. Raised in Ohio, Thompson spent five years in the Army, earning the rank of captain and commanding a military police unit in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. He actually turned to Lord and said, I know you didnt do it. He turned back to the jury and continued, But thats not the issue in this trial. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Det. You did! Yes you did! Lord shook her head. Thompson picked up his cellphone and called Burnsides father, John, a successful Dallas business analyst. Whos that? Thompson asked, pointing to a man kneeling beside Lord in the front yard. In Texas, both federal and state laws exist to protect people like Hephzibal Olivia Lord from being overwhelmed and mistreated by police during criminal investigations. Lord explained again and again that while she was in the bathroom, her boyfriend shot himself (they had been fighting, he was drunk). Her parents hired an attorney named Joe Shearin, a former guard for the University of Texas Longhorns who had played in the NFL before becoming one of Dallass most prominent criminal defense lawyers. Its terrifying., Lords claim of innocence has been bolstered by Rastegar, who told me that he never said to Thompson or Lundberg, not even on his front porch, that he had heard her confess to shooting Burnside. They began talking about planning a surprise birthday party in a few weeks for one of their friends and flying to Las Vegas later that summer to attend a bachelor party for another. Edit. The arrest was based upon Thompsons affidavit. The lawsuit also claimed that Thompson had permanently damaged Lords reputation in Dallas and caused her to suffer extreme emotional and mental anguish, including depression, insomnia, nightmares, and constant anxiety of the most extreme nature. Lord was asking for monetary damages, and according to courthouse gossip, Tittle was not willing to settle for less than seven figures. IMDbPro. Thompson asked why there was so little blood on her hands and arms. There were too many unanswered questions, he said. Thompson also had not told the Burnsides that he had misread a crucial piece of evidence. If I discover anything that substantiates what I believe, Im going to charge you with murder., He glared at her for a moment. City attorneys are defending him, saying he acted in good faith and without malice. But, said Lundberg, there was no sign of blood spatter on Burnsides right hand or arm. Something happened there tonight, and it doesnt make sense., The only thing I can think of is that he was careless sometimes with guns, Jaffe said. Jaffe said he had sped back to Burnsides home, arriving at the same time as the paramedics. But Sunday night, the deadly virus claimed his life. The officer identified him as Brian Jaffe, a thirty-year-old civil engineer who had been Burnsides best friend since high school. Why, he wanted to know, would a man suddenly shoot himself after what seemed to be a routine argument with his girlfriend? The day after the verdict, Thompson was placed on desk duty. After the argument was over, Michael stopped being sarcastic and he became quiet and somber. He said that based on Burnsides victimology, there was no way that a young man with a bright future would put a bullet in his brain simply because his girlfriend was peeved at him. Why did you wait seven minutes before calling 911? he yelled. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. She said Burnside had been drinking heavily, and at some point, in the midst of the fight, he had walked into the kitchen and shot himself. But we at least have the right to know that. Nevertheless, as far as Thompson was concerned, that did not eliminate her as a suspect. In this trial, Lord was definitely the underdog. City Employees Are Heading for the Exits. But she was pointedly not invited to a get-together that Burnsides friends were throwing after the service at one of his favorite bars. | Articles Prosecutors are also aware that detectives can develop a kind of tunnel vision about a case. That doesnt mean they kill themselves.. Your email address will not be published. Jaffe and Lord were taken to the station, and Thompson headed inside Burnsides home. I did start dating a guy not long ago, she said after the waiter left. An officer came over to Thompsons cubicle and handed him Lords and Jaffes cellphones. I was picking at him all night long about that, she said. Facebook gives people the power. Although Thompson would not consent to my request for an interview, people who have talked to him say he feels that he has done nothing wrong. Every day, dozens of times a day, I think about that talk and how I wish I could take it all back, she told me. She had lost her career because potential employers, when running a background check on her, would always find a reference to her arrest for murder. However, the police may or may not let the person know about this right (remember the experts concerns that Thompson had not told Lord about her right to a lawyer). A couple of clerks grinned at him. Im a person who just lost her boyfriend, Lord wailed. (As he said in one interview for The First 48, Bringing stuff back to life is whats up, Jack.) He taught classes at the Dallas Police Academy, and a private training agency hired him to lead seminars on detective work around the country. Then Shearin got his big break. And now hes dead, he said. Case Style: Hephzibah Olivia Lord v. Dwayne Thompson, Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Dallas County), Defendant's Attorney: James Carroll Butt, J.G. And now you have this thing where he was spending a lot of money on his friend, but he didnt spend near as much money on your birthday. But there was one more turn in the story to come. He insisted that what Rastegar told him in the homicide office was the same and consistent with what he said out on the porch. . Not only that, Sanders also pointed out Thompsons failure to read Ms. Lord her Miranda rights including specifically her right to remain silent after it was clear that Thompson considered Lord to be a suspect in a crime. Physical evidence can be more baffling than conclusive. Lundberg walked into the interview room, pulled his chair close to Lord, and played the role of the good cop. Come on., Lord closed her eyes when I asked her about those detractors who continue to believe shes hiding something. For someone to say Dwayne maliciously would go after Miss Lord and try to set her up, I would say, You have the wrong guy, said Andrea Handley, one of the offices senior prosecutors. Olivia kept saying, I wasnt going to leave him. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. The officer flipped another page. I loved my boyfriend.. (The autopsy report revealed that he had at least a .17 blood alcohol level when he diedtwice the legal limit to drive a vehicle.) She glanced around the dining room. They make honest, reasonable mistakes. The only thing I can tell you that might make any sense to anybody is that when hes drunk, hes very irrational, she said. Lets make a bad thing right. His fellow detectives nicknamed him D-Train. As for Burnsides relationship with Lord, Jaffe said, It was one of those old-school-type things. At the least, she said, she wanted to make sure his actions were publicly documented so that he could never do to someone else what he had done to her. And Im a person who thinks your behavior tonight doesnt add up. He pointed his finger at her. On July 15, the Public Integrity Units report landed on the desk of Dallas police chief David Brown. Mitchell realized that the evidence against Lord was weak, but she wasnt prepared to say that Lord was innocent. When Quinton studied the gunshot residue report, he concluded that the trace amounts of residue on Lord did not necessarily indicate handling or firing the weapon. But he couldnt say for sure that she didnt fire the Beretta. She was on an airplaneon her way to California. Police interrogations happen all the time here in Dallas, and over in Fort Worth as well as the rest of Texas and around the country. She grew up in the Dallas area and after graduating from high school, she went straight to work, leasing apartments for a large real estate company and later selling cosmetics at Neiman Marcus in NorthPark Center. Im devastated., Thompson bore down. A uniformed officer walked over and told Thompson that the house belonged to a man named Michael Burnside, age thirty. | Sign In, Verdict Corrections Thompson did his best to defend himself. And who knows? She has also enrolled in college for the first time. Was she Miss Right or Miss Right Now? Thompson asked. But I dont know how to do it. Or maybe in the midst of the argument, Burnside had pulled the Beretta out of the kitchen drawer for a second time, handed it to Lord, and said, in an effort to be dramatic, If you hate me so much, then just shoot me. And she did. A bullet hole was in a wall near the ceiling. After Jaffe went home, the argument escalated. Thirty seconds passed as she wept before she added, There are still nights when I drive by our home just to look at it. This has been kind of a sexy case here: an attractive female shoots the boyfriend, you solve the crime. Dallas Homicide Detective Dwayne Thompson revisits an empty plot of land where a grizzly double homicide had occurred years prior.Subscribe for more The Firs. . He also had run up some debt: he owed a rental car company money for crashing one of its vehicles, and he had received letters from the IRS demanding that he pay more than $50,000 in back taxes. Jurors in a civil trial on Thursday got to watch a dramatic video of that tense and aggressive interrogation of Lord, who is now suing Thompson for false arrest in a federal civil trial. Both have worked numerous murders and each has been featured on the popular A&E reality television show, Will detectives be able to catch the killers before they strike again? Lord, who is now 37 years old, still lives in the same apartment, and she has barely spent any of the money she won in her lawsuit. We understand that people get upset, get scared, get angryand when all those emotions are happening at once, people do things., He paused and kept his eyes on Lord. I want him brought down.. In the video, Rastegar initially seemed to confirm what he had supposedly told Thompson and Lundberg on the porch. Thompson studied Lord and Jaffe for a moment, then walked over to them. Thompson asked if there was any chance that Jaffe had been carrying on a secret relationship with Lord. She was arrested in 2010 for the . And if the young man had shot himself, wouldnt the gun have landed closer to his body? I grabbed him and held him.. Thompson told Rastegar to go to the station and make an official recorded statement, which Thompson later used to obtain an arrest warrant charging Lord with murder. Burnside had been involved in a couple of accidents. Several months later, when he called Lord to refinance his home, their other relationships had ended. Scattered around the floor were a few bottles of household cleaning products. Burnsides father showed up to let her in, and when Lord tried to tell him she had not murdered his son, he cut her off. Shearin got Lord out of jail on bail. The jury determined Friday that Dallas homicide Detective Dwayne Thompson showed a reckless disregard for the civil rights of 36-year-old Hephzibah Olivia Lord. 4. Lord was accused of murder countless times, and she always denied it. There was another, longer silence. Perhaps sensing that the jury had turned against the detective, Jason Schuette, another attorney for the City of Dallas, resorted to a surprise tactic in his final arguments. Lundberg conducted the interview because Thompson had a prior commitment to teach a class at the police academy. If I was guilty, would I really have gone out and filed a lawsuit, knowing everything would be brought up again, giving Thompson and all the other naysayers one more chance to come after me?, A few weeks later, I called Lord and asked her again about Burnsides death. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. Olivia, youre not telling me the truth, Thompson told her. 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And the bullet had exited toward the top of the left side of Burnsides head. He then asked them to ride down to Dallas police headquarters in separate squad cars to give their statements. Thompson returned to headquarters and took the elevator to the homicide offices on the fifth floor. According to news reports and witness testimony of what happened in that interrogation room, Thompson suddenly became aggressive in his questioning, yelling accusations at a weeping Lord, things like You shot him! He was convinced Thompson had misled him, and on September 22, Quinton changed the cause of Burnsides death to undetermined. Quintons new ruling was definitely a boost for Lords case, but it was hardly enough to guarantee an acquittal. But there was no corruption involved. Tittle then had the jurors watch Thompsons interview with Lord and Lundbergs interview with Rastegar. Thats the exact type of case that might have been portrayed on The First 48, right? Tittle asked. She had then grabbed the bottles of cleaning products from under the sink to wash away the blood and the gunpowder residue, which would account for the chemical odor he thought he had smelled on her. He called the tone and line of questioning a formula for a false confession. And Sanders questioned why Thompson did not read Lord her right to remain silent after the point in which he clearly considered her a murder suspect during the interview. When Michael Burnside was found dead in his Dallas home four years ago, detective Dwayne Thompson decided that the victim's girlfriend, Olivia Lord, had pulled the trigger. Merritt had an uncanny knack for catching killers. Alternative . The detective told him that he was doing what he could. But Detective Thompson couldnt or wouldnt accept that. Tittle said that Thompson allowed a screenplay [of the shooting] in his mind to take over. And thats a dangerous, dangerous thing if youre a homicide detective with the Dallas Police Department., Lord took the stand and was overcome with emotion as she described her love for Burnside. No, she said again. Texas Lege Watch: A House Republican Fights for Chicken Freedom, Texas Monthly Recognized by ASME in the 2023 National Magazine Awards. The officer looked at the notes he had jotted down. Were missing something, he said to her. Thompson looked at his notebook, where he had written down the calls Lord had made on her cellphone. Yes. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. He can go so far as to lie to a suspect to try to obtain a confession. Comments: Editor's Note: Plaintiff will probably file an application for attorney's fees and costs, which will be substantial. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. You [expletive] shot him! 1983 claiming that she was wrongfully arrested for a killing that she did not commit, which landed her in jail for nine days. She had started dating Burnside, the co-owner of a company that retrofitted homes to make them energy-efficient, about a year earlier. Personal details. Lundberg also took the stand, testifying that he too remained convinced that Lord was guilty of murder. The Reid method has been challenged as being primed for pushing people to give false confessions and many argue that it should not be used by law enforcement agencies. Instead, he gave Brandi Mitchell everything he had.. She told Thompson that she too had been drinking that night, a mix of vodka and sweet tea. After she graduates, she hopes to go to law school and perhaps someday work for the Innocence Project. I wasnt in the room when that young man got shot, she would later say in an interview. (For a philosophy class, she wrote a paper on Socrates being sentenced to death under false charges.) Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation. He spoke to her the way a loving father would talk to his daughter. She added a detail about their relationship that she hadnt told Thompson, saying that she had been disappointed that Burnside hadnt proposed to her the previous Christmas. | Recent Lawyer Listings One of the few black detectives in the unit, Thompson quickly made his mark. She fell to her knees and said it was an accident and that she didnt mean to shoot him. He had on a dark fedora, a dark suit, a white shirt with a tie, and dress shoes. Thompson, a 21-year veteran of the Police Department, has been a homicide detective since 2006. Tittle said that Thompson told one of Burnsides friends within 12 hours of the death that he would bet his career that Lord killed Burnside. Another detective, Dwayne Thompson, charged into the interrogation room. We loved our life together.. Dwayne Thompson Associate (Antitrust, Competition and Trade) at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer There was no question in her mind, she said, that she and Burnside would soon get married. Or maybe the two had struggled for the gun before it went off, leaving residue on both of them. In October 2008 a mutual friend introduced her and Burnside at a small bar on Dallass Lower Greenville Avenue. As Tatia Wilson, one of the City of Dallas attorneys representing Thompson, explained to the jury in her opening statement, Sometimes homicide detectives may make mistakes in their evaluation of the evidence. Lord has just been awarded $800,000 in a jury verdict from a Dallas jury that has found Lord to be the victim of false arrest. . But as the case made its way through the courts, she maintained her innocenceand claimed Thompson was the one who should go to prison. 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