- 4 hours ago
A Plan to Kill - Season 2 - Episode 05: Killer Principal
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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 was sound asleep and just
00:31ambushed in her own bed there was no dna evidence no force entry this was not a burglary type
00:40homicide it looked like one of those old mafia movies what all is going on here there is a video
00:48surveillance of someone turning onto the victim street the night of the murder he tears out a
00:57single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it there's no question that this was a
01:04elaborate premeditated plan to end her life
01:38what's going on there i just got home and i walked in the doors open for the bedroom
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
02:07the boyfriend of the victim that was inside her name was jocelyn peters cornelius was extremely
02:14out of breath a little bit frantic he told us miss peters was seven months pregnant and he oftentimes
02:21stayed with her at her apartment it was a secure building with a key that cannot be duplicated for
02:29the front main entrance door as you enter the apartment building you go through a secure locked
02:35glass foyer entrance the victim's apartment was that first apartment on the left as you walk up to
02:42the second floor as you enter the apartment to the right as the bedroom her bedroom door was opened
02:50the victim was on her bed laying on her right side pillow tucked underneath her arms blankets no longer
02:58on her you could definitely tell that she was pregnant she had her arms folded in it like she was
03:04sound asleep and just ambushed in her own bed she had an obvious gunshot wound through her eye and
03:12blood that had came down the side of her face and pooled on the pillow next to her arm terribly
03:18tragic
03:19scene i do not believe this poor woman ever knew what hit her before it happened the whole thing was
03:28horrible this was an investigation of a homicide as we looked around the bedroom we observed something
03:36that was extremely strange what appeared to be an organic material all around the victim on her bed large
03:43chunks of it on the wall and next to the bed this was unidentified and we immediately requested our
03:50evidence technicians to come in seize this material so we could send it off for for further analysis we
03:57identified underneath the dresser next to the victim's bed a spent shell casing for a 380 caliber
04:03handgun but there was no dna evidence obtained during that time one of the first things that i
04:12noticed is that there wasn't clothes strewn about there wasn't tvs or anything knocked over there wasn't
04:20drawers tossed out like someone that went through an apartment looking for something there was no forced
04:25entry nothing taken this was not a burglary type homicide there was something else going on here
04:32we also noticed there was gifts that were laid out there was a shirt that indicated i love daddy and
04:42other items related to her baby it looked like this woman's whole life was surrounded around the child
04:49that she was about to have while our evidence technicians were conducting the interior scene
04:56investigation we responded outside of the apartment and spoke with mr green
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 he immediately said you got to find out who killed
05:17the mother of my child and my unborn child cornelius said that miss peters was currently employed as a
05:23third grade school teacher at manna elementary school in the city of st louis and he said he was a
05:30principal at car lane school but he had prior worked at manna elementary and that's how they began the
05:36relationship and he also stated that he was out of town visiting some friends in chicago and he got off
05:43the amtrak train at 2 59 pm that day we continued our conversation and i asked how many keys there
05:49were
05:50for the apartment he said he had one and the victim had one these are heavy duty doors that if
05:56you had to
05:57break in you would have had to make a lot of noise you would have had to done damage none
06:02of that was
06:03visible so cornelius green was taken down to police headquarters for more interviewing
06:13my phone just started ringing and ringing and ringing and i looked up it was cornelius
06:18he was like it's been an accident it's been blood it's blood i said i got to go now it
06:25felt like i was
06:26having only two miles an hour and i got to her apartment there was police and i walked to her
06:34door
06:36and the cop just looked at me and she was like she's dead and i was like what about the
06:45baby what about
06:46the baby and she just kind of like dropped her head down and she was like the baby dead too
06:54i just couldn't believe it she wasn't the young lady to be out ripping running the street making
07:00enemies stuff like that she just wasn't that person and i told the police we just took a family cruise
07:08for her 30th birthday with cornelius i believe they paid for the cruise together he was a good guy
07:15it was a good relationship she was really happy and ecstatic because this would have been her first
07:21child i 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 has no enemies no criminal history and she was shot in her sleep
