On July 15, the Public Integrity Units report landed on the desk of Dallas police chief David Brown. Lord spent 9 days in jail before a Dallas Grand Jury refused to indict her for the crime. Jaffe was sitting in a plastic chair next to a small table pushed against a wall. She wanted to know why they were there. She claimed that Thompson show a reckless disregard for her rights in having Plaintiff arrested in 2010 for the shooting death of her boyfriend, Mcihael Brunside. Thompson, Andie - Thony, Steve > Thompson, Dorothya - Thompson, Elexus > Thompson, Dwanna - Thompson, Dweese > Thompson, Dwayne 1-25 of 112 Contacts Contact Name Stars Heaven Bellinger Linda Carden Sheila Cooks See production, box office & company info Watch on A&E After she graduates, she hopes to go to law school and perhaps someday work for the Innocence Project. 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. They too had been talking to Thompson and they were furious. Seriously, does anyone believe this story that Olivia tells about being in the bathroom and hearing something that sounded like glass breaking in the kitchen? He first worked in patrol, where he was assigned to some of the citys tougher neighborhoods, and then spent ten years as a detective in the robbery and property crimes division before being promoted to homicide, in 2007. But, Jaffe added, Burnside didnt wave the gun around. The jury watched it. Kim Sanders, a more than 30-year veteran of the department who served as a homicide detective, said the interview amounted to intimidation. He said that he couldnt handle disappointing me on top of all the financial stress and tax problems that he was enduring.. I do believe you killed him. And, Thompson guessed, she had wiped down her hands and arms with the towels he had seen on the kitchen floor. It was now 5:44 a.m. Lord shook her head. They couldnt get the dishwasher installed because of a broken valve, which sent water all over the floor, so they took a break. What this trial is about is whether this detective had probable cause to believe that she did it. Then Schuette began listing all the reasons that would make a detective like Thompson believe Lord had killed her boyfriend. But we at least have the right to know that. She was wearing a blue T-shirt and gray sweatpants, her knees stained with blood. She was so in love with him that she was always able to forgive him when he screwed uplike the night of her birthday, when he got rip-roaring drunk, staggered around the restaurant, and didnt even pay for dinner. Still, Thompson had only a theory. When Michael Burnside was found dead in his Dallas home after an argument with his girlfriend, detective Dwayne Thompson decided that the victim's girlfriend, Olivia Lord, had pulled the trigger. Basing an opinion on over 30 years with the Dallas Police Department, Kim Sanders explained that the Lord interrogation was intimidation, not questioning, and as Thompson handled the questioning it was a textbook example of how police can get false confessions. Lord was slumped over in a chair, still wearing her blood-stained clothes. But when she realized how serious his injury wasI think I saw a spot on his head, she saidshe called 911 several times. You said he was upset and he hollers and starts getting destructive, and the thing is, you said he gets scary. When Thompson took the stand, he seemed utterly likable as he described his history as a detective. I grabbed him and held him.. IMDbPro. A citizen filing a lawsuit for false arrest must prove that the officer acted with malice, which is difficult to do. He is a Democrat representing District 96 in the Tennessee House of Representatives . I did not kill my boyfriend. Although Thompson would not consent to my request for an interview, people who have talked to him say he feels that he has done nothing wrong. A retired Dallas police officer acting as an expert witness for Lord told the jury there was no evidence that Lord shot Burnside. | Privacy Statement. After The First 48. Thats Olivia Lord, he told Thompson. I wasnt going to leave him., She then told me something she had not mentioned before. She wanted to not only vindicate herself but also make sure the public knew just what Thompson had done to her. Burnside had been involved in a couple of accidents. Because that is the only thing that makes sense.. Whats more, she didnt want him to go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. West Texans Are Learning What It Means to Live in Bear Country, Jimmy Carters Peanut-and-Egg Taco Made Quite the Impression on San Antonians, The Top 50 Texas BBQ Joints: 2021 Edition, The Campaign to Sabotage Texass Public Schools. How are you going to explain that to his family? The trial finally began in a federal courtroom in downtown Dallas this past Januarynearly four years after the shooting. I dont remember the exact words that were used, he told Lundberg. He was simply doing his job, he tells his friends, hunting for answers about a mysterious death. Rastegar ran outside and asked her what had happened. Sometimes he would think [a gun] was unloaded and he would