- 11 hours ago
A Plan to Kill - Season 2 - Episode 05: Killer Principal
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00:10a pregnant woman found in her apartment a single gunshot wound through her eye that
00:17instantaneously killed her and the potato was used to silence the gun she was sound asleep
00:24and just ambushed in her own bed there was no DNA evidence no force entry this was not a burglary
00:34type homicide it looked like one of those old mafia movies what all is going on here there is
00:42a video surveillance of someone turning onto the victim street the night of the murder he tears out
00:50a single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it there's no question that this was
00:58a
00:58elaborate premeditated plan to end her life
01:43we were dispatched to west pine avenue at the same time
01:50EMS responded declared the victim deceased at the scene we were met by the person who made a 911 call
01:57Cornelius Green and he said he was the boyfriend of the victim that was inside her name was Jocelyn
02:05Peters Cornelius was extremely out of breath a little bit frantic he told us Miss Peters was seven months
02:13pregnant and he oftentimes stayed with her at her apartment it was a secure building with a key that
02:21cannot be duplicated for the front main entrance door as you enter the apartment building you go through a
02:28secure locked glass foyer entrance the victim's apartment was that first apartment on the left as
02:35you walk up to the second floor as you enter the apartment to the right as the bedroom her bedroom
02:43door
02:44was opened the victim was on her bed laying on her right side pillow tucked underneath her arms blankets
02:51no longer on her you could definitely tell that she was pregnant she had her arms folded in it like
02:58she was
02:58sound asleep and just ambushed in her own bed she had an obvious gunshot wound through her eye and blood
03:07that had came down the side of her face and pooled on the pillow next to her arm terribly tragic
03:13scene I
03:14do not believe this poor woman ever knew what hit her before it happened the whole thing was horrible
03:24this was an investigation of a homicide as we looked around the bedroom we observed something that was
03:31extremely strange what appeared to be an organic material all around the victim on her bed large
03:37chunks of it on the wall and next to the bed this was unidentified and we immediately requested our
03:44evidence technicians to come in seize this material so we could send it off for for further analysis we
03:51identified underneath the dresser next to the victim's bed a spent shell casing for a 380 caliber handgun
03:59but there was no DNA evidence obtained during that time one of the first things that I noticed is that
04:08there wasn't clothes strewn about there wasn't TVs or anything knocked over there wasn't drawers tossed
04:15out like someone that went through an apartment looking for something there was no forced entry nothing
04:20taken this was not a burglary type homicide there was something else going on here we also have
04:28noticed there was gifts that were laid out there was a shirt that indicated I love daddy and other items
04:37related to her baby it looked like this woman's whole life was surrounded around the child that she was
04:44about to have while our evidence technicians were conducting the interior scene investigation we
04:51responded outside of the apartment and spoke with mr. green Cornelius green was very upset and he told me
05:01that his girlfriend Jocelyn Peters was 30 years old and she was getting ready to have a shower for her
05:08child he
05:09immediately said you got to find out who killed the mother of my child and my unborn child Cornelius said
05:15that Miss Peters was currently employed as a third grade school teacher at manna elementary school in
05:21the city of st. Louis and he said he was a principal at car lane school but he had prior
05:27worked at manna
05:28elementary and that's how they began the relationship and he also stated that he was out of town visiting some
05:34friends in Chicago and he got off the Amtrak train at 2 59 p.m. that day we continued our
05:41conversation I
05:42asked how many keys there were for the apartment he said he had one and the victim had one these
05:48are
05:49heavy-duty doors that if you had to break in you would have had to make a lot of noise
05:54you would have had
05:55to done damage none of that was visible so Cornelius green was taking down to police headquarters for more
06:03interviewing my phone just started ringing and ringing and ringing and I looked up it was Cornelius
06:12he was like it's been an accident it's been blood it's blood I said I got to go now it
06:19felt like I was
06:20driving only two miles an hour and I got to her apartment there was police and I walked to her
06:28door and the cop just
