- 10 hours ago
A Plan to Kill Season 2 Episode 5
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00:16A pregnant woman found in her apartment a single gunshot wound through her eye that
00:22instantaneously killed her and the potato was used to silence the gun she
00:29was sound asleep and just ambushed in her own bed there was no DNA evidence no force entry this
00:39was not a burglary type homicide it looked like one of those old mafia movies what all is going on
00:46here there is a video surveillance of someone turning onto the victim street the night of the
00:51murder he tears out a single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it there's
01:02no question that this was a elaborate premeditated plan to end her life
01:49we were dispatched to west pine avenue at the same time ems responded declared the victim deceased at
02:00the scene we were met by the person who made a 911 call cornelius green and he said he was
02:07the
02:07boyfriend of the victim that was inside her name was jocelyn peters cornelius was extremely out of
02:14breath a little bit frantic he told us miss peters was seven months pregnant and he oftentimes stayed
02:21with her at her apartment it was a secure building with a key that cannot be duplicated for the front
02:29main entrance door as you enter the apartment building you'd go through a secure locked glass
02:36foyer entrance the victim's apartment was that first apartment on the left as you walk up to the second
02:45floor as you enter the apartment to the right as the bedroom her bedroom door was opened the victim was
02:52on her bed laying on her right side pillow tucked underneath her arms blankets no longer on her you
02:59could definitely tell that she was pregnant she had her arms folded in it like she was sound asleep and
03:06just ambushed in her own bed she had an obvious gunshot wound through her eye and blood that had came
03:14down the side of her face and pooled on the pillow next to her arm terribly tragic scene i do
03:21not believe
03:21this poor woman ever knew what hit her before it happened the whole thing was horrible this was an
03:31investigation of homicide as we looked around the bedroom we observed something that was extremely
03:37strange what appeared to be an organic material all around the victim on her bed large chunks of it on
03:44the wall and next to the bed this was unidentified and we immediately requested our evidence technicians to
03:51come in seize this material so we could send it off for for further analysis we identified underneath
03:58the dresser next to the victim's bed a spent shell casing for a 380 caliber handgun but there was no
04:07DNA evidence obtained during that time one of the first things that I noticed is that there wasn't clothes
04:16strewn about there wasn't TVs or anything knocked over there wasn't drawers tossed out like someone that
04:22went through an apartment looking for something there was no forced entry nothing taken this was not a
04:28burglary type homicide there was something else going on here we also noticed there was gifts that
04:35were laid out there was a shirt that indicated I love daddy and other items related to her baby it
04:46looked like this woman's whole life was surrounded around the child that she was about to have while our
04:53evidence technicians were conducting the interior scene investigation we responded outside of the
04:59apartment and spoke with mr. Green Cornelius Green was very upset and he told me that his girlfriend
05:08Jocelyn Peters was 30 years old and she was getting ready to have a shower for her child he immediately
05:15said you got to find out who killed the mother of my child and my unborn child Cornelius said that
05:21Miss Peters was currently employed as a third grade school teacher at manna elementary school in the
05:27city of st. Louis and he said he was a principal at car lane school but he had prior worked
05:33at manna
05:34elementary and that's how they began the relationship and he also stated that he was out of town visiting
05:40some friends in Chicago and he got off the Amtrak train at 2 59 p.m. that day we continued
05:47our
05:47conversation I asked how many keys there were for the apartment he said he had one and the victim had
05:53one these are heavy-duty doors that if you had to break in you would have had to make a
05:59lot of noise
05:59you would have had to done damage none of that was visible so Cornelius Green was taken down to
06:07police headquarters for more interviewing my phone just started ringing and ringing and ringing and
06:16I looked up it was Cornelius he was like it's been an accident it's been blood it's blood just I
06:23said I
06:24got to go now it felt like I was driving only two miles an hour and I got to her
06:30apartment there was
06:32police and I walked to her door and the cop just looked at me and she was like she's dead
