Hey, good morning. You're listening in to DAteline's morning meeting at 30 Rockefeller center. This story is just breaking. As we speak, our editorial team is catching up on breaking crime news around the country. Wait, Jane, why do we think there's going to be an arrest?

Marianne, have you gotten anywhere?

Yeah, I actually spoke with her sister, Destin. I'm Andrea Canning. Welcome to DATELINE True Crime Weekly, a podcast where I get to dig into the stories making headlines this week. Every Thursday, I'll be talking to NBC News reporters fresh from the courthouse and Dateline producers on the ground finding out what you need to know. So let's get started. It's May 16, and here's what's on our docket this week. Keith Morrison will join me to talk about the triple murder trial of Lori Vallow's husband, self proclaimed doomsday prophet Chad Daybell.

You just want to know how their brains work.

A woman accused of murder in Boston says she's being framed by the police. We had neighbors and relatives testifying there. It is so complicated, they even made their own chart. But for our first story this week, we've got an update for you on one of the most hotly anticipated trials of the summer. With just two months to go until actor Alec Baldwin stands trial for the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Helena Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust, his defense team has launched another legal salvo to get the charges against him talked. Friday morning at 10:00 Mountain time, a Santa Fe judge will listen to arguments from Baldwin's attorney that the prosecution can't even prove a criminal offense took place. This case has, of course, had wall to wall coverage from the very beginning.

Alec Baldwin was seen outside the sheriff's office in tears.

Prison is not necessarily the goal, potentially putting the Hollywood star in the role of actor and defendant all at once. Where we stand today is Hannah Gutierrez Reid. The movie's armorer, is in prison. About a month ago, she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to serve a year and a half at the New Mexico women's correctional facility. But for you, Miss Hutchins would be alive.

A husband would have his partner and.

A little boy would have his mother. Please take her. Baldwin, who was holding the gun that killed Hutchins, is facing his own charge of involuntary manslaughter unless his defense team can get it thrown out. What's in Baldwin's new filing? How has the prosecution responded to it? And what can we expect if the judge decides Baldwin's trial is still on? Here to answer all those questions is NBC News correspondent Chloe Milos. Chloe, thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Tell us about this new motion that was filed to dismiss this case. What are the main arguments?

Yeah, this latest filing, you have Alec Baldwin's team saying that the prosecution has to prove that our client consciously disregarded safety standards on set, that Alec Baldwin consciously disregarded a substantial risk to Helena Hutchins.

Yeah, the defense says that Baldwin didn't know there was a risk at all, let alone ignore the risk.

Alec Baldwin has maintained in multiple interviews, even one with me, that he did not pull the trigger, that the gun just went off and, you know, he doesn't know how live bullets got into the gun, that it was declared cold when it was handed to him, which.

Means, you know, safe. Safe to use.

Right. No live ammunition. Exactly. You know, the prosecution, they're going to say, though, that Alec Baldwin, it was his fiduciary responsibility as a producer on the rust film to also hire, you know, competent people to work on the set, you know, and that armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reid's decisions and actions ultimately fall on Alec because he was not just an actor but a producer.

Do you think that there's any part of this that has Alec Baldwin's character, his personality on trial here?

100%. There were a lot of reports that Alec Baldwin and his family were being followed around by a camera crew, that Rory Kennedy was one of the filmmakers, and that there were two documentaries in the works. In a recent filing, the prosecutor said that there was a plea deal on the table and that one of the reasons that they revoked it was because of these documentaries. And Alec Baldwin's team, they had a field day with it, with their latest filings saying, you just showed your hand. How could you come out and tell us that this was one of the reasons that you removed the plea deal? I mean, these are not real reasons.

If the judge decides that the trial is going forward, this is going to be a really big deal in the media.

This, to me, is very similar in terms of public attention, like public appetite to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, where we saw their defamation suit playing out on television, and people were just glued to it. And people are going to be focused on Alec Baldwin, that camera on him, his demeanor. Is he going to be talking outside of the courthouse? Is he going to take the stand himself? Will Hannah testify? But we know that she told her mom on a recorded call from prison that she doesn't want to help with this trial. She doesn't want to comply with a subpoena because Alec didn't show up for her during the trial. And I think we're going to hear from people in SAG, you know, about whether or not it's really an actor's responsibility to check that weapon on a movie set. And are you allowed to point a weapon towards somebody? Because Alec claims that Helena said, point the weapon towards me during this rehearsal in the church. And if you talk to actors, you know, many of them have come out publicly and said, you should never point a weapon towards someone because you cannot take that chance.

