, that anyone coached them into saying any of that. they told the jury what they saw and what they heard. yeah. i absolutely believe that. and if you believe it, it means that he's guilty.
2:59 am
right. you think jarod murdered ciara. i do. does she need justice? she does. i don't know how they're going to get it. dennis murphy: but the prosecutor says not guilty is not the same as innocent. i do think that he is the murderer. and we would not have tried him if we didn't have confidence in that. dennis murphy: jarod and katie are grateful to the circle of friends who they say helped acquit him. he battled ciara's mother for custody of his kids and lost. they haven't lived with him since 2012. the frustration of still not being in contact with my children has been hard. is it better at this point, given all the poison that you say has been put before them, poisoning their minds towards you? is it better just to let them be raised by their grandmother? and maybe later on in life when they're bigger, you can catch up with them? absolutely not. but they think you killed their mother. i don't know if they think that or not. i think they've just trained to hate and fear me. it would be better for them to heal this relationship
3:00 am
as soon as possible. dennis murphy: the children, what they saw, what they heard, what they remembered, ciara's friends say what's more important now is what they know about the woman lost on that day. if her kids start to forget her, the memory dims, what would you sit down and tell them about their mother? mainly how much she loved them. she did. those kids were everything to her. you know, she-- they were her world. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching. good morning, and welcome to this sunday edition

4 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on