Talking Dateline: Suspicion in Silver City

Hi, everyone. I'm Blaine Alexander, and today we are Talking Dateline. And I am so fortunate today because I'm joined by not one, but two stellar journalists to talk about this episode. So I'm glad to have my dear friend, Keith Morrison, joined by super producer, Cassandra Marshall. Hi, guys. Hello, Blaine. Good to see you. Hi, guys. Hi, Cassandra. Small family reunion here on Talking Dateline. We love it. So this episode is called Suspicion in Silver City, and it's about the murder of 23-year-old nurse and mother of two, Cassie Farrington. And of course, if you haven't seen that episode yet, you can stream it now on Peacock or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Then come right back here and listen to this episode. And later on, we'll play an extra clip from a former judge who has been following this case very closely. And as always, we will end by answering some of your questions from social media. All right, friends. Let's talk Dateline. Sounds good. All right. So, Keith, I have to say, this is my first time actually seeing you in a while. It's so good to see you. It has been a while, yes. But I have to say there's an important piece of business to attend to. I learned that you and I are almost birthday twins. Really? What are you talking about? Yeah. When's your birthday? You are a cancer king, and I'm a cancer queen. I'm July 9th. And, Keith, you're the 6th, right? I know. I'm the 2nd, actually. So you're one week younger than I am. Imagine that. That's exactly it. Exactly. Well, this was a fantastic episode for me. As you started getting into the investigation, had it not been for the determination, the dogged determination of this family, we may not be sitting here talking about this case. Sure. It's a question many families face, and we run into it all the time. How hard should a family push to get the legal system to actually do something? In many cases, families don't feel they have the right to do that, or they just assume that, you know, the police department— The police departments are going to do their level best to, you know, find justice for their loved one. But families can make a huge difference just calling and calling and calling and keeping up the pressure. And if they think that something has gone wrong, say so. Well, I want to talk a little bit about how you all discovered the story, how you dove into the story. But, Keith, if you could just give me a summary of a quick overview of this case. Well, this is a story of a young woman just starting out in life. She had two children. She had two children already at the age of 23 and was now, you know, starting a career at the same time. So she was a very busy woman. She had been married to a local police officer. The relations between the two were not that great. And so it's one of those classic cases where you would expect when they discover her body in a bathtub and the water flowing over the bathtub to the floor of the home that she lived in, that, you know, one of the first things they might do is have a good look around. And see if there was a struggle and if there was to take some whatever evidence they could, but also immediately go in and speak to the husband, because, you know, quite often it is the husband in a case like this. But it finally took a new investigator to relook at the evidence. And by that, a lot of it was gone, of course, but to dredge up what he could to get the case filed. I think in so many ways, this story could almost be described as the tale of two investigators. Because you have, you know, the person. You started this. And I love there was one point at which you kind of asked, what was it? Why, you know, was this a cover up? And, you know, he said, well, no, it was just, he was just lazy. And it was so unbelievable to hear because the things that, you know, you were talking about were kind of the most basic of police investigative work that just hadn't been done. Right. Police 101, basically. It really was a case of sort of two investigations, you know. So it was interesting to see how you could sort of look at the same set of evidence, same crime scene and come up with apparently two completely different viewpoints on it. I loved the way that you all chose to start this story by giving us just a description of Silver City, almost as though it was another character in this story, because immediately got a sense of where this place is, what it feels like. And so I said, you know, if this is what comes through on the screen, it must be exponentially cooler in person to actually go there and visit. And it's a destination. It's a destination, like for people who are going to New Mexico, like it is a place to sort of visit. So I can see why. I really enjoyed it. It really is. And walking into a classic American West coffee shop one morning and just sitting there thinking, man, oh, man, people would pay a lot of money to have a holiday like this in a place like this. It's kind of like one of those experiences that you probably don't appreciate unless you never get to be in such a place. And Silver City is a cool town. How close is it to Albuquerque or to Santa Fe? I'm trying to remember. I do recall it was a bit of a pain for us to get to, wasn't it, Keith? I think actually it was Arizona that was the closest airport. And I think it was like a four-hour drive from Arizona. That's right. Yeah. But I think that, you know, understanding almost immediately what Silver City was, what it felt like, really helped make this story stronger. Because once we got into the discussion of this investigation and, you know, officers knowing each other and even just kind of this notion. Of rumors flying. This isn't something that would happen. I mean, had the same type of crime happened in L.A., for example, you wouldn't have the same dynamics, typically, as