06:32looked at me and she was like she's dead and I was like what about the baby what about the
06:40baby and she just
06:43kind of like dropped her head down and she was like the baby did too I just couldn't believe it
06:50she
06:50wasn't the young lady that'd be out ripping running the street making enemies stuff like that she just
06:56wasn't that person and I told the police we just took a family cruise for her 30th birthday with Cornelius
07:05I believe they paid for the cruise together he was a good guy there was a good relationship
07:11she was really happy and ecstatic because this would have been her first child I just felt like
07:18if I could have traded my life for hers I would have gladly did it
07:29we have a young pregnant school teacher has no enemies no criminal history and she was shot in her sleep
07:39so we went back inside of the apartment we're going to be meticulous take our time and go
07:46through and get every obstructive fact that we can obtain from the scene as we looked around the
07:53apartment again the kitchen was in order on the refrigerator the victim had a menu for the whole
08:01week written on a whiteboard contained everything she wanted to feed herself we observed on the kitchen
08:08dining room table a 10-pound bag of russet baking potatoes the bag was opened but the menu on her
08:16refrigerator none of those recipes indicated they use potatoes the substance that was all over the
08:23victim and the victims bed and the walls the evidence technician unit was able to find a piece big
08:29enough that indicated it may possibly be a potato there's old mafia movies where they use potatoes
08:36as silencers if it was a silencer trick it's not like you're going to go in and break into a
08:43house
08:43and then look around for potato decided to kill somebody sleeping somebody knew potato was going to be
08:51there that they were going to obviously use this was clearly and obviously a premeditated and planned
09:01murder there was the package with the money to kill jocelyn peters and you could clearly see a 10 pound
09:09bag of russet potatoes sitting on there she is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be
09:15used in her own murder it becomes very apparent how much thought process one putting into this before
09:21it happened she never saw this coming on March 24th 2016 when I found out that jocelyn peters was found
09:38shot to death what struck me immediately was the fact that she was pregnant and a potato was used to
09:46silence the gun so I went to the area where the crime scene was and people were talking about how
09:54nice and sweet she
09:55was I just didn't understand please please tell me this isn't true is it she was such a nurturing and
10:03loving
10:03teacher her passion her liveliness she was very very skilled and she had just this fire about her
10:11we knew she would be an amazing mom she was really excited about having the baby because this would have
10:19been her first child Micah Lee was the name for her baby that she was carrying and from my interviews
10:28with her family friends co-workers it was fairly obvious how excited Jocelyn was to be a new mother
10:39upon speaking with the medical examiner at the scene it was determined that Miss Peters died between 2
10:4659 and 3 48 a.m. from a single gunshot wound through her eye from a 380 caliber handgun that
10:52would have
10:53instantaneously killed her and caused the death of her unborn child I immediately thought how did this
11:00happen why did this happen mr. green had told sergeant mcglynn that he was the only one to have access
11:06and
11:06keys to the apartment and there was no sign of forced entry so corny this green was obviously a person
11:14of
11:14interest at this point so we conveyed mr. green down to the homicide office so we could interview him
11:24when murders happen the overwhelming majority of them are at the hands of someone that we know the
11:31family member spouse brother sister something like that during that initial interview we want to see his
11:39body language how he speaks does he react as most people normally do in a situation like that
11:45hey john it's cornelius hey if i can ask you one thing i'll have you sit right there what's your
11:52last
11:52name cornelius green hey i just want to express my condolences to you okay yes sir we're gonna do
11:58everything we can help get you through this situation okay cornelius green when he's being
12:06questioned by the detectives he seems to be upset about losing this child losing this woman that he
12:11has loved but he doesn't engage in a heck of a lot of eye contact it seems that he is
12:17trying hard
12:18to manage the way other people see him nobody in that apartment complex that jocelyn was having a
12:24problem with or anybody there that was she never said hey there's you know crazy guy downstairs during
12:31that same time we want us to get a timeline of when did you get into town how did you
12:37get here
