Lord explained that Burnside had taken them out from underneath the sink when he was trying to install the dishwasher. Jaffe said he had sped back to Burnsides home, arriving at the same time as the paramedics. He was simply doing his job, he tells his friends, hunting for answers about a mysterious death. Cameras followed him as he solved a murder case in which the body was never found. 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. 4. Burnside told her that he was under financial stress, having to pay both his mortgage and his income taxes. His blood must have dripped off her clothes. Im just as baffled as you are, she said. At around twelve-thirty, the officer continued, a woman had called 911 from the house. He thought he had a mild case of COVID-19. Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson and the homicide team investigate the brutal double murders of two friends shot and burned beyond recognition in the trunk of a car. Seven minutes is a long time, Thompson told her several times on the video. Outcome: Plaintiff's verdict for $800,000.00. You fing shot him! he bellowed, nearly coming out of his chair. But she was pointedly not invited to a get-together that Burnsides friends were throwing after the service at one of his favorite bars. In this interrogation method, its deemed acceptable to manipulate through accusations of guilt through an aggressive protocol of nine steps. Detective Dwayne Thompson quietly retired from Dallas PD. There were too many unanswered questions, he said. I asked Lord if she had said anything to Burnside that night that would have led him to believe that the relationship was over. Can you possibly understand how I feel?. But Lord insisted he had a good heart. And Im a person who thinks your behavior tonight doesnt add up. He pointed his finger at her. Weve been detectives for a long time, and we understand that sometimes things happen and we cant always control the situation, he said. . Thompson, Andie - Thony, Steve > Thompson, Dorothya - Thompson, Elexus > Thompson, Dwanna - Thompson, Dweese > Thompson, Dwayne 1-25 of 112 Contacts Contact Name Theres no way my son shot himself,John said. Lundberg conducted the interview because Thompson had a prior commitment to teach a class at the police academy. For Thompson, there was no question about it: Lord was on the run. I went into the kitchen and he was on the floor and there was blood. 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. They too had been talking to Thompson and they were furious. The officer identified him as Brian Jaffe, a thirty-year-old civil engineer who had been Burnsides best friend since high school. I want him brought down.. Lets solve some murders, my brothers, he would cheerfully bellow as he barreled into the office at the beginning of his shifts. In a typical suicide, he said, when someone shoots himself in the temple, he points the gun straight at his head and the bullet travels through the brain and exits in a line roughly parallel to the floor. He eventually learned about my arrest, and he was so bothered by what he read that he never called me again. Its insane, he was overheard saying one afternoon at a restaurant near the police department. Thompson, a 21-year veteran of the Police Department, has been a homicide detective since 2006. Do I want to know an answer? Sometimes he would think [a gun] was unloaded and he would swing it around, you know, not trying to hurt anybody, just being stupid. 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. He calmly explained that his ferocious questioning of Lord after the shooting was nothing more than a technique used by detectives in police departments around the countrythe direct method, he called itin which a suspect is openly accused of a crime to see how he or she reacts. Jaffe told him that Mikey was a good ol boy who liked hunting and fishing. Tittle then asked about Rastegar. 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. | Editor Dont worry about it. Although the couple appeared to be joking, said Jaffe, you could tell they were serious., At that point, Jaffe said, he decided to leave, and when he returned after getting the frantic phone call from Lord, he found her in the front yard. On May 11, 2011, in the case of Texas v. Lord, the grand jury returned a no bill. By then, a couple of those friends had talked to Thompson, and he had made it clear to them just what he thought of Lord: he said he would stake his career on his belief that she had killed him. 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. Most of Thompsons fellow officers assumed it would be only a matter of time before he was firedand perhaps even indicted. She called Thompsons interrogation of her a mental rape and characterized her days in jail as torture. Even now, she said, she felt like an outcast, afraid to go out in public. Something did not add up. (2014) No, she said again. You shot him!, Olivia, youre not telling me the truth., Youre arguing about a goddamn birthday party, and he says, Im so upset about the goddamn birthday party that Im going to kill myself? Thompson said, his voice growing louder. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. And even if he took a shortcut or two, he adds, he didnt hide or invent evidence. One of the few black detectives in the unit, Thompson quickly made his mark. The idea that she would put a gun to his head and pull the trigger is just unfathomable.. He was the life of the party.. Still, Thompson had only a theory. He had on a dark fedora, a dark suit, a white shirt with a tie, and dress shoes. In the taped interrogation, the detective asks Lord some general questions about what happened on the night that her boyfriend died then Thompson changed things up. Every time she tried to answer a question, she said, he cut her off and called her a liar. Comments are moderated and these will not be published. By the end of the interview, Thompson had returned from his lecture and walked into the room. But after her arrest, Lord read The Count of Monte Cristo, the Alexandre Dumas novel about a wrongfully imprisoned man who seeks revenge against those responsible for his imprisonment, and she memorized one of the books famous lines: May the god of vengeance now permit me to punish the wicked! That was her goal, she said. Chasing a trail of clues, Thompson and the Dallas homicide team are always one step behind their suspect. You did! A few days after the funeral, Lord called Burnsides brother to ask if she could retrieve some of her belongings from the house. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. 