you saw here. That's probably true. I mean, it was a small town writ large, if I can put it that way, simply because it was so isolated. Keith, I think that one of the, I think, most powerful moments of the story was watching you actually be able to walk through the house where all of this happened. Right. Because this was so isolated. This was such a visual crime scene. It would have been difficult if somebody was just sitting in a chair, right, telling you, like, oh, I looked through the back door and I saw water gushing and then there was a tub. Like, you couldn't have just grasped how deep that tub was or just what the things looked like without being able to go through the house. And so I really think that helped, you know, illustrate the crime scene in a way that we wouldn't have been able to visualize otherwise. It was a very strange thing to be there. It really got to feel what must have happened or what was where. Yeah. That's a tremendously valuable thing if you're reporting a story, too. You really get much more of a sense of things. Exactly. And it's not something that we get to do often. I remember my first time walking through a crime scene. Since I've been on Dateline, it was a house that it was a young woman who was killed and then fire was set to cover things up. And the house had been restored and people were living there and they kindly left, took their young child out and let us walk through. But to be able to see the geography and just see what was going on. See the room, see where the fire started, all of that. It brings the whole thing to life, especially for us as, you know, reporters, producers, journalists. You're so curious about these stories because we spend so much time, like you said, getting to know the family, getting to know this person. And then to see where it happens just deepens it all, I think. Yeah, that's right. Let's talk about this investigation because, I mean, we kind of titled it, subtitled it at the beginning of this conversation, The Tale of Two Investigators. But let's talk about investigation number one and Sanchez, who took this first. So. I was really struck by the fact that almost immediately, as you were talking to the family, they said the question or the thoughts or suggestion of suicide came into play almost immediately. And it seemed like that was something that even as they sat down and talked to you, Keith, was something that still very much upset them. As you can totally understand. But yes, I think that there's a. There's no sort of more. There may be no darker place than than the life. Of a family who has lost somebody at that stage of life, who's lost a child. And and when the cause of the death has been inadequately investigated in their opinion and they're in a pretty good opinion about it. And and it's almost like dirt being thrown in somebody's face to suggest that they would have taken their own life. It made it not only made no sense. It was it was. It was deeply insulting, I think, to the family and as it would be. And I think also the family was was also insulted because, I mean, that the question of suicide came up that day at the crime scene. It wasn't like there had been time to go through the evidence or assess the scene. It just seemed a little too immediate to them. And I think to to viewers as well. So I think that was the other thing. I mean, now, of course, that that investigator claims that that he never. He never suggested it was suicide. He he's he claims in our in his interview that he just threw it out as something. It was a possibility. Yeah. OK. But that was surprise number one. Surprise number one. And then surprise number two was how quickly the house was released. Yeah. That was shocking, I think, to everybody, including us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Quite right. The family got involved at that stage and having a good look around themselves. Right. Right. So so, you know, they've. The family. So the police get there, then the families are notified. So when they get there, the the the law enforcement quickly sort of wraps up and sort of says, you can go inside, which they couldn't believe it. So they went in themselves and noticed that there was a lot of stuff still there. Like, you know, the bathtub was still full of water. They hadn't even drained it. There was a second bathroom where there was a broken towel rack on. On the floor, as well as Cassie's glasses and a hair scrunchie, and it just. It seemed like things to them, and I think things to our viewers, seemed like should have been collected, you know, as evidence, as further investigation. So, yes, Keith, they were there. They drained the bathtub. They noticed the scour marks on the bathtub. They took photos and notified the cops, all things that you would think a CSI unit would do. Sure. Which was tremendously important in the long run. This story made me think of a story that I did in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the pen in Apartment 210, where a family knew that their daughter was missing. They saw the pen of her last location and actually took a credit card, jimmied open the lock, went inside, and started bagging evidence on their own. I mean, basically went into this residence. And then, of course, there was the question of can this evidence be allowed in court because of the way that it was obtained? Because of the, you know, questions about transparency. The chain of custody, going into the apartment that wasn't there, all of these things. So, you can look at it as a question of, yes, they are taking steps that, you know, many would argue needed to be taken if investigators weren't taking this seriously enough. But then there's the other, you know, possible risk of does this potentially jeopardize a case? Could this stand up in court? What does that look like? Yeah, sure. And that