12:38when did you come home from chicago i just got back off the train
12:41i got in my car and came straight on that because i was trying to call her in the morning
12:45i called her mom
12:47as he's on the train coming back to st louis cornelius starts calling jocelyn repeatedly not getting answers
12:54he calls her mother and says i'm concerned she's not answering my calls when you talk to her mom what
13:01did her mother say it's going to voicemail but everything should be fine so i just kept calling
13:07until i got to the station and i just went over there cornelius informed me that he was picked up
13:14by his
13:14friend in cornelius's car he dropped his friend off came over to the apartment and found the victim
13:34while we were interviewing him i had the investigators call the train station we got their surveillance
13:40footage and we could see cornelius coming off the amtrak train into the terminal cornelius green was
13:48out of town in chicago at the time of the murder so he obviously was not to trigger man but
13:55the odd thing
13:56about that was he was looking up at the cameras to make sure that you could see a good clear
14:01view of him
14:02getting off that train he made a point to be seen that was something that stuck in our head so
14:08we had to
14:08keep digging we wanted to get a little background on his ongoing relationship with jocelyn peters
14:16cordialis how long have you known jocelyn we started dating in 2011. he had stated that they had been
14:23looking at houses and had just two weeks prior to her death went on a cruise together with several
14:29members of her family but then he said something that was extremely strange has everything been okay
14:35yeah i mean we have a little little tits yeah we break up again because i'm separated so you're
14:41legally married right now yes sir what's your wife's name stephanie green what many kids do you have
14:48mr green explained to us that he was currently separated from his wife obtaining a divorce and it
14:54was due to his ongoing relationship with miss peters at that point i wanted to search carnelius's car
15:03and i was going to search the victim's car as well because vehicles are places that sometimes
15:09evidence ends up it's an extension of the crime scene would you like to give us consent to look
15:13in your car so we just rule out that there's anything in there i just don't understand why
15:17by looking in your car not seeing anything that jumps out at us we would be saying okay cornelius isn't
15:23involved in this i'm not okay mr green became extremely agitated felt like it was an accusatory
15:30question that we would ask him i feel like when you do that i'm acting like a criminal you want
15:35us to rule you out right how am i being moved in sir i really haven't been here he became
15:41irate
15:42towards us and refused consent for any officers to look inside of his vehicle at that current time
15:49when you're like this guy is obviously involved in something and then during the course of our
15:56interview um mr green requested to contact his daughter and we monitored this as it was happening
16:03live hello hey cool come on real quick he had the volume up so loud that you could hear the
16:11other
16:11person on the other line talking his vehicle had still remained at the scene and he was reaching
16:25out to his wife stephanie he wanted her to meet with someone named philip and give him the keys so
16:33philip can go pick up his vehicle which makes zero sense when his girlfriend and his child have just been
16:39murdered it makes you wonder who is philip and why is cornelius so concerned about his wife meeting
16:46with this man and what all is going on here at one point during the interview with cornelius green
16:59he makes a phone call to his wife can you meet up with philip please hey my car cornelius had
17:08requested
17:09his wife stephanie to get his spare key and take it to a friend of his named philip after speaking
17:16to
17:16his wife he reached out to philip green arranges for stephanie and philip to meet at this gas station by
17:33forest park and highway 40. and then cornelius wants him to go pick up his vehicle at the crime scene
17:41it was kind of shocking to see him do that i wanted to know what was on the inside of
17:47that car
17:47that cornelius was trying to hide cornelius wasn't a suspect but his extreme concern over his vehicle
17:56gave us a pause and concern to investigate further but we were not able to get a search warrant because
18:03there was not enough tangible evidence at that point so we went back in the interview room and we asked
18:10who
18:10was talking to he admitted that he called his wife stephanie and a friend of his name philip cutler
18:19we wanted to know why he's the one that cornelius reached out to how long have you known philip
18:36cutler obviously we knew that on the 22nd cornelius green took the amtrak train to chicago we wanted to
