- 3 hours ago
When a pregnant St. Louis elementary school teacher is found shot to death in her apartment, an unusual gun silencer, missing money, and the victim's own meal plan help unlock a shocking and devious murder plan.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
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 was sound asleep and just ambushed in
00:32her own bed. There was no DNA evidence, no forced entry. This was not a burglary type homicide. It looked
00:42like one of those old mafia movies. What all is going on here? There is a video surveillance of someone
00:49turning on to the victim's street the night of the murder.
00:55He tears out a single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it. There's no question
01:03that this was an elaborate, premeditated plan to end her life.
01:33The police department, let me help you.
01:35Sir, good evening, somebody. It's a 4236 West Pine. What's going on there?
01:40I just got home and I walked in. The door's open. I feel like my girlfriend's been shot in the
01:45head.
01:45Okay, sir. We're on the way.
01:50We were dispatched to West Pine Avenue. At the same time, EMS responded, declared the victim deceased.
02:00At the scene, we were met by the person who made a 911 call, Cornelius Green, and he said he
02:06was the boyfriend of the victim that was inside.
02:10Her name was Jocelyn Peters.
02:12Cornelius was extremely out of breath, a little bit frantic.
02:16He told us Ms. Peters was seven months pregnant, and he oftentimes stayed with her at her apartment.
02:23It was a secure building with a key that cannot be duplicated for the front main entrance door.
02:31As you enter the apartment building, you'd go through a secure, locked glass foyer entrance.
02:37The victim's apartment was that first apartment on the left as you walk up to the second floor.
02:45As you enter the apartment, to the right is the bedroom.
02:49Her bedroom door was opened.
02:50The victim was on her bed, laying on her right side, pillow tucked underneath her arms, blankets no longer on
02:58her.
02:58You could definitely tell that she was pregnant.
03:01She had her arms folded in it like she was sound asleep and just ambushed in her own bed.
03:09She had an obvious gunshot wound through her eye, and blood that had came down the side of her face
03:15and pooled on the pillow next to her arm.
03:18Terribly tragic scene.
03:20I do not believe this poor woman ever knew what hit her before it happened.
03:27The whole thing was horrible.
03:30This was an investigation of a homicide.
03:33As we looked around the bedroom, we observed something that was extremely strange.
03:38What appeared to be an organic material all around the victim, on her bed, large chunks of it on the
03:44wall and next to the bed.
03:46This was unidentified, and we immediately requested our evidence technicians to come in, seize this material, so we could send
03:54it off for further analysis.
03:56We identified underneath the dresser next to the victim's bed a spent shell casing for a .380 caliber handgun, but
04:06there was no DNA evidence obtained during that time.
04:11One of the first things that I noticed is that there wasn't clothes strewn about, there wasn't TVs or anything
04:18knocked over.
04:19There wasn't drawers tossed out like someone that went through an apartment looking for something.
04:24There was no forced entry, nothing taken.
04:27This was not a burglary-type homicide.
04:29There was something else going on here.
04:32We also noticed there was gifts that were laid out.
04:36There was a shirt that indicated, I love Daddy.
04:41And other items related to her baby.
04:45It looked like this woman's whole life was surrounded around the child that she was about to have.
04:52While our evidence technicians were conducting the interior scene investigation, we responded outside of the apartment and spoke with Mr.
05:02Green.
05:03Cornelius Green was very upset, and he told me that his girlfriend, Jocelyn Peters, was 30 years old, and she
05:12was getting ready to have a shower for her child.
05:14He immediately said, you've got to find out who killed the mother of my child and my unborn child.
05:20Cornelius said that Ms. Peters was currently employed as a third-grade school teacher at Manna Elementary School in the
05:27city of St. Louis.
05:28And he said he was a principal at Car Lane School, but he had prior worked at Manna Elementary, and
05:35that's how they began the relationship.
05:37And he also stated that he was out of town, visiting some friends in Chicago, and he got off the
05:43Amtrak train at 2.59 p.m. that day.
05:45We continued our conversation, and I asked how many keys there were for the apartment.
