- 7 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
00:23instantaneously 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 you know who the
00:53victim was i have no love her he tears out a single sheet of paper and proceeds to chew it
01:00up and
01:01swallow it there's no question that this was a elaborate premeditated plan to end her life
01:39what's going on there i just got home and i walk in the doors open what everyone wants to let
01:44my
01:44girlfriend okay sir we're on the way we were dispatched to west pine avenue at the same time
01:56ems responded declared the victim deceased at the scene we were met by the person who made a 9-1
02:03-1
02:03call cornelius green and he said he was the boyfriend of the victim that was inside her name
02:11with jocelyn peters cornelius was extremely out of breath a little bit frantic he told us miss peters
02:18was seven months pregnant and he oftentimes stayed with her at her apartment it was a secure building
02:25with a key that cannot be duplicated for the front main entrance door as you enter the apartment building
02:33you go through a secure locked glass foyer entrance the victim's apartment was that first apartment on the
02:40left as you walk up to the second floor as you enter the apartment to the right as the bedroom
02:48her
02:49bedroom door was opened the victim was on her bed laying on her right side pillow tucked underneath her
02:56arms blankets no longer on her you could definitely tell that she was pregnant she had her arms folded in
03:03like she was sound asleep and just ambushed in her own bed she had an obvious gunshot wound through her
03:11eye and blood that had came down the side of her face and pooled on the pillow next to her
03:17arm terribly
03:18tragic scene I do not believe this poor woman ever knew what hit her before it happened the whole thing
03:28was horrible 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 handgun
04:05but there was no DNA evidence obtained during that time one of the first things that I noticed is
04:14that there wasn't clothes strewn about there wasn't TVs or anything knocked over there wasn't drawers tossed
04:21out like someone that went through an apartment looking for something there was no forced entry nothing taken
04:26this was not a burglary type homicide there was something else going on here we also have
04:34noticed there was gifts that were laid out there was a shirt that indicated I love daddy and other items
04:43related to her baby it looked like this woman's whole life was surrounded around the child that she was
04:50about to have while our evidence technicians were conducting the interior scene investigation we
04:57responded outside of the apartment and spoke with mr. green Cornelius green was very upset and he told me that
05:07his
05:08girlfriend Jocelyn Peters was 30 years old and she was getting ready to have a shower for her child he
05:15immediately
05:15said you got to find out who killed the mother of my child and my unborn child Cornelius said that
05:21miss Peters
05:22was currently employed as a third grade school teacher at manna elementary school in the city of St. Louis and
05:29he 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 p.m. that day we continued our conversation I asked how many keys there
05:50were for
05:50the apartment he said he had one and the victim had one these are heavy-duty doors that if you
05:57had to break
05:57in you would have had to make a lot of noise you would have had to done damage none of
06:02that 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 he was like it's
06:20been an accident it's been blood it's blood so I said I got to go now it felt like I
06:26was driving
06:26only two miles an hour and I got to her apartment there was police and I walked to her door
06:35and the cop just
06:38looked at me and she was like she's dead and I was like what about the baby what about the
06:46baby and she just
06:49kind of like dropped her head down and she was like the baby dead too I just couldn't believe it
06:56she wasn't the young lady that'd be out ripping running the street making enemies stuff like
07:01that she just wasn't that person and I told the police we just took a family cruise for her 30th
07:09birthday with Cornelius I believe they paid for the cruise together he was a good guy it was a good
07:16relationship she was really happy and ecstatic because this would have been her first child I just felt
07:23like 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
07:42sleep so 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
08:00again the kitchen was in order on the refrigerator the victim had a menu for the whole week written on
08:08a whiteboard contained everything she wanted to feed herself we observed on the kitchen dining room table a
08:1610-pound bag of russet baking potatoes the bag was opened but the menu on her refrigerator none of
08:24those recipes indicated they used potatoes the substance that was all over the victim and the
08:30victim's bed and the walls the evidence technician unit was able to find a piece big enough that indicated it
08:36may possibly be a potato there's old mafia movies where they use potatoes as silencers if it was a
08:45silencer trick it's not like you're going to go in and break into a house and then look around for
08:51potato
08:52decided to kill somebody sleeping somebody knew potato was going to be there that they were going to
08:58obviously use this was a clearly and obviously a premeditated and planned murder there was the package
09:09with the money to kill jocelyn peters and you could clearly see a 10-pound bag of russet potatoes sitting
09:17on there she is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder it becomes
09:22very
09:23apparent how much thought process one put an end of this before it happened she never saw this coming
09:43on March 24 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 I just