18:44know who gave him a ride to the anthrax station how did you get today train station
18:51philip dropped joff on tuesday and uh what did you do with your car
18:58we knew he did not want us to search that vehicle which really didn't make sense we wanted to know
19:04what would philip cutler do with the car while cornelius was gone
19:10was he near jocelyn peter's apartment during the time when the murder occurred so now he's the
19:16person that we got interviewed we had investigators respond to that gas station they were able to make
19:21contact with stephanie green and philip cutler and they're both brought down to the homicide division
19:26where we're able to interview him that evening we obviously had to look pretty hard at cornelius's wife
19:33because he indicated there was a divorce that was going to take place stephanie green was shook up
19:40and in a fragile emotional state while we're speaking to her she had no idea that cornelius
19:44was involved in this relationship with our victim jocelyn peters and she was further unaware that
19:52cornelius and jocelyn were expecting a newborn child it was kind of a bombshell that was dropped on her
19:58that was immediately a red flag for detectives cornelius's wife said there was no talk of divorce
20:07there was no talk of we're having problems and she had an alibi when the murder occurred
20:13stephanie was cooperative there was nothing that indicated to us that she was being dishonest or
20:19deceitful so we have to rule stephanie out but mr green's lies regarding him obtaining a divorce from
20:27his wife made him look even more to us like a suspect during this investigation so the next step was
20:34to speak with philip cutler you're fully aware there was a homicide correct yes and who do you know the
20:42victim to be um my friend's girlfriend you ever met her he stated that he had not personally met her
20:54and denied ever being over at victim peters residence then we kind of went into a let's get a timeline
21:01of
21:02when did you get into town when did you plan this trip to come back to st louis a couple
21:08weeks when
21:09you came back to st louis came back to st louis on uh monday he stated he'd come here on
21:18the greyhound bus
21:19cornelia has picked him up at the bus station on the 21st at approximately 10 30 in the evening
21:26you guys hang out here and cornelia's hang out the next day or what
21:30well he uh he had to leave town he went out of town to go on some trip to do
21:38something i forget he told me
21:41when we asked him you came down to visit your friend doesn't that seem you know that seems a
21:45little odd did you know he was going to be leaving kind of hem-hawed a little bit around the
21:50question
21:52and at this point we had conducted interviews with mr cutler mr green some of the things just didn't
21:58sit right with the investigation cornelius gave philip cutler possession of his vehicle while he was out of
22:05town and then he refused consent for any officers to look inside of his vehicle also green wasn't
22:12telling the truth about being separated from his wife so they were certainly persons of interest but
22:19there were no arrests at that time but we had investigators continued reviewing the evidence
22:26reviewing reports and video footage from the interviews with mr cutler mr green
22:33that's when we observed something that was extremely strange that occurred while mr cutler
22:38was alone in the interview room he's pacing back and forth and then much to our astonishment he thumbs
22:45through a notepad tears out a single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it up and swallow it my
22:55immediate
22:55reaction was what in the heck there's no doubt in my mind that that piece of paper was a direct
23:01connection to him and the murder that just occurred
23:14during the interview you see philip cutler get a piece of paper with some writing on it and then
23:20goes to his mouth with it and it disappears it's very unusual what he does it was like he was
23:26trying
23:27to hide something possibly there's some indication of guilt there because of their behavior our
23:33investigation now is directed towards philip cutler and cornelius green as suspects but we need evidence
23:40so one of the things that we do is we'll look for potential surveillance equipment throughout the
23:46neighborhood the entrance to jocelyn street where the apartments were located at a building that it has some
23:53security footage running 24 7 on the perimeter i was able to reach out and go over surveillance footage
24:01we know that cornelius green arrived over at the scene sometime around 3 20 the afternoon after the
24:07murder and he was driving his car so that gave us a starting point we backed up and went through
24:14probably
24:1412 to 15 hours of video surveillance of that intersection as we're looking at it 2 59 a.m on