And any idea how long the judge will take to decide on this new motion to dismiss?

So I don't think that there's any sort of a deadline, but the trial is supposed to start July 9, and I think that we will have these answers before the end of the month.

Do we have any sense of what Halena Hutchins family would like to see in this ruling from the judge? I mean, we know that some family members have settled a civil suit with Alec Baldwin. Are they on board with criminal charges?

So following Hannah's conviction, Helena's mother and sister released the following statement. We look forward to the justice system continuing to make sure that everyone else who is responsible for Helena's death is required to face the legal consequences for their actions. Meaning everyone else. Well, there's only one other trial that's looming, and that's Alec Baldwin's.

You will be there, Khloe, NBC News, will be there. Yes. All right, Chloe, Milos, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

After the break, we'll be joined by a very special guest and dateline family member, Keith Morrison. He's going to fill us in on his own strange journey leading up to Chad Daybell's trial. Plus, we'll get the latest from inside the courtroom.

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Great storytelling with a twist from the true crime original.

For our next story, we want to take you to the Ada county courthouse in Boise, Idaho, and a triple murder trial that's already in its 7th week. State of Idaho versus Daybell.

Two dead children buried in the defendant Chad Daybell's backyard. The next month, his wife is found dead in their marital bed.

That's Chad Daybell self proclaimed doomsday prophet and fifth husband to Lori Vallow, who has been the subject of various Dateline episodes. In Keith's podcast, Mommy Doomsday in 2021, Chad and Lori were charged with the murders of Lori's two children, along with conspiring to kill Chad's first wife, Tammy. Chad was also charged with Tammy's actual murder. Lori stood trial last year. Is Laurie Noreen Balo not guilty or.

Guilty of first degree murder?

Answer, guilty. Now it is Chad Daybell's turn, and he has pleaded not guilty. Before we get to that, we wanted to check in with the person who has been hot on Daybell's trail since Lori's kids were first reported missing. He is also my good friend and colleague, Keith Morrison. Welcome to the first episode of Dateline True crime Weekly.

Keith, thank you for having me. I feel honored to be on your first show.

So what do you think is so fascinating about this story?

It has sex, it has romance, it has religion, it has children in trouble, it has people doing unspeakable things.

So who was Chad Daybell, and how did he meet Laurie?

When he started out, he was like a lot of young men in small town Utah. He became a Mormon missionary. Then he came home and he, he married Tammy. They had five children. And then he began to write books about the second coming, about life after death. He began to have these theories that some people who were dead were not really dead, and some people who were alive are really just zombies who were actually dead. But he would go to conferences, and Laurie went to those and was completely captivated by him and by what he was writing.

This is where the love story started.

That's right. Yeah. And he and Laurie getting together was like nitro and glycerin.

Yeah. Good way to put it.

The first we heard of the story came from the grandparents who were reporting their grandson JJ was missing, and they had been trying to contact his mother, Lori, and the authorities went to do a welfare check, and she was all happy and greedy at the door, but something was off. So they returned later, and by then they were gone. They just vanished, took off to Hawaii.

Which is where you went. You went to Hawaii to.

Yes, to try to find them. And we did encounter them at one point, and one of our producers approached them on the sidewalk.

Just had an outstanding. No comments. Where are your kids? There's a lot of people who are.

Worried about your kids. Are you guys worried about them?

There's a moment in one of your datelines where you visit Lori's storage unit in Idaho. And you're surrounded by photo albums, a child's bike. That was another one. You seemed upset, Keith. And I don't see you get upset all that often.

Well, you open the door and there they are. Their favorite blanket, their childhood things. And you knew the children were dead. Then we found the video which showed Chad and Lori going in and out of the storage facility, and he's patting her on the bum and going on with life as if they're just having a grand old time.

Is there a thought? They were saving their children somehow because.

They had become zombies, they had to be killed in order to be saved. That notion seemed to be somehow banging around in their heads.

Are there any questions that you have that you think perhaps could be answered during Chad's trial?

Well, I want to be able to talk to these people. You just want to know how their brains work. Do they retain these ideas even after all these terrible things have happened, or do they try to excuse themselves from these ideas? I don't know, but I'd love to know.

We would all love to know. Keith, thank you so much for joining us today and for being a part of our first episode. We appreciate it.

Thank you. As I say, I'm quite honored.

