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American Detective with Lt. Joe Kenda - Season 6 Episode 5 -
The Curse
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The Curse
tele: https://t.me/TopFilmUSA1
#film#shows#usa#usashows#hot#filmhot
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FunTranscript
00:05they've been beaten not with fists but with something else
00:13it was a horrible way to die look at me look at me who did this to the other couple
00:20but if I wanted to kill didn't think about killing nobody
00:26we weren't gonna back down there's something more to this there was something going on there
00:33someone put them up to this there's no doubt she would do this again she needed to be stopped
00:40what happens if they don't pay you he has to pay you she's a mastermind of this process
00:47do not with us they touched a nerve and they know it I spent my career closing murder cases
01:07but I'm not the only one who answered the call it takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable
01:15to catch a ruthless killer to find justice for the dead
01:23that's what it takes to be an american detective
01:40carlinson number one hello this is carlinson ma'am my mother-in-law house the window is open
01:46okay so you just found this open is she is is your mother-in-law home I don't know because
01:52nobody
01:52picked up the phone and you don't know if they're hurt or not correct I don't know ma'am I'm
01:58afraid
02:03so I got dispatched to a welfare check saying I can't get a hold of my mom and dad when
02:10I got to
02:11the scene an entire family was out there saying please help please help the family had said that
02:20they tried the door and it was locked so I made the decision to go in through the window
02:29it's dark in there I grabbed my flashlight and I'm calling out Arlington police and there was no answer
02:39there's no one in the immediate living room there's no one in the little kitchenette area
02:44the only thing that I haven't checked is a bedroom I open the door and I see the bloody handprint
02:56which led me to know that there was something in the closet that I didn't want to see
03:06there was no preparing myself for what was in that closet
03:19just a bloody massacre death is always ugly violent death is even more ugly it is profoundly evil
03:35my name is Byron Stewart I'm a detective with the Arlington Police Department
03:39my major with the journalism interviewing interrogation uh learning the art of the investigation
03:46it's very important to handle high challenging cases
03:51it was June 10th 2012 I was at home I was on call and so therefore I had to respond
04:00to the crime scene at the crime scene Stewart is informed by the uniformed officer what she
04:09has discovered in this apartment I was initially told that there was a couple found these were elderly
04:16victims blown wind and then hung Lee and Stewart goes inside to look at the bodies
04:29right away right away I could see that the apartment was in disarray there were cds thrown about furniture
04:36was thrown about but the amount of ransacking was just so random here and there that I had my reservations
04:47entering the bedroom area it was a horrible scene the victims are covered in massive amounts of duct tape
04:56I could see that the duct tape was wrapped around their face around their ankles heavy duct tape around
05:03their hands they were pretty much helpless I haven't seen that level of violence this case was something that
05:13that's going to stay with me for a long time that's the thing that's going to my mind how horrible
05:17was it for them
05:19there appears to be blunt force trauma to the heads of both victims they've been beaten
05:25not with fists but with something else they were fighting for the lies and ultimately succumbed to their injuries
05:34then they discovered that these killers have apparently spent time in this place
05:39I noticed that there was a table and it had a plate on it and on that plate appeared to
05:45be
05:45a marijuana cigarette and these pills that were crushed what's actually happening it just didn't
05:51look right there's something more to this one thing that we saw was a beer bottle that had a bandana
05:58around the bottle of the neck that didn't make any sense then I had to look at the demographics of
06:04the
06:04victims and they did not look to be the type of persons that would be smoking marijuana or drinking beer
06:12it could be the suspects who stayed there while these victims were dying
06:17could that be why they were shoved in a closet of course why look at this dead person while we're
06:24trying
06:24to have a good time once i walked through the crime scene i came back outside and the family was
06:32there
06:32i did ask that they come back to the station so i can take an official statement from them
06:39so steward used to speak to the family member who called 911 his name is chow tran and the dead
06:46people
06:47are the parents of his wife chow's wife didn't speak that much english and so chow tran quickly became
06:56the spokesperson for the family they had already been told that their parents and loved ones were
07:03deceased but they did not know the details uh chow is your first name right yes and chow uh the