24:22the night of the murder we see a vehicle turn onto jocelyn peters street from boyle and we later observe
24:30it leave the street around 348 it was a white kia and they were able to zoom in and we
24:35got three or
24:36four positive letters off the license plate it was indeed cornelius green white kia optima we knew that
24:44cornelius green was out of town and he had left the keys to his vehicle with philip cutler and we
24:51knew that those keys also contained a key to enter into that apartment complex and enter into mrs peter's
24:58apartment at this point it gave us a theory that philip cutler was the one that killed jocelyn peters
25:10i couldn't really process her untimely death but i had a funeral to plan principal nicole had called
25:21and she was like well you know what i'm gonna call that day off for the kids so they'll be
25:27able to
25:28attend jocelyn's funeral there were kids that were really struggling so we really wanted to find a
25:34way to celebrate her life when i got to the funeral it was people already just standing there lying around
25:44the corner just to see her jocelyn's favorite color is yellow so at the funeral when the kids walk past
25:53me
25:54all the kids would hand me one yellow rose it was really hard i was constantly praying
26:03cornelius did not attend her funeral it ran in the back of my mind while my daughter's dead he's not
26:10dead too that's what i wanted to know
26:15as we continued looking into cornelius green and philip cutler trying to get as much evidence
26:22in a foundation late there was tips that would come in one of those was this woman who came into
26:28the homicide office and stated that she saw in the news that this incident occurred and then she said
26:34she was involved with cornelius for quite a while a couple years at least and recently learned he was
26:41juggling numerous romantic sexual relationships at the same time she said he was a womanizer and certainly
26:47it was another red flag for police at that point after interviewing her we'd received a call from
26:53cornelius green he said he had heard out on the street that we were speaking to this woman who he
27:00was involved in a relationship with and he was irritated to say the least he then went on and asked
27:06what he could do to help us so we offered him the opportunity to provide his cellular telephone and
27:13oddly enough he allowed us to download it after receiving the data information we were able to
27:19obtain his text messaging and some of his google searches and on march 20th 2016 four days before
27:28the murder and prior to philip cutler coming into town he had a telephonic conversation with philip
27:34cutler he then reached out to miss peters via text during that conversation miss peters states that
27:42she's going to go to the aldi's and go grocery shopping and cornelius states i will meet you
27:48there he seemed adamant that hey we'll go shopping together it just seemed you know rather odd she
27:54didn't seem like she was asking him to come with her to the grocery store we were able to obtain
28:00the
28:00video surveillance inside the aldi's and we observed jocelyn peters exiting the store with cornelius
28:07green directly behind her pushing the cart and you could clearly see a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes
28:14sitting on there same brand that was found at the crime scene on the kitchen table with one missing
28:20which i don't believe it was just happenstance or coincidence now there's no doubt in our minds that
28:25that conversation he had with philip cutler on march 20th prior to going grocery shopping with miss peters
28:32was him making sure that there's some potatoes bought it becomes very apparent how much thought
28:38process he was putting into this before it happened it was kind of shocking she never saw this coming
28:45she is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder that's important
28:51because it did help us start to paint the picture and see what was happening just days prior to miss
28:57peters being murdered but it was circumstantial evidence and there was a tremendous amount of
29:04other obstacles to overcome first there was no murder weapon that was ever recovered and second
29:12cornelius green has a alibi so we need to essentially prove he planned a way for mr cutler to come
29:20into
29:20town to kill jocelyn peters so next we obtained a search warrant and received the tracking history
29:27from philip cutler's telephone it showed philip cutler in the area of jocelyn peters apartment the
29:33night she was murdered and then it showed cutler traveling directly down to north riverfront park
29:41in the far north end of the city why this stood out to us is because north riverfront park borders
29:48the
29:48mississippi river cutler responded there after speaking with green and spent eight minutes there
29:53the morning after the murder we believe he discarded the murder weapon in the mississippi river
