EP 27: The Coconut One – Murder Friends

On today’s episode, we chat Christmas plans and Anna discloses the information that her favourite Quality Street is the COCONUT ONE. It’s this year’s mince pie scandal. We catch up on the true crime news and review the podcast “Canary: The Washington Post Investigates”. We finish with a weird crime from Kent!

CANARY: THE WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATES

A 7-part series hosted by investigative reporter Amy Brittain of The Washington Post. The first episode of the podcast tells the story of Lauren Clark, a hair stylist in Washington DC. Lauren was out jogging in a local park one day when she was attacked and sexual assaulted by a stranger, Jayro Cruz, a prominent local chef. She was able to get away and scratched his face. He was arrested quite quickly and had attacked another woman that day. He eventually confessed to attacking 6 women in the DC area. We then follow the story through the DC justice system, where prosecutors ultimately charged him only with misdemeanors and the Judge Truman Morrison sentenced him to 10 non-consecutive days in jail to fit around his work schedule and 8- days in a half-way house and 5 years of strict supervised probation.

After his conviction, Clark began to see Cruz around town and he also gain a job at a well-regarded restaurant in the DC area, which was block from her apartment. Clark continued to follow Cruz’s probation and found out he was moved off of supervised probation after 4 years without explanation. Apparently, his probation had been mishandled and had never been supervised at all. When the mistake was discovered, the Judge decided there was no use in going backwards. Clark decides to fight back and notifies the restaurant he worked at of the assaults and starts passing out fliers around ever bar and restaurant.

The Amy Britton investigated this story and wrote an article which appeared in The Washington Post.

This is when Carole Griffin from Birmingham Alabama reads the story and contacts Brittain as she has information about the Judge in this case, he sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old and several other times in her life thereafter.

The podcast takes a turn in the second episode where we follow Griffin’s story and her lifelong difficulties coming to terms with the sexual assault that has haunted her for her entire life. It also shows the repercussions on coming forward with her allegations and how it affects her family. In the final episode Clark and Griffin meet and are able to share how their stories help each other in coming to terms with their assaults.