MURDERED: The Eastburn Family

[00:00] Hi, crime junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And Britt, a lot of people ask me how I decide to pick the cases that I cover. And there are a couple of ways. And the first of which, we've mentioned this before, and I'm not sure if everyone's picked up on this, but we actually have a case suggestion form on our website under the resources tab. So if I'm ever hitting a wall or drawing a blank, I'll go there and pull from cases that our listeners want to hear about. So [01:00] make sure to submit it there. We don't go off of our Facebook or Instagram DMs. So that is your spot. But before you submit, make sure you go to our fan club page on our website. As you probably know by now, we do bonus episodes for the fan club. And we have a whole list of what episodes are available. And I can't tell you how many times people have said like, oh my God, I want you guys to do OJ Simpson or Skylar Niece or Rebecca Zahao. And I'm like, listen, the episode's waiting for you there. It's in the fan club. [01:30] Yeah, we get a ton of duplicate requests for things that we've already done on the Patreon. And I'm in that sheet like every single day. And you guys are missing out if you're not a part of the fan club. Yeah. So at least even if you don't want to be a part of the fan club, please make sure you check that page before making an episode suggestion. Because if we've done it for the fan club, we will not do it for the wide release. So our case suggestion form is one way that I find cases.

[01:54] But [01:55] Another way is by going into my crime junkie memory bank. I've been consuming true crime for decades. And there are some stories that just stick out among the rest. Stories that I know if they've stayed with me this long, I think they're going to stay with you. [02:14] And today... [02:15] is one of those stories. It's the story... [02:19] of the Eastburn family murders. [02:22] Music playing [02:52] Gary Eastburn was an active Air Force captain whose family was stationed in North Carolina outside of Fort Bragg. The city was actually called Fayetteville. Now, at the time of our story in 1985, Gary had just received news that he was going to be getting a new position working over in the UK. But before he and his family could relocate, he had to do a three month training in Alabama. [03:18] It was hard for Gary to leave his wife, Katie, and their three little girls all under the age of five. But as many of our listeners know, this is just military life.

[03:28] He tried to keep close contact with his wife when he was gone. They would write letters back and forth. They had a standing phone call date every Saturday at a specific time. So on Saturday, May 11th, the day before Mother's Day, Gary waited by the phone for his call. [03:45] Five minutes passed. [03:46] then 10, then 15. With no call from his wife, he decided to reach out to her. [03:53] But when he called the house, he got no answer. [03:57] That night when he still wasn't able to reach Katie, he called a local friend in North Carolina and asked them to phone the sheriff to go check on her. A deputy was dispatched to the house and he knocked on the door and he said, [04:09] but got no answer. [04:11] He peeked around the outside of the house, but everything seemed in order. It was a quiet night. [04:17] on a quiet street. [04:18] Before just completely disregarding the scene, he goes to the next door neighbor to ask them if they'd seen the Eastburn girls or if he'd seen anything amiss. And this neighbor says no. And the neighbor was even a little bit annoyed about being bothered so late with this, being woke up in the middle of the night with a flashlight in his face. And. [04:38] But that visit from the sheriff stuck in that neighbor's mind, because when he woke up the next day and looked out at the Eastburn's house, [04:46] Something didn't feel right. [04:48] Their car hadn't moved, [04:50] and sure Katie mentioned maybe going to visit Gary and sure maybe they could have taken the bus but

[04:58] Wasn't it also weird that the newspapers had been piled up and uncollected in the front of the house for a couple of days? Oh no. The neighbor decided that he was going to go take a look for himself. [05:09] When he went over and rang the doorbell, he didn't hear anyone come rushing to the door. No commotion within the house. But what he did hear was a baby crying. It sounded like the Eastburns' youngest daughter, Jana. And he didn't know what to do. So he called over his wife, who quickly called the Eastburns' babysitter. Like, maybe she might know something. Right. And she called the sheriff again. Another deputy is dispatched, who comes to the house. [05:39] notices the baby crying. But I guess protocol at the time was like, you're not supposed to just go into the house. You have to wait for backup or whatever to follow the proper protocol. Even if there's a baby? Yeah. So even if there's a baby, but the babysitter gets there and she's like, I can see the baby in the window. She is frantic. We have to go in and get her. So the deputy is like, you're right. Forget protocol. We're getting this baby. So he decides [06:09] enters the house, he is blasted in the face with the unmistakable smell, the smell of decomposition. And poor baby Jana, she was gaunt, she was pale, dehydrated, and she had [06:28] When they pulled her out, she looked