05:51He said he had one, and the victim had one.
05:54These are heavy-duty doors that if you had to break in, you would have had to make a lot
05:59of noise.
06:00You would have had to done damage.
06:02None of that was visible.
06:04So Cornelius Green was taken down to police headquarters for more interviewing.
06:13My phone just started ringing and ringing and ringing.
06:15And I looked up.
06:17It was Cornelius.
06:18He was like, it's been an accident.
06:21It's been blood.
06:22It's blood.
06:23So I said, I've got to go now.
06:25It felt like I was driving only two miles an hour.
06:27And I got to her apartment.
06:31There was police.
06:33And I walked to her door.
06:36And the cop just looked at me.
06:39And she was like, she's dead.
06:43And I was like, what about the baby?
06:46What about the baby?
06:48And she just kind of like dropped her head down.
06:50And she was like, the baby dead, too.
06:54I just couldn't believe it.
06:56She wasn't the young lady that would be out ripping, running the street, making enemies, stuff like that.
07:02She just wasn't that person.
07:04And I told the police, we just took a family cruise for her 30th birthday with Cornelius.
07:11I believe they paid for the cruise together.
07:14He was a good guy.
07:16It was a good relationship.
07:17She was really happy and ecstatic because this would have been her first child.
07:22I just felt like if I could have traded my life for hers, I would have gladly did it.
07:35We have a young pregnant school teacher.
07:38Has no enemies, no criminal history.
07:40And she was shot in her sleep.
07:45So we went back inside of the apartment.
07:48We're going to be meticulous, take our time, and go through and get every obstructive fact that we can obtain
07:56from the scene.
07:58As we looked around the apartment, again, the kitchen was in order.
08:02On the refrigerator, the victim had a menu for the whole week written on a whiteboard, contained everything she wanted
08:11to feed herself.
08:12We observed on the kitchen dining room table, a 10-pound bag of russet baking potatoes.
08:19The bag was opened.
08:20But the menu on her refrigerator, none of those recipes indicated the used potatoes.
08:27The substance that was all over the victim, in the victim's bed, and the walls, the evidence technician unit was
08:33able to find a piece big enough that indicated it may possibly be a potato.
08:39There's old mafia movies where they use potatoes as silencers.
08:44If it was a silencer trick, it's not like you're going to go in and break into a house and
08:50then look around for a potato.
08:52It decided to kill somebody sleeping.
08:54Somebody knew a potato was going to be there that they were going to obviously use.
08:59This was a clearly and obviously a premeditated and planned murder.
09:08There was a package with the money to kill Jocelyn Peters.
09:12And you could clearly see a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes sitting on there.
09:17She is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder.
09:22It becomes very apparent how much thought process went put into this before it happened.
09:27She never saw this coming.
09:39On March 24th, 2016, when I found out that Jocelyn Peters was found shot to death, what struck me immediately
09:48was the fact that she was pregnant.
09:51And a potato was used to silence the gun.
09:55So I went to the area where the crime scene was.
10:00And people were talking about how nice and sweet she was.
10:05I just didn't understand, please, please tell me this isn't true, is it?
10:09And she was such a nurturing and loving teacher.
10:12Her passion, her liveliness, she was very, very skilled, and she had just this fire about her.
10:18We knew she would be an amazing mom.
10:22She was really excited about having the baby, because this would have been her first child.
10:30Micah Lee was the name for her baby that she was carrying.
10:34And from my interviews with her, family, friends, co-workers, it was fairly obvious how excited Jocelyn was to be
10:42a new mother.
10:47Upon speaking with the medical examiner at the scene, it was determined that Ms. Peters died between 2.59 and
10:543.48 a.m.
10:55from a single gunshot wound through her eye, from a .380 caliber handgun that would have instantaneously killed her and
11:02caused the death of her unborn child.
11:06I immediately thought, how did this happen? Why did this happen?
11:31When murders happen, the overwhelming majority of them are at the hands of someone that we know, the family member.
11:39Spouse, brother, sister, something like that.
11:43During that initial interview, we want to see his body language, how he speaks.
11:48Does he react as most people normally do in a situation like that?
