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. 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. Thompson asked why there was so little blood on her hands and arms. Shearin ordered Lords cellphone records and received more good news: there was no seven-minute gap in her calls. Tittle then had the jurors watch Thompsons interview with Lord and Lundbergs interview with Rastegar. Leave them blank to get signed up. 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. I dont remember the exact words that were used, he told Lundberg. In his opinion, it was perfectly plausible that in the heat of the argument with Burnside, she had taken his pistol, slipped up behind him, and pulled the trigger. Testimony continues Friday, during which Lord may take the witness stand. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. What this trial is about is whether this detective had probable cause to believe that she did it. Then Schuette began listing all the reasons that would make a detective like Thompson believe Lord had killed her boyfriend. Filing in behind him were at least a dozen of his fellow homicide detectives, there to show support. And even if he took a shortcut or two, he adds, he didnt hide or invent evidence. You [expletive] shot him! (For a philosophy class, she wrote a paper on Socrates being sentenced to death under false charges.) And who knows? After The First 48. Thompson asked Lundberg if he thought it was possible that a person who was much shorter than Burnsidesomeone, say, who was five feet two inches tall, the height of Olivia Lordcould have aimed the Beretta at a 45-degree angle toward Burnsides head and pulled the trigger? 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. I do believe you killed him. Or, asked Shearin, did Thompson say that Burnside was stressed about owing money to the IRS? Thompson studied Lord and Jaffe for a moment, then walked over to them. That wont be possible, said Thompson. 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. Texas Lege Watch: A House Republican Fights for Chicken Freedom, Texas Monthly Recognized by ASME in the 2023 National Magazine Awards. Testimony. He told the jurors that he didnt believe that Lord had shot Burnside. Just because the words were less strong doesnt mean they were any less true.. For the rest of the month, Burnsides father regularly called Thompson to get updates on the investigation. He thought he had a mild case of COVID-19. But she was pointedly not invited to a get-together that Burnsides friends were throwing after the service at one of his favorite bars. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. Burnside died from a gun shot wound from a 9 mm Beretta handgun. 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. Lord spent the next four days at her mothers home in the Dallas suburbs, lying in bed, taking sleeping pills. They too had been talking to Thompson and they were furious. The Dallas City Council on Wednesday approved a settlement of more than $1 million to a . 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. At the least, she said, she wanted to make sure his actions were publicly documented so that he could never do to someone else what he had done to her. Only Burnside and Lord were in the apartment where they lived at the time. She said that she had phoned Jaffe because she initially thought Burnside had fallen and was hurt. If I was guilty, would I really have gone out and filed a lawsuit, knowing everything would be brought up again, giving Thompson and all the other naysayers one more chance to come after me?, A few weeks later, I called Lord and asked her again about Burnsides death. Yes. On May 14, five days after the shooting, Lord finally left her mothers house to attend Burnsides funeral with her family and friends. Okay, fine. A jury in federal civil court ruled Friday that a Dallas homicide detective, Dwayne Thompson, violated Lord's civil rights by maliciously having her arrested for a killing she didn't commit,. I wasnt going to leave him. And if the young man had shot himself, wouldnt the gun have landed closer to his body? But Detective Dwayne Thompson. What do you guys think? I asked Lord if she had said anything to Burnside that night that would have led him to believe that the relationship was over. She said Burnside had been drinking heavily, and at some point, in the midst of the fight, he had walked into the kitchen and shot himself. Nevertheless, as far as Thompson was concerned, that did not eliminate her as a suspect. He allowed a few seconds to pass. 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. She had loved dogs and painting. City attorneys are defending him, saying he acted in good faith and without malice. I know verbally from him that he owes the government a lot of taxes, Lord replied. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Thompsons interrogation of Lord was videotaped. He said when he came up to Lord in the yard, she fell to her knees and said something to the effect of Hes dying. Rastegar told Lundberg, I got the impression she was trying to tell me it was accidental. Dwayne Thompson (I) IMDbPro Starmeter. Mimi Swartz is a staff writer based in Houston. Yes you did! Rastegar ran outside and asked her what had happened. Jaffe told him that Mikey was a good ol boy who liked hunting and fishing. For someone to say Dwayne maliciously would go after Miss Lord and try to set her up, I would say, You have the wrong guy, said Andrea Handley, one of the offices senior prosecutors. He was not a depressed type of person at all. She glanced around the dining room. Something did not add up. Im not even sure the word accident was used. He said he later surmised that Lord had shot Burnside because he had heard a story going around the neighborhood that Burnside had been shot in the back of the head, which would suggest he had been murdered. Merritt had an uncanny knack for catching killers. After Jaffe went home, the argument escalated. The detective was 47 years old and built like a linebacker at six feet two inches and 230 pounds. But Lords attorney, Don Tittle, said the detective was wrong that police records show she called 911 immediately after trying to reach the friend. 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. For more information, see Michael Lowes Things to Know if You are Being Investigated for a Crime in Texas and our blog postSalinas v. Texas: Your Silence During Police Interrogation Does Not Get 5th Amendment Protection, Can Be Used Against You As Evidence Of Guilt To The Jury.. HEPHZIBAH OLIVIA LORD That doesnt mean they kill themselves.. But she maintained her innocence, claiming that he committed suicide. Comments are welcomed here and I will respond to you -- but please, no requests for personal legal advice here and nothing that's promoting your business or product. And thats hurtful. She called Thompsons interrogation of her a mental rape and characterized her days in jail as torture. Even now, she said, she felt like an outcast, afraid to go out in public. But after her arrest, Lord read The Count of Monte Cristo, the Alexandre Dumas novel about a wrongfully imprisoned man who seeks revenge against those responsible for his imprisonment, and she memorized one of the books famous lines: May the god of vengeance now permit me to punish the wicked! That was her goal, she said. Thompson formed his hand into the shape of a gun and pointed at his jawline, aiming upward at a 70-degree angle, which infuriated Shearin, who accused Thompson of wildly exaggerating the location and angle of the shot. She had always insisted that she had not fled from the police. Lord seemed to be trying to control her breathing. By then, a couple of those friends had talked to Thompson, and he had made it clear to them just what he thought of Lord: he said he would stake his career on his belief that she had killed him. And its going to come out.. Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation. By the first of June, hed put aside Lords file to work on his other cases. She identified herself as Olivia Lord, Burnsides girlfriend, and said she had just found Burnside lying on the kitchen floor with a gunshot wound to his head. Ive never seen anything like it, Sanders said. Lundberg conducted the interview because Thompson had a prior commitment to teach a class at the police academy. Lundberg said that there was a gunshot wound to his right temple, a contact wound where the muzzle had been pressed directly against his head, which is common in suicides involving a handgun. She certainly had not used them to wash herself off, she said. Jaffe and Lord were taken to the station, and Thompson headed inside Burnsides home. Burnsides family and friends were caught off guard by the lawsuit. Lundberg also took the stand, testifying that he too remained convinced that Lord was guilty of murder. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. But as the case made its way through the courts, she maintained her innocenceand claimed Thompson was the one who should go to prison. He had on a dark fedora, a dark suit, a white shirt with a tie, and dress shoes. Seven minutes is a long time, Thompson told her several times on the video. Her fight for justice here began around 3 years ago and ended with last weeks jury verdict. I loved my boyfriend.. She had told Jaffe she had driven past Burnsides house before leaving and had seen crime scene investigation vehicles parked outside. Self - Detective; 2009-2014 2 eps; Credits. A couple of clerks grinned at him. She walked to the front of the chapel to look at Burnside in his casket, and her legs nearly buckled as she said his name. The detective was 47 years old and built like a linebacker at six feet two inches and 230 pounds. In October 2008 a mutual friend introduced her and Burnside at a small bar on Dallass Lower Greenville Avenue. 