[06:30] awful. But what they didn't know was how close she was to an even more terrible fate. Doctors later said that she was just a couple of hours away from death herself. Oh my god. When police got there, the rest of the scene was even worse. There had been a struggle in the living room, and when they followed the trail into the master bedroom, they first saw three-year-old Erin [07:00] When they removed the pillow, they saw that her throat had been cut so severely that she was almost decapitated. [07:08] When the detective walked around the bed, [07:10] There is where he found 32-year-old Katie. Her bra had been pulled up to her neck, her underwear had been cut off, and she'd been stabbed at least 14 times in the chest. Now, there was still one little girl missing, 5-year-old Kara. And they hadn't seen her at first, but they eventually found her laying under her Star Wars blanket in the girls' room. Like her mother, she'd been stabbed multiple times in the chest. Okay. [07:38] The detective on scene knew he had to notify Gary, who was still in Alabama, waiting to hear of any news of his family's whereabouts. They wouldn't tell him right away what happened. They just kept saying, Gary, you need to come home because there's been a death in the family. When he arrived back, his entire world came crashing down. All he had left was Jana, who was still in the hospital and far from healthy.

[08:08] the mental trauma of what she saw, even as a small child. [08:13] Jana's development was actually delayed for a long time. It took months before she began speaking again. And when she did, a child psychologist actually interviewed her. They have like five video interview tapes that they had done trying to figure out, even though she was so young, if she saw anything that might point to a perpetrator. And it's so sad because she just keeps saying when they would show her pictures of her mom, [08:43] and when they would show her pictures of the house, she would get so upset, she would run across the room and hide under something and basically say, we have to hide from the burglar or the bad man. And it made them believe that [08:58] the younger children in the house had come into her room and told her that she had to hide. So, the man may have never known that there was a younger child there, and [09:08] That's how Jana ended up surviving. [09:10] Now, [09:12] Gary had so many questions. Why his family? Who would have wanted to kill them? And the police had those very same questions as well. It seems like the main motivation was the sexual assault of Katie. But what kind of monster would also murder their young girls? In addition to the sexual assault, there were some things missing from the house. One was a metal lockbox. The other was about $300 in cash.

[09:42] So maybe the why was answered. This person was just like a true monster driven by his sexual desires and a need or just want for cash. But they still had the question of who? Who is this monster? They thought the answers were just around the corner, though, because there was so much physical evidence found in and around the homes. [10:05] First, there was a clear sign that someone had cleaned up. There was [10:09] a shocking absence of blood for how gruesome the attacks were. But when they tested the house with luminol, it lit up all over. The bathroom, doorknobs, light switches. They saw reactions along with what looked like bloody footprints in the house. There was even a bloody towel found at the scene, with what they later learn has an unknown blood sample, which they assumed to be the attackers. They also found hair that didn't match any of the Eastburns, [10:39] head hair in the master bedroom, a head hair on Kara's chest in the girls' room, and a pubic hair on the couch in the living room where the attack started. [10:50] In addition to the blood, [10:51] and hair, they also find unknown fingerprints all over the inside of the house and shoe prints outside of the house. And finally, one of the most damning pieces of evidence, a semen sample that was collected from Katie's rape kit. [11:09] I mean... [11:10] It sounds like they have every type of physical evidence they could ever ask for. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I recently did a Q&A with a retired homicide detective. And one of the questions that was asked of him was, would you rather have physical evidence or a witness? And he said, I want both before I go to trial. And in this case...