06:42and I was
06:43like what about the baby what about the baby and she just kind of like dropped her head down and
06:50she
06:51was like the baby did too I just couldn't believe it she wasn't the young lady that'd be out ripping
06:58running the street making enemies stuff like that she just wasn't that person and I told the police
07:06we just took a family cruise for her 30th birthday with Cornelius I believe they paid for the cruise
07:13together he was a good guy it was a good relationship she was really happy and ecstatic because this would
07:20have been her first child I just felt like if I could have traded my life for hers I would
07:28have
07:28gladly did it we have a young pregnant school teacher has no enemies no criminal history and she
07:41was shot in her sleep so we went back inside of the apartment we're gonna be meticulous take our time
07:51and go through and get every obstructive fact that we can obtain from the scene as we looked around the
07:59apartment again the kitchen was in order on the refrigerator the victim had a menu for the whole
08:07week written on a whiteboard contained everything she wanted to feed herself we observed on the kitchen
08:14dining room table a 10-pound bag of russet baking potatoes the bag was opened but the menu on her
08:22refrigerator none of those recipes indicated they used potatoes the substance that was all over the
08:29victim and the victim's bed and the walls the evidence technician unit was able to find a piece
08:34big enough that indicated it may possibly be a potato there's old mafia movies where they use potatoes as
08:43silencers if it was a silencer trick it's not like you're gonna go in and break into a house and
08:50then
08:50look around for potato decided to kill somebody sleeping somebody knew potato was gonna be there
08:57that they were gonna obviously use this was a clearly and obviously a premeditated and planned murder
09:08there was the package with the money to kill jocelyn peters and you could clearly see a 10-pound bag
09:15of
09:15russet potatoes sitting on there she is literally purchasing the tools that are gonna be used in her
09:21own murder it becomes very apparent how much thought process one putting into this before it happened she
09:28she never saw this coming
09:44on march 24th 2016 when i found out that jocelyn peters was found shot to death what struck me immediately
09:52was the fact that she was pregnant and a potato was used to silence the gun so i went to
10:00the area
10:01where the crime scene was and people were talking about how nice and sweet she was i just didn't
10:10understand please please tell me this isn't true is it she was such a nurturing and loving teacher her
10:16passion her liveliness she was very very skilled and she had just this fire about her we knew she
10:23would be an amazing mom she was really excited about having the baby because this would have been her
10:32first child micha lee was the name for her baby that she was carrying and from my interviews with her
10:39family friends co-workers it was fairly obvious how excited jocelyn was to be a new mother
10:51upon speaking with the medical examiner at the scene it was determined that miss peters died between
10:572 59 and 3 48 a.m from a single gunshot wound through her eye from a 380 caliber handgun
11:03that would
11:04have instantaneously killed her and caused the death of her unborn child i immediately thought how did
11:12this happen why did this happen mr green had told sergeant mcglynn that he was the only one to have
11:17access and keys to the apartment and there was no sign of force entry so cornyus green was obviously a
11:25person of interest at this point so we conveyed mr green down to the homicide office so we could interview
11:35him when murders happen the overwhelming majority of them are at the hands of someone that we know
11:42the family member spouse brother sister something like that during that initial interview we want
11:50to see his body language how he speaks does he react as most people normally do in a situation like
11:56that
11:57hey john it's cornelius hey if i can ask you one thing i have you sit right there what's your
12:04last
12:04name we're gonna scream hey i just want to express my condolences okay we're gonna do everything we can
12:10help get you through this situation okay cornelius green when he's being questioned by the detectives
12:19he seems to be upset about losing this child losing this woman that he has loved
12:24but he doesn't engage in a heck of a lot of eye contact it seems that he is trying hard
12:30to manage the way other people see him nobody in that apartment complex that jocelyn was having
12:36a problem with or anybody there that was she never said hey there's you know crazy guy downstairs during
12:43that same time we want to get a timeline of when did you get into town how did you get
12:49here when did you