12:11Cornelius Green, when he's being questioned by the detectives, he seems to be upset about losing this child.
12:17Losing this woman that he has loved, but he doesn't engage in a heck of a lot of eye contact.
12:24It seems that he is trying hard to manage the way other people see him.
12:28Nobody in that apartment complex that Jocelyn was having a problem with, or anybody there that was, she never said,
12:36hey, there's, you know, a crazy guy downstairs.
12:39During that same time, we want us to get a timeline of, when did you get into town, how did
12:44you get here?
12:45When did you come home from Chicago?
12:54As he's on the train coming back to St. Louis, Cornelius starts calling Jocelyn repeatedly, not getting answers.
13:02He calls her mother and says, I'm concerned she's not answering my calls.
13:07When you talk to her mother, what did her mother say?
13:10She's going to voicemail, but everything should be fine.
13:13So I just kept calling until I got to the station, and I just went over there.
13:17Cornelius informed me that he was picked up by his friend in Cornelius' car.
13:25He dropped his friend off, came over to the apartment, and found the victim.
13:30In our process of our investigation, we're going to go through, take some elimination fingerprints, I just said, could you
13:38stay there?
13:39Sure.
13:40So all you need to do.
13:42While we were interviewing him, I had the investigators call the train station.
13:46We got their surveillance footage, and we could see Cornelius coming off the Amtrak train into the terminal.
13:54Cornelius Green was out of town in Chicago at the time of the murder.
13:58So he obviously was not the Trigger Man.
14:02But the odd thing about that was he was looking up at the cameras to make sure that you could
14:08see a good, clear view of him getting off that train.
14:11He made a point to be seen.
14:13That was something that stuck in our head, so we had to keep digging.
14:17We wanted to get a little background on his ongoing relationship with Jocelyn Peters.
14:23Cornelius, how long have you known Jocelyn?
14:29He had stated that they had been looking at houses and had just, two weeks prior to her death, went
14:34on a cruise together with several members of her family.
14:38But then he said something that was extremely strange.
14:42Has everything been okay?
14:43Yeah.
14:43I mean, we have a little tits.
14:46Yeah, we break up right now because I'm separated.
14:48Is she illegally married right now?
14:50Yes, sir.
14:51What's your wife's name?
14:52Stephanie Green.
14:54What do you kiss the hat?
14:55Mr. Green explained to us that he was currently separated from his wife, obtaining a divorce, and it was due
15:02to his ongoing relationship with Ms. Peters.
15:06At that point, I wanted to search Cornelius' car, and I was going to search the victim's car as well,
15:13because vehicles are places that sometimes evidence ends up.
15:17It's an extension of the crime scene.
15:19Would you like to give us consent to look in your car so we can just rule out that there's
15:22anything in there?
15:23I just don't understand why.
15:25By looking in your car and not seeing anything that jumps out at us, we would be saying, okay, Cornelius
15:30isn't involved in this.
15:33No, I'm not okay.
15:34Mr. Green became extremely agitated.
15:36Felt like it was an accusatory question that we would ask him.
15:40I feel like when you do that, I'm actually shooting like a criminal.
15:42You want us to rule you out, right?
15:44How am I being ruled in, sir?
15:46I really haven't been here.
15:48He became irate towards us and refused consent for any officers to look inside of his vehicle at that current
15:55time.
15:56And you're like, this guy is obviously involved in something.
16:01And then during the course of our interview, Mr. Green requested to contact his daughter, and we monitored this as
16:09it was happening live.
16:11Hello.
16:13Hey, Paul.
16:14Come on, me on the phone real quick.
16:14He had the volume up so loud that you could hear the other person on the other line talking.
16:21Can you want to meet up with Phillip, please?
16:25I ain't in my car.
16:29His vehicle had still remained at the scene, and he was reaching out to his wife, Stephanie.
16:35He wanted her to meet with someone named Phillip and give him the keys so Phillip can go pick up
16:41his vehicle.
16:42Which makes zero sense when his girlfriend and his child have just been murdered.