[11:33] They had all the physical evidence, [11:35] But they had a witness. [11:37] 2 [11:40] you [11:40] Along with all of the physical evidence, in and around the house, police also were contacted by a man named Patrick, who said that he was outside near the Eastburn's house the night of the murders. [11:53] And he saw someone at like three in the morning around their house. [11:58] So why was Patrick even out wandering around that late at night or early in the morning, I guess? Well, he said that he had just been leaving his girlfriend's house. Now, listen, to be totally upfront, Patrick has had past run-ins with the law, and he would go on to have even more after he came forward as a witness. So many people tried to discredit his account of that night, but he had no reason to come forward. Most people who get in trouble with the law don't want to get themselves involved in other cases, [12:28] did, which at least for me, makes me trust what he had to say. So what he says is on that night, in the wee hours of the morning, he's leaving his girlfriend's house. He's walking down the Eastburn Street and he sees a tall white man, maybe 6'2", 6'3"-ish. He's blonde with a mustache and has this kind of like large flared nose. Patrick said that he remembered that he was [12:58] over his shoulder. [13:00] The tall white guy says something to Patrick like, [13:03] Oh, you know, getting an early start this morning or something to that effect. And then he gets into a car and drives off. A car that Patrick says looks like a white Chevette.

[13:13] Now, with this description, police put together a composite sketch. [13:18] Okay, Ash, you just sent me the picture, and it's... [13:24] Pretty normal looking dude. You're right. In the description that Patrick gave, the flared nose is definitely prominent in the sketch. He has a thin mustache and kind of hooded eyes. And like a kind of a long face, right? Yeah, I was going to say like a sort of oval, longish face. [13:42] We have a witness. [13:43] We have a description. We have physical evidence. And beyond this, police even get more leads. The babysitter for the Eastburns, remember the one that the neighbor had called? Yeah. She tells police two important things that stick out to them. One is that in the weeks leading up to the murders, Katie had said someone had been stalking her, following her, and they'd also been calling the Eastburn home. Sometimes they would just say nothing, but sometimes the calls were of a sexual nature. [14:13] Now being that this was the late 80s, police were unable to trace those calls, but at least they knew there was someone out there who'd been watching Katie and her girls. And this person could be a suspect. [14:26] The other lead that they got from the babysitter was that Katie had put an ad in the local paper for someone to purchase their family dog. Now remember, they were going to be relocating to the UK after Gary's training and they didn't want to put their dog through the quarantine. So Katie wanted to find a good home for the dog before they left.

[14:56] And the dog wasn't there at the time of the attacks. So just a little deduction tells you maybe the dog was adopted out. And if so, this person could have been one of the last people to interact with Katie Eastburn and her girls. It was a long shot, mind you, but this person could know something about, [15:15] but they had to find them first. [15:17] Six days have now passed since the murders when law enforcement puts out a call to the public on the local news. They're looking for whoever adopted the family's dog. They need to talk to you. Now, a woman named Angela is watching the news that afternoon. She'd been following the story closely. And when they make the announcement... [15:36] She looks to her husband, Tim, who's an army staff sergeant. He's home having lunch with his wife and his new baby daughter. And she says, "Tim, [15:44] You have to go to the police. That's you. You're the one who picked up the dog. [15:50] So Tim does. He goes to the police. He tells the woman at the front desk he needs to talk to the investigators about the Eastburn case. He's the person they're looking for, the one that adopted the dog. Now he has a seat and about this time the lead investigator on the case walks in. [16:07] and his jaw [16:08] drops onto the floor. [16:12] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades.

[16:31] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [16:38] wherever you get your podcasts. [16:41] Without knowing who Tim was or why he was there in the lobby, the investigator sees him and it stops him in his tracks. He is looking at a live version of the sketch made by their witness, Patrick. He's tall, blonde, a wide nose, handsome. [17:02] over a mustache and he couldn't believe it. Did their killer really just walk right into the police station? He brings him back to be interviewed and right away he doesn't like Tim. He thinks he's maybe a little too cocky, maybe prickly is even the right word, but you know Tim has some reasons to be prickly. They're asking him questions making him believe that they're looking at him as a suspect and he even asked them like am I a suspect? Do I need a lawyer here? They say no no no, but [17:32] that you were the last person to see Katie Eastburn alive, and we need to know everything that you know. So Tim goes on to tell them he picks up the dog on Tuesday, two days before the police believe the murders happened. Now, where was he on the night of the murders? [17:48] Unfortunately, he doesn't have a solid alibi. He'd taken his wife and his daughter out of town earlier that day to visit family. His wife had stayed behind with the family, but Tim went home. [18:00] alone. [18:01] with no one to vouch for him. Now, despite Tim being cautious, he did give biological samples willingly, blood, hair, saliva, all of it.

