Bonus Episode: An Interview with Glenn Kirschner

Famed prosecutor Glenn Kirschner joins us to discuss the prosecution in the Robert Wone murder case.
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[@atme365]

I love this guy!! This case has haunted me since i heard about it and i hope Robert and his family get justice ❤

[@MistyMeanorB]

Excellent guest!!! Great show, as always. Thank you ❣❣ I would love to see someone(s) pay for this murder…

[@Lola19035]

I think it would be helpful to say that Robert was not physically restrained but the belief is he was chemically restrained thus the iv punctures & the succs

[@darlenevoigt1457]

Excellent podcast

[@jolofssonholla]

Outstanding guest! Like so many others, I'm still hoping there will eventually be justice for Robert.

[@DeedersW]

This was a very interesting episode. Glen K is a knowledgeable guy.

[@markhewitt2126]

I was honored to meet Glen at CrimeCon last week. He's hoping to give Victor immunity to get him to talk.

[@ArohaStill]

So wonderful to have Mr. Kirschner on as a guest. There is so much stuff about bad prosecutors all over the place these days but it's so nice to see someone so passionate about justice. Also, in maybe episode 3 you seemed to dismiss some of the puncture wound evidence presented in the documentary and Mr. Kirschner seems to contradict that by stating that the EMTs and hospital staff identified their puncture wounds and there were still many questionable ones (I am not sure if you can edit that part)? Very great segment again. I hope you actually make some money off of the amount of hard work you do here. Cheers!

[@blackberrylane]

So good. Thanks for this.

[@laurelgould7026]

Great episode!

[@amyrients]

I’ve heard other podcasts about this case over the years but I never knew Glenn was the prosecutor. How did he lose?

[@leslievasquez2645]

The trial was in front of a judge instead of a jury. I think the previous episode explains her decision

[@leiliyahdecotta]

Fantastic episode. I'm a big fan of Glenn's post retirement work - I was surprised he was the prosecutor on this case!!! You guys nailed the interview - congrats!

[@brynacoonin2134]

Agree - also a big fan of Glenn’s post retirement work, so this insight to what came before was very interesting. Hope he is considering writing or speaking more about his career. Thanks, Brett and Alice, for having Glenn on Prosecutors.

[@GeorgeVaaeth-kc9wc]

Great guest today.😉

[@danadecker4855]

Does DC have a felony murder law? Because my pet theory is it was a conspiracy between Ward and Price to SA Robert. One of them killed Robert and the other one won't turn because the murder happened in the commission of SA and they'd both go to jail. The SA was premeditated, maybe as a sick gift from Price to Ward to get him to stay. And that's why the silence bc "we only planned to SA him, the murder just happened" is not a great excuse.

[@VTPSTTU]

