Legal Challenges and Seeking Justice

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Head to timeime dot com slash forty eight hours. That is timeime dot com slash forty eight hours. It only takes a few minutes to sign up In the middle of the night, alone in your apartment And that feeling starts to set in that something is wrong Realizing your home is no longer safe, you plan on your escape He has other plans Details are the kind that stay with you water running in an empty apartment A walk door that shouldn't be locked That uneasy feeling of being watched That's the setup for Unhinged. The new immersive game experience on Netflix Your phone becomes your controller, flashlight, and lifeline to your best friend. as the attacker in your building closes in Bone in your hand will ring question is Will you answer Play now, only on Netflix. Welcome back to another episode of Postmortem. I'm your host, Anne Marie Green, and today we are discussing the case of Angela Pritchard who was shot dead by her estranged husband in twenty twenty two, following weeks of stalking and harassment, all of which she reported to the local police in Bellevue, Iowa After the murder trial, Angelless family filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Bellevue as well as three police officers for what they say was inaction and indifference by not arresting Christopher Prichard sooner. So joining me today to talk about this, to dig in a little more is CBS News cororrespondent Jonathan Bigliati in forty eight hours Producer Meet Stone. Welcome guys Thanks for having us. Good to be here. Thank you. So a reminder to everyone, as usual. If you haven't already listened to the forty eight Hours episode, the audio version of it, you can find it in your podcast feet right above this one. So go listen and then come on back so we can talk about it. All right So I think what is particularly tragic about this case Gys is that it really, really seemed preventable. It seemed like Angela really did all the things that you're supposed to do. She endured months of domestic violence, and then Angela Pritchard obtained a no contact order against Chris Pritchard, meaneaning that if there was any contact that he made with her could result in a mandatory arrest Here's the question. if Angela's no contact order had been enforced in a better way What should have happened with this case? Great question, An Marie. I've covered a number of forty eight hours cases. usually done it of these cases is the mystery As it pertains to this story, the mystery was Why was it more done in time? Everyone we spoke with from prosecutors to Dav O'Brien He's the civil rights attorney representing Angela's family in that lawsuit against Belleview pololice. invvestigators. They all said more could have been done. There were two no contact orders that were issued. The first one, Angela actually lifted herself Because she wanted to give her marriage a second chance, but then it became very clear that the violence was only escalating. And so she successfully requested a second no contact order. As you mentioned, a no contact order means exactly that, no contact of any kind. That means no text messages, no phone calls, no emails. And yet David O'Brien says in a thirty seven day window in that period of time Richard made twelve violations. Now he was arrested once. he spent a day in jail for that. He was released. He was supposed to appear in court, failed to do so twice There was then an arrest warrant issued for him. Seven days went by. No arrest was made in time Angela was then killed And it would take twenty five hours after that toivineally arrest Chris Pertrard. And that that final week of Angela's life the police apparently didn't do anything to try to find Chris Pritchard. According to their own police records, they We're doing other things in the town like chameroning A prom and you know, providing an escort for a funeral procession. There was a loud barking dog apparently in the neighborhood of The Bellevue police made notes about these incidents, but nowhere in their records is there any mention of trying to find and arrest Chris Pritchard I'mady to give you some context because this is what struck me when Mid and I were in Bellevue You drive down that main street, we're talking about a population of twenty five hundred people. There was not a single trafficw Made points out the police were responding to loud barking from dogs, they had time to respond to these calls. Indeed, absolutely. You know, I wanted to try to understand this case sort of in a greater context. and so kind of dug into the statistics about these types of protective orders, these orders to stay away from the victim. And one of the things that I found is it's really hard to get solid information. A lot of the information about domestic violence is old. kind of overwhelming conclusion though, about these types of orders is that They can be very effective If they're enforced. I'm sure this came up in your reporting as you were talking to people. How did they feel about the weight of these types of protective orders? Yeah, and David Bryan put it very well and it still sticks with me. He said a lot of people often look at these no contact orders as not being worth the paper they're written on, but in his view, they are very valuable as long as they are enforced, as you so accurately mentioned Ann Roy And unfortunately, in this case, it just seemed like a lot of these violations were not enforced. And mean, I know that you were really looking into this too because there are ramifications with each violation comes more time spent in jail, Is that correct Yes, yes. I think that's one of the tragedies. In Iowa, for the first offense, it's one night in jail, a second offense. It goes to seven days in jail And it goes up from there. And you know, had Pritard been arrested Each time he violated the no contact order, you know, he would have eventually been spending a good amount of time behind bars. And you know, one would think that would be a deterrent You know, sometometimes victims of domestic violence, they have been alienated from their support system or they' embarrassed to share what they're going through. This is not the case with Angela. Her family is very supportive. You know, they basically become her like protective detail. Her sister, Wendy is her shadow This must have had a tremendous impact on the family I mean, you got to think about it, and it's something I've been thinking about, too, and it's a really good point Victims of domestic violence, oftentimes the hardest first step is even recognizing you're a victim and then trying to figure out what steps to take. Very early on, Angela with the support of her family, identified Chris Pritard as a problem And they took the right steps. They went immediately to law enforcement thinking that they would be protected. but wasn't enough. They were living in fear. And you mentioned it. Wendy Buddy, who was Angela's sister was her shadow. Even having Angela at one point live with her. Unfortunately, the one time she wasn't by Angela's side is when Angela was attacked and killed. And on top of all of that, you also had Angela's sons who live in the area who also were dealing