[18:13] While they're questioning him, [18:14] and collecting all these samples, they're also working behind the scenes. Other officers were conducting a photo lineup for the witness, Patrick. They found a mugshot of Tim Hennis from a time way back when he had bounced a check, and they put it together with five other men and showed Patrick. And without wavering, Patrick says, number two, that's the man I saw. And he was pointing to Tim's photo. [18:41] Another damning piece of evidence was Tim's car, the very car that he drove to the interview, the very car that was sitting in the police parking lot, a white Chevette, exactly matching Patrick's description perfectly. Now, they didn't arrest Tim that very moment. They let him go after seven hours of questioning. But after seven hours... [19:05] they had their first real suspect. And they wanted to see if it was just a crazy coincidence or if there was more pointing to Tim as the perpetrator. And they found exactly the type of circumstantial evidence they were looking for. A day or so after the murders, [19:22] Tim is seen by his neighbors burning something in a barrel. [19:27] at his house. And this is something he's [19:30] never done before. [19:32] Then, [19:34] A dry cleaner comes forward and says, "Hey, [19:37] Super strange coincidence, but Tim actually brought in a members-only jacket the day after the murders to be cleaned. No. Yeah. That's the same kind of jacket that Patrick saw the suspect wearing, right? Exactly. So, again, it's getting a little more fishy. Yeah. Then, then, Tim's landlord had something to add to this. Tim had been late on his rent.

[20:07] Right after the murders, [20:10] Tim pays his rent, plus a $35 late fee. - Wait, so... [20:15] How much cash did they say was taken from the home? [20:18] $300. So, the majority of his rent. Yeah. [20:23] It is not looking good for him. But there is one more damning eyewitness testimony that seals the deal for police. Along with the $300 that was taken from Katie Eastburn, her ATM card was also taken and used. Now the police found out where and when it was used and they find the person who used it right after him. [20:53] ATM. Now with all of this they had him dead to right. This was their guy they could feel it in their guts and they were not going to let him get away. [21:03] They arrest Tim and charge him with three counts of first-degree murder and one charge of rape. Right away, Tim's offered a plea deal, but he refuses. He cannot even believe he's in this situation. He tells them, listen, I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do. All you have is circumstantial evidence. Test the physical evidence. You have so much of it. Test any of it. Test all of it. I am not afraid of the physical evidence because I was not in that house. I did not do it. [21:33] Right.

[21:47] Now, the blood was kind of a wash. When testing for type back then, often when there's so much blood, whatever blood type was there that there was like more of would mask the smaller amount. And you would usually expect to see more victim's blood than the perpetrator, which is what happened in this case. So basically the blood came out as inconclusive. When the fingerprints came back, all of the prints either came back as negative for matching to Tim or inconclusive because there wasn't enough of a print. [22:17] They also tested all of the hair, which again came back as negative or inconclusive as a match to Tim. He was right. None of the physical evidence in the house could be linked to him. [22:29] But the prosecution was too sure that they had their man. They were going to go to trial on their circumstantial case. The trial began almost one year after the murders. They called Patrick, who said it was Tim Hennis he saw that night leaving the Eastburn house. They called Mrs. Cook, who said it was Tim Hennis who used the ATM card at the machine before her. They told the jury about the rent, the cleaning of the members-only jacket, and the burning of the whatever stuff in the barrel. [22:59] To top it off, they made a slideshow of all of the crime scene and autopsy pictures. They showed them pictures of the crime scene. [23:09] after picture of the most horrific and gruesome images that I'm sure are still burned into the jury's minds today. Picture...