was a problem that indeed was brought up by the defense attorney repeatedly in the trial. This was, you can't use this. Because there was no chain of custody because the police didn't collect it. It was somebody on the outside and they had a vested interest. So, you know, if there was a chance for Farrington, the husband, to be found not guilty, that would have been certainly one of the crime causes. And there was concern about that. However, if they hadn't done it, if they haven't gone in there and collected that material, as Cassie said, it just never would have been collected by anybody. And that evidence wouldn't have been available. And I don't know whether they could. I don't know whether they could have gotten that guilty verdict without it. I think a lot of families look at this and say it's a risk worth taking, right? Because otherwise it's not going to be gotten at all to your point. So they're thinking, let's just do it. Let's talk about Billy Lee. Billy Lee was an interesting character in all of this. He certainly seemed suspicious from the very moment that you introduced him. Because as you said in the story, who just up and goes to Alaska? Leaves the wife behind, just goes. At just the right moment to make himself look pretty guilty. Yes, exactly. But I love that you actually got him down. And when you sat down with him, he just seemed like a, just a completely open book. Just like, yeah, I got a job offer. I took it. That seems to make sense to me. I mean, just his demeanor to you was hilarious to me. It was very Silver City, in my opinion. It's a good way of putting it. Cassandra, I'm curious. What was it like? What was it like booking him as an interview? Because like I said, he didn't seem hesitant. Right. The thing I loved about Billy, or found most interesting, was that he just, he never believed that he was a suspect or a person of interest. So he truly was sort of like shocked that such a big deal was being made out of him. You know, that the defense sort of pointed to him as this alternate suspect. So it was interesting to approach him after he testified to be like, you know, your name has kind of been dragged through the mud. We'd really like to talk to you. Like, get your side of the story. And, you know, he really didn't hesitate at all. Like, he wanted to sort of get it across that he really, truly cared about Cassie. You know, that they had this friendship and a mentoring relationship. You know, they both were nurses. They both worked at the same place. And he wanted to clear up what the cops didn't. You know, the questions that they did not ask in his interview or his polygraph test, which is, why did you go to Alaska? You know, why did you pull up the carpet, you know, so quickly after this happened? So this was an opportunity for him to make it very clear. And he was more than happy to do it. Like, he's like, I have nothing to hide. I never did. And so what you see is what you get. Ask what you want. Billy was the character who would have been the initial suspect in a crime novel, right? Billy is just so obvious. Yes, yes. That he would have, you know, somebody would have been pursuing him and pursuing him. So until he realized you couldn't, you'd have to clear him and then go on to the next one. Exactly. And Billy would say and did say, you know, basically he was suspicious because of law enforcement's lack of follow through. Like, he was available. They never asked him to come back to do an interview. They never called him and asked what his alibi was or why he went there at the time that he left. So they could have known, in his opinion, they could have known all that information much sooner. Absolutely. When we come back, we'll play an extra clip from a former judge who has been following this case very closely and what he believes are some takeaways from this case. Let's talk about Cassie. I have to say that I was drawn in by her from the very beginning. I mean, this stunningly successful young lady in high school, lettered in five sports. By the way? Yeah. That's hard. I remember I had a hard time lettering in one. That's a stunning accomplishment. And this was one of those stories where by the time I left there, and I know Cassandra probably had much deeper connections spending more time there, but I just felt like she could have been a daughter or somebody. You just could have been somebody who you knew. You felt you knew her somehow. And I think that made telling the story. That much more important to us. And her family was just so good at describing her. Like, you know, you could tell, you could feel the love, you know, how close she was to her siblings and to her mother, the apple of her, you know, her father's eyes. And, you know, everybody talked about her ambition. This was a kid that was going places. You know, she had dreams and she was focused, you know, and, you know, she wanted to be a doctor. So once you heard all those stories about her ambition and her accomplishments. Then you hear, you know, that, you know, that was all cut short because of her becoming pregnant. And it also is, in some ways, people relate more to the story because it's happened to so many young women who had ambitions, who wanted to be, you know, to be a professional or something. And then got stuck in a marriage where the pregnancy occurred and then things happened and, you know, they had to kind of regroup. And she was in that process. She was smart enough. She was ambitious enough and determined enough. She would have made it. Even with the two kids and on her own. But events should never be mean. Yeah. And I think what's stunning, too, is that she not only that she got pregnant, of course, that's certainly a speed bump in this in her road of life. But she got pregnant by this terrible person. I mean, you know, once we kind of come through, see what the marriage