16:47It makes you wonder who is Phillip, and why is Cornelius so concerned about his wife meeting with this man,
16:54and what all is going on here?
17:05At one point during the interview with Cornelius Green, he makes a phone call to his wife.
17:12Can you meet up with Phillip, please?
17:14I ain't in my car.
17:17Cornelius had requested his wife, Stephanie, to get his spare key and take it to a friend of his named
17:23Phillip.
17:25After speaking to his wife, he reached out to Phillip.
17:29Hey, I'm texting Steph's number.
17:31Could you get up with her and get my key in my car?
17:35I need that to happen, like, right now.
17:39Green arranges for Stephanie and Phillip to meet at this gas station by Forest Park and Highway 40.
17:45And then Cornelius wants him to go pick up his vehicle at the crime scene.
17:50It was kind of shocking to see him do that.
17:53I wanted to know what was on the inside of that car that Cornelius was trying to hide.
17:59Cornelius wasn't a suspect, but his extreme concern over his vehicle gave us a pause and concern to investigate further.
18:09But we were not able to get a search warrant because there was not enough tangible evidence at that point.
18:15So we went back in the interview room and we asked who he was talking to.
18:20He admitted that he called his wife, Stephanie, and a friend of his named Phillip Cutler.
18:28We wanted to know why he's the one that Cornelius reached out to.
18:31How long have you known Phillip Cutler?
18:3515, 20 years.
18:36Does he live in town or is he living out of town?
18:38Yeah, out of town.
18:40When did he come into town?
18:42Monday.
18:43Monday?
18:45From?
18:46So long.
18:47Obviously, we knew that.
18:48On the 22nd, Cornelius Green took the Amtrak train to Chicago.
18:52We wanted to know who gave him a ride to the Amtrak station.
18:55How did you get today, the train station?
18:58That's my brother with the children.
19:00Phillip dropped you off on Tuesday.
19:02And what did you do with your car?
19:05Where was it?
19:07We knew he did not want us to search that vehicle, which really didn't make sense.
19:12We wanted to know what would Phillip Cutler do with the car while Cornelius was gone.
19:19Was he near Joshua and Peter's apartment during the time when the murder occurred?
19:24So now he's the person that we got interviewed.
19:27We had investigators respond to that gas station.
19:30They were able to make contact with Stephanie Green and Phillip Cutler.
19:33And they're both brought down to the Homicide Division, where we're able to interview him that evening.
19:39We obviously had to look pretty hard at Cornelius' wife because he indicated there was a divorce that was going
19:46to take place.
19:47Stephanie Green was shook up and in a fragile emotional state while we're speaking to her.
19:51She had no idea that Cornelius was involved in this relationship with our victim, Jocelyn Peters.
19:58And she was further unaware that Cornelius and Jocelyn were expecting a newborn child.
20:05It was kind of a bombshell that was dropped on her.
20:07That was immediately a red flag for detectives.
20:13Cornelius' wife said there was no talk of divorce.
20:16There was no talk of we're having problems.
20:19And she had an alibi when the murder occurred.
20:23Stephanie was cooperative.
20:24There was nothing that indicated to us that she was being dishonest or deceitful.
20:29So we have to rule Stephanie out.
20:31But Mr. Green's lies regarding him obtaining a divorce from his wife
20:36made him look even more to us like a suspect during this investigation.
20:42So the next step was to speak with Philip Cutler.
20:45You're fully aware there was a homicide, correct?
20:49Yes.
20:50And who do you know the victim to be?
20:53My friend's girlfriend.
20:56Have you ever met her?
20:58No.
20:58He stated that he had not personally met her
21:03and denied ever being over at Victim Peter's residence.
21:07Then we kind of went into a, let's get a timeline of when did you get into town?
21:13When did you plan this trip to come back to St. Louis?
21:16A couple weeks.
21:17When you came back to St. Louis when?
21:19Came back to St. Louis on Monday.
21:26He stated he'd come here on the Greyhound bus.
21:28Cornelius picked him up at the bus station on the 21st at approximately 10.30 in the evening.
21:35You guys hang out?
21:36You and Cornelius hang out?