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. Lord spent 9 days in jail before a Dallas Grand Jury refused to indict her for the crime. When he wasnt solving murders, Thompson restored sports cars and tooled around in a black Corvette convertible. He told Lundberg that he wasnt sure this was a suicide. In Lords case, while she was arrested by Dallas police it was soon shown that there was no murder; her boyfriend had committed suicide. 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. Thompson told Rastegar to go to the station and make an official recorded statement, which Thompson later used to obtain an arrest warrant charging Lord with murder. A team of U.S. marshals found her at her fathers home in Palmdale, about an hour north of Los Angeles, and Lord was held in custody for nine days. | Link Errors Im devastated., Thompson bore down. But there was one more turn in the story to come. Weve been detectives for a long time, and we understand that sometimes things happen and we cant always control the situation, he said. Because that is the only thing that makes sense.. He eventually learned about my arrest, and he was so bothered by what he read that he never called me again. Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. Of course not, she said. Lord was slumped over in a chair, still wearing her blood-stained clothes. Dallas homicide Detective Dwayne Thompson sits at his desk in 2010, looking over material he collected in the death of a 42-year-old mother who was shot in front of her home. There was no question in her mind, she said, that she and Burnside would soon get married. Im innocent, Lord kept saying. 3. I was leaning over my future husbands body, Lord said. There was something else that didnt seem right: drops of blood leading into another room. An officer came over to Thompsons cubicle and handed him Lords and Jaffes cellphones. When the lab report on the gunshot residue was completed, it wasnt much help either. After the First 48 (2008- ) More at IMDbPro. 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. And then theres Jaffe, Burnsides best friend, who says he remains convinced that Lord is hiding something. And in Cleveland, an argument among friends spins out of control when one of them makes a deadly decision. Political career [ edit] In 2014, Thompson ran for election to represent District 10 in the Tennessee House of Representatives, but lost to Republican incumbent Steve McManus. Perhaps sensing that the jury had turned against the detective, Jason Schuette, another attorney for the City of Dallas, resorted to a surprise tactic in his final arguments. 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. He is one of the most popular detectives in the Dallas Police Departmenta charismatic man, big and boisterous, with a powerful deep voice, says Craig Miller, a former deputy police chief who served as Thompsons lieutenant in the homicide unit in 2010. Thompson and Lundberg started talking. Thompson misrepresented any of the facts that were provided by Witness Rastegar and that there were no signs of a criminal offense. Indeed, the report continued, Thompson did have probable cause to arrest Suspect Lord.. The detectives in charge of the investigation had concluded that there was no evidence to substantiate that Det. Add a bio, trivia, and more. A few days after the funeral, Lord called Burnsides brother to ask if she could retrieve some of her belongings from the house. Your email address will not be published. They couldnt get the dishwasher installed because of a broken valve, which sent water all over the floor, so they took a break. When Thompson took the stand, he seemed utterly likable as he described his history as a detective. You did! And youd say, you know, Thats not a toy., Jaffe said that Burnside had pulled out a gun that night. What he needed was irrefutable evidence pointing to Lords involvement in the shooting. Lundberg gently brought up the bloodied towels in the kitchen, asking if she had used them to wipe blood off her body. When she flew back to Dallas, she went straight to Shearins office. 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. . Thompson just happened to be standing at the detectives desk, and he was more than happy to talk to Shearin. | Editor I had to cover my mouth I was so appalled, Judy Durbin, an accountant who was the foreman of the jury, would later recall. The only thing I can tell you that might make any sense to anybody is that when hes drunk, hes very irrational, she said. (The autopsy report revealed that he had at least a .17 blood alcohol level when he diedtwice the legal limit to drive a vehicle.) On May 11, 2011, in the case of Texas v. Lord, the grand jury returned a no bill. It was so hard for us to believe that she was doing this, said Jaffe. 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