looked like, see how it dissolved, see the things that he did to the kids. It's just it really is a true testament of how such a life can be derailed. By coming into contact or intersecting with just the wrong person. Right. Right. Even when you have all the support system in the world. You know, she had two loving parents. She had a great family. She was focused on school. And still somehow she got derailed by this guy that was a little older. And, you know, things just happened. One of the I think some of the saddest stories and so many of these are sad, of course, but it's always so tragic to hear when there's somebody who. Has almost predicted that something could happen to them or warned if something happens to me, it was this person or I think this person may kill me or harm me. And that's exactly what happened to Cassie. And it's got to be so difficult for those she leaves behind to think back and say, oh, gosh, I remember when she said that. Or I'm sure the what ifs come very quickly in those situations. Oh, sure. For sure. And you know that. You know, families of people who get into abusive relationships usually see them before the person involved in the relationship does. Keith, you had a really sort of touching moment with with Cassie's mom. I mean, she was talking about some of the moments that she'd witnessed as sort of emotional and even physical abuse. Do you remember the chokehold kind of? Yes. So her family had witnessed it. I think about that a lot and domestic violence. It's such an endemic and such a horrible crime. And it happens so frequently. And so often you'll see situations in our stories, but also in real life where a young woman gets involved with somebody she thinks is really a wonderful person. And so, you know, mature and prepared to look after her or help her with her ambitions or whatever. But the outside the relationship can see more easily than she can that she's heading down a bad way. And but it doesn't matter how often you tell that person. It's it. They have to find out for themselves. And unfortunately, by that, it's often too late. It's a terrible scourge in this country. And this was at the heart of this case. Now, it's important to note Brad was never charged with domestic violence. But during his trial, a number of co-workers, friends and family members of Cassie's gave testimonies about Brad's acts of domestic violence toward her. As she described them to them. So the good thing about Cassie, even though she didn't feel comfortable going to law enforcement to report the domestic abuse because. her soon-to-be ex-husband was former law enforcement. She didn't think it would make a difference that they would protect their own. She did talk a lot about it to her friends, family, and co-workers. So there were 12 people that were ready to testify about the abuse, and seven were allowed to testify. Normally, we all know hearsay. We call that hearsay testimony. That's not allowed. But they made an exception in this case, and that made all the difference in the world in this trial because there was no physical evidence. It was really that hearsay testimony that really established the pattern. So, Keith, speaking of the trial, let's dive a little bit deeper into that. You spoke with a man named Timothy Aldridge. He is a former judge, somebody who's very knowledgeable about this case. Let's listen to some of that interview. Is there a lesson in this guilty verdict that people should pay attention to? Oh, I think there's a great lesson in this, you know, guilty verdict is what it is. One of the lessons is we have to identify domestic violence. We can't pretend that it doesn't exist. I think we have to understand that we are all responsible for each other within our communities, that it isn't just, you know, the sheriff's department's job to do this. It's our neighbor's, you know, job. It's our friend's job. And it's all of us to intercede on each other. You know, it's our responsibility. If it's one of our partners as law enforcement agent, yes, it's our responsibility to arrest that individual. That's just part of the gig. You know, listening to him say that, I mean, that is. That is a really important piece of this conversation, of it is a communal responsibility, really, to do something. I think the question that so many people have is, what in the world do you do? Especially if maybe somebody is hesitant to accept it, to recognize it, to want to, or feel like they can walk away. I think that decision for, especially for a vulnerable person, a vulnerable young woman, who, you know, doesn't. It's hard to find a way out. Because they're often being gaslit the whole time anyway, and they're being felt. They feel as if they're crazy if they think that they should be leaving this relationship. They're crazy if they think their abuser is actually abusing. And they don't quite know what to do. And even when a decision is finally made, I've got to get out of here, the question of how you get out of there is tremendously important. And so frequently, you'll see that a vulnerable person will make a decision that they want to talk it over with the person they're about to leave. And that, in the repeated experience of doing Dateline episodes on cases like this, that is often when the violence occurs, because the dominating party does not want the person who's being dominated to leave the relationship and can become more violent as a result. I want to ask, too, you know, a question that I've been wondering about for a long time. And it's one of the things I've been wondering about for a long time. His parents got custody of these two children. And I was very surprised by that. I wonder if you could shed some light on that. Or, I mean, I found myself saying, how did that happen? Brad Farrington was not arrested for a year and a half. So he has custody. He and his