21:37The next day or what?
21:39He, uh, he had to leave town.
21:43He went out of town to go on some trip to do something.
21:47I forget.
21:48He told me.
21:50When we asked him, you came down to visit your friend, doesn't that seem, you know, that seems a little
21:54odd?
21:55Did you know he was going to be leaving?
21:57Kind of hem-hawed a little bit around the question.
22:01And at this point, we had conducted interviews with Mr. Cutler, Mr. Green.
22:05Some of the things just didn't sit right with the investigation.
22:09Cornelius gave Philip Cutler possession of his vehicle while he was out of town.
22:14And then he refused consent for any officers to look inside of his vehicle.
22:20Also, Green wasn't telling the truth about being separated from his wife.
22:25So, they were certainly persons of interest.
22:27But there were no arrests at that time.
22:32But we had investigators continue reviewing the evidence, reviewing reports.
22:37And video footage from the interviews with Mr. Cutler, Mr. Green.
22:42That's when we observed something that was extremely strange that occurred while Mr. Cutler was alone in the interview room.
22:50He was pacing back and forth, and then, much to our astonishment, he thumbs through a notepad, tears out a
22:59single sheet of paper, and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it.
23:04My immediate reaction was, what in the heck?
23:07There's no doubt in my mind that that piece of paper was a direct connection to him and the murder
23:13that had just occurred.
23:24During the interview, you see Philip Cutler get a piece of paper with some writing on it, and then goes
23:31to his mouth with it, and it disappears.
23:33It's very unusual what he does.
23:36It was like he was trying to hide something, possibly.
23:39There's some indication of guilt there.
23:42Because of their behavior, our investigation now is directed towards Philip Cutler and Cornelius Green.
23:48As suspects, we need evidence.
23:51So, one of the things that we do is we'll look for potential surveillance equipment throughout the neighborhood.
23:57The entrance to Jocelyn Street, where the apartments were located, had a building that had some security footage running 24
24:06-7 on the perimeter.
24:07I was able to reach out and go over surveillance footage.
24:11We know that Cornelius Green arrived over at the scene sometime around 3.20, the afternoon after the murder.
24:19And he was driving his car, so that gave us a starting point.
24:23We backed up and went through probably 12 to 15 hours of video surveillance of that intersection.
24:29As we're looking at it, 2.59 a.m. on the night of the murder, we see a vehicle turn
24:36onto Jocelyn Peters Street from Boyle.
24:39And we later observe it leave the street around 3.48.
24:43It was a white Kia.
24:44And they were able to zoom in.
24:46And we got three or four positive letters off the license plate.
24:51It was indeed Cornelius Green, white Kia Optima.
24:54We knew that Cornelius Green was out of town.
24:56And he had left the keys to his vehicle with Philip Cutler.
25:01And we knew that those keys also contained a key to enter into that apartment complex and enter into Mrs.
25:08Peters' apartment.
25:09At this point, it gave us a theory that Philip Cutler was the one that killed Jocelyn Peters.
25:20I couldn't really process her untimely death.
25:26But I had a funeral to plan.
25:30Principal Nicole had called.
25:32And she was like, well, you know what?
25:33I'm going to call that day off for the kids so they'll be able to attend Jocelyn's funeral.
25:41There were kids that were really struggling.
25:43So we really wanted to find a way to celebrate her life.
25:48When I got to the funeral, it was people already just standing there lying around the corner just to see
25:56her.
25:57Jocelyn's favorite color is yellow.
26:01So at the funeral, when the kids walked past me, all the kids would hand me one yellow rose.
26:08It was really hard.
26:10I was constantly praying.
26:13Cornelius did not attend her funeral.
26:16It ran in the back of my mind why my daughter's dead and he's not dead, too.
26:22That's what I wanted to know.
26:26As we continued looking into Cornelius Green and Philip Cutler, trying to get as much evidence and a foundation laid,
26:34there was tips that would come in.
26:36One of those was this woman who came into the homicide office and stated that she saw on the news
26:42that this incident occurred.
26:43And then she said she was involved with Cornelius for quite a while, a couple years at least.
