73: Brock Turner & The Boy Who Thought He Pulled Off the Perfect Murder

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Shirley Kopitske was concerned. It had been days since she’d heard from her adult son, Glenn. When she drove to his house to check on him, she discovered a horrifying scene. Glenn was dead, and had been for some time. An investigation would reveal that he’d been shot and stabbed. Initially, investigators weren’t sure who would commit such a heinous crime. But months went by, and a bold, unashamed suspect emerged. He blabbed his motive all over town. But when his trial rolled around, he changed his tune.

Then, Emily Doe woke up in a hospital room with pine needles in her hair and blood on her hands and elbows. She had bruises on her body. Her underwear was missing. She remembered going to a party at Stanford University with her sister the night before, but after that, her memory went blank. Weeks later, she was at work when she came across an article about her attack. She learned that two Swedish exchange students were biking through campus when they spotted a man and woman behind a dumpster. It didn’t take them long to realize that the man was thrusting on top of an unconscious woman. They yelled at him. He ran, but they caught him and pinned him to the ground. Emily’s attacker was 19-year-old Brock Turner.

And since this is apparently sooo important, you should probably know that he was a great swimmer.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.


In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“People v. Turner,” wikipedia
“Brock Turner Wanted Only Outercourse, Lawyer Argues in Appeal,” by Daniel Victor for The New York Times
Victim impact statement

“Father of student convicted of rape: Steep price for ‘20 minutes of action,” by Alexandra Samuels for USA Today
“Brock Turner’s mommy calls cops as protesters swarm house,” by Lindsay Putnam for the New York Post
“Brock Turner case goes to jury,” by Sue Dremann for the Palo Alto Weekly
“Stanford swimmer denies alleged rape in police report,” by Elena Kadvany for the Palo Alto Weekly

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Gary Hirte and the Perfect Murder” by Seamus McGraw, The Crime Library
“All-American Thrill Killer” by Seamus McGraw, Stuff Magazine
“Murder of Glenn Kopitske” wikipedia.org