30:01the river was searched but unless you knew exactly where it was the chances of it still being there
30:06are slim so the murder weapon was never found it was a very difficult case to make that's why the
30:14detectives kept digging and digging and digging while we were looking for something that proved that
30:20they both worked together and planned the way to kill miss peters we were able to identify some of the
30:26most prevalent google searches on green's phone prior to the murder of miss peters one of the first
30:32patterns we observed was that there were google searches about how to mask the taste of an abortion pill
30:39this was early on in the pregnancy just a few weeks and he had started googling can i crush up
30:46pills
30:47to end the pregnancy it strongly suggested that corneus green was trying to kill the baby without
30:54jocelyn peters knowledge i believe the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying became an obstacle and if he
31:02could get rid of the pregnancy and he could continue to have jocelyn peters as a toy to play with
31:07along with the other five or six women and continue to live life in exactly the way that he wanted
31:12to
31:12as we continued looking into his google searches it seemed that this apparently was not working one of
31:19green's searches was still seeing a heartbeat after taking an abortion pill and all of these google searches
31:25happened several months prior to miss peters being murdered he obviously was searching for this method
31:33to get rid of the child and when that didn't work out it wasn't long after that cornelius decides to
31:40segue into the murder business
31:50we identified cornelius green researching abortion pills researching a ways to induce an abortion
31:58cornelius made some fairly sinister efforts to get rid of this pregnancy and when that didn't work he
32:06arrived at the conclusion that jocelyn peters was a liability that he needed to get rid of
32:13that starts to build the the motive and the means and the method of how this murder occurred we further
32:20investigated cornelius's cell phone data and on february 28th cornelius green and philip cutler have a
32:27conversation via text where green had said are you going to be coming into town cutler responds in
32:34the affirmative and asks when he says march 20th and cutler says okay don't forget to send the package
32:43when i read it i immediately thought there was something of value sent from green to mr cutler
32:50and i was able to reach out to the post office there's a record of a transaction where on march
32:57the 7th just days prior to the murder he sent a package to philip cutler in oklahoma
33:06which police assume is the money to pay him to kill jocelyn peters this was obviously planning and
33:14premeditation on both green and color's part with relation to miss peters murder but at this point
33:22green had obtained an attorney so we could not bring him in and speak with him again
33:31it was extremely challenging to keep moving forward but then we'd received a call from
33:37the dance instructor of car lane school where cornelius green was the principal we had learned
33:44approximately 2700 had been stolen from car lane school's dance program a few weeks prior to the
33:51murder of miss peters
33:55she said on march 3rd she observed cornelius green in the area where the money had been taken
34:02and believed that he was no doubt involved when asked about why it wasn't reported
34:09she stated that she was extremely concerned with repercussions because he wielded a certain amount
34:15of authority over the school being the principal we believe that 2700 dollars was the payment
34:21cornelius green sent to philip cutler to kill jocelyn peters
34:28as you progress through the investigation the amount of circumstantial evidence
34:33that was obtained it gave us the timeline the motive and then the method of how this murder occurred
34:41there's no question that this was a elaborate premeditated plan to end jocelyn peters life
34:47and get rid of the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying
34:55in august of 2015 miss peters became pregnant
35:00then just a few weeks in the pregnancy cornelius green started searching ways to end the pregnancy
35:09cornelius spent months trying to poison or kill the baby
35:13when that didn't work on february 28th cornelius green arranges for philip cutler to be the trigger man
35:20on march the third he stole money from car lane middle school
35:25on march 8th cornelius green sent phil cutler the money to murder jocelyn on march 14th through the
35:3418th cornelius takes jocelyn and her family on a cruise for her birthday we believe he was trying
35:42to throw him off on march 20th cornelius green accompanied jocelyn peters to the grocery store
35:48where they purchased the russet potatoes and then he left them inside of the apartment for mr cutler