[23:19] After picture for 90 days. [23:22] Minutes. Seeing those photos and connecting the dots that the prosecution had so carefully laid out, the jury only took three days to deliberate before coming back with a guilty verdict on all counts. And Tim Hennis was sentenced to death. [23:40] Tim's lawyers [23:42] couldn't even believe this. They truly believed that their client was innocent and they thought this was a horrible failure in the justice system. How could they find him guilty without a single piece of physical evidence? And it's not like there was no physical evidence. There was tons, but none of it matched their client. Whose pubic hair was found near the rape scene? Whose hair was found on Kara? And whose fingerprints were all over that house? They were sure someone else [24:12] crime. [24:12] Amen. [24:13] And just days after being booked into prison, [24:17] Tim Hennis got a chilling postcard that might explain who. Who? [24:24] The postcard he got read: [24:27] Dear Mr. Hennis, [24:29] I did the crime. [24:31] I murdered the Eastburns. Sorry you're doing the time. I'll be safely out of North Carolina when you read this. [24:39] Thanks. [24:40] Mr. X. What? Yeah, it was very strange. And at the end of the day, many people thought this was a hoax. And even if it wasn't, there was no way to find or to question Mr. X, whoever he was. Tim's lawyers had to start the appeal process and get him a new trial based on what they could prove, what they had in their hands. And what they thought they could prove was that that 90-minute

[25:10] you. [25:11] I mean, doesn't a jury have the right to see the kind of crime that they're dealing with? Yeah, this is where I go back and forth as well. [25:21] I think what the court is saying is like they definitely have a right to see some of the photos, but just playing them for 90 minutes might just get them so riled up that... It might be like gratuitous. Yeah, that they just want to convict anyone because they just want justice for something that's so bad that maybe it makes them like... [25:40] blind to the facts. I don't know, but [25:43] At the end of the day, a judge agreed with the defense. He thought the jury should have seen a couple photos, but showing them 90 minutes worth was just a tactic to get them so worked up that they would have convicted anyone sitting in the defendant's chair. [25:55] So Tim was granted a new trial. Now for round two, they moved the trial 90 miles away from Fayetteville. And this time they know the prosecution strategy. So they're prepared to attack it one thing at a time. [26:12] The first thing they go after is Patrick, their eyewitness. Now, he'd gotten into some trouble between trials, like nothing crazy big, but maybe some like public drunkenness, like a few things. And he was apparently accused of saying to one officer like, oh, you can't arrest me. You need to talk to your DA because I'm too valuable. So they go after his credibility. Now, the second thing that they go after is the other eyewitness, Mrs. Cook.

[26:42] they point out [26:43] That... [26:44] By the time they had found Mrs. Cook, Tim's face had been all over the news. So it's not like she was describing him from memory. She could have very well seen the news and... [26:56] pointed him out knowing who she was like describing. The other thing they point out, [27:02] is [27:03] The transaction that she had after him was three and a half minutes later, which doesn't sound like a lot. [27:12] But, [27:13] They did something really smart. They made the jury sit in silence for three and a half minutes to emphasize their point. [27:26] . [27:28] . [27:33] No, that was just 10 seconds of silence. Like how long did that feel? [27:39] Like an eternity. Exactly. Like, so three and a half minutes, you can easily imagine how someone could walk away, get in their car, leave, and someone else come up without actually seeing them. [27:51] The third point in the new trial that they refute is the members only jacket. Now, if you remember, the dry cleaner says, you know, he brings it in the next day to be dry cleaned. This is super fishy. Clearly we're showing that he was trying to get rid of some evidence. Well, what they learn when they actually do some investigating into this is that when they talk to experts, dry cleaners are saying that you have to actually use a special chemical to remove blood. And when they talk to

