Appeals and Case Dismissal

So Coming to Texas, I started a new tradition for myself. Wearing cowboard boots in trial I've always been fascinated with crime. I've always been interested in what makes criminals do what they do. I came here from England twenty years ago Now I prosecute felony cases here in Texas. I think it's a noble endeavor. There's always a search for the truth There's a search for justice. This is without a doubt the most challenging case I have ever handled. A beautiful young woman who was murdered while she lay sleeping That's my mom, Natalie and Tonetti. Beautiful. Vibrant. m excited to be alive. She was an amazing mom. She always tried to have a good time with everything. You man stars would shine every single night. My mom was a young mom. She was into, you know, rock and roll. Towns on our music was always playing. By all accounts it just one of those people that you meet and you never forget Oh here I know jump down the stairs and and and there she was. I was covered in blood, her headck was bleeding pretty bad It was absolutely awful did this, you could have done this. No that was Also really scary, you know? Like who would have had this out for this wonderful woman that never, you know really did anything to anyone Well, it's twenty five years ago and it's like the one thing I've tried to get out of my memory and I can't We had no DNA, no fingerprints, really no physical evidence of any kind. This was a cold case. I never thought that it would be solved. I thought it was just over The initial funkle was anonymous An angry wife called the police to tell on her husband. It just blew the case wide open. My friend sitting here. L man, listen to me, calm down, okay, We're gonna help you friend out There's no way to ever forget It was really, really Horrible scene In nineteen eighty five, Johnny Guddy was just sixteen. Before dawn that October morning, he heard something, rolled out of bed, and stumbled down the stairs. It was his mom, Natalie Antoninetti I was incoherent kind of in shock and, you know, completely, you know, just covered in blood or head is bleeding pretty bad And I tried to ask her what had happened. you know, she knew did this to her and she couldn't talk. She just had a really really frightened look in her eyes. I just you know it's hard to see your mom in that situation. I've been trying to imagine what it's like to see her covered in blood and try to talk to her and she can't tell you what happened. You could see in her eyes that she was scared. when the ambulance got there, they kind of took over and, you know, put her in the gurney and stuff. and then I rode to the hospital with her Before she went in, I asked her to give me a kiss and she was able to do that. Did you have any idea that you were kissing or goodbye? No Natalie's murder would haunt Johnny Gowdy for over twenty years To start unraveling this mystery, we began on Sth Street, the heart of Austin's music scene. What role did Sth Street play in the music scene back then? Well, Sth Street was where all of those musicians would play. There was a band in every club on every corner. Itill is. Natalie's dear friend Mark Holman, is a former guitarist for Carol King He runs a studio now, but misses those days. We'd go down here, we'd see our friends, we'd support our friends. I could walk in and the base player would hold up his base like this and I'd walk into the base and I'd start jamming on usong. You're kidding Back then, this was the only place to go. Was Natalie a part of that scene? Absolutely. What was Natalie like Beautiful, incredible She was a real light, brown hair, beautiful eyes She was almost hippish, real savvy at the same time and very Cuban. So she had all. She had her roots. One of my favorite people Natalie's son Johnny dreamed of being a rock star, and Mark gave him the push. His big dream was to kind of do what you were doing I guess so. And in fact, I put them in my band. in the eighties. I'd put him front and center, you know, and always looked great. You know was look was the front man, He was the cutie. He's the cutie. He still is. And Johnny's music is inspired by memories of his mom. A single mother who worked full time but loved the music world She and Johnny's dad split when he was little I don't know what to say. Think about her every day. day She was an amazing mom. Music was always playing Growing up I didn't have a TV, but we always had our records with this re you don't listen You know, cleaning the house, you didn't just clean the house you put on your favorite record as loud as you could, and you just danced around and at the end of it, you, the house was cleaning. So even cleaning the house, cle rock out. Yeah, ye Mom was like, Hey, I just know made some cookies, You you wantan