After the First 48 S10 E03
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FunTranscript
00:00The following program documents a real homicide case.
00:09The investigation, the pursuit of justice, and the lasting impact on the loved ones left
00:14behind.
00:15The victim was sitting in the back seat.
00:21The bullet hit him in the back of the head.
00:23Man, your friend got killed today, and we want to go find the person that did it.
00:28I never intended for none of this to be like that.
00:31Blaine deserved this.
00:33Everybody was shocked by this murder.
00:34He had such a great heart.
00:36The relationship that Blaine had with people in the neighborhood was motivating them to
00:40help us find his killer.
00:42He is going to be northbound on Memorial from 27.
00:44As soon as the police lights come on behind him, he runs.
00:47Where'd he at?
00:48Where'd he go?
00:49He was acting all crazy, you know, just drunk, wild.
00:52He told me that he'd gone.
00:55What does that mean to you?
00:58That Shane's friend did not want to testify.
01:00If she refuses, we're going to have a real tough time making our case.
01:03That really could put the prosecution's case on thin ice.
01:09For those most affected by a homicide.
01:11I'm missing.
01:12I do.
01:13I'm missing a lot.
01:15The first 48 is just the beginning.
01:19This is the story of the fight for justice in the weeks, months and years after the first 48.
01:39At a convenience store on the west side.
01:42911, what's the address for your emergency?
01:44Looks like I have a white male, yellow shirt, black jeans.
01:48He's out in the parking lot.
01:50He's near a vehicle.
01:52He's frantic, yelling for help.
01:54I'm not sure what's going on.
01:56Okay, we have officers on the way.
02:01First responders find a man in the backseat of the car, shot in the head.
02:06The victim's at the hospital.
02:08There's a possibility he may not survive.
02:10It's been seven years since this case, and I'm not on the police force anymore.
02:15But I loved my job.
02:17There is a bond there that I'll never have with anybody else.
02:19That's why Tulsa solves 99, 98% of their murders.
02:23It's because of that teamwork.
02:26What's going on?
02:28Looks like the victim was sitting in the back seat.
02:31The bullets shattered the rear window and hit him in the back there.
02:37What's going on?
02:50Looks like the victim was sitting in the back seat.
02:53The bullet shattered the rear window and hit him in the back of the head.
02:58You can go one of two ways.
03:00You've either got a random drive-by kind of situation or did our victim have some beef
03:05with somebody?
03:06And it was intentional.
03:10What's the victim's name?
03:11Blaine Wells is the victim.
03:15Twenty-three-year-old Blaine Wells was born and raised in Oklahoma.
03:20He was the oldest of four children who'd recently lost both their parents.
03:27No casings here?
03:28No.
03:29There's not much here other than the car.
03:32Jimmy Turpin is the witness.
03:34Jimmy, the driver, and another friend who was in the car had been taken to headquarters.
03:40He's saying the shooting happened about a quarter mile down the road.
03:46Okay.
03:49The primary crime scene is an access road between two car dealerships.
03:53They've got to have video at that entrance, dude.
03:57We were hoping to get the crime on video for a suspect vehicle, I mean anything.
04:01What's happening?
04:02So, supposedly, this is where it all started.
04:05The only thing we found was this one casing.
04:10If we spoke to the security guard, there's a problem not being recorded, it was on the
04:22street.
04:23I was pretty frustrated.
04:25There was almost no physical evidence, but we just started assessing what do we need
04:28to do next, who do we need to talk to, and then kind of go from there.
04:31An investigation that's fluid, it consistently changes.
04:38If you've done this a lot and you're good at it,
04:41that's not an issue.
04:42You have to be able to change with the facts and circumstances.
04:47Two hours in.
04:49Ah, damn.
04:51Jimmy's the most important witness that we have
04:54because he's in the vehicle when Blaine gets killed.
04:59So we're hoping to get a lot of info, you know,
05:01whether it's a suspect description, car,
05:03and hopefully find out some kind of motivation for Blaine's murder.
05:08I mean, just kind of tell me what was going on today
05:10prior to all this happening.
05:13We had just left the casino.
05:16I want to say 930, almost.
05:19We went back to the apartment.
05:21Jimmy says he went with Blaine and their other friend
05:24who was in the car to get more money for gambling.