26:49And recently learned he was juggling numerous romantic sexual relationships at the same time.
26:55She said he was a womanizer and certainly it was another red flag for police.
27:00At that point, after interviewing her, we'd received a call from Cornelius Green.
27:05He said he had heard out on the street that we were speaking to this woman who he was involved
27:11in a relationship with.
27:12And he was irritated, to say the least.
27:15He then went on and asked what he could do to help us.
27:19So we offered him the opportunity to provide his cellular telephone.
27:23And oddly enough, he allowed us to download it.
27:28After receiving the data information, we were able to obtain his text messaging and some of his Google searches.
27:34And on March 20th, 2016, four days before the murder and prior to Philip Cutler coming into town, he had
27:43a telephonic conversation with Philip Cutler.
27:46He then reached out to Miss Peters via text.
27:50During that conversation, Miss Peters states that she's going to go to the Aldi's and go grocery shopping.
27:56And Cornelius states, I will meet you there.
27:59He seemed adamant that, hey, we'll go shopping together.
28:03It just seemed, you know, rather odd.
28:05She didn't seem like she was asking him to come with her to the grocery store.
28:09We were able to obtain the video surveillance inside the Aldi's.
28:13And we observed Jocelyn Peters exiting the store with Cornelius Green directly behind her, pushing the cart.
28:21And you could clearly see a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes sitting on there.
28:26Same brand that was found at the crime scene on the kitchen table with one missing.
28:30But I don't believe it was just happenstance or coincidence.
28:34Now, there's no doubt in our minds that that conversation he had with Philip Cutler on March 20th, prior to
28:40going grocery shopping with Miss Peters, was him making sure that there's some potatoes bought.
28:46It becomes very apparent how much thought process he was putting into this before it happened.
28:52It was kind of shocking.
28:54She never saw this coming.
28:56She is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder.
29:00That's important because it did help us start to paint the picture and see what was happening just days prior
29:07to Miss Peters being murdered.
29:09But it was circumstantial evidence.
29:12And there was a tremendous amount of other obstacles to overcome.
29:17First, there was no murder weapon that was ever recovered.
29:22And second, Cornelius Green has an alibi.
29:25So, we needed to essentially prove he planned a way for Mr. Cutler to come into town to kill Jocelyn
29:32Peters.
29:33So, next, we obtained a search warrant and received the tracking history from Philip Cutler's telephone.
29:39It showed Philip Cutler in the area of Jocelyn Peters' apartment the night she was murdered.
29:45And then it showed Cutler traveling directly down to North Riverfront Park in the far north end of the city.
29:54Why this stood out to us is because North Riverfront Park borders the Mississippi River.
30:00Cutler responded there after speaking with Green and spent eight minutes there the morning after the murder.
30:06We believe he discarded the murder weapon in the Mississippi River.
30:11The river was searched, but unless you knew exactly where it was, the chances of it still being there are
30:18slim.
30:18So, the murder weapon was never found.
30:21It was a very difficult case to make.
30:24That's why the detectives kept digging and digging and digging.
30:28While we were looking for something that proved that they both worked together and planned the way to kill Miss
30:34Peters,
30:34we were able to identify some of the most prevalent Google searches on Green's phone prior to the murder of
30:41Miss Peters.
30:42One of the first patterns we observed was that there were Google searches about how to mask the taste of
30:49an abortion pill.
30:50This was early on in the pregnancy, just a few weeks, and he had started Googling,
30:56can I crush up pills to end a pregnancy?
31:00It strongly suggested that Cornelius Green was trying to kill the baby without Jocelyn Peters' knowledge.
31:07I believe the baby that Jocelyn Peters was carrying became an obstacle.
31:12And if he could get rid of the pregnancy, then he could continue to have Jocelyn Peters as a toy
31:16to play with,
31:18along with the other five or six women, and continue to live life in exactly the way that he wanted
31:23to.
31:23As we continued looking into his Google searches, it seemed that this apparently was not working.
31:29One of Green's searches was still seeing a heartbeat after taking an abortion pill.