07:45so we went back inside of the apartment we're going to be meticulous take our time and go through
07:52and get every obstructive fact that we can obtain from the scene as we looked around the apartment again
08:00the kitchen was in order on the refrigerator the victim had a menu for the whole week written on a
08:08whiteboard contained everything she wanted to feed herself we observed on the kitchen dining room table
08:15a 10-pound bag of russet baking potatoes the bag was opened but the menu on her refrigerator none of
08:24those
08:24recipes indicated they used potatoes the substance that was all over the victim and the victim's bed and
08:31the walls the evidence technician unit was able to find a piece big enough that indicated it may possibly
08:37be a potato there's old mafia movies where they use potatoes as silencers if it was a silencer trick
08:47it's not like you're going to go in and break into a house and then look around for potato decided
08:52to kill somebody sleeping somebody knew potato was going to be there that they were going to obviously
08:58use this was 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 going to be used in
09:21her own murder it becomes very apparent how much thought process went putting into this before it happened
09:27she never saw this coming
09:43on march 24th 2016 when i found out that jocelyn peters was found shot to death what struck me
09:52immediately was the fact that she was pregnant and a potato was used to silence the gun so i went
10:00to
10:00the area where the crime scene was and people were talking about how nice and sweet she was
10:09i just didn't understand please please tell me this isn't true is it she was such a nurturing and
10:15loving teacher her passion her liveliness she was very very skilled and she had just this fire about her
10:22we knew she would be an amazing mom she was really excited about having the baby because this would have
10:31been her first child micah lee was the name for her baby that she was carrying and from my interviews
10:39with
10:39her family 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
11:11how did this happen why did this happen mr green had told sergeant mcglynn that he was the only one
11:17to
11:17have access and keys to the apartment and there was no sign of force entry so corny this green was
11:24obviously a person of interest at this point so we conveyed mr green down to the homicide office
11:32so we could interview him when murders happen the overwhelming majority of them are at the hands of
11:41someone that we know the family member spouse brother sister something like that during that initial
11:48interview we want to see his body language how he speaks does he react as most people normally do
11:54in a situation like that hey john it's cornelius hey if i can ask you one thing i have you
12:02sit right
12:03there what's your last name we're gonna scream hey i just want to express my condolences to you okay
12:09we're gonna do everything we can help get you through this situation okay cornelius green when he's
12:17being questioned by the detectives he seems to be upset about losing this child losing this woman
12:22that he has loved but he doesn't engage in a heck of a lot of eye contact it seems that
12:29he is trying
12:29hard to manage the way other people see him nobody in that apartment complex that jocelyn was having a
12:36problem with or anybody there that was she never said hey there's you know crazy guy downstairs during that
12:43same time we want to get a timeline of when did you get into town how did you get here
12:49when did you
12:50come home from chicago i just got back off the train i got in my car and came straight on
12:55that because
12:56i was trying to call her in the morning i called her mom as he's on the train coming back
13:00to st louis
13:01cornelia starts calling jocelyn repeatedly not getting answers he calls her mother and says i'm concerned
13:09she's not answering my calls when you talk to her mom what did her mother say
13:13to voicemail but everything should be fine so i just kept calling until i got to the station and i
13:20just went over there cornelius informed me that he was picked up by his friend in cornelius's car
13:29he dropped his friend off came over to the apartment and found the victim in our process of our investigation
13:37going to go through take some elimination fingerprints obviously could you stay there
13:43so while we were interviewing him i had the investigators call the train station we got their
13:51surveillance footage and we could see cornelius coming off the amtrak train into the terminal
13:58cornelius green was out of town in chicago at the time of the murder so he obviously was not to
14:05trigger
14:06man but the odd thing about that was he was looking up at the cameras to make sure that you
14:12could see
14:12a good clear view of him getting off that train he made a point to be seen that was something
14:18that
14:18stuck in our head so we had to keep digging we wanted to get a little background on his ongoing
14:24relationship with jocelyn peters he had stated that they had been looking at houses and had just
14:37two weeks prior to her death went on a cruise together with several members of her family but then he