05:27We pulled out the apartment.
05:29When we did, I seen a car come to a stop sign.
05:33I don't know exactly what kind of car it was.
05:37He described the car as a white car with front-end damage.
05:41And we pull out.
05:43I'm looking in the rear view, and I notice that he gets behind us.
05:47All right, and then I come to that stop sign.
05:50He stops about a car length behind us.
05:54So I roll down the window, and I'm thinking,
05:56who the hell is this following us?
05:59And I stick my head out, and by the time I'm sticking my head out,
06:02he's getting out the car.
06:05I seen the pistol in his hand.
06:08I turned around, you know, and I was going to gun it.
06:11Next thing you know, it's like, bang!
06:14That's when the shot was fired, and I just took off,
06:17you know what I'm saying?
06:19What did he look like?
06:21I want to say he was over 6 foot, about shoulder-length hair.
06:25White guy? White guy.
06:27Parted in the middle, and he had on all green.
06:29He was slender.
06:31And he was wearing all green? All green.
06:35Why would anybody be doing this?
06:38I don't know. That's what I'm saying.
06:40You're always trying to gauge if the person you're interviewing
06:44is trying to hide something, tell the truth.
06:47He was very detailed in his answers,
06:49but I felt like Jimmy was holding something back.
06:52Tell me about Blaine.
06:54All right, well, Blaine, we were real, real close.
06:57I really love him, man.
06:59He's a good kid, you know what I'm saying?
07:02When Jimmy's emotional in the interview,
07:04it shows that Jimmy really believes that Blaine's an innocent guy.
07:08He's been trying to stay clean.
07:11He was actually getting ready to leave and go to Arizona.
07:14Just getting away from this, you know what I'm saying,
07:16a bunch of madness.
07:18The drug scene in that part of town at the time,
07:21there was a lot of meth,
07:23so drugs being a motive are always in the back of your mind.
07:29If there's anything else surrounding this, you know,
07:32if there's dope involved, we need to know everything, OK?
07:42Me and my little nephew Josh, we was doing dope.
07:48Where did Josh come into all this?
07:50Did he ever leave with you guys during any of this?
07:53He did leave.
07:55He says Josh went to sell some pills.
07:57With a dude named Cody.
08:00They was supposed to meet up,
08:02and I don't know if Josh did him wrong, but I...
08:07Yeah, all right, he was going to rip, I guess, Cody off.
08:11He was going to rip him off.
08:15So we were like, oh, boom, we're on the right track.
08:18This drug deal goes down where this Cody kid
08:21gets ripped off by Josh for $100.
08:24Like, me and Blaine didn't have nothing to do with that.
08:28But you know when somebody's...
08:30A lot of times people are so worried
08:32they're going to get in trouble for the drugs,
08:34they kind of start to lie about the murder investigation.
08:36We didn't care. We just want to solve the murder.
08:38Is this your phone? Yes. OK.
08:40Do you mind if I look through your texts and stuff?
08:42And I don't know if he would have ever told us
08:44had we not found the text messages with Cody.
08:48So you guys are talking, like, all day.
08:51And he keeps asking you about, you got this, you got that.
08:55Right? Yeah.
08:58You understand what we're saying here?
09:00Yeah, you're saying that.
09:02I'm saying you set this up.
09:05We were frustrated. We needed a lead.
09:08And the longer you wait, the harder it is.
09:11Man, your friend got killed today.
09:14And we want to go find the person that did it,
09:16so quit making us sift through the bulls***
09:19and just tell us the f***ing truth.
09:23See, Cody hit me up for pills,
09:25and Josh was like,
09:27well, let me rip him off, basically.
09:32Jimmy admits he set up the drug deal between Josh and Cody.
09:36I guess they met up at QT,
09:38and that's when the deal went down.
09:42What did Cody look like?
09:44Taller fella, I mean, slender, typical white guy.
09:47But it wasn't Cody.
09:49Maybe there's more than one possibility as to why this happened,
09:52but that's pretty big.
09:54Yeah.
09:55People getting ripped off on dope on the West Side,
09:57people don't like that.
09:59What we're learning is that Blaine's just hanging out
10:01with the wrong group of people.
10:03I never intended for none of this to be like that.