07:11way
07:11this works is you know we we have to figure out who would do this you know and why they
07:17would do this
07:18the most important person in a homicide scene is the victim tell me about the victim he said they
07:27stayed to themselves they were very family oriented and that they just did not partake in anything that
07:33weren't that any known enemies or anything like that that i don't think my mom and dad have any you
07:40know
07:40yeah
07:46i met them in a vietnam community they're very nice people everybody loved them they uh would knock her
07:56a little fly long and home come here they work hard they immigrated here from vietnam in order to make
08:04a
08:04better life for themselves they established a sewing and garment business in arlington texas
08:12they hire chow tran because he's a relative to be the general manager my mom's the owner of the shop
08:20and i go to
08:20the company i get work they built this business up and by all accounts they were you know the american
08:29drink
08:30chow told me that they did specialize sewing for costumes and things of that nature that you would
08:36see in amusement parks chow tran goes on to report that they were able to achieve a contract with the
08:43disney corporation and it's going along just fine 2007-2008 comes around and there is a world recession
08:55disney cancels their contract and now this family is all of a sudden in deep trouble
09:03did they work yesterday at the shop no no the shop was closed for a whole week they've been so
09:08slow okay
09:10this was an old school vietnamese family you or i might say okay we need to go and talk to
09:17a financial
09:18planner for them it was like okay we need to go talk to somebody to figure out how to get
09:23this curse
09:24taken off our family and our business he truly meant a curse in the spiritual sense of it and he
09:32was
09:32looking for ways to try to lift this curse there's a community that believes that that exists and that
09:40that can happen they even enlisted the aid of a spiritual advisor but it didn't help
09:49during my conversation with chow tran i tried to get as much information before the offense took place
09:57so stewart asked the standard question of chow tran when's the last time you saw your parents-in-law well
10:05last night chow said that it was his birthday and so the victims were at a chow tran's house before
10:14this offense took place and they had dinner to celebrate that we eat and you know we sit together
10:21and then we play card until it's 10 o'clock when they came over everybody was happy oh everybody's
10:28happy and we joking around the story he told was this was just a normal night uh where we're getting
10:34together and having food and then they went home do you understand when you have to look at family members
10:40first and and to see if anybody has some type of motive within the family okay so no one would
10:48have a
10:49reason to want to harm them in your family at all there was nothing that indicated that there was
10:58any kind of foul play from the family at all after i talked to chow i attended the autopsy to
11:05try to get
11:06some type of cause of death they informed him they did not find identifiable fingerprints but with that
11:14much duct tape it is unknown what lies beneath it i looked at both victims and i could see they
11:21had
11:21blunt force trauma to the head but according to the doctors it's not the type of uh blows that would
11:27kill
11:27them what did cause death was asphyxia 35 feet of duct tape had been used that's an enormous amount of
11:39duct tape it was a horrible way to die to be trying to gasp for air and you couldn't get
11:46it because this
11:47duct tape is blocking your airway then that got me thinking about the crime scene one thing that we saw
11:55was a beer bottle that had a bandana around the neck i was familiar with the blue bandana and thought
12:01well maybe it's the gang member or something like that who left this there are gang activities where
12:08a calling card is left the beer bottles are wrapped in light blue racks a calling card of the gang
12:17there's an array of different gang different cultures of gangs vietnamese gangs too as well
12:23gang members can do anything anything is unpredictable
12:28could a vietnamese street gang engage in violent death oh without doubt they can certainly do that
12:35do not with us or this is going to happen to you only maybe even worse
12:47after the winds were found brutally murdered
12:53detective stewart has to wonder is this a street gang seeking a street cred
12:59this bandana was a light blue type color and we did have a gang unit at the police department at
13:08the time so they did give us a possible gang affiliated with that type of color
13:19so gangs certainly are involved in home invasion robberies burglaries breaking into people's homes
13:28i mean they're not above any of that
13:36in vietnam there are gangs dating back thousands of years but the modern vietnamese gangs
13:43gangs are just as violent in this area arlington during the 80s and early 90s were the worst day for
13:53the vietnamese gang store there is a gang problem
