Forensic Transmissions

At 11.30am on Sept. 27, 2017, housekeeper and nanny Jennifer Fulford received a FedEx package from the “Bacon of the Month Club” at the home of her employer in Winter Park, Florida, Reid Berman. Shortly after that, she was supposed to pick up Reid Berman’s son Oliver from school. She didn’t show up. Her body […]

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This episode contains highlights from the 2015 deposition of David E. “The Apostle” Taylor, of J.M.M.I Ministries in St. Louis, Missouri. Taylor is being questioned by attorney Colleen Ronayne as part of a divorce suit filed by Ricky Frazier, the ex-husband of one of Taylor’s “volunteers” Deborah Frazier, who has donated over a million dollars to the ministry.

Ronayne questions Taylor about his claims to have been visited personally by Jesus, and to have cured people of blindness and AIDS. She also asks about his cars (a BMW, Mercedes, Bentley, and a Range Rover), and his clothing bills ($6,000 at Louis Vuitton, $3,500 at Versace, $1,700 at Monsieur Clothing, and other designer items totaling $30,000 over a two-year period). It’s sometimes painful to listen to Taylor’s fumbling, inarticulate responses. Visibly nervous and biting his bottom lip, Taylor makes pitiful excuses for his frivolous purchases (he has to buy his belts at high-end stores because “they have a better TV appearance”). Interestingly, like Pastor Timothy Omotoso (whose case was featured in Episode 74), Taylor has a particular fondness for garish military jackets.

He claims to know almost nothing about his own finances, repeatedly telling Ronanye that she should ask Michelle Brannon, his fellow board member. He claims not to know his own office address, or the purpose of a $2.8 million dollar property in St. Louis that is listed as an asset on J.M.M.I.’s tax forms, or even the identity of one of his dependents. Every time he’s trapped in a contradiction or a lie, his response is the same: “ask Michelle.”

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This child murder took place on August 28, 2014 in Lexington, SC, and this time, there were multiple victims. When interviewed by FBI agent David Mackey and Lexington County sheriff’s Detective Adam Creech, Jones, a divorced dad who had sole custody of the kids, explained that his oldest child, 6-year-old Nahtahn, deliberately blew out four […]

On the afternoon of June 9, 2017, Ms. Yingying Zhang, 26, a Chinese student at the  University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, went missing after she was offered a ride while waiting at a bus stop. She was last seen on a surveillance tape, around 2.30pm, getting into a black Saturn Astra. Police traced the Astra to Brendt Christensen, 28, a former physics grad student who was, at the time, unemployed after dropping out of a PhD program.

This episode contains part of the FBI interview with Brendt Christensen that took place on June 15, six days after Ms. Yingying’s disappearance. This is his second interview. After some pressing, he admits that he gave an Asian female a ride the previous weekend, but said he dropped her off after only a few blocks when a wrong turn caused her to panic. He also explained that he was married, that he and his wife were in an open relationship with another couple, and that she had been out of town with her boyfriend the day Ms. Yingying went missing.

After this questioning, the FBI agents took possession of Christensen’s computers and cellphone, and placed him under continuous surveillance. They also asked his girlfriend, Terra Bullis, to wear a wire. On June 29, Christensen attended a memorial walk for Ms. Yingying with his girlfriend. Later, he confessed to Terra that he had picked up Ms. Yingying, brought her back to his apartment, and held her there against her will.

Christensen’s trial took place in June 2019. He had no had no prior criminal record and no record of disciplinary problems at the university. The FBI report on his cellphone noted that in April, he used his cellphone to access the sexual fetish website Fetlife, and visited the forum “Abduction 101.” At the trial, it was revealed that Christensen admitted he had raped, assaulted, and decapitated Ms. Yingying. Her body has still not been found. Christensen is about to be sentenced, and the prosecution is pushing for the death penalty.

Warning: audio ends abruptly.

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