10:06Nobody ever does, man. Nobody ever does.
10:09But that's how we end up.
10:11Sit tight.
10:16If you were targeted for ripping off somebody for dope or money,
10:19you know, and maybe Blaine wasn't the target, maybe you were.
10:37So this is me and Blaine.
10:40We were having a dance-off.
10:42He whooped my butt at that dance competition.
10:45He won hands down.
10:47He was so fun to be around, so cool to be around.
10:51Everybody loved my brother.
10:53It's kind of hard not to.
10:55He was my number one.
10:57I looked up to him because he was an amazing big brother.
11:01These photos are all of good times that we had.
11:04We were really happy kids.
11:07But after both their parents passed away from illnesses,
11:10Blaine turned to drugs.
11:13I think that he took it possibly the hardest out of us,
11:18but he turned it around because he's seen us kids struggling
11:22and he knew that we needed him.
11:24So we got clean, got him a new job.
11:27He was working, he was, you know, trying to be there for us.
11:31When you look at these photos, tell me the feeling you get.
11:36I get joy with them because I get to see my brother again.
11:41But it also is kind of sad because I know he's no longer here
11:46and I can't bring him back.
12:02Three hours into the investigation...
12:05We're going and then all of a sudden they're behind us
12:08and they're telling us all the way down to the other stop sign.
12:12The second witness was also in the car with Jimmy and Blaine.
12:16And he tried to use that to verify everything that Jimmy said.
12:20I see the gun in his hand on the side and I tell Jimmy,
12:23he's got a gun, go, he's got a gun, go.
12:27What did he look like?
12:29I want to say between 5'5 and 5'10.
12:33OK.
12:34He had an all-green outfit on.
12:37His hair was either a dark brown or black.
12:40Blaine's friend also describes the suspect as having shoulder-length hair.
12:45Do you know a guy named Cody?
12:47Yeah, Cody Wilkins.
12:49Do you think that guy could have been Cody at all?
12:51No. Cody's got short hair cut like you.
12:54OK. Sit tight, OK?
12:56We felt after talking to the second witness
12:59that it did corroborate a lot of Jimmy's story, which is good for us.
13:03So this is Cody.
13:05Jimmy and the second witness, they don't think that Cody could kill somebody.
13:09But that doesn't mean that Cody didn't have a friend,
13:11take somebody with him, that would actually do the job.
13:17While the warrant squad searches for Cody and Josh...
13:22Yeah, buddy.
13:24...Fraser gets an update from the hospital.
13:29As of right now, there's no brain activity.
13:32You know, they're just kind of waiting to talk to the family
13:34before they make any decisions.
13:37Something my dad told me years ago,
13:40that was somebody's little kid at some point.
13:43So you focus on the family, you just have to keep going.
13:54Seven hours in...
13:56What's up, man?
13:57...the team finds Josh at his grandfather's house.
14:00So, man, yesterday, did Jimmy say anything
14:03about meeting some guy at QuikTrip about some pills or something?
14:06I got due to QuikTrip. I got due.
14:09And what's this guy's name?
14:11Cody.
14:12I told him just to meet me at QuikTrip and park in the back.
14:15So what kind of car was he in when he was there?
14:17I don't know.
14:18I don't know.
14:20So what kind of car was he in when he was there?
14:22Like a purple, dark-coloured four-door.
14:27I just went up and grabbed the money
14:29and went in the back door and went up front.
14:32Did he start blowing you up?
14:34Yeah.
14:36That's all it takes for me.
14:37Can I look through it?
14:38Yeah, that's fine.
14:39OK.
14:40What was this, never did you wrong, karma's a bitch?
14:43Yeah, that's right after I did it.
14:45That's right, he was just...
14:46Yo, watch your back.
14:47Yeah.
14:48He said, you only got a few places to go.
14:52I don't say nothing back to him.
14:56Wow.
14:57Sit tight, man.
14:59Some of those text messages that we saw in Josh's phone
15:02were incriminating that Cody was going to want to do
15:04some kind of harm to Josh and Jimmy.
15:08The question is, is he mad enough to want Josh or Jimmy dead?
15:13And now we're later.
15:15What's up, man?
15:16Not much.
15:17We find the Cody kid who we're thinking,
15:20hey, this may be our guy.