10:09didn't
10:10understand please please tell me this isn't true is it she was such a nurturing and loving teacher her
10:16passion her liveliness she was very very skilled and she had just this fire about her
10:22we knew she would be an amazing mom she was really excited about having the baby because this would
10:31have been her first child Micah Lee was the name for her baby that she was carrying and from my
10:39interviews with her family friends co-workers it was fairly obvious how excited jocelyn was to be a new
10:50mother upon speaking with the medical examiner at the scene it was determined that Miss Peters died
10:57between 259 and 348 a.m. from a single gunshot wound through her eye from a 380 caliber handgun that
11:04would
11:04have instantaneously killed her and caused the death of her unborn child I immediately thought how did this
11:12happen why did this happen mr. green had told sergeant mcglynn that he was the only one to have access
11:18and
11:18keys to the apartment and there was no sign of fourth century so cornea screen was obviously a person of
11:26interest at this point so we conveyed mr. green down to the homicide office so we could interview him when
11:36murders happen the overwhelming majority of them are at the hands of someone that we know the family
11:43member spouse brother sister something like that during that initial interview we want to see his body
11:51language how he speaks does he react as most people normally do in a situation like that
11:57hey john it's cornelius hey if i can ask you one thing i'll have you sit right there what's your
12:04last
12:04name cornelius green hey i just want to express my condolences to you okay we're going to do everything
12:10with candy help get you through this situation okay cornelius green when he's being questioned by the
12:18detectives he seems to be upset about losing this child losing this woman that he has loved but he
12:25doesn't engage in the heck of a lot of eye contact it seems that he is trying hard to manage
12:31the way
12:32other people see him nobody in that apartment complex that jocelyn was having a problem with or
12:37anybody there that was she never said hey there's you know crazy guy downstairs during that same time
12:44we want to get a timeline of when did you get into town how did you get here when did
12:50you come home
12:58as he's on the train coming back to st louis cornelius starts calling jocelyn repeatedly not getting
13:05answers he calls her mother and says i'm concerned she's not answering my calls when you talk to her
13:21cornelius cornelius informed me that he was picked up by his friend in cornelius's car
13:28he dropped his friend off came over to the apartment and found the victim
13:34in our process of our investigation we're going to go through take some elimination fingerprints
13:42i just said could you stay there sure so how do you while we were interviewing him i had the
13:48investigators call the train station we got their surveillance footage and we could see cornelius
13:54coming off the amtrak train into the terminal cornelius green was out of town in chicago at the time of
14:01the murder so he obviously was not to trigger man but the odd thing about that was he was looking
14:10up at the cameras to make sure that you could see a good clear view of him getting off that
14:14train
14:15he made a point to be seen that was something that stuck in our head so we had to keep
14:20digging
14:21we wanted to get a little background on his ongoing relationship with jocelyn peters
14:30he had stated that they had been looking at houses and had just two weeks prior to her death
14:38went on a cruise together with several members of her family but then he said something that was
14:45extremely strange mr green explained to us that he was currently separated from his wife
15:04obtaining 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
15:17as well 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
15:31at us we would be saying okay cornelius isn't involved in this i'm not okay mr green became
15:39extremely agitated felt like it was an accusatory question that we would ask him i feel like when
15:44you do that i'm acting like a criminal you want us to rule you out right how am i being
15:49ruled in sir
15:50i really haven't been here he became irate towards us and refused consent for any officers to look inside
15:58of his vehicle at that current time and you're like this guy is obviously involved in something
16:05and then during the course of our interview mr green requested to contact his daughter
16:12and we monitored this as it was happening live
16:18he had the volume up so loud that you could hear the other person on the other line talking
16:33his vehicle had still remained at the scene and he was reaching out to his wife stephanie
16:39he wanted her to meet with someone named philip and give him the keys so philip can go pick up
16:45his
16:46vehicle which makes zero sense when his girlfriend and his child have just been murdered it makes you
16:52wonder who is philip and why is cornelius so concerned about his wife meeting with this man
16:58and what all is going on here
17:02not here
17:12at one point during the interview with cornelius green he makes a phone call to his wife
17:24cornelius had requested his wife stephanie to get his spare key and take it to a friend of his
17:30named philip after speaking to his wife he reached out to philip
17:46green 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 it was kind of shocking
17:59to see him do that i wanted to know what was on the inside of that car that cornelius was
18:05trying to
18:06hide cornelius wasn't a suspect but his extreme concern over his vehicle gave us a pause and concern
18:14to investigate further but we were not able to get a search warrant because there was not enough
18:20tangible evidence at that point so we went back in the interview room and we asked who he was talking