14:43said something that was extremely strange mr green explained to us that he was currently separated
15:03from his wife obtaining a divorce and it was due to his ongoing relationship with miss peters
15:11at that point i wanted to search cornelius's car and i was going to search the victim's car as
15:17well because vehicles are places that sometimes evidence ends up it's an extension of the crime
15:23scene would you like to give us consent to look in your car so we just rule out that there's
15:26anything
15:27in there i just don't understand why by looking in your car and not seeing anything that jumps out at
15:31us
15:32we would be saying okay cornelius isn't involved in this no i'm not okay mr green became extremely
15:39agitated felt like it was an accusatory question that we would ask him i feel like when you do that
15:45i'm actually like a criminal you want us to rule you out right how am i being ruled in sir
15:50i really
15:51haven't been here he became irate towards us and refused consent for any officers to look inside of his
15:58vehicle at that current time and you're like this guy is obviously involved in something and then
16:06during the course of our interview mr green requested to contact his daughter and we monitored this as it
16:14was happening live he had the volume up so loud that you could hear the other person on the other
16:23line
16:24talking his vehicle had still remained at the scene and he was reaching out to his wife stephanie
16:40he 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
16:59all is going on here on here
17:12at 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
17:27his spare key and take it to a friend of his named philip after speaking to his wife he reached
17:34out to
17:34philip green arranges for stephanie and philip to meet at this gas station by forest park and highway 40
17:52and then cornelius wants him to go pick up his vehicle at the crime scene
17:57it was kind of shocking to see him do that i wanted to know what was on the inside of
18:03that car
18:04that cornelius was trying to hide cornelius wasn't a suspect but his extreme concern over his vehicle
18:12gave us a pause and concern to investigate further but we were not able to get a search warrant because
18:19there was not enough tangible evidence at that point so we went back in the interview room and
18:25we asked who he was talking to he admitted that he called his wife stephanie and a friend of his
18:33name philip cutler we wanted to know why he's the one that cornelius reached out to how long have you
18:47come into town on monday monday from obviously we knew that on the 22nd cornelius green took the
18:57amtrak train to chicago we wanted to know who gave him a ride to the amtrak station how did you
19:02get
19:02today the train station the job yes my brother drove me the fellow dropped job on tuesday and uh what
19:11did you do with your car first we knew he did not want us to search that vehicle which
19:17really didn't make sense we wanted to know what would philip cutler do with the car
19:23well carnelius was gone was he near jocelyn peter's apartment during the time when the murder occurred
19:31so now he's the person that we got to interview we had investigators respond to that gas station
19:37they were able to make contact with stephanie green and philip cutler and they're both brought
19:41down 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 was a divorce
19:52that was going to take place stephanie green was shook up and in a fragile emotional state
19:58while 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
20:18detectives 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
20:45to us like a suspect during this investigation so the next step was to speak with philip cutler
21:05he stated that he had not personally met her and denied ever being over at victim peters residence
21:15then 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
21:26louis when came back to st louis on uh monday he stated he come here on the greyhound bus cornelius
21:36picked him up at the bus station on the 21st at approximately 10 30 in the evening
21:48he had to leave town he went out of town to go on some trip to do something i forget
21:55he told me
21:57when we asked him you came down to visit your friend doesn't that seem you know that seems a
22:01little odd did you know he was going to be leaving kind of him hawed a little bit around the
22:06question
22:08and at this point we had conducted interviews with mr cutler mr green some of the things just didn't
22:14sit right with the investigation cornelius gave philip cutler possession of his vehicle while he was out of
22:21town and then he refused consent for any officers to look inside of his vehicle also green wasn't telling
22:29the truth about being separated from his wife so they were certainly persons of interest but there
22:35were no arrests at that time but we had investigators continued reviewing the evidence reviewing reports
22:44and video footage from the interviews with mr cutler mr green that's when we observed something that was
22:52extremely strange that occurred while mr cutler was alone in the interview room
22:57he's pacing back and forth and then much to our astonishment he thumbs through a notepad