15:22Just kind of tell me about what happened yesterday.
15:25When I got ripped off?
15:26Yeah.
15:27Josh.
15:28He gives the exact same version of events,
15:30says, yeah, he just got screwed out of $100.
15:33Man, I'll be honest with you, dude,
15:35we looked through his phone.
15:37Some of the text messages you sent him
15:40I know.
15:41I was mad at the time.
15:43It was $100.
15:44Yeah?
15:46We thought, we got him.
15:47Like, he's going to break, right?
15:48And this thing's done.
15:50What I want you to be honest about is if you maybe called
15:53somebody and said, hey, can you go get my money back,
15:57now would be the time to tell me.
16:00You could see his heart beating out of his neck.
16:02He was sweating through his shirt.
16:05When it happened, I was like, oh, my God.
16:08When it happened, I tried to call Jimmy.
16:11No answer.
16:12I tried calling Josh back.
16:13No answer.
16:14I just ignored my text.
16:17After you got ripped, where did you go?
16:19I went home, and I waited for my little brother
16:21to get off work.
16:23Cody says after that, he went to bed.
16:26I mean, you could.
16:28I don't know more.
16:29That's the thing.
16:30You guys are making me nervous because you're making me feel
16:32like I did something when I didn't even do anything.
16:35I'm not a gangster.
16:36I don't do that stuff.
16:39Eventually, we're able to verify he has an alibi.
16:42He wasn't anywhere near the scene.
16:45At that point, we're able to eliminate Cody.
16:49He's good for now.
16:53At the end of all that, we were like, now what?
16:55We had motive.
16:56Now we have nothing.
16:57So we were right back to square one.
17:01It sucks to just go home, but it's kind of where
17:04we're at right now.
17:13Over the next day and a half.
17:16This is Detective Frazier.
17:18The team continues to chase down leads.
17:21We started getting these Crime Stoppers tips
17:23because the entire neighborhood wanted
17:25us to find the killer, like, fast.
17:28Everybody that we talked to had nothing but good things
17:30to say about Blaine.
17:31And they wanted to help.
17:33They said, we want to do the right thing.
17:35We want to be able to help you put this person in jail.
17:41Then.
17:42About six hours prior to the first 48 hours,
17:46Blaine's family decided to take him off the life support.
17:51It hurt so bad when I lost him because when he died,
17:55I wasn't even in Oklahoma.
17:58And they was trying to keep him hooked up
18:01until I got into town so I could see him.
18:04And I never got that option.
18:15Five days after Blaine's death.
18:17Thanks, buddy.
18:18See ya.
18:20Justin and I had gotten some information
18:22that there was an inmate in the Tullis County jail wanting
18:24to talk about Blaine's murder.
18:28How do you know Blaine?
18:36The relationship that Blaine had with the inmate
18:39was motivating them to help us, which you don't see a lot
18:42in a homicide investigation.
18:44OK.
18:45I mean, you care about him?
18:46Yeah, I love that dude.
18:47Well, just anything you've heard as to why this happened,
18:51we need to know.
18:58I think it's the Irish Mob, really.
19:00Why?
19:01Because women fight with them.
19:03The inmate was part of the Aryan Brotherhood.
19:06And the Irish Mob and the Aryan Brotherhood
19:08have this rivalry about turf and dope and women.
19:11And they clearly were trying to hurt each other.
19:14Every time we see each other, we do it.
19:16It's Saturday night.
19:18Just hours before the shooting, outside of Carwash,
19:21Blaine was shot in the head.
19:24Just hours before the shooting, outside of Carwash,
19:27he got into a fight with some members of the Irish Mob.
19:39The inmate says, after the fight,
19:41he left with a friend in a silver car.
19:54He felt bad about Blaine.
19:56Almost kind of some guilt, like it was his fault that Blaine
19:59ended up getting killed.
20:01He gives them the nickname and description of his friend,
20:04the one who was driving that silver car.
20:06All right, man.
20:12The wheels were turning.
20:14The Irish Mob, they wear green, clearly.
20:17We got a suspect wearing all green.
20:19There's a chance that these idiots just
20:21got the wrong freaking car.
20:23The inmate believed it was kind of a mistaken identity.