to get them, you'd like I'll be there in a minute and she'd sing back, Well, if you want it, here it is, come and get, you know, everything was a song, you know. So it was very much like that growing up. Okay But the song ended suddenly for Johnny and for Natalie. After two weeks in a coma, Natalie died. It was a shocker for everyone in the tight knit Austin music scene and a confusing case for police. See this building right up here? Right here. That was Natalie's apartment. Austin pololice detective Tom Walsh picked up Natalie's homicide on the Cold case squad in two thousand seven. How do you imagine that he would have done this? I think it was very quick. It was in and out. Police think Natalie was bashed in the head with a baseball bat Over and over again A crime so violent, Natalie's bloody handprints were left all over the house Here's the downstairs porch and the upstairs porch of Natalie's apartment. At the time, there was a witness who reported seeing a shadowy figure nearby He saw a man holding a club or a small baseball bat A baseball m. The witness described a man five, ten or five eleven with sandy hair. Police focused on a restaurant manager and sometime male stripper named Marty Odam. W blonde hair and a sturdy build, he seemed to match the witness description And shortly after Natalie's murder, he was arrested for another very serious crime. He raped a woman in North Austin And then investigators found out that he lived in the apartment complex that Natalie lived in Odum had a track record of violence. He was known to keep a baseball bat around. His ex wife said he was abusive and sexually violent And his roommate claimed he bragged that he once slept with Natalie Police questioned Odum, even gave him a lie detector test, which he reportedly failed, but he always denied killing Natalie pololice didn't have enough evidence, so he was never charged with her murder But he was convicted for the unrelated rape and sent to prison With the arrest and conviction of the rapist Marty Odam, the police were convinced they also had the man who killed Natalie. The case was seemingly closed. That is, at least for the next twenty years. But that is just the beginning of this story In two thousand six, there was a tip called in this woman said that her husband made a statement that he had sinned against God and sinned against man When they told me about the rapist, I thought it was the rapist because I was seventeen and I wanted to know who's killed my mom And so I was like, okay, well, then you cops say it, you know, that's who it is. You kind of have to trust the trust in the police. And so I did I believed that that was the guy. Johnny was never fully satisfied Police had arrested Marty Odum for the unrelated rape, and he went to prison for that crime But it wasn't enough No one was officially accused or punished for Natalie's murder And that began to eat at Johnny was just mad, you know, Mad at the world. I'm mad at a faceless person that came in and murdered my mom and split and no one ever called. Therapy helped, but music helped even more. and black ass bitch It's saved my life, you know It's a life saving thing. The music? Yeah. Yeah, being able to make that music, being able to put that energy into something that's cathartic and not turn it on yourself, I think is pretty lucky I never really wrote songs before she died and then after she died, I wrote pretty much like one hundred and fifty songs in like four months. Somet Inesen Radiant secure What do you think she would think? I mean, she was so into music. What would she think of this little? She would like this band a lot. She wouldn't like you though. No'm Johnny has been working on and off the road as a musician ever since, trying to put the past behind him, with his band, Lars and Saints Then in two thousand seven, more than twenty years after Natalie Antoninetti's murder, an angry wife called the Austin Police Department. It was an anonymous call, but she had a tip, a tip that would crack this old homicide case wide open I was on tour. my phone rang from a number I didn't know and I answered it. the guy said, Hi, my name is Detective Tom Wallace from the Austin Police Department. Don't worry, you're not in trouble Detective Walsh had news. I was like, wow They're reopening my mom's case and this guy that's got it, is amazing What do you like about being a cub? When I became a detective, I loved being in the hunt. What is it about a mystery that you like solving it And thanks to that phone call, Walsh felt he was on a fast track to solving this one. He was like, I know who did this The suspect was a man named Dennis Davis. I didn't know Dennis very well. you know, he was a friend of mine Dennis Davis was a well known name in the Austin music scene