Not only that, Sanders also pointed out Thompsons failure to read Ms. Lord her Miranda rights including specifically her right to remain silent after it was clear that Thompson considered Lord to be a suspect in a crime. Then U.S. district judge Barbara Lynn gaveled the court to order. Burnsides parents say that they still cannot believe that their son took his own life. But she never did: she kept saying that she loved her boyfriend, that they were happy together, and that he had taken his life for reasons she could not imagine. But Lord insisted he had a good heart. A light drizzle was falling in the early morning hours of May 9, 2010, when detective Dwayne Thompsonpulled up in front of a modest home on Spring Grove Avenue, in a tree-lined neighborhood in North Dallas. By the first of June, hed put aside Lords file to work on his other cases. Shearin questioned Lord about the drops of blood around the house. John said that was impossibleJaffe would have never betrayed Michael. After the service, she told Burnsides friends that she hadnt returned any of their calls because she had been overwhelmed with grief. There were too many unanswered questions, he said. When the lab report on the gunshot residue was completed, it wasnt much help either. Lord could hardly look at him. He asked her again about what she was doing during that seven-minute gap between phone calls in the house that night. Comments: Editor's Note: Plaintiff will probably file an application for attorney's fees and costs, which will be substantial. Testimony continues Friday, during which Lord may take the witness stand. Maybe he got dramatic and put the gun to his own head and said to Olivia, To hell with all this, Im just going to end it now. And then, accidentally, he pulled the trigger. The arrest was based upon Thompsons affidavit. But a Dallas County grand jury later declined to indict her. According to Thompson, Rastegar said he had been in bed during the early morning hours of May 9 when he heard screaming in Burnsides front yard. Brian, we got a problem, Thompson said. I want him brought down.. By that time, Lord was working as a loan officer, and although they were both romantically involved with other people, they were clearly attracted to each other. I dont remember the exact words that were used, he told Lundberg. Based on what we see, it looks like you got upset and shot him. Strapped around. [4] Thompson left the room, walked down the hall, and opened the door to another interview room. I cant undo what hes done.. No, Lord said. Dwayne Thompson and Kim Sanders are both grizzled veterans of the Dallas police homicide unit. They too had been talking to Thompson and they were furious. And now hes dead, he said. When Thompson asked why he didnt immediately tell that story to the police, Rastegar replied that the uniformed officers who first arrived at the scene had rudely ordered him to go back to his home before he had a chance to say anything. Lets make a bad thing right. His fellow detectives nicknamed him D-Train. She fell to her knees and said it was an accident and that she didnt mean to shoot him. Thompson had also told him that he believed there was blood spatter from the gunshot on Lords clothes, which meant that she could not have been in the bathroom at the time of the shooting, despite what Lord had said in her interview. Finally, after Thompson barked at him, he stepped onto the front porch and told a flabbergasting story. 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. Hephzibah Olivia Lord, age 36, sued Dallas homicide detective Dwayne Thompson on civil rights violation theories under 42 U.S.C. A Right-wing Cabal Took Over Odessas Municipal Government. After The First 48. Dwayne Thompson has spent over 18 years with the Dallas Police Department. Thompson, a 21-year veteran of the Police Department, has been a homicide detective since 2006. Her fight for justice here began around 3 years ago and ended with last weeks jury verdict. Just because the words were less strong doesnt mean they were any less true.. Believe me, she adored Michael with all of her heart. Lundberg conducted the interview because Thompson had a prior commitment to teach a class at the police academy. Police interrogations happen all the time here in Dallas, and over in Fort Worth as well as the rest of Texas and around the country. In August, three months after the shooting, Shearin requested an examining trial, a legal procedure in which a police officer must appear in a magistrates court to lay out the probable cause for the arrest of a suspect in a felony case. That wont be possible, said Thompson. See rank. Nearly a year after the shooting, a grand jury met and heard the evidence. Lord was accused of murder countless times, and she always denied it. All we want is for Olivia to go through a criminal trial, said John Burnside, sitting with Cindi in their East Dallas home. She helped him with his finances, reminding him to pay his bills and to keep his spending in line. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. And its going to come out.. I asked Lord if she had said anything to Burnside that night that would have led him to believe that the relationship was over. The trial finally began in a federal courtroom in downtown Dallas this past Januarynearly four years after the shooting. There was something else that didnt seem right: drops of blood leading into another room. She said that she had phoned Jaffe because she initially thought Burnside had fallen and was hurt. Kim Sanders, a more than 30-year veteran of the department who served as a homicide detective, said the interview amounted to intimidation. Sometimes I want to walk inside, thinking he will be there. He actually turned to Lord and said, I know you didnt do it. He turned back to the jury and continued, But thats not the issue in this trial. He had on a dark fedora, a dark suit, a white shirt with a tie, and dress shoes. He noticed that there was a chemical odorit smelled like bleach, he would later sayon her clothes. Yes, the video of him interviewing