20:26We're kind of at a dead end on a lot of this stuff.
20:28Let's follow this one and see where it goes.
20:33Frasier and Ritter head to the Carwash
20:36to see if it's got surveillance cameras.
20:38He said the actual physical altercation occurred
20:41in front of this Carwash.
20:44But then I look over to my left, and sure enough
20:48is the car that the inmate had described
20:52and the person whose description was also very unique.
20:57And I'll be damned, the inmate's friend
20:59kind of falls on our lap at the Carwash.
21:04At that point, you're like, you've got to be kidding me.
21:06Maybe this is going to pay off.
21:10So what happened the other night?
21:12The inmate's friend saw him punch a member of the Irish Mob
21:16who goes by the nickname Little Man.
21:18What'd that guy look like?
21:25Not what we were looking for.
21:27We wanted, you know, long hair, part down the middle.
21:32Little Man lives in an apartment
21:34with some other members of the Irish Mob.
21:40Shane Vanderpool?
21:47Do you ever see those guys in a car?
21:54Everything that Jimmy and the second witness described
21:57was falling in line with what the person in the Carwash
22:00was telling us about Vanderpool.
22:12Part down the middle, short length hair.
22:1538-year-old Shane Vanderpool grew up in Tulsa
22:18and earned a GED.
22:20He has 13 prior felony convictions
22:23for assault with a dangerous weapon, drugs,
22:26and possession of stolen property.
22:29He's got the hair, he's got the car.
22:31We felt pretty good about Shane.
22:40Four days later...
22:42We figure out Shane's phone number,
22:44apply for his phone records, get them back,
22:46do some location stuff.
22:48630 on the 21st,
22:50this guy's hitting at a tower right here.
22:54And sure enough, his phone is in the area
22:58at the time of the murder.
23:01This will help if he says he wasn't there.
23:03We learned that Shane had felony warrants out for his arrest,
23:07and so we decided we'd pick him up.
23:09His appearance, I think, has changed
23:11from his 2014 booking photo quite a bit.
23:15So if we book him on his warrant,
23:17we can take a picture of him here and put that in the photo lineup.
23:2312 days after Blaine Wells was killed...
23:26I haven't seen anything yet.
23:28We gathered some information about the department out west
23:31that was known to hang out for Shane Vanderpool.
23:35Hello, Apollo, what's the thing, baby?
23:37Leave him.
23:39We end up seeing who we identified as Shane Vanderpool
23:42jumping in a Chevy Impala.
23:48I got eyes on him here.
23:50He is gonna be northbound on Memorial from 27th.
23:53The driver we're looking for is Shane Vanderpool.
23:58Go, man.
24:00Get up, you're just gonna run.
24:02As soon as he got lit up,
24:04as soon as the police lights come on behind him, he runs.
24:11He's got a gun.
24:13He's got a gun.
24:15He's got a gun.
24:17He's got a gun.
24:19He's got a gun.
24:21He's got a gun.
24:23He's got a gun.
24:26Where's he at?
24:28Where'd he go?
24:38I cover the murder of Blaine Wells,
24:40and we have covered lots of cases involving Irish mob members.
24:44When I first came here in 1992,
24:46we were just starting to hear about the Irish mob,
24:49and they weren't taken very seriously at first,
24:52but then quickly they start becoming more organized.
24:55They are doing armed robberies, they are doing carjackings.
24:59This is the apartment where we found Shane.
25:02In this apartment, there's a lot of drug trafficking,
25:04a lot of drug sales, probably some gun sales too.
25:07Not that they were really smart about what they did
25:09and how they operated.
25:11They do things in broad daylight,
25:13they do things where there's witnesses,
25:15they're not good at getting rid of their evidence,
25:17they're not good at trying to get away with a crime.
25:20Just last year, the feds did this huge bust,
25:23and they got 125 Irish mob guys,
25:27and they recover hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meth
25:30and 200 guns,
25:32and hopefully it put a big dent in the Irish mob.
25:35I do think there is hope that it gets better,
25:37because the good people are fighting back
25:39and police are doing everything they can as well.
25:41But it's an ongoing battle.
25:51I've lost him, he was out of my sight.
25:54It was frustrating is the word I can use on the TV, I think.
25:59I just had to watch for traffic.