swing it around, you know, not trying to hurt anybody, just being stupid. That wont be possible, said Thompson. He also said he had seen Burnside act recklessly with a gun only two or three times over the past fifteen years. Individuals have a right to counsel when they are being questioned, this is part of the Miranda warning. He insisted that what Rastegar told him in the homicide office was the same and consistent with what he said out on the porch. January 2023 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? The jury determined Friday that Dallas homicide Detective Dwayne Thompson showed a reckless disregard for the civil rights of 36-year-old Hephzibah Olivia Lord. She grew up in the Dallas area and after graduating from high school, she went straight to work, leasing apartments for a large real estate company and later selling cosmetics at Neiman Marcus in NorthPark Center. Or maybe the two had struggled for the gun before it went off, leaving residue on both of them. Dwayne Thompson (born October 6, 1950) is an American politician. 3. Merritt had an uncanny knack for catching killers. Im willing to accept that Mikey might have totally screwed up. Tired of fighting, she stopped talking to Burnside and went into the bathroom to take off her makeup. After going through perfunctory questions about what happened that night, Thompsons voice boomed without warning. Why did you let my son bleed to death on his own kitchen floor? Jaffe and Lord were taken to the station, and Thompson headed inside Burnsides home. The day after the shooting, he had checked the records and discovered that there was no seven-minute gap on Lords cellphone between the calls to Jaffe and 911. Tittle then had the jurors watch Thompsons interview with Lord and Lundbergs interview with Rastegar. Thompson acknowledged that without the statement regarding Lords confession, I wouldnt have filed a case. Tittle asked Thompson a series of questions about when he had actually written his arrest affidavit, which described Rastegar as making a recorded interview to the police about Lords excited utterance. Thompson was eventually forced to admit that he had typed up the affidavit before Rastegar had come down to the homicide offices to make his statement. Lord is a striking green-eyed woman, with wavy auburn hair that sweeps down past her shoulders. City attorneys are defending him, saying he acted in good faith and without malice. Both have worked numerous murders and each has been featured on the popular A&E reality television show, Im innocent, Lord kept saying. Why did you wait seven minutes before calling 911? he yelled. No, she said again. I loved my boyfriend.. The officer pointed to a woman sitting on a chair in the front yard, her face in her hands. Shearin questioned Lord about the drops of blood around the house. It was so hard for us to believe that she was doing this, said Jaffe. And if the young man had shot himself, wouldnt the gun have landed closer to his body? Thompson misrepresented any facts or falsified any government documents. They also declared that there was no evidence that Det. Why are you doing this to me right now? Lord asked Thompson at one stage during the questioning. Thompson left the room, walked down the hall, and opened the door to another interview room. Why try to make money off Michaels death?. Personal details. Rastegar again tried to explain what he had heard Lord say that night. Lord claimed that Burnside, who was intoxicated, shot himself.Thompson rejected the theory that Burnside committed suicide and investigated the death as murder. A uniformed officer walked over and told Thompson that the house belonged to a man named Michael Burnside, age thirty. But she maintained her innocence and claimed Thompson was the one who should go to prison. 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. I cant say any more, but its insane.. By the end of the interview, Thompson had returned from his lecture and walked into the room. Im innocent.. Lord was released. Maybe, Jaffe speculated, when Burnside and Lord had started arguing, he had declared that he was never going to marry her, which sent Lord into a tailspin and led her to grab the gun. Lord explained again and again that while she was in the bathroom, her boyfriend shot himself (they had been fighting, he was drunk). But as the case made its way through the courts, she maintained her innocenceand claimed Thompson was the one who should go to prison. He was confident and charming, she said. Dallas Homicide Detective Dwayne Thompson revisits an empty plot of land where a grizzly double homicide had occurred years prior.Subscribe for more The Firs. Shearin made his own presentation, about 25 minutes in length, laying out the case for his clients innocence. What he didnt say was that the case was going nowhere. In the video, Rastegar initially seemed to confirm what he had supposedly told Thompson and Lundberg on the porch. 