12:50come home from chicago as he's on the train coming back to st louis cornelius starts calling jocelyn
13:03repeatedly not getting answers he calls her mother and says i'm concerned she's not answering my calls
13:11when you talk to her mom what did her mother say she's going to voicemail but everything should be
13:17fine so i just kept calling till i got to the station and i just went over there cornelius informed
13:22me
13:23that he was picked up by his friend in cornelius's car he dropped his friend off came over to the
13:33apartment and found the victim in our process of our investigation we're going to go through take
13:40some elimination fingerprints i just think could you stay there sure so while we were interviewing
13:48him i had the investigators call the train station we got their surveillance footage and we could see
13:53cornelius coming off the amtrak train into the terminal cornelius green was out of town in chicago
14:00at the time of the murder so he obviously was not to trigger man but the odd thing about that
14:08was
14:09he was looking up at the cameras to make sure that you could see a good clear view of him
14:14getting off
14:14that train he made a point to be seen that was something that stuck in our head so we had
14:20to keep
14:20digging we wanted to get a little background on his ongoing relationship with jocelyn peters
14:27cordialius how long have you known jocelyn we started dating in 2011. he had stated that they
14:34had been looking at houses and had just two weeks prior to her death went on a cruise together with
14:40several members of her family but then he said something that was extremely strange has everything
14:56what's next to me mr green explained to us that he was currently separated from his wife obtaining a
15:05divorce and it was due to his ongoing relationship with miss peters at that point i wanted to search
15:13cornelius's car and i was going to search the victim's car as well because vehicles are places
15:19that sometimes evidence ends up it's an extension of the crime scene would you like to give us consent
15:25to look in your car so we just rule out that there's anything in there i just don't understand
15:28why by looking in your car and not seeing anything that jumps out at us we would be saying
15:33okay cornelius isn't involved in this i'm not okay mr green became extremely agitated felt like
15:41it was an accusatory question that we would ask him i feel like when you do that i'm actually
15:45i'm treating like a criminal you want us to rule you out right how am i being moved in sir
15:50i really
15:51haven't been here he became irate towards us and refused consent for any officers to look inside
15:58of his vehicle at that current time and you're like this guy is obviously involved in something
16:05and then during the course of our interview mr green requested to contact his daughter
16:12and we monitored this as it was happening live
16:18he had the volume up so loud that you could hear the other person on the other line talking
16:33his vehicle had still remained at the scene and he was reaching out to his wife stephanie
16:39he wanted her to meet with someone named philip and give him the keys so philip can go pick up
16:45his
16:46vehicle which makes zero sense when his girlfriend and his child have just been murdered it makes you
16:52wonder who is philip and why is cornelius so concerned about his wife meeting with this man and what all
16:59is
16:59going on here at one point during the interview with cornelius green he makes a phone call to his wife
17:19can you meet up with philip please hey my car cornelius had requested his wife stephanie to get his spare
17:27key and take it to a friend of his named philip after speaking to his wife he reached out to
17:34philip
17:36hey protection staff's number could you help her and get my key in my car i need that to happen
17:43like
17:43right now green arranges for stephanie and philip to meet at this gas station by forest park and highway
17:5140. and then cornelius wants him to go pick up his vehicle at the crime scene it was kind of
17:59shocking
17:59to see him do that i wanted to know what was on the inside of that car that cornelius was
18:05trying to
18:06hide cornelius wasn't a suspect but his extreme concern over his vehicle gave us a pause and concern
18:14to investigate further but we were not able to get a search warrant because there was not enough
18:20tangible evidence at that point so we went back in the interview room and we asked who he was talking
18:27to he admitted that he called his wife stephanie and a friend of his named philip cutler we wanted to
18:36know why he's the one that cornelius reached out to how long have you known philip cutler 15 20 years
18:43does he live in town or is he living out of town yeah when did he come into town monday
18:50monday