14:00if it was a vietnamese gang they would probably know the culture of storing cash in the house and not
14:07having cash in banks
14:10majority of the vietnamese people don't trust the bank because banking system vietnam before the world
14:16you put the money in there if something happened you have no money that's why they come in here
14:22they keep the cash in the house
14:33byron was determined that um he was gonna solve this case so he's gonna have to talk to gang members
14:42what he needs is concrete physical evidence that would tie someone to this crime scene
14:47that's when stewart gets a break from the crime lab
14:54they inform him they did not find identifiable fingerprints but they found something even better
15:00whoever ruled the marijuana cigarette licked the paper so it would seal and left dna behind
15:09the first thing they would do with the sample would be to run it through a database and see if
15:13it hits anybody
15:15in this particular case here we did not get a dna profile back on the person it was disappointing
15:23the fact that the dna profile is not attached to a name
15:28isn't that meaningful maybe he's never been arrested before
15:35we had no choice but to contact known gang members that we knew in the area so we started
15:43talking to them some of them were uncooperative didn't want to talk to us took a lot of convincing
15:49some gang member they speak good english but they play like i'm dumb i don't know the language
15:56they don't want to talk some of these known gang members they gave their dna as a way of
16:03you can check me i have nothing to hide we swabbed a lot of people
16:09so all those samples were ran and and each one of them came back negative
16:19i think byron had already sensed that the scene was staged
16:24those victims had no ties to any type of anything gang related
16:31that bandana was meant to lead us to gang members or to start interviewing gang members and it worked
16:38we did so then the question is why would someone do that
16:45this is violent and very nasty it is profoundly evil so stewart is wondering where he's going to go next
16:53when he gets a phone call from an insurance company who want to know what he knows about the death
16:58of
16:59these people the insurance company need confirmation that the death actually occurred the manner of the
17:05death was it a suicide was it a homicide insurance companies are very thorough they're not going to pay
17:11anybody and they don't have to so stewart asked the insurance person who's the beneficiary of the payout
17:20they told me that charlotte tran was a beneficiary the insurance policy totaled around 1.8 million
17:27this did catch my attention because of the amount of money 1.8 million dollars is change your life money
17:38now that gives stewart 1.8 million reasons to have a conversation with mr tran
17:49it's apparent to stewart that there are a number of things chow tran never told him
17:54why in heaven's name would new ends have a policy worth 1.8 million dollars so he needs to speak
18:01to
18:01the trans and see what's going on with him when barron asked to him about having life insurance taken out
18:13on the victims i believe the explanation that was given was it was for the benefit of the business
18:19chow assured me that the insurance policy was on the family because if something were to happen to the
18:25primary owners which in this case it did then they could carry on with the business
18:32this explanation is perfectly reasonable these people have built this business from the ground up
18:38to them it is their legacy for their family and they want to protect it having insurance in and of
18:44itself is not a concern of mine so that proved again to be a dead end
18:49so over the next few months progress in a case comes to a stop all leads have been exhausted
19:01and we kept waiting for a possible dna profile we just don't have the person that it belongs to
19:07i truly wanted closure with this case it was personal yeah it bothered him no one wishes for the case
19:14to go cold he did everything that he could he was determined that he was going to solve this case
19:23i kept pictures of both victims on my desk as a reminder i would get other cases but this case
19:30still
19:31was that important for me that we got closure we maintained contact with chow and his family we gave
19:38them updates the insurance company had paid off on the policies something's gotta give
19:50nearly three years after the new ends were found murdered and stuffed in a closet
19:55steward gets a phone call
19:58i remember getting a call from one of my supervisors who said
20:03hey we got a dna hit and so i probably said some choice words as far as are you sure
20:11you're reading
20:12what you have and that person assured me it was from a cigarette from a 2012 case
20:20that was the break that he was looking for we were back on track as if it happened yesterday
20:26steward inquires as to who this person is it matches the dna he is a young man named willie
20:33gillery he was arrested for stealing a horse which in texas is a felony and it's such a crazy way
20:41for
20:41the case to break right you know the kid steals a horse and his dna goes in the system steward
20:48has him