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. At Christmas, you thought you were going to get a ring. Shearin paid a visit to Reade Quinton, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Burnside, to ask him why, just prior to Lords arrest, he had changed his ruling about the cause of death from pending to homicide. Quinton replied that Thompson had informed him about the statement made by Rastegar. Lundberg then brought up the trajectory of the bullet through Burnsides brain. The First 48 (2004- ) In Dallas, when a good Samaritan is gunned down trying . They liked to say that when he pursued a suspect, he was as unstoppable as a locomotive. In his free time, he read Civil War history and played Internet chess. There hasnt been one bit of evidence in this case that has caused you to pause in your opinion that she murdered Michael?. Thompson told Rastegar to go to the station and make an official recorded statement, which Thompson later used to obtain an arrest warrant charging Lord with murder. Her voice shook when she spoke. You were very disappointed. By the first of June, hed put aside Lords file to work on his other cases. "When I work my cases, I don't have a dog in the fight," said Thompson, a homicide detective since 2006. DALLAS Veteran Dallas police homicide detective Dwayne Thompson is on desk duty pending an internal investigation.Source: http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/W. Can you possibly understand how I feel?. Chip Gaines Bought Larry McMurtrys Historic Texas Bookstore. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. Hephzibah Olivia Lord, age 36, sued Dallas homicide detective Dwayne Thompson on civil rights violation theories under 42 U.S.C. Ive talked to her many, many times, and if she is lying about what happened, shes a hell of an actress, said one friend, Eric Love. At the least, she said, she wanted to make sure his actions were publicly documented so that he could never do to someone else what he had done to her. Thompson picked up his cellphone and called Burnsides father, John, a successful Dallas business analyst. Who cares? Sometimes I want to walk inside, thinking he will be there. Thompson thanked John and told him he would be back in touch. A couple of clerks grinned at him. Thompson asked Lundberg if he thought it was possible that a person who was much shorter than Burnsidesomeone, say, who was five feet two inches tall, the height of Olivia Lordcould have aimed the Beretta at a 45-degree angle toward Burnsides head and pulled the trigger? He was convinced Thompson had misled him, and on September 22, Quinton changed the cause of Burnsides death to undetermined. Quintons new ruling was definitely a boost for Lords case, but it was hardly enough to guarantee an acquittal. John said that was impossibleJaffe would have never betrayed Michael. Its psychological pressure as opposed to physical force, however many believe that the result, coercion, can be the same even though no blows are struck. By that time, Lord was working as a loan officer, and although they were both romantically involved with other people, they were clearly attracted to each other. Lord said that she and Burnside had gotten into an argumentsomething about a birthday party. She walked to the front of the chapel to look at Burnside in his casket, and her legs nearly buckled as she said his name. Testimony. Read the crime and public safety news your neighbors are talking about. But she never did: she kept saying that she loved her boyfriend, that they were happy together, and that he had taken his life for reasons she could not imagine. Look at it! Tittle maintains that Thompson never considered the idea that Burnside may have accidentally shot himself, despite evidence that he was drunk at the time and had a history of being reckless with firearms. Strapped around. See production, box office & company info. I dont work cases for the sexiness of them, Thompson snapped. The Hephzibah Olivia Lord by Detective Dwayne A. Thompson lasted for hours. 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. [4] 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. When Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must s Read allWhen Dallas Detective Dwayne Thompson checks out a missing persons apartment and finds it covered in blood, he's launched into one of the strangest cases in his career--a case that he must solve without the victim's body. In his lectures, he often told other officers that to find out why a killing had taken place, it was as important to study the life of the victimvictimology, he called itas it was to study the behavior of the criminal. The only thing I can tell you that might make any sense to anybody is that when hes drunk, hes very irrational, she said. | Store Description: Hephzibah Olivia Lord, age 36, sued Dallas homicide detective Dwayne Thompson on civil rights violation theories under 42 U.S.C. Videos 1. Thompson looked at his notebook, where he had written down the calls Lord had made on her cellphone. I dont want to answer that, she said. Summary: 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. Tried to explain that to his family probable cause to believe that she was trying tell... 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