18:52from so far obviously we knew that on the 22nd cornelius green took the amtrak train to chicago
18:59we wanted to know who gave him a ride to the amtrak station how did you get today train station
19:08and uh what did you do with your car we knew he did not want us to search that vehicle
19:17which
19:17really didn't make sense we wanted to know what would philip cutler do with the car while
19:24cornelius was gone was he near jocelyn peter's apartment during the time when the murder occurred
19:30occurred so now he's the person that we got to interview we had investigators respond to that gas
19:36station they were able to make contact with stephanie green and philip cutler and they're
19:41both brought down to the homicide division where we're able to interview him that evening
19:46we obviously had to look pretty hard at cornelius's wife because he indicated there
19:51was a divorce that was going to take place stephanie green was shook up and in a fragile emotional
19:57state while we're speaking to her she had no idea that cornelius was involved in this relationship
20:02with our victim jocelyn peters and she was further unaware that cornelius and jocelyn were expecting
20:10a newborn child it was kind of a bombshell that was dropped on her that was immediately a red flag
20:18for detectives cornelius's wife said there was no talk of divorce there was no talk of we're having
20:25problems and she had an alibi when the murder occurred stephanie was cooperative there was nothing
20:32that indicated to us that she was being dishonest or deceitful so we have to rule stephanie out but
20:39mr green's lies regarding him obtaining a divorce from his wife made him look even more to us like a
20:46suspect during this investigation so the next step was to speak with philip cutler you're fully aware
20:54there was a homicide correct yes and who do you know the victim to be um my friend's girlfriend
21:03you ever met her he stated that he had not personally met her and denied ever being over at victim
21:13peters residence then we kind of went into a let's get a timeline of when did you get into town
21:20when did you plan this trip to come back to st louis a couple weeks when you came back to
21:25st louis
21:26came back to st louis on uh monday he stated he come here on the greyhound bus cornelius picked him
21:36up at
21:36the bus station on the 21st at approximately 10 30 in the evening you guys hang out here and cornelius
21:44hang out the next day or what he uh he had to leave town he went out of town to
21:51go on some trip
21:53to do something i forget he told me when we asked him you came down to visit your friend doesn't
22:00that
22:00seem you know that seems a little odd did you know he was going to be leaving
22:04kind of hem-hawed a little bit around the question and at this point we had conducted interviews with
22:10mr cutler mr green some of the things just didn't sit right with the investigation cornelius gave philip
22:18cutler possession of his vehicle while he was out of town and then he refused consent for any officers
22:25to look inside of his vehicle also green wasn't telling the truth about being separated from his wife
22:32so they were certainly persons of interest but there were no arrests at that time
22:39but we had investigators continued reviewing the evidence reviewing reports and video footage from
22:46the interviews with mr cutler mr green that's when we observed something that was extremely strange
22:53that occurred while mr cutler was alone in the interview room he's pacing back and forth and
22:59then much to our astonishment he thumbs through a notepad tears out a single sheet of paper and proceeds
23:08to chew it up and swallow it my immediate reaction was what in the heck there's no doubt in my
23:15mind that
23:15that piece of paper was a direct connection to him and the murder that just occurred
23:34during the interview you see philip cutler get a piece of paper with some writing on it and then
23:41goes to his mouth with it and it disappears it's very unusual what he does it was like he was
23:47trying
23:47to hide something possibly there's some indication of guilt there because of their behavior our
23:54investigation now is directed towards philip cutler and cornelius green as suspects but we need evidence
24:00so one of the things that we do is we'll look for potential surveillance equipment throughout the
24:06neighborhood the entrance to jocelyn street where the apartments were located at a building that
24:13has some security footage running 24 7 on the perimeter i was able to reach out and go over
24:20surveillance footage we know that cornelius green arrived over at the scene sometime around 3 20 the
24:27afternoon after the murder and he was driving his car so that gave us a starting point we backed up
24:33and
24:34went through probably 12 to 15 hours of video surveillance of that intersection as we're looking