[28:21] cleaning. So they do like a side-by-side comparison test. So [28:26] As a test, they put blood on a jacket, then have it dry cleaned with this special cleaning and do a luminol test. And even with the special cleaning, the luminol test lights up and shows blood. When they test his jacket, actually in evidence, and they test it with luminol, there's no blood that shows up. So they're kind of showing the jury like, yeah, he got it cleaned, but... [28:50] But why? He's hiding anything. Right, yeah. Now, the fourth thing that they look at is the burn barrel. This was weird. Everyone said he'd never burned things before, but the charred remains were collected as evidence, and nothing in the charred remains could be linked to the Eastburns. Now, I don't know how legit this is, but again, it's still not adding up, and I think it's just constantly adding more reasonable doubt to the case. Right. [29:13] So they've countered all of the main points for the prosecution. Then they start introducing their own questions, things that they think should be giving the jury more reasonable doubt. There were footprints outside the house that were three sizes smaller than Tim's. Why does none of the hair match? We had head hairs, we had pubic hair, none of it matches Tim's. And why do none of the fingerprints match? [29:38] matched him. [29:39] Oh, and by the way, to undercut Patrick even further, they have a full-on Perry Mason moment in the courtroom. They call a witness. [29:49] who looks a heck of a lot like Tim. He's tall, blonde, has a mustache, and turns out when they talked to him, this kid was a kid who lived just a couple of blocks down from the Eastburns, and he used to walk the streets late at night when he couldn't sleep.

[30:08] And he would walk the streets. [30:10] wearing a beanie cap and a members-only jacket. No. Oh, it gets crazier. So apparently, the police had found him in their initial investigation, but... [30:22] When they realized that he looked so much like him, and this could be very confusing, they took his hat and his jacket, like put it in a police officer's trunk to hide it from the defense. And they didn't give the kid back his jacket until Tim was on. No. Yeah, until he was on death row. Oh my gosh. So the jury barely deliberates. They come back with a not guilty verdict on all counts. Now Tim's little girl is now a toddler. [30:52] And I'll see you next time. [31:08] But no one on the prosecution side could celebrate. The Eastburns, the police, the prosecution were all sure that they just watched a killer walk out of court. And. [31:20] After his release, [31:21] Tim went back into the army. It was the only life he'd known outside of a prison cell. And he went on to have a successful military career. And he and his wife, who had stood by him through all of the trials, went on to even have another child. Tim had an almost spotless record after the Eastburn case. He was a family man, an average Joe who'd become the poster boy for wrongful convictions.

[31:51] No one reinvestigated because the police were sure their chance of getting their suspect had been blown. After all, in our legal system here in the US, we have a thing called double jeopardy. Once you're found innocent by a jury of your peers, you cannot be retried for the same crime. [32:08] Thank you. [32:09] But somehow... [32:10] this case ends up coming up again. [32:13] And they're like, you know what? It's 2005. We have DNA now. And those vaginal swabs were never tested. Right? [32:22] So let's give that a go. [32:24] And wouldn't you know it? [32:26] they got a hit. [32:28] When the results came back, [32:31] The investigator called Gary Eastburn, and he asked him, [32:36] Are you sitting down? [32:38] because you are not going to believe this. [32:43] Cape Fear is a new series now streaming on Apple TV. This 10-episode psychological thriller is executive produced by Martin Scorsese and stars Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, Academy Award nominee Amy Adams, and Emmy nominee Patrick Wilson. When convicted murderer Max Cady is released from prison, he begins infiltrating the family of the married attorneys who helped put him behind bars. Watch Cape Fear streaming now on Apple TV. [33:12] You guys, I feel like we all have that one friend with that niche expertise. Like they have the best outfits, the most unique decor, amazing vintage jewelry or whatever. Well, imagine if you could shop right from their home or closet. That is what it's like on Whatnot. Now, if you've never been on this app, it is great. It's this live shopping experience where you can bid on the best stuff. I was just eyeing these like three container porcelain kitchen set thing. I think you put like flour and sugar in it. I don't know. I was gonna have three different cookie jars basically, but I'm redecorating and I'm really