Thanks for the bonus episode. This was great. I'm not going to go crazy and stab someone as an experiment, but I'm still not sure that I would attack someone with a knife holding the ice pick grip with the blade pointing towards me. As you describe the wound through the victim's sternum, I have a hard time understanding how the stabs were made. If someone were stabbing with full force, I would expect the wounds to be of different depths, particularly if the wounds were going through different types of tissue. The idea that one of these men could have exercised the control to drive the knife through different types of tissue but made all three stabs of the same depth is difficult for me to believe. If experts told me that this pattern wasn't unusual, I would believe the experts, but this idea is not intuitive at all. If I remember correctly, you said that the victim did not have bruising from the handle of the knife hitting his skin and being stopped. The only scenario that I can imagine is that the first stab was directed at the sternum and went deep into the sternum before stopping. In that case, the killer might have carefully inserted the knife into two other locations of soft tissue and pushed the knife only deep enough to reach the point on the blade where the first stab had stopped. Otherwise, making three wounds of identical depth seems incredibly unlikely. How much strength is required to drive a knife through a breastbone? Can almost anyone drive a knife through the breastbone of another person or does making that kind of attack require unusual strength? Who was physically stronger Dylan Ward (Dylan Thomas) or Joe Price (Joe Anderson)? You'll hate me for this, but I understand the difference between "knowing" something in "my heart" and knowing something by evidence. As an engineer who has done quite a bit of failure analysis, I've been in situation where I "knew" something until I got into the lab and started examining the samples. On closer examination, I found evidence that contradicted what I had "known in my heart." I've had a few cases where I knew immediately what happened but only learned later how it happened. The "how" is often critical in engineering and is probably critical in determining what charges are correct. I've made mistakes that have given me contradictory evidence. In one case, my original view was correct, but others in the company fixated on the contradictory evidence. I should have done more to resolve the contradiction. I believe that your guest's explanation of the lead-up is correct. Ward/Thomas administered paralytic drugs to Mr. Wone and engaged in some kind of sexual assault. Maybe Ward/Thomas acted alone. Maybe Ward/Thomas was acting with Price/Anderson. If Ward/Thomas acted alone, the scream may have been Price/Anderson walking in and discovering the scene. In that case, Ward and Price were setting up the whole scenario. They might have fed a false story to Zaborski and gotten him to call 9-1-1. In that case, maybe Zaborski really doesn't know what happened and didn't lie in a way that rose to the level of obstruction of justice. I don't know the details around spousal privilege, but if Zaborski was married to Price and Price is the one who gave their story to Zaborski, maybe Zaborski is shielded to some degree by spousal privilege. That might be a good topic for a legal briefs episode. If I thought that scenario was plausible, maybe I could have found Zaborski "not guilty" of obstruction of justice. I just don't know the law well enough and don't know the spousal privilege details well enough to know what I'd think. I would still have voted "guilty" for Ward and Price. If Ward and Price committed the murder together and the scream was Zaborski discovering the scene, then all three of them were guilty of obstruction of justice. Maybe I'll read the judge's ruling, but I feel that you've explained the situation fairly well. I suspect that I'd have a hard time understanding why she didn't rule Ward and Price guilty on obstruction of justice. I also believe your guest's explanation of the created scenario was correct. Ward and/or Price were probably using drugs to paralyze Mr. Wone and engage in some kind of sexual assault. They then thought that they had killed him while engaging in those activities and decided to try to cover the accidental death by staging a murder scene. Maybe they moved him into a bathtub to do the stabbing so that they could wash away the blood. They then put his body on the bed where he slowly bled to death while paralyzed. Zaborski probably discovered the scene and screamed. All three of them showered to remove any traces of blood, to calm down, and to concoct their story. I hope that your guest has the chance to see justice done. Personally, I would want to see Ward face the death penalty if he acted this way. If he could persuade me that Mr. Wone agreed to participate for some reason, maybe I could reduce justice to life in prison. To some extent, I would have accepted the Nuremberg defense for lower-ranking military members in some war crimes trials. I don't accept any kind of Nuremberg defense for someone who commits atrocities while acting as a submissive in sex games. Many people are forced into the military during war. People who voluntarily join BDSM activities need to be responsible for their actions. I don't want the government in their bedrooms over the details of games that don't do any harm, but games that don't do any harm don't result in someone bleeding to death while paralyzed.

[@delcapslock100]

So…what might Alice get sued for? I heard an exchange that was partially redacted, or the sound was just bad…

[@karenandrews8695]

He says justice matters and it should never be political but yet 🤔 he suffers from a fatal case of tds.

[@kristinv7518]

Great episode. thank you! If I was to speculate, I think that something happened between R and D. I don´t know what, but even if R wasn´t sexually interested in men, he still could have ejac*lated, that´s not always a choice really - hit the right spot, so to say.. So, imagine that D is penetrating R and in walks J. As I understood it, D was losing interest and J tried to get him to not leave. So, J sees this, goes into a rage, and either he stabs R in pure jelaousy, or he threathens D ("you´ll go to jail for r*p*, get rid of him!") and D does as he says. I don´t think that V had anything go do with the actual killing. This is all, of course, allegedly.

[@coplrn1020]

First❤