18:27to he admitted that he called his wife stephanie and a friend of his named philip cutler
18:35we wanted to know why he's the one that cornelius reached out to
18:38how long have you known philip cutler
18:4215 20 years is he living town or is he living out of town
18:47when did he come into town
18:53obviously we knew that on the 22nd cornelius green took the amtrak train to chicago we wanted to know
19:00who gave him a ride to the amtrak station how did you get today train station
19:14we knew he did not want us to search that vehicle which really didn't make sense we wanted to know
19:21what would philip cutler do with the car while cornelius was gone was he near jocelyn peter's
19:28apartment during the time when the murder occurred so now he's the person that we got interviewed
19:34we had investigators respond to that gas station they were able to make contact with stephanie
19:39green and philip cutler and they're both brought down to the homicide division where we're able to
19:44interview him that evening we obviously had to look pretty hard at cornelius's wife because he
19:50indicated there was a divorce that was going to take place stephanie green was shook up and in a
19:57fragile emotional state while we're speaking to her she had no idea that cornelius was involved in
20:01this relationship with our victim jocelyn peters and she was further unaware that cornelius and jocelyn
20:09were expecting a newborn child it was kind of a bombshell that was dropped on her that was immediately
20:17a red flag for detectives cornelius's wife said there was no talk of divorce there was no talk of
20:24we're having problems and she had an alibi when the murder occurred stephanie was cooperative there
20:32was nothing that indicated to us that she was being dishonest or deceitful so we have to rule stephanie
20:38out but mr green's lies regarding him obtaining a divorce from his wife made him look even more to us
20:46like a suspect during this investigation so the next step was to speak with philip cutler
20:52you're fully aware there was a homicide correct yes and who do you know the victim to be
21:00um my friend's girlfriend you ever met her he stated that he had not personally met her and
21:11denied ever being over at victim peters residence then we kind of went into a let's get a timeline of
21:18when did you get into town when did you plan this trip to come back to st louis a couple
21:24weeks
21:24when you came back to st louis when i came back to st louis on uh monday
21:33he stated he'd come here on the greyhound bus cornelius picked him up at the bus station
21:37on the 21st at approximately 10 30 in the evening you guys hang out here and cornelius hang out
21:44the next day or what he uh he had to leave town he went out of town to go on
21:52some trip
21:53to do something i forget he told me when we asked him you came down to visit your friend doesn't
22:00that
22:00seem you know that seems a little odd did you know he was going to be leaving kind of
22:05hem-hawed a little bit around the question and at this point we had conducted interviews with mr
22:11cutler mr green some of the things just didn't sit right with the investigation cornelius gave philip
22:18cutler possession of his vehicle while he was out of town and then he refused consent for any
22:25officers to look inside of his vehicle also green wasn't telling the truth about being separated from
22:31his wife so they were certainly persons of interest but there were no arrests at that time
22:39but we had investigators continued reviewing the evidence reviewing reports
22:44and video footage from the interviews with mr cutler mr green that's when we observed something
22:51that was extremely 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
23:35during the interview you see philip cutler get a piece of paper with some writing on it and then
23:41it goes to his mouth with it and it disappears it's very unusual what he does it was like he
23:47was
23:47trying to hide something possibly there's some indication of guilt there because of their behavior
23:53our investigation now is directed towards philip cutler and cornelius green as suspects but we need
24:00evidence so one of the things that we do is we'll look for potential surveillance equipment throughout the
24:06neighborhood the entrance to jocelyn street where the apartments were located at a building that
24:13has some security footage running 24 7 on the perimeter i was able to reach out and go over
24:20surveillance footage we know that cornelius green arrived over at the scene sometime around 3 20 the
24:27afternoon after the murder and he was driving his car so that gave us a starting point we backed up
24:34and
24:34went through probably 12 to 15 hours of video surveillance of that intersection as we're looking
24:40at it 2 59 a.m on the night of the murder we see a vehicle turn on to jocelyn
24:47peters street from boyle
24:49and we later observe it leave the street around 348. it was a white kia and they were able to
24:55zoom in
24:56and we got three or four positive letters off the license plate
25:01it was indeed cornelius green white kia optima we knew that cornelius green was out of town and he
25:07had left the keys to his vehicle with philip cutler and we knew that those keys also contained a key
25:14to
25:14enter into that apartment complex and enter into mrs peter's apartment at this point it gave us a theory
25:21that philip cutler was the one that killed jocelyn peters
25:30i couldn't really process her untimely death
25:36but i had a funeral to plan principal nicole had called and she was like well you know what i'm
25:44gonna call that day off for the kids so they'll be able to attend jocelyn's funeral
25:51there were kids that were really struggling so we really wanted to find a way to celebrate her life
25:58when i got to the funeral it was people already just standing there lying around the corner