26:01By the time I looked back at him, he was out of my sight,
26:04in his vehicle.
26:06We set up a perimeter from where Shane ran from,
26:09grid searching through the area, trying to find him.
26:15Oh!
26:18Oh!
26:20Hey, I've got him over here.
26:22I just happened to see him walking down a sidewalk
26:24in the neighborhood.
26:26He's walking away, he's on his cell phone, car's parked.
26:31It's definitely risky.
26:33I mean, we're following a murder suspect.
26:35Like, this guy's gonna run, you know?
26:43Oh, dog's out!
26:46We ended up getting K-9.
26:57Booyah!
26:59Boom. Good deal.
27:01He is in custody.
27:07We were excited.
27:09And when we finally put our hands on him,
27:11we were like, oh, my gosh, this, you know,
27:13this has got to be the guy.
27:15At that point, we were gonna go directly to our witnesses,
27:18Jimmy and the second witness,
27:20in hopes to get a positive identification.
27:27There's a lot of circumstantial stuff.
27:29You know, his description, the phone records.
27:31But that's not gonna be enough to be able to charge him.
27:34If you've got a victim that looks at the pictures
27:37and is like, that's the dude that did it,
27:39it's pretty good.
27:42Jimmy, I got some pictures to show you.
27:44See if you recognize anybody out of these photos.
27:46Okay.
27:51It looks like him.
27:53That looks like him?
27:55But it seemed like he was younger.
27:59It looks most similar to that guy?
28:01Yeah.
28:02Okay.
28:04Jimmy's ID of Shane Vanderpool was good,
28:06but was it immediately, this is him?
28:09No.
28:11He picks this guy out of six people,
28:13but he doesn't want to say 100% for whatever reason.
28:15If I'm a defense attorney,
28:17that's one of the things I would jump all over.
28:19On a murder charge,
28:21well, you better have something else to back it up.
28:23I'm gonna head to her now.
28:25The case now hinges on the second witness
28:27IDing Shane as the shooter.
28:30We'll see. Here we go.
28:32I'm on my truth.
28:41Good ID on Mr. Vanderpool.
28:45Once we get those positive identifications,
28:47do we have enough to charge him?
28:48Absolutely.
28:49But we do not have enough to prove
28:51that he's guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
28:54So we're gonna go interview him,
28:56and hopefully we can get a confession.
29:03Shane, man, wake up, buddy.
29:05Wake up.
29:08Shane, man, wake up, buddy.
29:10We walk into the interview room, and he's dead asleep.
29:13Have a seat, bud.
29:15You know, there's that old saying, too, the guilty sleep.
29:19Well, man, we're investigating a shooting.
29:24Do you know what shooting I'm talking about?
29:26No, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
29:27No idea?
29:28No.
29:29It happened the morning of February 21st.
29:33You remember what you did that day?
29:37What motel did you go to?
29:42Yeah.
29:43He said he was at some hotel on the other side of town,
29:45out east.
29:46We had a lot of information, cell phone towers,
29:48witnesses putting him out west.
29:51So he was, you know, he lied.
29:54OK.
29:55What kind of car were you in?
29:59That's what the second witness and Jimmy described.
30:02It was a white car.
30:04What if I told you that people saw you
30:06in a different place Sunday morning?
30:12I agree.
30:14Man, I know you weren't at the motel on Sunday morning.
30:21I'm asking you.
30:25I'm telling you, you weren't.
30:27I know you weren't.
30:32No, I'm not going to argue with you.
30:35All right.
30:37OK, Shane.
30:45We got him locked into a story.
30:47He was in 31st and Memorial, and his phone records say different.
30:50He was at 51st and Union.
30:52Sometimes a lie is just as good as a confession, so.
30:56And we're going to book him for murder.
31:01I always kind of look at these as phases.
31:03Like, you get your probable cause, and you know he's your guy.
31:06But then you have to think about all the other stuff
31:08you got to do to get ready for court.
31:12Thank you, guys.
31:16There are a number of things that are on a prosecutor's dream
31:18checklist that we were missing.
31:21Juries like to have things to hold and see and feel.
31:27We needed something more than just a guy with long hair.
31:30We needed something a little extra,
31:32or else we're going to be in a world of hurt.