24:40at it 2 59 a.m on the night of the murder we see a vehicle turn onto jocelyn peters
24:47street from boyle
24:48and we later observe it leave the street around 348 it was a white kia and they were able to
24:55zoom in
24:55and we got three or four positive letters off the license plate it was indeed cornelius green white kia optima
25:04we knew that cornelius green was out of town and he had left the keys to his vehicle with philip
25:10cutler
25:11and we knew that those keys also contained a key to enter into that apartment complex and enter into mrs
25:18peters apartment at this point it gave us a theory that philip cutler was the one that killed jocelyn peters
25:30i couldn't really process her untimely death but i had a funeral to plan principal nicole had called
25:41and she was like well you know what i'm gonna call that day off for the kids so they'll be
25:48able to attend
25:49jocelyn's funeral there were kids that were really struggling so we really wanted to find a way to
25:55celebrate her life when i got to the funeral it was people already just standing there lying around
26:05the corner just to see her jocelyn's favorite color is yellow so at the funeral when the kids
26:13walked past me all the kids would hand me one yellow rose it was really hard i was constantly praying
26:24cornelius did not attend her funeral it ran in the back of my mind while my daughter's
26:30dead he's not dead too that's what i wanted to know
26:36as we continued looking into cornelius green and philip cutler trying to get as much evidence
26:42and a foundation laid there was tips that would come in one of those was this woman who came into
26:49the homicide office and stated that she saw on the news that this incident occurred and then she said
26:55she was involved with cornelius for quite a while a couple years at least and recently learned he was
27:01juggling numerous romantic sexual relationships at the same time she said he was a womanizer and
27:07certainly it was another red flag for police at that point after interviewing her we'd received a call
27:14from cornelius green he said he had heard out on the street that we were speaking to this woman who
27:20he
27:20was involved in a relationship with and he was irritated to say the least he then went on and asked
27:27what
27:27he could do to help us so we offered him the opportunity to provide his cellular telephone
27:33and oddly enough he allowed us to download it after receiving the data information we were able to
27:40obtain his text messaging and some of his google searches and on march 20th 2016 four days before the
27:49murder and prior to philip cutler coming into town he had a telephonic conversation with philip cutler
27:56he then reached out to miss peters via text during that conversation miss peters states that she's
28:03going to go to the aldi's and go grocery shopping and cornelius states i will meet you there he seemed
28:10adamant that hey we'll go shopping together it just seemed you know rather odd she didn't seem like
28:16she was asking him to come with her to the grocery store we were able to obtain the video surveillance
28:22inside the aldi's and we observed jocelyn peters exiting the store with cornelius green directly
28:29behind her pushing the cart and you could clearly see a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes sitting on
28:35there same brand that was found at the crime scene on the kitchen table with one missing which i don't
28:41believe it was just happenstance or coincidence now there's no doubt in our minds that that conversation
28:47he had with philip cutler on march 20th prior to going grocery shopping with miss peters was him
28:54making sure that there's some potatoes bought it becomes very apparent how much thought process he
29:00was putting into this before it happened it was kind of shocking she never saw this coming she is
29:06literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder that's important because it did
29:12help us start to paint the picture and see what was happening just days prior to miss peters being
29:18murdered but it was circumstantial evidence and there was a tremendous amount of other obstacles to
29:26overcome first there was no murder weapon that was ever recovered and second cornelius green has a alibi
29:35so we needed to essentially prove he planned a way for mr cutler to come into town to kill jocelyn
29:42peters
29:43so next we obtained a search warrant and received the tracking history from philip cutler's telephone
29:49it showed philip cutler in the area of jocelyn peters apartment the night she was murdered
29:55and then it showed cutler traveling directly down to north riverfront park
30:02in the far north end of the city why this stood out to us is because north riverfront park borders
30:08the mississippi river cutler responded there after speaking with green and spent eight minutes there