26:05just to see her jocelyn's favorite color is yellow so at the funeral when the kids walked past me all
26:15the
26:15kids would hand me one yellow rose it was really hard i was constantly praying
26:24cornelius did not attend her funeral it ran in the back of my mind while my daughter's
26:30dead he's not dead too that's what i wanted to know
26:36as we continued looking into cornelius green and philip cutler trying to get as much evidence
26:42in a foundation late there was tips that would come in one of those was this woman who came into
26:49the homicide office and stated that she saw on the news that this incident occurred and then she said
26:55she was involved with cornelius for quite a while a couple years at least and recently learned he was
27:01juggling numerous romantic sexual relationships at the same time she said he was a womanizer and
27:07certainly it was another red flag for police at that point after interviewing her we'd received a
27:14call from cornelius green he said he had heard out on the street that we were speaking to this woman
27:20who he was involved in a relationship with and he was irritated to say the least he then went on
27:27and
27:27asked what he could do to help us so we offered him the opportunity to provide his cellular telephone
27:33and oddly enough he allowed us to download it after receiving the data information we were able to
27:40obtain his text messaging and some of his google searches and on march 20th 2016 four days before
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 there
28:09he 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 that
28:46conversation he had with philip cutler on march 20th prior to going grocery shopping with miss peters
28:53was him making sure that there's some potatoes bought it becomes very apparent how much thought
28:59process he was putting into this before it happened it was kind of shocking she never saw this coming
29:05she is literally purchasing the tools that are going to be used in her own murder that's important
29:11because it did help us start to paint the picture and see what was happening just days prior to miss
29:18peters being murdered but it was circumstantial evidence and there was a tremendous amount of other
29:25obstacles to overcome first there was no murder weapon that was ever recovered and second cornelius
29:34green has a alibi so we need to essentially prove he planned a way for mr cutler to come into
29:41town to kill jocelyn peters so next we obtained a search warrant and received the tracking history
29:47from philip cutler's telephone it showed philip cutler in the area of jocelyn peters apartment the
29:53night she was murdered and then it showed cutler traveling directly down to north riverfront park
30:02in the far north end of the city why this stood out to us is because north riverfront park borders
30:08the
30:09mississippi river cutler responded there after speaking with green and spent eight minutes there
30:14the morning after the murder we believe he discarded the murder weapon in the mississippi river the river
30:22was searched but unless you knew exactly where it was the chances of it still being there are slim so
30:29the murder weapon was never found it was a very difficult case to make that's why the detectives kept
30:35digging and digging and digging while we were looking for something that proved that they both
30:41worked together and planned the way to kill miss peters we were able to identify some of the most
30:47prevalent google searches on green's phone prior to the murder of miss peters one of the first patterns
30:53we observed was that there were google searches about how to mask the taste of an abortion pill
31:00this was early on in the pregnancy just a few weeks and he had started googling can i crush up
31:07pills
31:08to end a pregnancy it strongly suggested that corneus green was trying to kill the baby without jocelyn
31:15peters knowledge i believe the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying became an obstacle and if he could
31:23get rid of the pregnancy and he could continue to have jocelyn peters as a toy to play with along
31:28with the
31:28other five or six women and continue to live life in exactly the way that he wanted to as we
31:34continued
31:34looking into his google searches it seemed that this apparently was not working one of green's
31:40searches was still seeing a heartbeat after taking an abortion pill and all of these google searches
31:46happened several months prior to miss peters being murdered he obviously was searching for this method
31:53to get rid of the child and when that didn't work out it wasn't long after that cornelius decides
32:00to segue into the murder business
32:13we identified cornelius green researching abortion pills researching a ways to induce an abortion
32:21cornelius made some fairly sinister efforts to get rid of this pregnancy and when that didn't work he
32:29arrived at the conclusion that jocelyn peters was a liability that he needed to get rid of
32:36that starts to build the the motive and the means and the method of how this murder occurred we further
32:44investigated cornelius's cell phone data and on february 28th cornelius green and philip cutler
32:50have a conversation via text where green had said are you going to be coming into town cutler responds in
32:57the affirmative and asks when he says march 20th and cutler says okay don't forget to send the package
33:06when i read it i immediately thought there was something of value sent from green to mr cutler
33:14and i was able to reach out to the post office there's a record of a transaction where on march
33:20the
33:207th just days prior to the murder he sent a 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
33:58but then we'd received a call from the dance instructor of car lane school where cornelius green
34:04was the principal