23:04tears out a single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it my immediate reaction was
23:12what in the heck there's no doubt in my mind that that piece of paper was a direct connection to
23:18him
23:19and 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 goes
23:41to
23:41his mouth with it and it disappears it's very unusual what he does it was like he was trying to
23:48hide
23:48something possibly there's some indication of guilt there because of their behavior our investigation
23:55now is directed towards philip cutler and cornelius green as suspects but we need evidence so one of the
24:02things that we do is we'll look for potential surveillance equipment throughout the neighborhood
24:07the entrance to jocelyn street where the apartments were located had a building that had some security
24:14footage running 24 7 on the perimeter i was able to reach out and go over surveillance footage we know
24:22that cornelius green arrived over at the scene sometime around 3 20 the afternoon after the murder
24:29and he was driving his car so that gave us a starting point we backed up and went through probably
24:3512 to
24:3515 hours of video surveillance of that intersection as we're looking at it 2 59 a.m on the night
24:43of
24:43the murder we see a vehicle turn onto jocelyn peters street from boyle and we later observe it leave the
24:51street around 348. it was a white kia and they were able to zoom in and we got three or
24:57four positive
24:58letters off the license plate it was indeed cornelius green white kia optima we knew that cornelius
25:05green was out of town and he had left the keys to his vehicle with philip cutler and we knew
25:12that
25:12those keys also contained a key to enter into that apartment complex and enter into mrs peter's apartment
25:20at 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
25:42and 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
25:56celebrate her life when i got to the funeral it was people already just standing there lying around the
26:05corner just to see her jocelyn's favorite color is yellow so at the funeral when the kids walked past me
26:14all 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 dead he's not
26:31dead 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 certainly
27:08it was another red flag for police at that point after interviewing her we'd received a call from
27:14cornelius green he said he had heard out on the street that we were speaking to this woman who he
27:20was involved in a relationship with and he was irritated to say the least he then went on and asked
27:27what he could do to help us so we offered him the opportunity to provide his cellular telephone and
27:34oddly 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
27:49the murder and prior to philip cutler coming into town he had a telephonic conversation with philip
27:55cutler he then reached out to miss peters via text during that conversation miss peters states that
28:03she's going to go to the aldi's and go grocery shopping and cornelius states i will meet you
28:09there he seemed adamant that hey we'll go shopping together it just seemed you know rather odd she
28:15didn't seem like she was asking him to come with her to the grocery store we were able to obtain
28:20the
28:21video surveillance inside the aldi's and we observed jocelyn peters exiting the store with cornelius
28:28green directly behind her pushing the cart and you could clearly see a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes
28:35sitting on there same brand that was found at the crime scene on the kitchen table with one missing
28:40which i don't believe it was just happenstance or coincidence now there's no doubt in our minds
28:46that that conversation he had with philip cutler on march 20th prior to going grocery shopping with miss
28:52peters was him making sure that there's some potatoes bought it becomes very apparent how much
28:59thought process he was putting into this before it happened it was kind of shocking she never saw this
29:05coming she is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder that's
29:11important because it did help us start to paint the picture and see what was happening just days prior to
29:17miss peters being murdered but it was circumstantial evidence and there was a tremendous amount of
29:25other obstacles to overcome first there was no murder weapon that was ever recovered and second
29:33cornedos green has a alibi so we need to essentially prove he planned a way for mr cutler to come
29:41into town
29:41to kill jocelyn peters so next we obtained a search warrant and received the tracking history from
29:48philip cutler's telephone it showed philip cutler in the area of jocelyn peters apartment the night she
29:54was murdered and then it showed cutler traveling directly down to north riverfront park in the far
30:02north end of the city why this stood out to us is because north riverfront park borders the mississippi
30:09river cutler responded there after speaking with green and spent eight minutes there the morning
30:14after the murder we believe he discarded the murder weapon in the mississippi river the river was searched
30:23but unless you knew exactly where it was the chances of it still being there are slim so the murder