31:34And all of these Google searches happened several months prior to Miss Peters being murdered.
31:39He obviously was searching for this method to get rid of the child, and when that didn't work out.
31:47It wasn't long after that, Cornelius decides to segue into the murder business.
32:02We identified Cornelius Green researching abortion pills, researching ways to induce an abortion.
32:10Cornelius made some fairly sinister efforts to get rid of this pregnancy, and when that didn't work,
32:18he arrived at the conclusion that Jocelyn Peters was a liability that he needed to get rid of.
32:25That starts to build the motive and the means and the method of how this murder occurred.
32:31We further investigated Cornelius' cell phone data, and on February 28th, Cornelius Green and Philip Cutler
32:39have a conversation via text where Green had said,
32:42Are you going to be coming into town?
32:45Cutler responds in the affirmative and asks when.
32:47He says, March 20th.
32:50And Cutler says, Okay, don't forget to send the package.
32:55When I read it, I immediately thought there was something of value sent from Green to Mr. Cutler,
33:03and I was able to reach out to the post office.
33:06There's a record of a transaction where on March the 7th, just days prior to the murder,
33:12he sent a package to Philip Cutler in Oklahoma.
33:18Which we police assume is the money to pay him to kill Jocelyn Peters.
33:23This was obviously planning and premeditation on both Green and Cutler's part with relation to Miss Peter's murder.
33:32But at this point, Green had obtained an attorney, so we could not bring him in and speak with him
33:38again.
33:43It was extremely challenging to keep moving forward.
33:47But then we'd received a call from the dance instructor of Car Lane School, where Cornelius Green was the principal.
33:55We had learned approximately $2,700 had been stolen from Car Lane School's dance program a few weeks prior to
34:03the murder of Miss Peters.
34:07She said on March 3rd, she observed Cornelius Green in the area where the money had been taken and believed
34:15that he was no doubt involved.
34:18When asked about why it wasn't reported, she stated that she was extremely concerned with repercussions because he wielded a
34:27certain amount of authority over the school being the principal.
34:30We believe that $2,700 was the payment, Cornelius Green, sent to Philip Cutler to kill Jocelyn Peters.
34:40As you progress through the investigation, the amount of circumstantial evidence that was obtained, it gave us the timeline, the
34:49motive and the method of how this murder occurred.
34:53There's no question that this was an elaborate premeditated plan to end Jocelyn Peters' life and get rid of the
35:00baby that Jocelyn Peters was carrying.
35:07In August of 2015, Miss Peters became pregnant.
35:12Then, just a few weeks in the pregnancy, Cornelius Green started searching ways to end a pregnancy.
35:21Cornelius spent months trying to poison or kill the baby.
35:25When that didn't work, on February 28th, Cornelius Green arranges for Philip Cutler to be the trigger man.
35:32On March the 3rd, he stole money from Carl Lane Middle School.
35:37On March 8th, Cornelius Green sent Philip Cutler the money to murder Jocelyn.
35:43On March 14th through the 18th, Cornelius takes Jocelyn and her family on a cruise for her birthday.
35:52We believe he was trying to throw him off.
35:55On March 20th, Cornelius Green accompanied Jocelyn Peters to the grocery store where they purchased the russet potatoes.
36:03And then he left him inside of the apartment for Mr. Cutler.
36:08On March 21st, Philip Cutler travels from Oklahoma to St. Louis, Missouri.
36:14Police believe the next day, Cornelius hands Philip Cutler his .38 caliber gun and the keys to Jocelyn's apartment.
36:22And then Cornelius Green takes an Amtrak to Chicago as an alibi for himself.
36:29In the middle of the night, Philip Cutler goes into Jocelyn Peters' apartment,
36:35used a potato as a silencer, shoots her one time in the head and kills her and her unborn child.
36:45Next, Cornelius Green takes an Amtrak back to St. Louis.
36:50As he's on the train, Cornelius starts calling Jocelyn repeatedly.
36:55It was all just part of the ruse to make it look like he was concerned about her.
37:01And then lastly, Cornelius Green goes to her apartment and calls 911 to report the death of Jocelyn Peters.