A studio owner and engineer who later moved to Nashville to work with big stars like Tim McGraw and Faith Hill How did he come across to you? Was he a player, a ladies' man? No. No. I didn't see him that way. I saw him just really quiet and reserved. I never thought of him as someone that had the capacity really to hurt another person. Johnny knew Dennis too, because Dennis had dated his mom And he was good to Johnny He just had this amazing studio I'd like the best studio in town and I was like the only sixteen year old kid that could go by there anytime. I thought he was a nice guy Dennis Davis was not an obvious suspect. For one thing, he had what sounded like a solid alibi. He said he was with a girlfriend at his house on the night of the murder Dennis told police he got a phone call from a friend and rushed to the crime scene just in time to see Natalie being loaded into an ambulance Seventeen years after Natalie's murder, it was Dennis Davis' wife who made that call to police Becky Davis had a feeling for years that her husband may have murdered Natalie but never said anything until now. She was in therapy because her and her husband were going through a divorce, and the therapist said, you need to call the police. It was a tantalizing lead. but not nearly enough to make an arrest So Walsh hit the road And track down this woman, Emparo Garcia Crow, who is Dennis Davis's alibi on in. Thank you You come bearing journals, my goodness. Yes. Emparro Garcia Crowe is a writer and performer. C, let me help you. At the time, the cops never questioned her. But if they had, she would have told them there's no way she was with Dennis that night. And she can prove it. These are all your journals? Not all of them. That's just one box of probably about four years And I've had them for thirty years. Because she's kept detailed journals since the late seventies. At this time in my life I was writing every day. I kind of really wanted to get in a way a psychological picture of myself Because the mind likes to change things if you don't, you know. It's clear from her journals Amparo knew both Dennis and Natalie. Dennis had a party recently, and I met the woman that he seen. Wh was Natalie. Who was Natalie? In fact, around the time of Natalie's murder, Amparo had also been dating Dennis Davis. There was kind of a shyness to him But Amparo says, according to her journal, she ended up dating Dennis for only about three weeks before going back to an old boyfriend named Hal I had gone back to Hal and that's what I'm writing here. We're kind of in a honeymoon stage That was the week before Natalie was killed You stopped dating Dennis the Thursday. that Thursday before the assault Dennis had told police he and Emparo had been in bed together when the dramatic phone call came. telling him that Natalie had been assaulted But there's no mention of any of this in Emparo's diary. I mean, I'm a writer, I'm a dramatist, know If I'm impacted by something, I log it. It would be in here, right? If you were with Dennis that night. Absolutely. I'd be working it out. It would be so shocking. If a phone call had come in the middle of the night, I would remember that phone call and being woken up at his house in the middle of the night. That'd never happened. It wasn't exactly a smoking gun, but if Amparo's story is true, then Dennis is lying and his alibi is worthless Detective Walsh was energized by this new information And it opened new doors, Walsh discovered another woman who revealed a very different side of the supposedly mild mannered Dennis Davis. The first sign was he would just get beat rered. hisis eyes would bulge out. That's when you knew time to go. Austin, Texas, nineteen eighty five Rock and roll reigns suupreme party was fueled by the warm Texas sun and plenty of beer and booze You guys were all into the music scene. What was that like? Oh There were just so many, you know, people that were up and coming Everybody would go to so many clubs here and watch them play and then watch them grow. Linda Bless moved to Austin in nineteen eighty four. She worked on tours with major rock acts, and Linda would turn out to be a key witness in the investigation into her friend Dennis Davis There were two different sides of Dennis One was the very sweet, caring side. The other side. He didn't know when it was going to come out Linda says she saw glimpses of this darker side, a Dennis Davis who was jealous, angry even violence. It was almost like a screaming inside, you know, U What would set him off? always seemed to pertain to women hisis previous best friend told me one time that the only time that he ever saw Dennis get angry was when Another man would be paying attention to a woman that he was with and the rage would come In two thousand