20:48transported by the pd in houston 250 miles to the city of arlington
20:56all right willie willie was placed into an interview room and i'm watching him and he's
21:02really relaxed at the time can you explain to me what's going on first sure sure i'm the detective
21:10here in arlington and let me can i make sure i have some of your information first
21:14i just kind of got a feel for who he was and then i go into explaining our offense and
21:20what
21:20happened in 2012. we're working on homicide that occurred back in 2012. we're questioning you about
21:27it will it because we believe that you are part of this offense do you understand what i'm saying
21:32so tell us what happened uh i really do not know what happened because i have never been a other
21:38lieutenant at all and his body language has changed he's not as relaxed as he once was when we
21:43initially started talking and i know i'm on the right track i'm telling you your dna was at the
21:50scene of this elderly couple back in 2012. now let's let's try to figure out why y'all keep blaming
21:56me
21:56i was 16. well let's figure out first how your dna got there i would never commit a murder never
22:02will
22:02i don't believe in killing people i i really don't believe in doing any of that he's very very
22:09uncomfortable at this point and uh he starts to get emotional look at me willie
22:17you need to feel comfortable telling us who did this offense
22:22i don't know who did it it wasn't me though they touched a nerve and they know it and they
22:36are on him
22:37like a new suit he starts asking for his mother he becomes almost a 15 year old willie now but
22:50he's a grown man
23:07well i need you to get up man come on those were real emotions of a person who's been caught
23:19i'm here with willie's demeanor and and how he was acting there's just no way in the world that i
23:29thought willie by himself carried this out these bodies have been shoved into a closet when someone
23:38is fighting for their life one person alone is unlikely to be able to overcome that there's more
23:44than a one suspect in this event there has to be
23:53the patience of byron to get to this point look we know you didn't do this by yourself tell us
23:59who else was involved with this and i think that's what gave willie an out eventually
24:05during the course of talking to willie he does mention the name bobby gallery which he says is
24:10his uncle willie says he's afraid of uncle bobby he eventually says that bobby was the ringleader of
24:18this offense that started a domino effect of everything tell me more about uncle bobby willie
24:26you seem to know a lot about him dna places willie gallery at the crime scene and he places his
24:39uncle bobby
24:40there too it's enough to get a warrant to drag bobby gallery into an interrogation room i'd probably
24:48rehearse that whole interview in my head for two hours you know i anticipated the first hour he's gonna deny
24:55the second hour would be me confronting him with facts
25:01okay bobby now of course i need to explain to you everything that's going on right yes you still
25:06want to talk to me talk to you okay where we are right now how we stand right now is
25:12this willie
25:14has been arrested and he's been charged with capital murder i hit bobby with are you going to truly
25:21let him take the whole rap for this i don't look at you as a monster i look at you
25:26as a person who
25:27i believe you want to make amends you're just scared at this point he looked in my opinion like
25:35a defeated man now i'm just asking you bobby what's going through your mind as far as on willie's behalf
25:44i knew that he was ready to tell the truth i just wanted willie to come with me
25:50so we could find this money fast and go so bobby says here the new end family kept a lot
25:56of cash at
25:57home you heard from who and all of a sudden the new ends come home it was dark and we
26:05started
26:06fighting and stuff like that and the next thing you know these people are dead that does not equate to
26:14wrapping 35 feet of duct tape around their heads until they suffocate so what was the person behind
26:21the duct tape doing in your opinion just to stop them from holly it was clear what bobby was telling
26:27stewart was not everything he still understood that he needed to downplay his role in this
26:35he drove from houston to the arlington area to commit this offense where's the connection something's going
26:42on here someone put them up to this i believe there are other people involved you have to decide just
26:50like willie had to decide how much defense you're trying to do for them who benefited from these people
26:56definitely he had to make a decision whether or not he wanted to tell the truth and that was not
27:00happening at that time bobby refuses to name any additional players so stewart turns his attention back to willie
27:16who are they willie who did this to the devil i just heard about it it was of other people
27:22willie started
27:24opening up he'd come to the point where he he knew we had him finally he admits that they were
27:33doing it
27:33on behalf of a woman what woman would that be i know it's hard but let's just tell us
27:44do you ever shoot a baby