her is pretty rough, and it looks like he comes across as a bully. And now you have this thing where he was spending a lot of money on his friend, but he didnt spend near as much money on your birthday. Still, Thompson had only a theory. When Shearin called Lord with the news, she thanked him for all he had done for her, but then she said something else. . For Thompson, there was no question about it: Lord was on the run. Summary: 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. He remains convinced that he got a raw deal at the civil trial and that Tittle played the video of his interrogation of Lord only to plant in jurors minds the idea that he was an intimidating black man taking advantage of a grieving, attractive white woman. But Detective Thompson couldnt or wouldnt accept that. Tittle said that Thompson allowed a screenplay [of the shooting] in his mind to take over. And thats a dangerous, dangerous thing if youre a homicide detective with the Dallas Police Department., Lord took the stand and was overcome with emotion as she described her love for Burnside. (For a philosophy class, she wrote a paper on Socrates being sentenced to death under false charges.) | Articles Her father, who lived in Californiahe and Lords mother had divorced when she was a childflew in to be with her. Both have worked numerous murders and each has been featured on the popular A&E reality television show, He took her to dinner, and the date lasted the entire weekend. The way Lord had described it, she and Burnside were deeply in love, and they had been talking about marriage. She claimed that Thompson show a reckless disregard for her rights in having Plaintiff arrested in 2010 for the shooting death of her boyfriend, Mcihael Brunside. Im trying to figure out how to move on with my life, she said recently, sitting at a back table at an Italian restaurant in North Dallas. But we at least have the right to know that. She wanted to know why they were there. Trailer 0:21. If the detectives thought they had noticed the smell of chemicals on her, it must have come from the paint thinner and the floor stripper that she and Burnside had been using that day. 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, said Lundberg, there was no sign of blood spatter on Burnsides right hand or arm. But as the case made its way through the courts, she maintained her innocenceand claimed Thompson was the one who should go to prison. Thompson acknowledged that without the statement regarding Lords confession, I wouldnt have filed a case. Tittle asked Thompson a series of questions about when he had actually written his arrest affidavit, which described Rastegar as making a recorded interview to the police about Lords excited utterance. Thompson was eventually forced to admit that he had typed up the affidavit before Rastegar had come down to the homicide offices to make his statement. Edit. Edit. Then Tittle fired back. I hope you die in jail and burn in hell!. As for the question of blood spatter on Lords clothes, however, Quinton did have a definite opinion. And then she burst into tears. Were missing something, he said to her. | Sign In, Verdict Corrections And, yes, she said, she had grown irritated when she heard Burnside and Jaffe talking about the birthday party. By the end of the interview, Thompson had returned from his lecture and walked into the room. He studied the call histories on the phones and took some notes. The lawsuit also claimed that Thompson had permanently damaged Lords reputation in Dallas and caused her to suffer extreme emotional and mental anguish, including depression, insomnia, nightmares, and constant anxiety of the most extreme nature. Lord was asking for monetary damages, and according to courthouse gossip, Tittle was not willing to settle for less than seven figures. A&E | Air Date: unknown. Leave them blank to get signed up. I know verbally from him that he owes the government a lot of taxes, Lord replied. See production, box office & company info. But Love also acknowledges that he is bewildered at the idea of Burnside shooting himself. I do believe you killed him. In October 2008 a mutual friend introduced her and Burnside at a small bar on Dallass Lower Greenville Avenue. Don't be scared to look at. He sustained a fatal contact gunshot wound to the right temple. As he nodded sympathetically, she again talked about how hurt she had been on her birthday. 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. I went into the kitchen and he was on the floor and there was blood. A bullet hole was in a wall near the ceiling. Lord was slumped over in a chair, still wearing her blood-stained clothes. When the paramedics arrived, Burnside had faint vital signs, but he died shortly after reaching the emergency room at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Seven minutes is a long time, Thompson told her several times on the video. He called Jaffe, who had also turned against Lord, to see if he could help him locate her. Burnside died from a gun shot wound from a 9 mm Beretta handgun. 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. On May 11, 2011, in the case of Texas v. Lord, the grand jury returned a no bill. You [expletive] shot him! She said that he was a big drinker and that he could sometimes be reckless. Im a person who just lost her boyfriend, Lord wailed. The detective was 47 years old and built like a linebacker at six feet two inches and 230 pounds. The only thing I can tell you that might make any sense to anybody is that when hes drunk, hes very irrational, she said. 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. Or maybe, as Thompson theorized, Lord had missed some of the residue on her hand and her shirt when she cleaned herself up after pulling the trigger. The idea that she would put a gun to his head and pull the trigger is just unfathomable.. But she was pointedly not invited to a get-together that Burnsides friends were throwing after the service at one of his favorite bars. And, Thompson guessed, she had wiped down her hands and arms with the towels he had seen on the kitchen floor. But I dont know how to do it. Something happened there tonight, and it doesnt make sense., The only thing I can think of is that he was careless sometimes with guns, Jaffe said. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); With more than 150 jury trials under his belt, Michael Lowe has strong and varied courtroom experience. Yes you did! Physical evidence can be more baffling than conclusive. Seriously, does anyone believe this story that Olivia tells about being in the bathroom and hearing something that sounded like glass breaking in the kitchen? As one Dallas County prosecutor put it, They can, even for the most well-intentioned of reasons, get too focused on making an arrest at the detriment of the true story., Mitchell began evaluating Thompsons case against Lord. Ive never seen anything like it, Sanders said. And now that he had a witness who was going to provide bombshell testimony about what had really happened that night, he was ready to go to trial. Thompson stormed out of the room and asked Lundberg to see what he could get out of Lord. The day after the verdict, Thompson was placed on desk duty. I did not kill my boyfriend. The jurors, however, werent buying any of it. She was so hysterical he could not understand what she was saying. (2014) Thompson repeatedly asked Lord during the interview why she waited seven minutes to call 911 after trying to reach a friend of Burnsides by phone. In 2008, when the producers of The First 48, a reality series on the A&E network about homicide detectives in big-city police departments, came to Dallas to film some episodes, they were riveted by Thompson. | Link Errors He thought he had a mild case of COVID-19. All prosecutors know that almost every murder case contains inconsistent and sometimes contradictory evidence. And youd say, you know, Thats not a toy., Jaffe said that Burnside had pulled out a gun that night. There was another, longer silence. Weve been detectives for a long time, and we understand that sometimes things happen and we cant always control the situation, he said. What he didnt say was that the case was going nowhere. Lundberg walked into the interview room, pulled his chair close to Lord, and played the role of the good cop. Whos that? Thompson asked, pointing to a man kneeling beside Lord in the front yard. He is a Democrat representing District 96 in the Tennessee House of Representatives . These laws are especially important when those being questioned are already emotionally reeling from the events themselves like Ms. Lord who first dealt with the discovery of her boyfriends body, calling 911 for help, and that loss then to face questioning by police while vulnerable and upset like Lords being questioned by Thompson as if she had committed a crime for several hours. The lawyer was reluctant to open the door. Thats the exact type of case that might have been portrayed on The First 48, right? Tittle asked. Thompson studied Lord and Jaffe for a moment, then walked over to them. 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. Or, asked Shearin, did Thompson say that Burnside was stressed about owing money to the IRS? Thompson started his career in law enforcement as a corrections officer in a maximum-security prison in South Carolina. For her part, Lord said that she would gladly give up any money in return for Thompsons being sent to prison. In early May, word spread that the departments Public Integrity Unit had launched an investigation of Thompsons work on the Lord case. Shearin got Lord out of jail on bail. January 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? 1983 claiming that she was wrongfully arrested for a killing that she did not commit, which landed her in jail for nine days. When Quinton studied the gunshot residue report, he concluded that the trace amounts of residue on Lord did not necessarily indicate handling or firing the weapon. But he couldnt say for sure that she didnt fire the Beretta. Whats more, she didnt want him to go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Lundberg then brought up the trajectory of the bullet through Burnsides brain. When Thompson took the stand, he seemed utterly likable as he described his history as a detective. Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson hunts for a band of carjacking killers that are terrorizing a neighborhood. I wasnt going to leave him. DALLAS Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation.Source: http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/W. A citizen filing a lawsuit for false arrest must prove that the officer acted with malice, which is difficult to do. However, Lord wasnt done with the situation and after she was released, she filed her civil lawsuit for damages. Something did not add up. And Im a person who thinks your behavior tonight doesnt add up. He pointed his finger at her. 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. Thompson returned to headquarters and took the elevator to the homicide offices on the fifth floor. One of his tasks was to take boxes of cold-case files out of the death room, where all homicide files are kept, and haul them to a storage area in city hall. Olivia, youre not telling me the truth, Thompson told her. She did her own interviews, speaking, for instance, with a firefighter who said he believed he had accidentally kicked the gun away from Burnsides body. They make honest, reasonable mistakes. Instead, he gave Brandi Mitchell everything he had.. She wanted to not only vindicate herself but also make sure the public knew just what Thompson had done to her. Compared with Thompson, Lundberg was a quiet man who wore glasses and spoke slowly. A uniformed officer walked over and told Thompson that the house belonged to a man named Michael Burnside, age thirty. Michael Burnside, age 36, sued Dallas homicide detective Dwayne Thompson has spent over years... With Thompson, there was blood built like a linebacker at six feet two inches and 230.. 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