eight, Detective Walsh went looking for Dennis to question him about Natalie's murder, and he found him in a jail cell in Pennsylvania, serving two months on a DUI. The interview starts out friendly.. Yeah, it's good to be a kute. Looks like he's your pal. Yeah He was by pal. But not for long. Walsh wants to tie Dennis to Natalie's murder and the likely murder weapon Baseball bat. Did you have a bat? Dennis says he never had a baseball bat. He never had one He had not just one, but he had a couple of them In fact, Linda says one night at a party at Dennis's house. All of a sudden, Dennis showed up in the doorway with this that in his hand Linda says Dennis was heading for his girlfriend. I just got up and pushed him. into the bedroom or you know I had him go into the bedroom and put the bat down and come on, let's go outside and Walsh found tangible evidence of this angry side. This about the note sitting in the case file A note left for Natalie from a jealous Denis about her new boyfriend Naturally, you can go to hell. Take that with you If you don't have the brains and self respect to see through is You think The case against Dennis is getting stronger broken alibi Baseball bat Angry note Next, Walsh tracks down an ex girlfriend named Galinda who tells the most damning story of them all Dennis had been in a rage and was crying and he was laying down in the fetal position and he told her that he had killed or he had murdered Natalie were the words that she said he used. He confessed to her. He confessed to her. And that was enough In two thousand nine, twenty four years after Natalie Antoninett's murder Austin pololice arrested Dennis Davis. Johnny had never imagined that Dennis was capable of killing his mom. People around town that you meet at times might have said, you know, I think DZennis did this. And I' would always be like Pally? Like He's such a like a nond descript kind of dude. You thought he was a wimp. I thought he was kind of wimp. yeah. But to Johnny, Detective Walsh was no whim. When I first met Tom Walsh, it was like this guy was actively, you know, working on this case. From the moment I met him, I never doubted that he was gonna do this Theually being usualough. I You another get out there Jn He would never out and out say that he murdered Natalie Towards the end of the whole interrogation, I said to him, what do you think? And he said, you think I did it. What was your reaction when you were told that he was going to be arrested for your mom's murder Everything made sense. All the weird cryptic questions that Tom Walsh was calling me every once in a while as. Do you remember Chevy Malibu like, No, do you remember this? Like you remember this guy saying this? like nope And it all made sense And Johnny suddenly looked at Dennis in a new light He was a bad jealous Violent guy Dennis Davis says he didn't murder Natalie and can't believe that Johnny thinks he did Johnny said no better. He knew me I didn't do this horrible crime Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired, mostly. But she went to carbana dot com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to find a dragon? Nope, She bought it one hundred percent online, from her bed actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as Carbine could be. Des a car have a sunroof? It did actually. Okay story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Cada. Delivery fees may apply The Second World War is the largest event in human history twenty part series with Tom Higggs. No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged. experience the ultimate account of World War II. Every single person had a story These are the stories that make us who we are Listen to World War two with Tom Hanks on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody wants to get on this train. It's a cold case. Everybody wants to solve this case. Wade Russell is a Texas attorney He's been a lawyer for thirty years and riding motorcycles more than forty And he began working for Dennis Davis when he was arrested in two thousand nine The investigator wants to solve this case. Everybody wants to be a hero. The problem is, Wade says, There just isn't enough evidence against Dennis to convict His client, he says, is an innocent man The detective in this case knew that the neighbor identified someone who didn't look like Dennis Davis And that neighbor is the only eyewitness, the man who called minutes after Natalie's attack to report a prowler carrying a baseball bat This neighbor identified a person, a tall blonde man. My clients' about five, six, five, seven, slight b build curly dark hair. He is not the person the neighbor identified. So if Dennis Davis didn't kill Natalie, who did I think it's very possible that Marty Odam committed