As I mentioned earlier, it's week seven in the daybell trial, and here to bring us up to speed on how the case is unfolding is East Idaho news reporter and NBC News consultant Nate Eaton. He was with Keith all those years ago, staking out Lori and Chad Daybell in Hawaii. Now he is sitting just feet from Chad in the Ada county courthouse. In a break during testimony, Nate called us from his car to fill us in. Hi, Nate. Thanks for being with us.

Thank you, Andrea. Good to see you.

Yeah. As we said, you're fresh from the courtroom. So what's happening? Who was just on the stand?

The person just on the stand was an expert in tools, and they were going through the tool marks that were found on Tylee Ryan's bones that were left behind and determining what could have caused those tool marks. I have to tell you, it left an impression on the jury because it was so graphic.

That is difficult testimony to hear. You sat through Lori Vallow's trial also. What is different about this one with Chad?

I would say the main difference is he's facing the death penalty, so the stakes are a little higher if he's found guilty. Also, the death of his wife has really been centered at this case. Tammy Davel. Tammy Daybell, a vivacious, healthy mother, was another individual labeled as a dark spirit to be removed. You will hear from multiple witnesses that Chad predicted multiple times that Tammy would die and her die.

Tammy's autopsy photos were shown in court.

Those were so graphic that we did not see them, but they were shown. And the medical examiner took the stand and very confidently said she died of asphyxia. She had bruises on her upper arms. You could say someone was trying to hold her down.

What did you determine her manner of.

Death to be a homicide. Chad was said to be acting strange after her death.

Right. His stories kept changing as far as how she died. He told his sister in law that Tammy Daybell had gained 40 pounds and died of an embolism. But they called up not only the evidence from the Fitbit that showed she was getting 10,000 steps a day. She was active, she was in a clogging class. And they called the clogging teacher.

That's the first clogging teacher to the stand.

Yeah.

Tammy has certainly been key, but we're also hearing more about the kids murders. How does Chad tie into that?

Well, the big tie in is they were buried on his property, you know, just feet away from his back door. But there hasn't been. If everyone's looking for a smoking gun of. Yes, his DNA was on the scene. Well, it wasn't.

And there was physical evidence from Lori and her brother.

Right, Lori. There was that hair that was found on the body of JJ, and then there was physical evidence of her brother Alex's fingerprint on the duct tape that was used to wrap JJ.

Do you think that it's possible that Chad could get convicted on the conspiracy to commit murder for the kids, but not first degree murder?

It's very possible. And if that happens, then he will not face the death penalty.

Chad's defense attorney, John Pryor. There's been some drama with him.

Right. In fact, as I'm talking to you, Andrea, he's walking right by my car. Oh, we are on the lunch break, so he's outside. There is a gag order. Otherwise, I try to get him to talk to you.

I was just going to say, throw him a question.

Yes. He does not have a lot of experience with criminal work, especially of this magnitude. The judges had to, you know, call him out a time or two for talking over witnesses and judge.

It's non responsive.

You just ran over me. Stop cutting people off in your cross, please. Including me. But he's doing his job.

When do we expect the prosecution to rest and the defense to begin?

I imagine the prosecution is wrapping up. We've had over 60 witnesses so far. And then the defense will take over and they could take a week or two.

All right, Nate Eaton, thank you so much. And we'll be checking back in with you again soon.

Thanks, Andrea.

All right. Coming up after the break, we've got the DaTelINE roundup. We'll give you a few fast takes on breaking stories. And we've got the latest on a case out of Boston that's getting a lot of attention, a woman accused of murder who says she's the victim of a conspiracy.

For true crime fans, nothing is more chilling than watching Dateline.

Have you ever seen such a thing before?

For podcast fans, nothing is more chilling.

Than listening what goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that.

And when you subscribe to Dateline premium, it gets even better. Excuse me if I sound a little skeptical. Every episode is ad free.

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So this could be your ace in the hole.

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Dateline premium. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or datelinepremium.com.

You ready for what's coming? Welcome back to the show. My next guest is here to give us the dateline roundup. He's one of my all time favorite producers, Mario Garcia. So tell us about what headlines caught your eye this week.

Hi, Andrea. As always, you're too kind. So we learned something new about the investigation and the death of the pastor's wife, Micah Miller. As you no doubt remember, she's a 30 year old woman whose body was found in North Carolina state Park last month and her friends and family suspected foul play. Last week, the medical examiner's report came out with a finding, and they say that Micah did, in fact die from a self inflicted gunshot wound. However, this week, the sheriff's office that's investigating the case revealed it has been working with the FBI and their investigation is ongoing. So what exactly they're investigating? At this point, it's a little unclear, but we'll keep an eye on that one and keep you up to date.