35:56on march 21st philip cutler travels from oklahoma to st louis missouri
36:02police believe the next day cornelius hands philip cutler his 38 caliber gun and the keys to jocelyn's
36:09apartment and then cornelius green takes an amtrak to chicago as an alibi for himself in the middle of
36:18the night philip cutler goes into jocelyn peters apartment used a potato as a silencer shoots her
36:28one time in the head and kills her and her unborn child next cornelius green takes an amtrak back to
36:37st louis as he's on the train cornelius starts calling jocelyn repeatedly was all just part of
36:45the ruse to make it look like he was concerned about her and then lastly cornelius green goes to
36:52her apartment and calls 911 to report the death of jocelyn peters
37:00the level of planning that went on for this case was shocking that's his girlfriend he's
37:08going to be the father of the child that she's carrying this was a cold-blooded horrific crime
37:13i don't know if cornelius green was a psychopath but he should be in the psychology textbooks because
37:19the cognitive sophistication that it would take to keep all of that separate you have to be adept at
37:25compartmentalizing your life at that point we knew that we needed to arrest both cutler and green
37:31for the murder of jocelyn peters and her unborn child
37:39at this point we have the abortion search history with green we have cutler's cell phone data that
37:47puts him at the location of the victim's residence we have the video surveillance of the vehicle
37:54that philip cutler was in possession of turning onto the victim street the night of the murder
37:59so we're able to secure indictments against mr cutler and mr green for a conspiracy to commit murder
38:05and committing murder for hire cornelius is arrested first obviously we wanted to get an opportunity to
38:12try and talk to him but he doesn't make any statements at that time and then we traveled into muskogee
38:19oklahoma and placed philip cutler under arrest to be transported back to st louis missouri i did our
38:27post-arrest interview he denied having anything to do with the murder of jocelyn peters
38:38when they called and uh told me they had arrested both of them i was pretty much in shock
38:46i thought cornelius was a good guy i was out to dinner with our school counselor and it came across
38:54the news that he was arrested and we just cried together that was a life-changing day because it
39:03had taken so many months and it finally had happened and it was just a rush of emotion
39:08i was glad that it finally happened but you know i just wanted my daughter my granddaughter back
39:21this is certainly a chilling crime a father and a principal at the school thought out a murder for
39:29higher plot but unfortunately the covid pandemic really threw a wrench into the criminal justice
39:36system eight years go by before we actually go to trial and prior to the trial date cornelius green
39:43accepted a plea to plead guilty cornelius agrees to life with no parole so the death penalty was off the
39:54table at this point but philip cutler takes it to a jury trial it was shocking that he wanted a
40:02trial
40:02given the mountain of evidence there was against him and how could you put this family through
40:11reliving all of this from the beginning of the trial there were members of jocelyn's family and
40:20friends and co-workers that were in the courtroom and there was really some outrage how dare you
40:29i had to be there i wanted to see him i wanted to look at him and i wanted him
40:36to know that i know
40:38what you did i was mad he shot my baby in the face right through the eye
40:46i just wanted to scream we look at this case and you see the troubling sophistication of it hey i'll
40:56go to the store and buy a sack of potatoes and the potatoes will be in the apartment then when
41:02you get
41:02there all you have to do is grab one and use it this was the most thought-out premeditated crime
41:11that i had covered and philip cutler any point in time along the way easily could have backed out
41:17and no one would have ever known and he just didn't philip cutler was found guilty and was
41:25sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison without parole for both the murder of jocelyn peters
41:34and her unborn child michael lee there was just this huge sense of relief he is going to pay for
41:41what
41:41he did there's a special place in hell for him
41:50the hole in my heart is still there it's not a day that i don't think about jocelyn i can
42:01be driving
42:02down the street and see something that reminds me of her she had a smile and a laugh that was
42:11contagious
42:11she was all about helping kids in the community so everybody in the family we don't mind giving a
42:19helping hand to people that that need it that's how we keep her memory alive
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