with their own issues with Chris Pritchard, Oneon saying that Chris Pritchard would drive by the house in one case in just one hour six times. how he knew this Prer drove a very specific truck, a Jeep with specific wheels that made a sound that was very easy to identify. Police were being called and included in all of this, but the family still had this real sense of helplessness. The thing is that Chris Pritard was not always like this. Relationships don't typically start off like this, right? fact Wendy him, Wendy introduced him to her sister. But then he starts to take this kind of downward spiral and we learn in the hour that it seems to begin once he is brought up on charges, accused of a stealing from his employer. It's thirty six thousand dollars, so it's not a little bit, but can you tell me a little bit more about that case He rented equipment that belonged to the company he worked for to customers And he was requesting that they pay him for of the rentals U so they apparently wrote Pitard checks and he kept the money. It was a first degree theft charge. When that was exposed The family says that ultimately led to this downward spiral and without a job and now having lost the respect of this very small community, he started to engage in drug use and abuse, metethamphetamine, which then led to anger and it only continued according to those sticky notes. what we call a diary of domestic abuse that Angela documented so well that her sister, Wendy shared with us. toooo much was expected and put on Angela to protect herself. And ultimately in the end It is her who identifies the suspect, right? Chris shows up with a gun. at her workplace. We want to play that nine hundred and eleven call, but we just want to warn you that this is disturbing to listen to. Please hello. Get out of. I have customers coming in. ight nine one one Andullase get add of here. Where are you at you know, you can put yourself in her shoes at that moment. I, you know, it it's just You can't even imagine that sort of terror. And she had the presence of mind Call nine hundred and eleven in that moment And you know, she shouted his name in the last What second of her life It wasn't just her identifying Chris in that moment that helped A few seconds later, you hear Chris say an expletive. directed towards Angela as he is standing over or lifeless body The profanity that he uttered helped convict him because as Angela's son, Josh points out That's not a word you say after you accidentally shoot someone. And of course, Pritchard claimed that the shooting was accidental and that that prove to the prosecutors that it was premeditated and intentional If you've been holding back on launching your dream business, it's time to stop making excuses. Shopify is where you finally go to get started. They offer everything you need to succeed from day one. They completely simplify the process, so you can focus on what matters. 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So I want to talk a little bit more about Why police were convinced that this wasn't an accident Our special agents in our hour interviewed Prichard three times And each time they did, his story of the accidental shooting changed a little bit. The first one was Angela pushed him, shoved him and he fell back and the shotgun hit a cabinet or something and went off And he had another story where he had kicked a backpack and the gun fell over and went off and shot her The medical examiner testified that the shotgun blast had a downward trajectory. And in Pritchard's examples, most of them would have had an upward trajectory police tested the gun and it was in perfectly fine working conditions. The condition that Pritard explained, that the gun just went off would have been impossible. And prosecutors did an incredible job showing premeditation. So really you had prosecutors really detail and outline how this whole plan really started to form the day before the murder took place So you had quis you borrowed a truck, something very different than the car that he drove, which was very recognizable, stashed that borrowed truck somewhere. then treked through the woods to access the kennels att around four AM and we know this because of security footage outside of the kennels. and then Late in wait from that residence to the Kennels, It's about a mile and a half, a couple of miles And he left in the middle of the night, but this was would have been a treacherous hike. It would have been, you know, pitch black through very, very thick woods. I mean, this shows an incredible amount of determination. And then yes, he was just waiting for her for about four hours to show up He takes off into the woods by news of this spreads like wildfire because Bely is a small town so then he shows up at a friend's house. Yeah. He shows up at Jeff Junk and his girlfriend Kim Kleine, there're at home. They already know what's going on and they just completely play it cool and they invite him in and he has a drink. You spoke to them. I mean, what was this like for them I think they were surprised. I think they were in a state of shock. and I think at that point, they were in a state of preservation preserve that time so that cops when they felt safe enough to contact them come And so what they did to make that place feel safe for Chris, they invited him in They offered him a drink I think they also cooked up some microwavable pizza sat down. The way that Jeff and Kim described it, they the entire time know he had just killed Angela Pritchard Chris. It didn't act like anything was off. Like it was just a normal night of catching up with friends And Kim was so she was so taken aback by how surreal this all was. She secretly snapped a photo on her phone just to document it as they also contacted police. at one point You had Chris Pritchard, I guess so exhausted from everything that had happened being on the run He passed out in a lazy boy reclining chair and he was still asleep when police eventually made their way to the property and carried out that arrest. Yes. and that was quite a scene. There was you know, a lot of officers and Fom different agencies, there was a SWAT team that came in and arrested him. And when they get to the jail, there's more bodycam footage of Pritard being processed. And you just you sense that the gravity of what he's done has hit him Right, He pleads not guilty to first degree murder and robbery charges. In February of twenty twenty four, a jury took less than an hour to find him guilty of both charges. And then about a month later, he is sentenced to life in prison without parole The hour does not end there Um, There is a second court case in this hour. It's very fascinating to me. a federal lawsuit That civil rights attorney David O'Brien, who mentioned a little bit earlier, filed against the city of Bellevue and three of the officers who work for the city, work for the police department there for failure to arrest Chris Pritchard leading up to Angela's murder. At the end of the hour though, we learn that the judge oververseeing this case dismisses it Can you tell us a little bit more about why this case was dismissed You know, that the judge didn't he didn't buy the argument of the state created danger