All right. And next we're going to head to Arizona.

Arizona? Yeah, where 40 year old Melody Johnson was sentenced for a crime that she pled guilty to. She spiked her husband's coffee with bleach. Prosecutors had been asking for four years in prison, but she'd already served about a year. And so she got three years of probation.

And some people think that that sentence is very light. She also was ordered to undergo mental health treatment.

I thought it was kind of interesting that the guy actually did a sting himself. He got hidden cameras and hid them and caught her in the act. So that was kind of a, if you think your coffee tastes odd, maybe set up hidden cameras.

And your final story, Maria, that you have found is out of Atlanta. It's something close to a story that you worked on.

It is actually a story that aired just this past Friday called Sound and fury. It was about a dj that had his wife killed by his best friend and he worked at a strip club in Atlanta, club Onyx. And it's a large club. A lot of music gets broken there. And they say over the weekend that there were two mass burglars that broke into the club through the ceiling. I envisioned, like Tom Cruise, a mission impossible on the cables. Then they used power tools to cut open the safe and they got away with $250,000, probably all in ones. But that's not a small haul. No.

Never a dull moment at Club onyx.

Indeed.

Thank you, Mario, for this week's Dateline roundup.

Thanks for having me.

For our next story, we're heading to a Boston suburb and a strange scene on the steps of the Norfolk county superior courthouse.

I tried to save his life. I tried to save his life. At six in the morning, I was covered in his. I was the only one trying to save his life.

A woman accused of murdering her boyfriend is surrounded by a crowd of supporters.

Said it feels we're the only ones fighting for the truth of what happened to John O'Keefe.

Who is she? Her name is Karen Reid. She's accused of backing her suv into her police officer boyfriend after a drunken fight and leaving him to die in the snow. She says that's not true and has one of the wildest defense theories we've heard here at Dateline.

And we know who spearheaded this cover up. You all know.

Yes, we do.

If you haven't come across this case before, it all started two years ago. On a bitterly cold winter morning in January 2022, Karen and friends of her boyfriend of two years, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, found him lying in a snowbank outside the house she'd dropped him off at just a few hours before. You can hear Karen screaming on a police officer's dashcam video. You can't make out what she's saying, but multiple witnesses who were there told investigators Karen said, I hit him. Oh, my God, I hit him. It is now week five of the trial, and according to prosecutors, Karen's reaction was a confession. What's more, they say there was proof her car had a broken taillight. Karen's defense team has told the jury don't believe a word of it. They say Karen is being framed by a group of childhood friends, many of whom work in law enforcement to cover up what really happened. Their claim is that some of them beat John O'Keefe senseless and dumped him on the street in a blizzard. My next guest is DaTElINE producer Sue Simpson, who has been on this case since the very beginning and actually got a chance to talk to Karen Reid herself with our own Dennis Murphy.

Welcome to the show, sue.

Thank you, Andrea. Nice to be here.

Yeah. Tell us about that interview. When did it happen and how did it happen?

Karen spoke to us in March of last year, and it was her first interview, as far as I know, to the media.

And I ran over to him and his eyes were swollen shut. He had blood dripping out of his nose. He had blood on his face. He had cuts on his face.

Karen, did you say something like, I wonder if I hit him? I said, did I kill him?

I said, could I have hit him?

I have to tell you, Andrea, it's rare that you meet someone who's so articulate and so well spoken about her own case, and almost you could see her acting as her own defense attorney.

And it's, I mean, you and I both know, very unusual for a defendant to do an interview before trial.

She appears as somebody who has nothing to hide and who has a compelling argument. Just one thing. For instance, this taillight, this broken taillight, which is at the heart of the prosecution's case. She says, look, you know, when I went out to look for him early in the morning, I backed into John's car as I was driving out of the driveway, and I hit my taillight. Then there is video which doesn't show that exact angle, but which helps to support her story.

One thing she has maintained is that she did not run over John.

Absolutely. She says that she sat in the car and he left within minutes of.

Him exiting my car, is not answering his phone. Minutes.

And we pressed her on this. Did you see him go into the house? She said, I saw him stick his head into the opening. So she definitely believes that he went in the house.

Yeah. One of the things I'm confused about. So was she drunk or was she not?

She is very clear in our interview that she was not.

Did you ever feel you were overserved that night, as they say?

No.