30:14the morning after the murder we believe he discarded the murder weapon in the mississippi river
30:21the river was searched but unless you knew exactly where it was the chances of it still being there
30:27are slim so the murder weapon was never found it was a very difficult case to make that's why the
30:35detectives kept digging and digging and digging while we were looking for something that proved that they
30:41both worked together and planned the way to kill miss peters we were able to identify some of the most
30:47prevalent google searches on green's phone prior to the murder of miss peters one of the first patterns
30:53we observed was that there were google searches about how to mask the taste of an abortion pill
31:00this was early on in the pregnancy just a few weeks and he had started googling can i crush up
31:07pills
31:08to end a pregnancy it strongly suggested that corneus green was trying to kill the baby without jocelyn
31:15peters knowledge i believe the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying became an obstacle and if he could
31:22get rid of the pregnancy and he could continue to have jocelyn peters as a toy to play with along
31:28with
31:28the other five or six women and continue to live life in exactly the way that he wanted to as
31:33we
31:34continued looking into his google searches it seemed that this apparently was not working one of green's
31:40searches was still seeing a heartbeat after taking an abortion pill and all of these google searches
31:46happened several months prior to miss peters being murdered he obviously was searching for this method
31:53to get rid of the child and when that didn't work out it wasn't long after that cornelius decides to
32:13get rid of this pregnancy and when that didn't work he arrived at the conclusion
32:30that jocelyn peters was a liability that he needed to get rid of that starts to build the the motive
32:39and the means and the method of how this murder occurred we further investigated cornelius's cell
32:45phone data and on february 28th cornelius green and philip cutler have a conversation via text where
32:52green had said are you going to be coming into town cutler responds in the affirmative and asks when he
32:59says
32:59it's march 20th and cutler says okay don't forget to send the package when i read it i immediately thought
33:08there was something of value sent from green to mr cutler and i was able to reach out to the
33:16post office
33:17there's a record of a transaction where on march the 7th just days prior to the murder he sent a
33:24package
33:24to philip cutler in oklahoma which the police assume is the money to pay him to kill jocelyn peters
33:35this was obviously planning and premeditation on both green and color's part with relation to
33:42miss peters murder but at this point green had obtained an attorney so we could not bring him in to
33:49speak with him again it was extremely challenging to keep moving forward but then we'd received a call
34:00from the dance instructor of car lane school where cornelius green was the principal we had learned
34:07approximately 2700 had been stolen from car lane school's dance program a few weeks prior to the murder
34:15of miss peters she said on march 3rd she observed cornelius green in the area where the money had been
34:25taken and believed that he was no doubt involved when asked about why it wasn't reported she stated that
34:33she was extremely concerned with repercussions because he wielded a certain amount of authority
34:39over the school being the principal we believe that 2700 was the payment cornelius green sent to philip
34:46cutler to kill jocelyn peters as you progress through the investigation the amount of circumstantial
34:56evidence that was obtained it gave us the timeline the motive and then the method of how this murder
35:02occurred occurred there's no question that this was a elaborate premeditated plan to end jocelyn
35:10peters life and get rid of the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying
35:18in august of 2015 miss peters became pregnant then just a few weeks in the pregnancy cornelius green
35:26started searching ways to end a pregnancy cornelius spent months trying to poison or kill the baby
35:36when that didn't work on february 28th cornelius green arranges for philip cutler to be the trigger man
35:43on march the 3rd he stole money from car lane middle school on march 8th cornelius green sent
35:51phil cutler the money to murder jocelyn on march 14th through the 18th cornelius takes jocelyn and her
36:01family on a cruise for her birthday we believe he was trying to throw him off on march 20th cornelius
36:09green accompanied jocelyn peters to the grocery store where they purchased the russet potatoes and then he
36:16left him inside of the apartment for mr cutler on march 21st philip cutler travels from oklahoma to