37:12The level of planning that went on for this case was shocking.
37:18That's his girlfriend. He's going to be the father of the child that she's carrying.
37:23This was a cold-blooded, horrific crime.
37:26I don't know if Cornelius Green was a psychopath, but he should be in the psychology textbooks.
37:31Because the cognitive sophistication that it would take to keep all of that separate,
37:36you have to be adept at compartmentalizing your life.
37:39At that point, we knew that we needed to arrest both Cutler and Green for the murder of Jocelyn Peters
37:45and her unborn child.
37:52At this point, we have the abortion search history with Green.
37:57We have Cutler's cell phone data that puts him at the location of the victim's residence.
38:05We have the video surveillance of the vehicle that Philip Cutler was in possession of turning onto the victim's street
38:11the night of the murder.
38:12So we were able to secure indictments against Mr. Cutler and Mr. Green for a conspiracy to commit murder and
38:20committing murder for hire.
38:22Cornelius is arrested first.
38:24Obviously, we wanted to get an opportunity to try and talk to him, but he doesn't make any statements at
38:28that time.
38:30And then we traveled into Muscovy, Oklahoma, and placed Philip Cutler under arrest to be transported back to St. Louis,
38:39Missouri.
38:40I did our post-arrest interview. He denied having anything to do with the murder of Jocelyn Peters.
38:52Wembley called and told me they had arrested both of them. I was pretty much in shock.
39:00I thought Cornelius was a good guy.
39:04I was out to dinner with our school counselor, and it came across the news that he was arrested.
39:11And we just cried together.
39:14That was a life-changing day because it had taken so many months, and it finally had happened, and it
39:19was just a rush of emotion.
39:22I was glad that it finally happened, but, you know, I just wanted my daughter and my granddaughter back.
39:35This is certainly a chilling crime. A father and a principal at the school thought out a murder-for-hire
39:43plot.
39:44But, unfortunately, the COVID pandemic really threw a wrench into the criminal justice system.
39:50Eight years go by before we actually go to trial, and prior to the trial date, Cornelius Green accepted a
39:58plea to plead guilty.
40:01Cornelius agrees to life with no parole, so the death penalty was off the table at this point.
40:09But Philip Cutler takes it to a jury trial.
40:13It was shocking that he wanted a trial, given the mountain of evidence there was against him.
40:21And how could you put this family through reliving all of this?
40:29From the beginning of the trial, there were members of Jocelyn's family and friends and coworkers that were in the
40:37courtroom, and there was really some outrage. How dare you?
40:43I had to be there. I wanted to see him. I wanted to look at him. And I wanted him
40:50to know that I know what you did.
40:52I was mad. He shot my baby in the face right through the eye.
40:59I just wanted to scream.
41:03We look at this case, and you see the troubling sophistication of it.
41:08Hey, I'll go to the store and buy a sack of potatoes, and the potatoes will be in the apartment.
41:14Then, when you get there, all you have to do is grab one and use it.
41:19This was the most thought-out, premeditated crime that I had covered.
41:26And Philip Cutler, any point in time along the way, easily could have backed out.
41:31And no one would have ever known, and he just didn't.
41:36Philip Cutler was found guilty and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison without parole for both the
41:46murder of Jocelyn Peters and her unborn child, Micah Lee.
41:51There was just this huge sense of relief. He is going to pay for what he did.
41:57There's a special place in hell for him.
42:04The hole in my heart is still there.
42:09It's not a day that I don't think about Jocelyn.
42:14I can be driving down the street and see something that reminds me of her.
42:20She had a smile and a laugh that was contagious.
42:25She was all about helping kids and the community, so everybody in the family, we don't mind giving a helping
42:33hand to people.
42:34that needed.
42:36That's how we keep her memory alive.
42:39that's what he lives there as usual.
42:42premise
42:45is this really, rather than what people want to do,
42:45they risk the creativity of its own 28th century behind a slippage family.
42:47The idea that they can be really helpful is in the everyday place at the same time line.
42:48And więc,
42:49The power is good.
Comments