So a test was not done because she wasn't spoken to until the next day? Correct.

Well, a test was done the next morning, and she was over the blood alcohol limit.

So this could be one of the defense's biggest challenges, this blood alcohol level, because, you know, the prosecution believes that she had too much to drink. Simple. She ran over her boyfriend.

It could be one of the biggest points.

We are still in the prosecution phase of this trial. What have been their main points so far?

Well, you get the sense that their strategy now is to make sure, you know, that witness after witness is saying, John Okeefe never entered that house. We are going to make sure that, you know, first responders heard Karen say, I hit him. I hit him. I would say, though, so far, the prosecution is saving the CSI portion of the trial. They have DNA, they say, of John O'Keefe on the taillight on the car, these microchip fibers of the taillight in his hoodie.

That sounds very damning.

It does.

Her defense team is claiming that he was beat up.

They are. They say that he went in the house and that somebody in the house headed in for him. Now, they've got a number of candidates, one of whom is the nephew of the homeowner. The nephew was, you know, in his teens and was sometimes throwing beer cans on John O'Keeffe's lawn. And the defense says maybe he wanted to, you know, show John a lesson. Then first we should talk about Brian Albert. So Brian Albert, the homeowner, was on the stand last week, and he was under cross examination. He's key because he had the afterparty at his house. A former Boston police officer, first responder. The defense wanted to make this point. A dead man is found on his front lawn, and Brian Albert does not come out to investigate. There was an ambulance there. So that's been a big sort of question mark.

Brian Albert's story has changed a few times, and the defense has made a big deal out of him, possibly destroying data on his phone.

Well, yes. So he's testified to this. He said, I upgraded my cell phone. And so the defense leapt upon him and said, you destroyed data. Is it a coincidence that happened a day before you were getting a state order to preserve that phone?

One of the things from the defense is this accusation. This was a sloppy investigation done by the local police.

Yeah. And listen, you and I know that this is often a fallback for the defense attorneys in any case. Right. In this case, you know, there are compelling reasons to believe them. You know, a tent wasn't set up over the snow where John's body was found. They didn't even put caution tape around. There are a number of people that have been put on the stand who've said no. I didn't talk to an investigator for nine months, ten months, a year and.

A half afterwards and a new one, collecting evidence in red solo cups. Never heard that before.

That's the first right. That is a DatelIne first.

And some people might think Karen Reid's conspiracy theory, you know, seems far fetched. But this, the day of opening statements, an audit began of the local police department.

It did. And in fact, there's a federal investigation into this investigation. It's really opened up a fissure in this town. There's some fierce defenders of Karen Reid who managed to collect a crowd of followers. And they have created a circus outside this gracious old courthouse. They would actually have, on occasion booed John O'Keefe's family.

I know you've been going to the courthouse and did I hear you right? You've been actually arriving to court at 03:00 a.m.. You did.

I take my soccer mom chair and I need to get there. I tell you, Andrea, it's the fight of my life because only the first ten media people are allowed in this small courtroom. Yeah, but it's worth it. You're out there, you're braving the elements and you're thinking, I'm really covering a story here that is fascinating.

Well, as the correspondent on this case, Sue, I look forward to putting this all together with you. I feel like you're doing the heavy lifting showing up at 03:00 a.m. So very much appreciated for that and also for your all your insight into this case for us for DAtELINE True crime Weekly. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea.

That's it for the first episode of DatEline True Crime Weekly. We'll be here every Thursday from here on out next week, we'll be talking about the latest in the trial of the man charged with murdering the Idaho college students. When can we expect a trial? And more about Brian Kohberger's alibi. He was stargazing. And coming up on DatEline this Friday after the death of a 44 year old mother at home is ruled undetermined, friends and family battle for justice. And she said to me, Susan, something's not right and you have to do something about this. Tune in Friday for an episode we're calling the sisterhood. That's nine eight central on NBC. Or stream it Saturday on Peacock. Thanks for listening. Dateline true crime Weekly is produced by Franny Kelly. Our associate producer is Carson Cummins our senior producer is Liz Brown Kuriloff. Production and fact checking, helped by Leslie Grossman, Keani Reed and Sara Kadir. Veronica Mazeka is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production, Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline. Okay, busy day.

Thanks, everyone. Bye.

Okay, bye.

Friday night on Dateline, I was sitting.

At the grave crying, and I had chill come over me, and she said to me, something's not right and you have to do something about this.

A Dateline exclusive, Friday, nine eight central, only on NBC.