36:24st louis missouri police believe the next day cornelius hands philip cutler his 38 caliber gun
36:31and the keys to jocelyn's apartment and then cornelius green takes an amtrak to chicago as an alibi for
36:39himself in the middle of the night philip cutler goes into jocelyn peters apartment used a potato as
36:48a silencer shoots her one time in the head and kills her and her unborn child
36:56next cornelius green takes an amtrak back to st louis
37:01as he's on the train cornelius starts calling jocelyn repeatedly was all just part of the ruse
37:09to make it look like he was concerned about her and then lastly cornelius green goes to her apartment
37:17and calls 911 to report the death of jocelyn peters
37:24the level of planning that went on for this case was shocking that's his girlfriend he's
37:31going to be the father of the child that she's carrying this was a cold-blooded horrific crime
37:36i don't know if cornelius green was a psychopath but he should be in the psychology textbooks because
37:42the cognitive sophistication that it would take to keep all of that separate you have to be adept at
37:48compartmentalizing your life at that point we knew that we needed to arrest both cutler and green
37:54for the murder of jocelyn peters and her unborn child
38:06at this point we have the abortion search history with green we have cutler's cell phone data that
38:15puts him at the location of the victim's residence we have the video surveillance of the vehicle
38:22that philip cutler was in possession of turning onto the victim street the night of the murder
38:26so we're able to secure indictments against mr cutler and mr green for conspiracy to commit murder
38:33and committing murder for hire cornelius is arrested first obviously we wanted to get an opportunity to
38:40try and talk to him but he doesn't make any statements at that time and then we traveled into
38:46muscovia oklahoma and placed philip cutler under arrest to be transported back to st louis missouri
38:54i did our post arrest interview he denied having anything to do with the murder of jocelyn peters
39:06when they called and uh told me they had arrested both of them i was pretty much in shock
39:14i thought cornelius was a good guy
39:18i was out to dinner with our school counselor and it came across the news that he was arrested
39:25and we just cried together that was a life-changing day because it had taken so many months and it
39:32finally had happened and it was just a rush of emotion i was glad that it finally happened but you
39:39know
39:41i just wanted my daughter my granddaughter back
39:49this is certainly a chilling crime a father and a principal at the school thought out a murder for
39:56hire plot but unfortunately the covid pandemic really threw a wrench into the criminal justice system
40:05eight years go by before we actually go to trial and prior to the trial date cornelius green accepted a
40:12plea to plead guilty cornelius agrees to life with no parole so the death penalty was off the table at
40:22this
40:22point but philip cutler takes it to a jury trial it was shocking that he wanted a trial given the
40:31mountain of
40:32evidence there was against him
40:35and how could you put this family through reliving all of this
40:43from the beginning of the trial there were members of jocelyn's family and friends and co-workers
40:51that were in the courtroom and there was really some outrage how dare you
40:57i had to be there i wanted to see him i wanted to look at him and i wanted him
41:04to know that i know what
41:06you did i was mad he shot my baby in the face right through the eye i just wanted to
41:15scream
41:17we look at this case and you see the troubling sophistication of it hey i'll go to the store and
41:24buy a sack of potatoes and the potatoes will be in the apartment then when you get there all you
41:31have to
41:31do is grab one and use it this was the most thought-out premeditated crime that i had covered
41:40and philip cutler any point in time along the way easily could have backed out and no one would have
41:47ever known and he just didn't philip cutler was found guilty and was sentenced to two consecutive
41:55life terms in prison without parole for both the murder of jocelyn peters and her unborn child micah lee
42:05there was just this huge sense of relief he is going to pay for what he did
42:11there's a special place in hell for him the hole in my heart is still there it's not a day
42:25that i don't
42:27think about jocelyn i can be driving down the street and see something that reminds me of her
42:34she had a smile and a laugh that was contagious she was all about helping kids in the community so
42:43everybody in the family we don't mind giving a helping hand to people that that need it that's how we
42:51keep
42:52her memory alive
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