27:54that's all i do it right daphne daphne okay okay is daphne one other person daphne would do baby
28:03the green leader of it all he gave up this lady named daphne that doesn't mean anything to me at
28:10the
28:10time i don't think he knew all the intricate details of daphne so we came back to interview bobby
28:19okay so willie and i have talked very extensively on on everything okay but i do know that daphne
28:27started this process that's when he was like you know what if i'm going down everybody's going down
28:33with me well bobby explain to me from the beginning how daphne approached you and how the situation
28:40happened they knew her because she would go there to do her business for whatever business she was
28:47doing with the lady you know the witchcraft or whatever or whatever they do you know can they
28:54owe her a lot of money okay daphne said she wanted them dead because they owed her a lot of
28:59money
29:00and she promised to pay them if they would kill them you got there did you use the key to
29:06get in
29:08yeah who can get you guys a key to that apartment daphne well then one would have to say how
29:14did
29:14daphne get the keys from him did she mention his name he says there's a vietnamese guy that worked
29:24with them or something chow train is the son alone he didn't want to give daphne that key he did
29:33that's how she got it and that was this complete and utter shock he lied to me and that he
29:41broke
29:42that level of trust that we established in the beginning of me thinking that he and his family
29:48uh were victims in this so no one would have a reason to want to harm them in your family
29:55at all
29:56you mean kill them yeah kill oh no no well no that my boy is very interesting
30:08bobby and willie guillery tell a very interesting story a vietnamese spiritual advisor named daphne
30:15wright asked them to kill the new ends with the assistance and help of the son-in-law chow trend
30:24here's a man that we've stopped by his house on a number of occasions assured him
30:28that we were still working on this case now we learned that he had possible involvement in this
30:37and i did make the decision to go by the home of daphne wright
30:41but we also got a search warrant for her home and we wanted to collect any evidence that we
30:47felt was relevant to the case one of the things detective stewart needs to prove
30:52is that daphne wright and chow tran actually know each other a portion of her home was an office for
30:58her clients to come and meet her there was something going on there that we wouldn't normally see
31:06in a person's house unless they're casting spills so we go in there and she have all these ledgers
31:13all these names how much money they owed her how much money was given if they still owed her
31:21daphne's spiritual gift was being a priestess to the point where she can remove curses from your
31:26business she kept books and records of all of her dealings with every person that she came in contact with
31:34everything is right down to the details it was an elaborate scheme that she had going on
31:43and then they see it
31:47there is a record of chow tran and his picture in her records
31:53i really wanted the opportunity to talk to daphne to learn more about her ability to remove curses
32:01but i also wanted to learn more about chow and how this all came to be and what her role
32:08was in it
32:09let me just ask you this just to clarify what we talked about you do know chow tran
32:15when we first move in here that's when he contact me for his visit people come to me because they
32:20need
32:20help she's giving us this talk about how she can remove a hex and how she can grow your business
32:27if
32:27your business is not doing well but if you are superstitious you believe it to be true that the
32:35daphne rights of the world are the only ones who can speak to the duties and influence the outcome of
32:41your life she's the one that benefited out throughout this whole process money is her motivating factor
32:48she charges enormous amounts of money for this ten twenty thirty thousand dollars a session
32:56that got me thinking about the conversation i had with chow and chow saying that uh we felt our business
33:03was cursed did he pay you he has to pay me okay okay what happens if they don't pay you
33:09well i can't even
33:12tell what's gonna happen but usually it's not gonna be a nice thing to happen i don't have to do
33:21anything
33:22to them things just happen on itself she told byron if people owe me money i'm gonna get my money
33:27one way
33:28or another give me money because i like money and you're a dumb so i'm gonna take yours first because
33:36you're just too easy we eventually made the decision to get an arrest form for daphne she was taken to
33:50jail at that time and i attempted to interview her daphne right might appear to you to be just some
34:10suburban soccer mom but when you look beyond the surface she had her own little racket going on
34:18if you didn't pay you knew something bad was going to happen to you you can tell she was very
34:25angry
34:25at the time she was defiant i'd like to know what's going on because the last time when you came
34:32down