the offense. That's Marty Odum, the rapist, who was living near Natalie at the time of her murder The man cops once thought was their best suspect He claimed to know the victim in this case, and we also know he's very violent. He was violent with his girlfriend. He was violent with his ex wife. he took a polygraph and he flunked the polygraph. The polygraph operator said I'm one hundred percent sure he committed the offense. The guy who ran the lie detector test said he was one hundred percent sure That Marty Odam killed Natalie? Yes. I'm innocent. And I didn't do it. Dennis Davis, the man in hot water for this once cold case, in his only TV interview Through your eyes, who was Natalie Antonineti She was a very vivacious, lively energetic young woman When she answered the phone, she went, Hello Just like that. Dennis told us he truly cared for Natalie. And that's why he wrote that angry note about her new boyfriend A musician. One of my pet peeves in this world is when I see young women get involved with musicians who just drag them down In the note, Dennis told Natalie to go to hell That was a pretty angry note. Yes, it was. Doesn't it sound like the guy that wrote that note would be capable of harming Natalie, the guy who's angry? Getting mad, writing a note is a far cry from killing somebody. You wrote a nasty note, Ohope, you're capable of murder. Everything gets blown out of proportion. But how does he answer Golinda's story about his confession? She exaggerated. So what's the real story? I just told her I told her some things. I said, It's my fault that Natalie died. If I hadn't upset her that night That day She'd still be alive today The night she was attacked, Natalie went out for a short walk by the pool near her apartment I think someone spotted her or followed her, or she ran into someone out the pool. and then they came back later. And then killed her? Yeah. Did you ever hurt Natalie? No, never Did you kill Natalie? No, I did not. absolutely sure I wouldn't do something like that You have a victim who has no defensive wounds. It's not a burglar. It's not a rapist. Somebody was exceptionally angry at her. There's one candidate for that Denis Dav. Austin, asssistant district attorney Mark Prior. This is the first case I've ever lost sleepover. This was a very tough case. Mark Prior's co counsel was Efran dea Fuente. It been a co case, a nineteen eighty five case, and here you are trying it in the year twenty eleven The prosecution's case wasn't just cold, it was almost entirely circumstantial. Yeah, I'd wake up at night and and I'd wonder about Could we do this? Could we bring Johnny Justice? When I went in and met with Ephraren Dela Funtes and with Mark Prior, they never said, don't get your hopes up. I think Efra said I don't know, Johnny brother. This is gonna be tough. april twenty eleven, Natalie Antoninetti's brutal and unexplained murder, unsolved for twenty six years, is finally going to trial The evidence is going to show that this man, Dennis Davis split her scar as she lay on the couch in her apartment. The evidence is going to show that this man Dennis Davis left A turn of breadcrumbs S mistakes that eventually, after two decades, led the police to his door. The prosecution's case may be circumstantial, but they do have that phone call that started it all. The statement that the defendant had made was that he had sinned against God and man. The woman who made that call It's Rebecca Davis. Defendants one And they have Emparo, who denies being with Dennis on the night of the murder. Linda Bless, who remembers him carrying a baseball bat. And Gelinda, his ex girlfriend, who says he confessed to murder. He told her. You flat out told her. I killed her. I killed Natalie Antonti Attorney Wade Russell reminds the jury there was no physical evidence against Dennis at all. You're not going to hear any DNA evidence. You're not going to find any hair samples. You are not going to hear from any eyewitnesses that saw Dennis Davis at the crime scene. Dennis would choose not to take the stand. There is not proof beyond reason And everyone you knows that as you sit here This case would be all about truth and lies Did you have a small hatch He lied in the interview. Did't have a bat? says it twice. His ex girlfriend was beaten to death with a bat. He owned a bat. He knew he had one. He just lied. This is ludicrous. It's ludicrous. It's reasonable doubt after reasonable doubt. All right, ladies and gentlemen, jury you may retire to the jury room at this time. In less than four hours Theant, please Rise. The jury was back with their verdict. State of Texas versus Dennis Davis in the one hundred sixty seventh District Ct Travis County, Texas verdict the jury. We the jury find the defendant Ifin it, please rise