[33:42] flair to my new space. So I have been deep into the antiques and decor side of whatnot. But truly, there is a category for everything. I mean, with over 10,000 fashion, beauty, and bag sellers on whatnot, there is always something for every buyer to discover live right now. And the best part is the deals are unbeatable. You almost never pay full price. It is name brands, but without the retail prices. Download the whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. Just search [34:12] Start scoring amazing deals. [34:15] The semen found inside Katie Eastburn was found to be a match to Tim Hennis. What? It was 1.2 quadrillion times more likely to belong to Tim than any other man in North Carolina. Oh my God. Everyone was blown away. How could we have gotten it so wrong the second time? [34:45] who committed such a heinous crime go on to live such a normal life? And what the heck are we supposed to do now? Because even with this physical evidence... [34:54] he can't be tried again. Everyone was looking for a way to explain these results away. And some doubt did surround them for a while because a few years later, it was found that the lab in North Carolina was either withholding or distorting evidence to help the prosecution secure convictions, which is honestly one of the most terrifying things I think I've ever heard in my entire life. Like, oh yeah, definitely. Like it could happen to anyone.

[35:24] being like the end-all be-all ultimate truth. And it's a good reminder that it's a hard science, but it's a hard science that's conducted by very real and sometimes flawed humans. We have to be extra cautious and sometimes extra critical of it. Now, when they did this investigation and all of this came out, there were at least 10 cases where bad evidence was used or distorted to secure death [35:54] had actually already been put to death by the time this scandal had erupted. [36:00] This put a huge dark cloud over the results in the Eastburn case, but it's worth noting that the DNA wasn't done by these same people. It wasn't done by this actual lab. The lab came under scrutiny for all this DNA, but the lab for the Eastburn case only had actually tested the like hair and the blood. They weren't the ones that tested the DNA, but they, [36:25] Because they had any kind of connection to the case, it made everyone wonder, like, well, is everything kind of tainted now? Right, like one rotten apple spoils a barrel. Exactly. So it was enough of a question mark that they took a second swab that they still had in evidence and had that tested by another lab. This lab found... [36:46] That again, it matched Tim with a 12 billion to one chance that it could have been someone else. So what now? He just gets away with it? Well, according to our civil laws, he's supposed to.

[37:00] But Tim Hennis was a military man, and they have their own rules. Oh my God. Even though he was retired at the time, the military called him back to active duty. And then as soon as he was active, they told him he was going to be tried for the murders in military court. I'm sorry. My head is spinning at this point. So this is trial number three? Yeah. Yeah. [37:26] and [37:27] in special military court, but [37:31] They have his DNA inside a victim, right? Isn't this the time to take a plea? I mean, maybe, but they ended up going for like the full trial. And Tim's defense strategy that he has this next time, which again is completely different than the times before, ends up backfiring hard. Their story now is that Tim had consensual sex with Katie [38:01] Now, the lawyer made some insinuation that... [38:05] Basically, oh, this happens all the time with wives of active military men who are away. And mind you, he's saying this to a jury full of active military men. Active military men. Yeah. Who are like, yeah, who are like, do not talk about our wives like that. And they're having none of it. Plus, this had never come up before. Tim's assertion was always that he never had sex with Katie.

[38:35] the dog and of course this you know people ask him about the contradiction and he said that he didn't say something sooner because he didn't want to hurt Gary Eastburn even more I'm sorry I'm calling BS on that because he should have said something he was so adamant in the beginning that they could test all of the evidence and nothing would come back to him you would think that the [38:57] That would have been a perfect time to let people know that, hey... [39:01] you had sex with one of the victims. Yeah, I mean, I agree, but back then... [39:07] Like he. [39:08] Didn't know. Maybe the general public didn't know that you could get DNA from sperm. And I bet he was just confident that he didn't leave anything else at the scene. But it does always stay in the back of my brain. Like, who did that pubic hair pick? [39:22] belonged to and apparently there was a spot of blood on a towel that they got dna from but it didn't match tim or anyone in the family and apparently there was also dna under katie's nails and one of the girls nails that wasn't tim's or it was at least came back inconclusive so where did that stuff come from [39:44] I mean, can't they just test all that to find a match and see if there is an explanation for it? Not in military court. Apparently, you have to have a judge approve all testing. And when the defense asked to get those items tested, they were denied. So... [40:02] Tim is once again sentenced to death by the military court, and he is waiting his sentence in prison. And apparently in military court, you can't actually execute a prisoner without presidential approval. And that hasn't happened since like the early 60s. So he might just end up spending life in prison.