31:43She's kind of pissed off because he's kind of ignoring her.
31:47Before handing the case off to the district attorney.
31:50We searched Shane's phone following his arrest,
31:53and we found a lot of great stuff.
31:55It shows a picture of this shirt, a green shirt.
31:58Days after the murder, one of Shane's friends texted him.
32:02And it says, look, this is the shirt you wore that one morning
32:05you popped old dude off.
32:07The work in murders, you hope and pray and keep your fingers
32:10crossed for those little gifts that you get every now and then.
32:13That's pretty good stuff.
32:15It's awesome.
32:16And this is where the case really blew up for us.
32:29Oh.
32:38These are pictures from Shane Vanderpool's phone hours
32:41before he shoots Blaine Wills.
32:44You can see Shane Vanderpool in his green shirt, which
32:48matches the description of the suspect given by the witnesses
32:51at the scene of the murder.
32:53And this is the screenshot we recovered February 21
32:57of the news on Sixth Story of Blaine Wills' murder.
33:02When they are looking through Shane Vanderpool's phone,
33:05they see that he has gone to our website
33:08to see what information we're reporting about that murder.
33:11Shane was texting this picture to his friend,
33:14insinuating that he had done this.
33:16It's like, click, picture, here's where I've been.
33:19In my opinion, he's bragging about it.
33:21Why else would you send that?
33:23So has Shane confessed to this person,
33:26told them that he did it?
33:28So finding the person that sent the text message about the shirt
33:31and talking to them about being a witness is essential.
33:48Two weeks after Blaine's murder.
33:51Let me get some info from you first, OK?
33:53The friend who Shane was texting agrees to be interviewed.
33:56He got the room for you?
33:58He did.
33:59He had gotten her a hotel room right
34:01around the time of the murder.
34:05OK.
34:10OK.
34:14Right.
34:16When the friend woke in the morning, Shane still wasn't back.
34:21So she texted him wondering where he was at.
34:26He got one.
34:30And what does that mean to you?
34:35Well, what does that mean to you?
34:46This is so overwhelming.
34:49I'm tired of crying.
34:51You're doing the right thing.
34:54I'll be right back.
34:58After this interview with her, we're
35:00ready to move forward with wrapping it all up
35:02and giving it to the DA's office.
35:06Shane Vanderpool was pretty well-known as somebody
35:09who was high-ranking in the Irish mob.
35:12And once we had the packet from Detective Fraser,
35:16I thought the case was incredibly strong.
35:19What Shane's friend gave us, essentially, was a confession.
35:22I'm the guy who did it.
35:24But the problem was Shane's friend
35:26didn't want anything to do with us,
35:27didn't want anything to do with our case.
35:29But we needed her testimony.
35:31We needed her to stand up for her community
35:33and do the right thing.
35:43One year later, the trial of Shane Vanderpool begins.
35:48This was the first case that I had ever had jury duty for.
35:53So I took it very seriously because, you know,
35:56someone's life is in your hands.
36:01The state calls its first witness.
36:04Jimmy's testimony was critical to the case
36:06because it lays out for the jury what some of those last moments
36:10were like for the victim.
36:13And the emotion that Jimmy demonstrated for the jury
36:16about how much he loved his friend,
36:18how much he cared for his friend,
36:19was frankly heartbreaking to see.
36:22But on cross-examination...
36:24The defense really attacked his memory of what had happened.
36:30Did you really see what you say you saw?
36:32Were you able to identify particular features of the car?
36:35Was the bumper damaged? Was it not?
36:37And Jimmy struggled a little bit.
36:41Well, if he's not certain about the car,
36:43what else is he not certain about?
36:47I felt bad for Jimmy because you could tell
36:49he wanted to help his friend.
36:52He wanted to say the right thing,
36:54but you don't know, you don't know.
36:58When Jimmy's not sure about the car,
37:01it might have introduced some reasonable doubt.
37:05After Jimmy's testimony,
37:06Shane's friend was going to be incredibly important.
37:10But Shane's friend did not want to testify.
37:12If Shane's friend refuses to testify,
37:14we're going to have a real tough time making our case.
37:17We're going to have a real tough time convincing the jury
37:20that that particular long-haired guy
37:22was the guy who pulled the trigger.