We the jury find the defendant Dennis Davis guilty of the offense of murder as alleged in the indictment signed by the four personerson Guilty of Natalie Antonetti's murder It was twenty six years since Natalie was killed But it was not too late for Johnny. I was so grateful. I mean, I was overcome. and it was hard to hold in My aunts and I were squeezing each other's hands so hard it was unbelievable The next day was Davis' sentencing hearing, and the star witness was a shocker. I am begging the mercy of the court. It was his ex wife, Becky Davis, the woman who started it all with her phone call to police you're aware of course, a call that you made to the police that got this investigation started. Amazingly, Becky, who once turned her husband in police, is now standing by her man I don't understand that He forgave me. He just said that you why didn't you ask me? I could have told you what happened He not wants got mad at me Sometime after she made that fateful phone call Becky reconciled with Dennis. Now they're back together, and she says she can't live without him I can't do things. I can't pay my bills, I can't lift anything.t I can't operate without him. I don't know what I'm going to do now The judge was not persuaded defendant would please rise At this time, the court assesses your punishment out at a term of thirty six years court Wade Russell says the defense was gutted. They weren't allowed to present evidence of Marty Odam as an alternative suspect. We had a strong, very strong circumstantial case against Marty Odum Marty Odum is the rapist who seemed to match the eyewitness description. Thank very much. But Wade never got to tell that story in court. You had this other guy that you think killed Natalie, but you couldn't tell the jury? I was not allowed to tell the jury that. It's like trying a case with your hand behind your back. The jury, in essence, heard half a case. They didn't get the whole case Does that sound like a fair trial to you? It does not to me. If you have a guy at the scene who says he saw somebody with a baseball bat, that's a pretty strong witness. At face value, it is. But he changed the description of the guy that he'd seen. First of all, he said he was six feet tall And then we had a month later That same witness picking out somebody who's Dennis Davis' size. And there was never any evidence that Marty Odam actually knew Natalie To Mark Prior, Dennis Davis all but convicted himself. occurred to me very early on that we had a defendant who in many ways, always wanted to confess to this He gave an alibi that could have easily been broken We had him making admissions to his wife, Becky Davis And then basically a flat out confession to G into Mudget the guilty conscience needs to confess And I think that's what we had here Even after the verdict, Dennis Davis says he's innocent of this crime And he can't believe he ended up here in a Texas state prison for the next thirty six years. I was shocked. I was completely shocked Let's go back to how this all started How do you feel about Becky calling police back in two thousand six? I couldn't understand why she would do something like that. She told me that U I scared her one night In two thousand six, Dennis and Becky had a huge fight in their backyard. I was swinging a swage that I used to chop wood. It's a big heavy thing and I was swinging it around the backyard and I was angry, but I scared her Soon after that fight, Becky made her phone call to police about the statement Dennis made almost seventeen years earlier. He had said, quote, I've sinned against God and man And when you heard that, your wife essentially saying, I think he's capable of murder she didn't say murder, but I guess that's what it is. Johnny says he's satisfied now even though his mother's case could have been solved years earlier. I think that definitely those women Gelinda, Namely and his his wife, Rebecca. We're scared I think they were scared of them. They could have solved your mom's murder twenty five years ago. If someomebody would have spoken up. They could have. And then they also could have not talked. I'm just grateful that they did come forward when they did. I'm really lucky We're lucky we got that call The most important person in my life is never there No matter what All the time. My favorite person is never there I have this great photograph of us when we went to Memorial Day Barbecue I was like fourteen years old And they had asked us to get involved in a softball game, and we were the ones that were barefooted running on, you know gravel She was so excited that she and I had won. And so there's a picture of us after the game together with kind of these big know smirks on our faces. Like, you couldn't have done it without the barefoot of Cubans.