IMDbPro. Lord claimed that Burnside, who was intoxicated, shot himself.Thompson rejected the theory that Burnside committed suicide and investigated the death as murder. Facebook gives people the power. Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson and the homicide team investigate the brutal double murders of two friends shot and burned beyond recognition in the trunk of a car. She cooked, she cleaned, he was happy.. Her parents hired an attorney named Joe Shearin, a former guard for the University of Texas Longhorns who had played in the NFL before becoming one of Dallass most prominent criminal defense lawyers. She has also enrolled in college for the first time. When Shearin called Lord with the news, she thanked him for all he had done for her, but then she said something else. Why the bottles of cleaning products and the bloody towels? Wearing a black dress and black heels, Lord came into the courtroom, followed by her friends and family. I grabbed him and held him.. (2014) Something is definitely not adding up, Thompson thought, as he walked into one of the interview rooms where Brian Jaffe was waiting. Thompson just happened to be standing at the detectives desk, and he was more than happy to talk to Shearin. But there was one more turn in the story to come. Contact info; Agent info; Help contribute to IMDb. Thompson thanked John and told him he would be back in touch. He spoke to her the way a loving father would talk to his daughter. View the profiles of people named Dwayne Thompson. Lundberg walked into the interview room, pulled his chair close to Lord, and played the role of the good cop. Shearin got Lord out of jail on bail. Whats more, he said, Thompson had left out of the affidavit the fact that Burnside, who was right-handed, had been shot at point-blank range in his right temple, which would give a judge another reason to believe he had committed suicide. Thats Olivia Lord, he told Thompson. Texas law enforcement officers (troopers, police officers, deputies) arrest people then interrogate them and take people into interrogation rooms for questioning as part of crime investigation routinely. He told Lundberg that he wasnt sure this was a suicide. There hasnt been one bit of evidence in this case that has caused you to pause in your opinion that she murdered Michael?. He said that Lundberg had told him that Rastegar had wavered a little bit in his statement but that Lundberg had also let him know that the gist was the same and nothing substantively had changed from what he had already written in his affidavit. Add a bio, trivia, and more. He insisted that what Rastegar told him in the homicide office was the same and consistent with what he said out on the porch. No, said Quinton, Thompson hadnt mentioned either of those things. Sipping coffee at a Starbucks one afternoon, he went through various scenarios of what he thinks could have taken place after he left Burnsides home. Then U.S. district judge Barbara Lynn gaveled the court to order. I believe that with all my heart.. (The autopsy report revealed that he had at least a .17 blood alcohol level when he diedtwice the legal limit to drive a vehicle.) Its insane, he was overheard saying one afternoon at a restaurant near the police department. Schuette and Tatia R. Wilson. In the taped interrogation, the detective asks Lord some general questions about what happened on the night that her boyfriend died then Thompson changed things up. John said that was impossibleJaffe would have never betrayed Michael. Lord spent the next four days at her mothers home in the Dallas suburbs, lying in bed, taking sleeping pills. (Jaffe had been drinking Shiner Bock, and Burnside had been having Red Bull mixed with vodka.) Case Style: Hephzibah Olivia Lord v. Dwayne Thompson, Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Dallas County), Defendant's Attorney: James Carroll Butt, J.G. . When she flew back to Dallas, she went straight to Shearins office. This has been kind of a sexy case here: an attractive female shoots the boyfriend, you solve the crime. | Editor They had not laid eyes on each other since he had interrogated her. Thompson wanted to find out if Lord, under such heated questioning, would crack. She had loved dogs and painting. Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives. I wasnt going to leave him., She then told me something she had not mentioned before. Theres no way my son shot himself,John said. | Recent Lawyer Listings However, Lord wasnt done with the situation and after she was released, she filed her civil lawsuit for damages. I work cases because thats what I get paid to do., Tittle asked Thompson why he didnt seem particularly disturbed that Burnside was drunk and had showed off his Beretta on the night of the shooting. But Lords attorney, Don Tittle, said the detective was wrong that police records show she called 911 immediately after trying to reach the friend. Basing an opinion on over 30 years with the Dallas Police Department, Kim Sanders explained that the Lord interrogation was intimidation, not questioning, and as Thompson handled the questioning it was a textbook example of how police can get false confessions. But we at least have the right to know that. He can go so far as to lie to a suspect to try to obtain a confession. In Lords case, while she was arrested by Dallas police it was soon shown that there was no murder; her boyfriend had committed suicide. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. Thompson has still destroyed my life and hes still out there working cases. But Lord insisted he had a good heart. If I had killed Michael, then doesnt it make sense that I would have walked away after I had gotten no-billed by the grand jury? Self - Detective; 2009-2014 2 eps; Credits. But when she realized how serious his injury wasI think I saw a spot on his head, she saidshe called 911 several times. As for the question of blood spatter on Lords clothes, however, Quinton did have a definite opinion. Had she touched her boyfriends gun? He often said that victimology was the most overlooked part of a homicide investigation even though it could help explain whether a suspect was guilty or innocent. He also had run up some debt: he owed a rental car company money for crashing one of its vehicles, and he had received letters from the IRS demanding that he pay more than $50,000 in back taxes. In October 2008 a mutual friend introduced her and Burnside at a small bar on Dallass Lower Greenville Avenue. Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said he brought thousands of offenders to justice, bringing closure to victims and their families. And whats really frightening is that Thompson could come back after me, plant some new fake evidence, and arrest me for murder again. Seven minutes is a long time, Thompson told her several times on the video. Toward the end of the year, he finally saw the video recording of Rastegars interview at police headquarters. But the man I loved is gone forever. The detective told him that he was doing what he could. After being honorably discharged, in 1991, while stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he joined the Dallas police. I hope you die in jail and burn in hell!. He said that he couldnt handle disappointing me on top of all the financial stress and tax problems that he was enduring.. But Love also acknowledges that he is bewildered at the idea of Burnside shooting himself. But those mistakes do not amount to malice., Tittle, however, wasted no time going on the attack, telling the jury in his opening statement, There is not and was not a shred of credible evidence to suggest that Olivia Lord had anything to do with Michaels death. Okay, fine. In this trial, Lord was definitely the underdog. Testimony continues Friday, during which Lord may take the witness stand. They make honest, reasonable mistakes. The Reid method has been challenged as being primed for pushing people to give false confessions and many argue that it should not be used by law enforcement agencies. A few days after the funeral, Lord called Burnsides brother to ask if she could retrieve some of her belongings from the house. Lord was charged with murder a month after her boyfriend shot himself. Between sobs, Lord begged to be taken to Parkland to be with her boyfriend. According to news reports and witness testimony of what happened in that interrogation room, Thompson suddenly became aggressive in his questioning, yelling accusations at a weeping Lord, things like You shot him! Lundberg also took the stand, testifying that he too remained convinced that Lord was guilty of murder. Maybe, Jaffe speculated, when Burnside and Lord had started arguing, he had declared that he was never going to marry her, which sent Lord into a tailspin and led her to grab the gun. Will detectives be able to catch the killers before they strike again? You think they are going to accept this bullshit you are giving me?, For the next hour, Thompson continued to berate Lord, trying to get her to crack. I cant say any more, but its insane.. Her father, who lived in Californiahe and Lords mother had divorced when she was a childflew in to be with her. We loved our life together.. See production, box office & company info. Burnsides parents say that they still cannot believe that their son took his own life. They returned a unanimous verdict in favor of Lord, and ultimately the city had to pay her $1.2 million, which reportedly was the largest judgement of its kind in Dallas. She said that she had phoned Jaffe because she initially thought Burnside had fallen and was hurt. When Thompson took the stand, he seemed utterly likable as he described his history as a detective. . Was there a chance he was involved in the shooting? I cant say unequivocally whether the young woman did or didnt do the shooting because I wasnt there., At the same time, Mitchell and other prosecutors in the DAs office were not convinced Thompson had committed any serious wrongdoing. Brian, we got a problem, Thompson said. I wasnt in the room when that young man got shot, she would later say in an interview. He asked Thompson if he had told one of Burnsides friends that this was the case of a lifetimethe kind of case that could make him famous. He calmly explained that his ferocious questioning of Lord after the shooting was nothing more than a technique used by detectives in police departments around the countrythe direct method, he called itin which a suspect is openly accused of a crime to see how he or she reacts. You shot him!, Olivia, youre not telling me the truth., Youre arguing about a goddamn birthday party, and he says, Im so upset about the goddamn birthday party that Im going to kill myself? Thompson said, his voice growing louder. But he stayed in the bedroom, pacing, walking around, yelling at me, screaming, angry. Finally, after he couldnt get her to respond to him, he left the room. I heard what I thought was glass shattering really loud, Lord said. She had always insisted that she had not fled from the police. He then worked for a not for profit organization called "One Community" that's premise is to be a middle man between law enforcement and civilians. No, she said again. Every time she tried to answer a question, she said, he cut her off and called her a liar. Some are arguing that Lord has won this jury verdict because Detective Thompson used a controversial form of interrogation method called the Reid method of questioning. There was another, longer silence. Home Believe me, she adored Michael with all of her heart. Thats what you did! he told a stunned and confused Lord, who protested her innocence. There was no way a person with an IQ above 65 could have concluded that Olivia had shot Michael.. Im willing to accept that Mikey might have totally screwed up. It was Burnsides father. Don't be scared to look at. Thompson looked at his notebook, where he had written down the calls Lord had made on her cellphone. Which brings us to the story this week here in Dallas of Hephzibah Olivia Lord, who sued and won a civil lawsuit against a Dallas police detective for false arrest, reportedly in large part because the jury found that the detective had acted with malice (a legal term here) during his interrogation of Lord after she was arrested on a charge of murdering her boyfriend. Hephzibah Olivia Lord, distraught and sobbing, sat across from Detective Dwayne A. Thompson in the Dallas Police Departments interview room several hours after her boyfriend had died from a gunshot wound to the head. When Shearin asked if he had told anyone that there was blood spatter on Lords clothing, he replied, I may have said it, but I dont know whether I said it or not. Shearin then asked about the trajectory of the bullet through Burnsides skull. Or maybe the two had struggled for the gun before it went off, leaving residue on both of them. The lawsuit claimed that Thompson had violated Lords civil rights by engaging in malicious prosecutionin particular, that he had intentionally misrepresented the facts about Burnsides shooting and omitted significant exculpatory information that would have proved Lord innocent of any wrongdoing. But, Jaffe added, Burnside didnt wave the gun around. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. As Tatia Wilson, one of the City of Dallas attorneys representing Thompson, explained to the jury in her opening statement, Sometimes homicide detectives may make mistakes in their evaluation of the evidence. Its psychological pressure as opposed to physical force, however many believe that the result, coercion, can be the same even though no blows are struck. 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