30:29weapon
30:30was never found it was a very difficult case to make that's why the detectives kept digging and digging
30:38while we were looking for something that proved that they both worked together and planned the way
30:43to kill miss peters we were able to identify some of the most prevalent google searches on green's phone
30:50prior to the murder of miss peters one of the first patterns we observed was that there were google
30:56searches about how to mask the taste of an abortion pill this was early on in the pregnancy
31:03just a few weeks and he had started googling can i crush up pills to end a pregnancy it strongly
31:11suggested
31:12that corneus green was trying to kill the baby without jocelyn peters knowledge i believe the baby
31:18that jocelyn peters was carrying became an obstacle and if he could get rid of the pregnancy and he could
31:24continue to have jocelyn peters as a toy to play with along with the other five or six women and
31:30continue to
31:31live life in exactly the way that he wanted to as we continued looking into his google searches it
31:37seemed that this apparently was not working one of green searches was still seeing a heartbeat after
31:43taking an abortion pill and all of these google searches happened several months prior to miss peters
31:49being murdered he obviously was searching for this method to get rid of the child and when that didn't
31:57work out it wasn't long after that cornelius decides to segue into the murder business
32:13we identified cornelius green researching abortion pills researching ways to induce an abortion cornelius made
32:22some fairly sinister efforts to get rid of this pregnancy and when that didn't work he arrived at
32:30the conclusion that jocelyn peters was a liability that he needed to get rid of that starts to build the
32:38the motive and the means and the method of how this murder occurred we further investigated cornelius's
32:45cell phone 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
32:58he says march 20th and cutler says okay don't forget to send the package when i read it i immediately
33:07thought there was something of value sent from green to mr cutler and i was able to reach out to
33:16the post
33:16office there's a record of a transaction where on march the 7th just days prior to the murder he sent
33:23a package to philip cutler in oklahoma
33:29which police assume is the money to pay him to kill jocelyn peters this was obviously planning and
33:37premeditation on both green and color's part with relation to miss peters murder but at this point
33:45green had obtained an attorney so we could not bring him in and speak with him again
33:54it was extremely challenging to keep moving forward but then we'd received a call from
34:00the dance instructor of car lane school where cornelius green was the principal
34:06we had learned approximately 2700 dollars had been stolen from car lane school's dance program a few
34:14weeks prior to the murder of miss peters she said on march 3rd she observed cornelius green in the
34:23area where the money had been taken and believed that he was no doubt involved when asked about why it
34:31wasn't reported she stated that she was extremely concerned with repercussions because he wielded a
34:38certain amount of authority over the school being the principal we believe that 2700 was the payment
34:44according to this green sent to philip cutler to kill jocelyn peters
34:51as you progress through the investigation the amount of circumstantial evidence
34:56that was obtained it gave us the timeline the motive and the method of how this murder occurred
35:03there's no question that this was a elaborate premeditated plan to end jocelyn peters life
35:10and get rid of the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying
35:19in august of 2015 miss peters became pregnant then just a few weeks in the pregnancy cornelius green
35:26started searching ways to end the 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 philip
35:52cutler 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 them 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
38:07at 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 so
38:27we're able to secure indictments against mr cutler and mr green for conspiracy to commit murder and
38:34committing 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
38:46into muskovia 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 point but philip cutler takes it to a jury trial it was shocking that he wanted a trial given
40:31the
40:31mountain of evidence 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
41:24and buy a sack of potatoes and the potatoes will be in the apartment then when you get there all
41:31you
41:31have to do is grab one and use it this was the most thought out premeditated crime that i had
41:39covered
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
42:18the hole in my heart is still there it's not a day that i don't think about jocelyn i can
42:29be
42:29driving 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
42:43so everybody in the family we don't mind giving a helping hand to people that that need it that's how
42:51that's how we keep her memory alive
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