37:31The thing I hoped to get out of Shane's friend
37:33was a confession straight from Shane Vanderpool's mouth.
37:37And coming from somebody who's his friend,
37:40that would be pretty powerful.
37:42But we were very worried that Shane's friend
37:44wasn't going to show up to testify.
37:47Getting somebody like her to take the stand
37:49and doing it in front of the defendant
37:51is an incredible act of courage.
37:55So seeing her there was an enormous relief.
37:58But getting her in that room was step one.
38:01Getting her story out was going to be an enormous step two,
38:05and I wasn't entirely sure how that was going to go.
38:12Shane's friend testified that Shane told her
38:14kind of the whole story on how it happened.
38:17Shane Vanderpool is coming from the apartment over here,
38:20sees the victim's vehicle with Jimmy and Blaine
38:24and the second witness leaving their apartment.
38:28And unfortunately, I think it was kind of a coincidence.
38:32They're almost neighbors, right?
38:33Shane comes out and Vanderpool thinks he sees
38:36a possible Aryan Brotherhood gang member.
38:39And as they're stopped at the stop sign,
38:41that's when Shane Vanderpool gets out of the car,
38:43points the gun, pulls the trigger,
38:45strikes him, Blaine Wells in the head.
38:48Her testimony corroborated everything
38:51that happened in that murder.
38:52The only person besides the two eyewitnesses
38:54that would know that information is the killer.
38:58But on cross-examination...
39:00The point the defense tried to raise
39:02was that Shane's friend and Shane
39:04had only met two days prior to the murder.
39:09And he tried to question whether or not
39:12his client really would have made the kind of
39:14heartfelt confession that she testified
39:17to the jury that he had made.
39:20You want this jury to believe that a man
39:22that you've known for less than 72 hours
39:25confessed all of this stuff to you?
39:27Yes, I do want them to believe that.
39:29It is the truth.
39:32It comes across as incredibly strong, believable,
39:37and I think should send a message to the jury
39:39about the strength of her testimony.
39:41But the defense isn't finished yet.
39:44Shane's attorney questions Detective Ritter.
39:47When we made contact with Shane's friend,
39:49we found a small amount of methamphetamine
39:52in Shane's friend's purse.
39:55So the defense started hitting on why
39:57Shane's friend wasn't arrested for this meth.
40:00So you didn't arrest her because
40:01she was giving you information?
40:03We had not made any deals with Shane's friend
40:05at all whatsoever in exchange for her testimony.
40:07But they're trying to imply maybe Shane's friend
40:10might be willing to do this because they're
40:12just trying to save their own skin.
40:14So at this point, I think all of the jurors
40:17were questioning a little bit.
40:19Well, maybe the defense is right.
40:22And that really could put the prosecution's case
40:25on thin ice.
40:28I have never once felt like I knew 110%
40:31what a jury was going to do.
40:33And this case was no different.
40:36Shane behaved, to me, very nonchalant.
40:41He didn't seem remotely remorseful.
40:46When the jury came back, they told us
40:49that their verdict was guilty.
40:53For somebody who had the number of convictions
40:56he had for some pretty serious offenses,
40:58and because of the absolute senseless nature
41:01of this murder, I felt life without parole
41:04was absolutely appropriate for Mr. Vanderpoel.
41:08Blaine had a lot of friends.
41:10And all that they had to say about him
41:12was that he was a good guy.
41:14He was a good guy.
41:15He was a good guy.
41:16He was a good guy.
41:17He was a good guy.
41:18He was a good guy.
41:19Blaine had a lot of friends.
41:21And all the things that he had either done for people
41:23or the relationships he had with people
41:25resulted in a successful conviction.
41:27You know, maybe that was Blaine kind of looking down
41:29and helping out from afar.
41:41Eight years after Blaine's death.
41:44I miss him.
41:45I do.
41:47I miss him a lot.
41:50It don't help in any way knowing that, you know,
41:54he was mistaken identity
41:56because at the end of the day it still happened.
42:00But my brother is not going to want me crying over him.
42:04He wants me to live to the fullest.
42:06And I know he does.
42:09So I'm trying to hold up to that and be that way.
42:14Because I think in the long run it will help my siblings.
42:17And I definitely don't want his memory to go faded away.