family have custody of the kids until he went to trial. Then, according to Cassie's family, they did fight for grandparent rights and visitation rights. And they ultimately did not get them for a couple of reasons. One, and this is all according to Cassie's family, the court system went with the least traumatizing outcome for the kids. You know, they'd already lost their mother to this violent death. Their father was going to prison. They were, with the grandparents and the extended family that they knew, they didn't want to add on to that by ripping them away from that family. That was the one thing. And then, unfortunately, there were some rules that the court had made about visitations. And in a situation that Cassie's mother never meant, she sort of broke one of those rules. And it sort of like ruined their chances of sort of getting any kind of immediate visitation rights. Well, before we wrap up this piece, I mean, we have talked a great deal about domestic violence. And I certainly want to make sure that we put this out there. For anybody who's listening, if you or somebody that you know, somebody that you care about is experiencing relationship abuse or domestic violence, there are places to go for advice and for resources. You can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. That number is 1-800-799-SAFE or 1-800-799-7233. Or you can text the word START, that's S-T-A-R-T, to the number 88788. Or you can always go to thehotline.org. And when we come back, we are going to answer some of your questions from social media. Lots of comments, lots of questions about this episode. I'm going to actually go with a pair of questions, do things a little differently, because these two questions go hand in hand. So this question first is, the first one is from Denise, at Denise M. Lombardo. Who asks, I was wondering if the fight started there and she got away for a moment, so sad. Second question from at Andrea Lothar, who writes, great show. Why was the water running in the other bathroom? And so my question to you guys is, did prosecutors ever describe how they believe that struggle between Cassie and Brad actually played out? My recollection is that the theory that the prosecutors had was that Brad Farrington was waiting in that, so Cassie had worked the overnight shift. She was a nurse. And so she came back early morning. Their theory is that he was already waiting inside. And that a struggle, and her stuff was just thrown in her bed, like we all do. We get home, we throw our stuff down. And then their theory is that the struggle happened in the second bathroom, not where she was found. That's where the broken towel rack was. That's where the hairbrush, the glasses, all that stuff was found on the floor. So they feel that the struggle happened there. Maybe he killed her there. And then he transported her body into the tub where she was found. And the theory is the running water in both was to destroy evidence. So her body's in that submerged water for all that time, because it was quite a while before she was discovered that day. And then they're not exactly sure why, because the second bathroom, the stopper in the bathtub was not found. Was not used. So the water was running, but it wasn't filled. But they felt like it might have been running to, maybe he washed himself, maybe he rinsed things off. But that's the theory. And then finally, we have an audio question from Andy from San Diego. Let's hear what Andy has to say. Hi, it's Andy from San Diego. And my question is, I love giving cameos to people as gifts for favorite celebrities. And the response I always get is, who would you want to have on cameo? And my answer is Josh Mankiewicz or Keith Morrison. So my question is, would you be open to being on cameo for those of us fans to get something special? Do you guys know what cameo is first to kind of set the scene? Cameo is a thing where anybody can go on. And basically, if I were a Keith fan, I could go on, pay X amount of dollars, $200 and just say, hey, I want you to give a birthday message to my five-year-old who really loves you. And these people do it. We actually used it for a saxophonist, Mindy Hebert, who my young daughter loves. So we got a greeting from her. But it's people who are famous that can just go on, read whatever recorded thing or do a 30-second video and get paid for it, basically. Oh, I see. That's what she's asking if you or Josh would ever consider being on cameo to do whatever the good people want to pay you to do. You know, as much as I would love to say happy birthday to anybody who would like that to happen, money or no money, it doesn't really matter to me. It's something that we're really not able to do, certainly not for money. When we work for Dateline, it doesn't seem right somehow. But as much as I'm sure you would love to wish happy birthday to truly anybody and everybody, money or no money, like you said, right? Sure. If you wish happy birthday to one person on a program like this, then you have to wish happy birthday to a whole bunch more people. And we don't have the time, unfortunately. But I know your heart would love to do it if you could. Absolutely. So consider it done. There we go. Well, guys, this was a fantastic conversation, as always. Keith, good to see you. Cassandra, this was just a fantastic episode, and you both did it remarkably well, as always. So thank you for talking Dateline with me. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And that's it for talking Dateline this week. Thank you, guys, so much for listening. If you have any questions about any of our stories, send us a voice memo or a video on social media at DatelineNBC, or you can leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252, a real live phone number, or your chance to be featured right here. 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