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. Whos that? Thompson asked, pointing to a man kneeling beside Lord in the front yard. Shearin made his own presentation, about 25 minutes in length, laying out the case for his clients innocence. Lord told her friends and family that Burnside definitely liked to have a good time. Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation. 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. That doesnt mean they kill themselves.. Which brings us to the story this week here in Dallas of Hephzibah Olivia Lord, who sued and won a civil lawsuit against a Dallas police detective for false arrest, reportedly in large part because the jury found that the detective had acted with malice (a legal term here) during his interrogation of Lord after she was arrested on a charge of murdering her boyfriend. And then theres Jaffe, Burnsides best friend, who says he remains convinced that Lord is hiding something. They liked to say that when he pursued a suspect, he was as unstoppable as a locomotive. But when she realized how serious his injury wasI think I saw a spot on his head, she saidshe called 911 several times. Mikey said, Im not going to cheat on you in Vegas. Michael Lowe is Celebrating Over 20 YEARS of Service. Thompson testified that Lord had little blood on her hands and that she smelled of cleaning solution, which led him to believe she had washed her hands. I wasnt going to leave him, she said, her voice breaking. He often said that victimology was the most overlooked part of a homicide investigation even though it could help explain whether a suspect was guilty or innocent. The jurors, however, werent buying any of it. (For a philosophy class, she wrote a paper on Socrates being sentenced to death under false charges.) If he had wanted to go after that girl, he could have made stuff up, trumped up reports, and hidden the Rastegar tape. What do you guys think? And its going to come out.. Lord seemed to be trying to control her breathing. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Det. They make honest, reasonable mistakes. He says he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he got the goods on Lordand she not only avoided prosecution, she made a lot of money. When he finished, he left a packet of evidence that hed compiled for the grand jurors to peruse, including the results of two polygraphs that concluded that Lord had not shown deception when she said she had not shot Burnside. 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. They couldnt get the dishwasher installed because of a broken valve, which sent water all over the floor, so they took a break. Then his own cellphone rang. February 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? When the lab report on the gunshot residue was completed, it wasnt much help either. Based on what we see, it looks like you got upset and shot him. The towels had been on the floor to soak up the water that had spilled when the dishwasher valve broke. [4] Thompson, a 21-year veteran of the Police Department, has been a homicide detective since 2006. Read the crime and public safety news your neighbors are talking about. It was a stupid fight., Jaffe paused. Who do you think you are? But there was no corruption involved. He said that he couldnt handle disappointing me on top of all the financial stress and tax problems that he was enduring.. Burnside died from a gun shot wound from a 9 mm Beretta handgun. 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. HEPHZIBAH OLIVIA LORD Lord was accused of murder countless times, and she always denied it. After being honorably discharged, in 1991, while stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he joined the Dallas police. Who cares? At Christmas, you thought you were going to get a ring. Ive never seen anything like it, Sanders said. Lets make a bad thing right. His fellow detectives nicknamed him D-Train. I cant say unequivocally whether the young woman did or didnt do the shooting because I wasnt there., At the same time, Mitchell and other prosecutors in the DAs office were not convinced Thompson had committed any serious wrongdoing. Tired of fighting, she stopped talking to Burnside and went into the bathroom to take off her makeup. Thompson stormed out of the room and asked Lundberg to see what he could get out of Lord. I cant say any more, but its insane.. Do I feel an overwhelming feeling of guilt because I may have provoked something? I was picking at him all night long about that, she said. Basically she said, I know the kind of stuff that goes on in Vegas, Jaffe told Thompson. Lundberg walked into the interview room, pulled his chair close to Lord, and played the role of the good cop. Thats Olivia Lord, he told Thompson. On May 14, five days after the shooting, Lord finally left her mothers house to attend Burnsides funeral with her family and friends. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Whats more, he said, Thompson had left out of the affidavit the fact that Burnside, who was right-handed, had been shot at point-blank range in his right temple, which would give a judge another reason to believe he had committed suicide. 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. In that small house, she mistook the sound of a pistol shot for a glass falling to the floor? I wasnt going to leave him., She then told me something she had not mentioned before. She liked pampering him, waiting on him hand and foot so that he could focus on building his company. I know that he could get dramatic and a little crazy when he drank. As Lord hugged Tittle and members of her family, Thompson stood at the defense table, his mouth open. He said when he came up to Lord in the yard, she fell to her knees and said something to the effect of Hes dying. Rastegar told Lundberg, I got the impression she was trying to tell me it was accidental. The day after the verdict, Thompson was placed on desk duty. He remains convinced that he got a raw deal at the civil trial and that Tittle played the video of his interrogation of Lord only to plant in jurors minds the idea that he was an intimidating black man taking advantage of a grieving, attractive white woman. If the detectives thought they had noticed the smell of chemicals on her, it must have come from the paint thinner and the floor stripper that she and Burnside had been using that day. He was wearing a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. Compared with Thompson, Lundberg was a quiet man who wore glasses and spoke slowly. 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