[40:20] I don't know what to think. [40:22] I... [40:22] really believe in the DNA. I think he did it, but I just hate that there are so many questions left out there and it's so hard for me to understand how a person could do something like that and then just [40:35] live this normal life for 20 years. Yeah. I mean, it's something that as I was researching this case, like I kept coming back to, and more than anything, like there are all these pictures and videos of Tim with his young daughter, who was just a couple of months at the time of the murders. And what I keep looking at is like, [40:53] pictures of them together as she's getting older. When he got out of prison for the first time and exonerated, she was like two and a half. She was almost the age of one of the girls that were murdered. And I'm like, how do you... [41:04] How do you like hug your- - How do you look at her? - Yeah, how do you look at her? How do you hug your daughter? [41:08] When... [41:09] If, and like you did that to someone else, like another little girl. And then when she turns five, how do you not think of the other little girl that was murdered? And, [41:19] I think the important thing to remember is that [41:23] These people don't think like us. You know, I was on actually another podcast with Billy Jensen and Paul Holtz this very week. And Paul Holtz told me something. [41:33] that I think really applies here and applies to many of our cases. And he says, you can't judge these people's actions by like this own framework you live your life by. By our own metrics. Yeah, he's like, because they don't feel remorse the way you do. And, you know, they don't have to commit the crime again. Maybe they did commit it and they do feel remorse and that's why they never do it. But it's not enough remorse to like come forward. They want to keep living their life. Your own rules don't apply to them.

[42:03] So for us to be like, there's no way he could hug his daughter and be a murderer. They're absolutely [42:09] could be away and there absolutely was. He was found guilty by the military court. His DNA was found inside the victim and he is now waiting on death row. Now the thing that I wanted to wait till the end, I didn't want to bring up throughout because I think it is a big red herring and I didn't want to like taint this case. I wanted everyone to hear the facts as they are, but there was actually a case of, [42:39] maybe like 15 years before this, in the same town of another wife and her two young girls who were brutally murdered inside their home. It was the case of the McDonald's. And their husband or her husband and their father ended up being accused of it. He says it was a stranger attack. And it's so weird because there's this connection, like the Eastburn's babysitter was actually really obsessed with that case. And she saw a connection. [43:09] when this happened 15 years later, people saw a connection. And then when Mr. X was sending the postcard, everyone's wondering like, oh, is there really this person who's like perpetrating these horrific crimes against families 15 years apart? [43:22] End. [43:23] everything that I've read, everything that I've seen has said absolutely not. Like in the McDonald case, Jeffrey McDonald was found guilty. In the Eastburn case, Tim Hennis was found guilty. But it's something that I want to mention because if anyone were to Google this case, it's going to come up. Right. But I wanted to leave it for the end because I think it kind of just like tarnishes the rest of the case and gets you thinking about something crazy that that isn't quite there. It's just a truly wild coincidence. Yeah. And again, like I think we're

[43:53] trying to find answers [43:55] Like we said, in the framework of our own lives and how we think. To make it make sense to us. And it will never... [44:02] makes sense to us. And it's terrifying that these people are out there who can do this. And I think that's why we want it to make sense because we don't want to think that some guy walking down the street who's a perfect dad and like a perfect military man with a perfect job for 20 years could also... [44:18] slaughter in an entire family and then just never think twice about it. [44:23] If you want to see pictures from this episode, like the sketch of Tim Hennis and compare it to his mugshot, you can find that on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. You can also follow us on social media at CrimeJunkiePod on Twitter and at CrimeJunkiePodcast on Instagram. [44:53] to cover. Make sure to use the form on our website, but make sure to go to our Patreon fan club tab first to check out all the episodes we've done there. And then if we still haven't done your case, submit the form to us. We will be back next week with a brand new episode. [45:15] you [45:15] you [45:17] you [45:18] *music* [45:20] you [45:22] *music*

[45:25] Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [45:33] Okay, Crime Junkies, you know, I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [45:51] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [45:55] I think you'll love it too! [45:56] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.