34:06we had learned approximately 2700 had been stolen from car lane school's dance program a few weeks
34:14prior to the murder of miss peters
34:18she said on march 3rd she observed cornelius green in the area where the money had been taken and believed
34:27that he was no doubt involved when asked about why it wasn't reported she stated that she was extremely
34:34concerned with repercussions because he wielded a certain amount of authority over the school being
34:40the principal we believe that 2700 was the payment according to this green sent to philip cutler to kill
34:48jocelyn peters as you progress through the investigation the amount of circumstantial evidence
34:56that was obtained it gave us the timeline the motive and then the method of how this murder occurred
35:04there's no question that this was a elaborate premeditated plan to end jocelyn peters life and get
35:11rid of the baby that jocelyn peters was carrying in august of 2015 miss peters became pregnant then just a
35:24few weeks in the pregnancy cornelius green started searching ways to end a pregnancy
35:32cornelius spent months trying to poison or kill the baby when that didn't work on february 28th
35:39cornelius green arranges for philip cutler to be the trigger man on march the 3rd he stole money from
35:46car lane middle school on march 8th cornelius green sent phil cutler the money to murder jocelyn
35:55on march 14th through the 18th cornelius takes jocelyn and her family on a cruise for her birthday
36:03we believe he was trying to throw him off on march 20th cornelius green accompanied jocelyn peters to
36:11the grocery store where they purchased the russet potatoes and then he left them inside of the
36:17apartment for mr cutler on march 21st philip cutler travels from oklahoma to st louis missouri police
36:26believe the next day cornelius hands philip cutler this 38 caliber gun and the keys to jocelyn's
36:33apartment and then cornelius green takes an amtrak to chicago as an alibi for himself in the middle of
36:41the night philip cutler goes into jocelyn peters apartment used a potato as a silencer
36:50shoots her one time in the head and kills her and her unborn child
36:57next cornelius green takes an amtrak back to st louis as he's on the train cornelius starts
37:05calling jocelyn repeatedly was all just part of the ruse to make it look like he was concerned about her
37:11and then lastly cornelius green goes to her apartment and 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 going to
37:32be the father of the child that she's carrying this was a cold-blooded horrific crime i don't know if
37:38cornelius green was a psychopath but he should be in the psychology textbooks because the cognitive
37:43sophistication that it would take to keep all of that separate you have to be adept at
37:48compartmentalizing your life at that point we knew that we needed to arrest both cutler and green
37:54for the murder of jocelyn peters and her unborn child
38:06at this point we have the abortion search history with green we have cutler's cell phone
38:13data that puts him at the location of the victim's residence we have the video surveillance of the
38:21vehicle that philip cutler was in possession of turning onto the victim street the night of the murder
38:26so we were able to secure indictments against mr cutler and mr green for a conspiracy to commit
38:33murder and committing murder for hire cornelius is arrested first obviously we wanted to get an
38:39opportunity to try and talk to him but he doesn't make any statements at that time and then we traveled
38:46into muskogee oklahoma and placed philip cutler under arrest to be transported back to st louis missouri
38:53i 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
39:26we just cried together
39:28that was a life-changing day because it had taken so many months and it finally had happened and it
39:34was
39:34just a rush of emotion i was glad that it finally happened but you know i just wanted my daughter
39:43my granddaughter back
39:49this is certainly a chilling crime a father and a principal at the school thought out a murder for
39:56higher plot but unfortunately the covet pandemic really threw a wrench into the criminal justice
40:04system eight years go by before we actually go to trial and prior to the trial date cornelius green
40:11accepted a plea to plead guilty cornelius agrees to life with no parole so the death penalty was off the
40:22table at the table at this point but philip cutler takes it to a jury trial it was shocking that
40:29he
40:29wanted a trial given the mountain 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
40:47family and friends and co-workers that were in the courtroom and there was really some outrage how
40:54dare you i had to be there i wanted to see him i wanted to look at him and i
41:04wanted him to know
41:05that i know what you did i was mad he shot my baby in the face right through the eye
41:13i just wanted to scream we look at this case and you see the troubling sophistication of it hey i'll
41:23go to the store and buy a sack of potatoes and the potatoes will be in the apartment then when
41:29you
41:29get there all you have to do is grab one and use it this was the most thought-out premeditated
41:38crime
41:39that i had covered and philip cutler any point in time along the way easily could have backed out
41:45and no one would have ever known and he just didn't
41:50philip cutler was found guilty and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison without parole
42:00for both the murder of jocelyn peters and her unborn child micha 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 she had a smile and a laugh that
42:38was contagious she was all about helping kids in the community so everybody in the family we don't mind
42:46giving a helping hand to people that that need it that's how we keep her memory alive
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