34:32to see me i didn't even know what is really going on back then i explained to her what the
34:39nature of
34:40the uh arrest was for i if i have to make any statements or anything i'd like to have my
34:47daughter
34:47present before i told anything so now the spiritual advisor needs a legal advisor don't move me ma'am
34:57now he hopes to talk to chow tran see if he can break him we're going to confront him about
35:03everything that we had learned thus far but instead i got a call from an attorney and then i knew
35:09where we
35:10were heading at that point so now they're out of business they're not going to get a statement and
35:17they need one
35:20daphne wright is the mastermind of this process the architect of the entire crime the case against
35:28daphne was going to be you know a very difficult case to prove it's a completely circumstantial case
35:37and the risks were high that daphne could walk and so the thought was maybe if we subpoenaed chow
35:45tran and brought him in then maybe we could somehow get him on the stand in order to have chow
35:53tran testify
35:54against daphne we had to give him immunity it was a very hard decision there's no doubt in our mind
36:02that
36:02um she would do this again she needed to be stopped and if we had to use chow for that
36:09matter um
36:11it's a lesser of two evas i spent a lot of hours at the police station with stewart
36:18calling over evidence and strategizing all the way up to the start of daphne's trial
36:27during the trial chow tran says over the course of a few years the family had racked up a debt
36:33of
36:34280 000 and so chow had to come up with some kind of way to pay this money chow tran
36:42has a marvelous
36:43idea what about the life insurance chow knew that those are insurance policies that they have been
36:51paying on for years both chow and right determined that if they were dead the insurance could pay the debt
37:05so now who are we going to get to commit to crime because daphne wasn't going to do it so
37:11she knew
37:11this guy bobby and what kind of situation is bobby in he's in the same situation that chow's in
37:19financial problems she thought if she dangled ten thousand dollars in front of him he would do anything
37:26she wanted so bobby guillery accepts the assignment but he doesn't think he can handle two people so
37:32he contacts his dim-witted nephew and willie's dumb enough to go along
37:42chow told daphne the apartment would be empty until 10 pm and gave her the key
37:58the night of the murder chow tran lured his father-in-law nguyen over to his house to celebrate his
38:04birthday
38:06all part of the plan to give the guillery's time to enter the apartment in that time frame you have
38:13willie and bobby who just sits in this apartment they were getting ready to attack him and uh and
38:19that's exactly what they did and when the nguyen's came home the guillers were ready and the attack occurred
38:36and then they tape across their face and their mouth and eyes to the point where they couldn't breathe
38:42they had to die because insurance won't pay to live in people willie and bobby start staging their
38:50apartment to look like it's been ransacked they staged the scene to make it look like it was a gang
38:58a home invasion gone bad they might have gotten away with it until willie made a fatal mistake
39:06willie couldn't get the paper to stay together so he licked it and transferred his dna
39:11onto that cigarette had he not licked that cigarette we would have never known who did this
39:23the link that chow tran had gone he knows that he needs his in-laws to come over to the
39:29house at
39:29a certain time and he needs them to leave at a certain time i often think what is chow thinking
39:35when
39:36he sees his in-laws leave the house when he knows he's looking at them for the last time
39:45i was on pins and needles with daphne's trial uh we just didn't know which way it was going to
39:51go
39:51didn't know how child's testimony was going to go the end of the day we convict daphne wright of
39:58capital murder that sentence is automatic life without parole willie and bobby were both charged
40:04with capital murder willie we made him an offer willie got 13 years on murder and then bobby got
40:13life without the possibility of parole chel's not getting any charges based on the evidence that we had
40:22it still sits with me today as i'm sitting in this chair thinking about the fact that chow tran got
40:29away with murder and that that sort of sticks in in my craw and it probably always will
40:36i can only imagine when it comes to chow the amount of guilt that has to be bestowed onto him
40:43uh just he has to live with that every day this case shows the sheer lunacy of superstition and
40:53conspiracy that people believe in falsehoods gets them grievously hurt and in some cases even dead
41:02it's unfortunate it is the way of the world but it is unfortunate
41:10on the next american detective who murdered a woman found an old boysville juvenile detention center
41:19you know who the killer is oh trust me we have something's not right about this this is where your
41:25money is you can't put your finger on it yet but you know it's not right
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