Ep 101: Kouri Richins Defense Rests, Deadly Senior Prank, Cheerleader Indicted on Manslaughter and More!

The defense suddenly rests in the Corey Ritchie's murder trial without calling any witnesses

putting the accused Utah mother and so-called grief offer one step closer to a jury deciding

her fate.

Plus, a senior prank turns deadly in Georgia after a beloved teacher is killed.

Now the family of the victim is asking prosecutors to drop the charges.

And a grand jury indicts former University of Kentucky cheerleader Lincoln, smelling

on a manslaughter charge, accusing her of leaving her newborn baby to die inside a trash

bag.

All this and more, this week, Uncourtroom Confidential.

As you can tell, there's a lot for us to dive into this week, as always, we are very

honored that you have chosen us to bring you these updates.

I'm your host, Joshua Ritter.

I'm award-winning.

Los Angeles prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney with over 20 years' experience

working in the criminal justice system, bringing you my unique insights from both sides

of the courtroom.

Today is Friday, March 13th, 2026.

And this is the 100th and first episode of courtroom confidential weekly roundup.

Let's jump right in.

First of all, Corey Ritchie's.

It's now entering week three.

We've been following this case closely.

If you've been following it along with us on our sister channel, courtroom confidential

live trials, you know that it ended with, I think, what it was a strong note for the

prosecution.

There was an issue about Carmen Lauber first that I think we should talk about.

There was a lot of discussion about whether or not she could be how the prosecution could

rehabilitate her with that be through documents or with that be through live testimony, back

and forth between the judge and the defense, lots of objections.

They're curious about their ability to bring in other documents in the spirit of completeness.

With all that build up, it all ended with not much of a splash by just simply recalling

Carmen Lauber to testify.

And all of that build up was just about whether or not she had actually violated some terms

and conditions of her probation from a long time ago.

I don't think it moved the needle in any direction on this case.

What did though was the last couple of items that was covered by the prosecution.

First of all, the book, are you with me, the prosecution was able to bring that in, present

that to jurors?

Remember, these jurors may not even have known about this, had not certainly heard testimony

about it until this point.

Now they realize that this person, the prosecution has been accusing of committing this horrific

crime, actually tried to profit perhaps on top of that, at least from a publicity perspective

by showing, by telling the world that she's this person who has lost her husband, her children

have lost a father, and this is how she's dealing with grief.

Interesting couple of things about that.

One is that we find out she didn't even take the time to write the book herself, a children's

book she got a ghost writer for.

It sounds like it was just this enormous PR scheme on her part to try to perhaps even

further distance herself from any kind of culpability in the minds of at least the public

on this case.

And then the walk the dog letter.

We've all been hearing about the walk the dog letter, would that come in?

What impact would it have with the jury?

I think it has a tremendous impact, and I've said this before because jurors are very moved

by the actions of a defendant after they've been arrested.

Many people can wrap their heads around the idea that innocent people might be accused

of crimes, jurors themselves wonder how would they handle it if they were accused of a crime

that they never committed?

Would they defend themselves?

Would they take the stand and how would they behave after they were arrested?

When you see someone who appears as though they're trying to orchestrate testimony while

they're behind bars that can have a pretty phenomenal effect on jurors.

So what's happening here?

Well, first, as I said, I think the prosecution ended strong.

I know a lot of this case was confusing in the way that it came out, but this is where

the rubber really hits the road.

He's in these final couple of pieces of evidence, especially that walk the dog letter and

how is the prosecution going to wrap it all together for jurors?

Remember, trials don't always come out as you plan.

Sometimes it has to do with witness availability.

Sometimes it has to do with just unpredictability from witnesses on this stand.

But you can at least plan out how you're going to explain what they should expect in opening

statements, and you can at least plan out how you're going to wrap that all up cleanly

for them in closing arguments.

And the prosecution really does have a job ahead of them because there's a lot of information

here and they've got to make a convincing argument to jurors because some folks watching

this are still not all that convinced, I think.

Some folks watching this are confused, perhaps, and now it's up to the prosecution to bring

that all home.

The defense, I think, made an interesting choice by having no presentation of evidence.

Corey didn't take the stand, not really surprising.

I think that was actually a smart move.

I think we're taking the stand would have been devastating to the defense, but they didn't

call any witnesses.

And I know a lot of folks have said, well, why not?

Why not at least call an expert on the narcotics and how that might have affected him or fentanyl

or your own medical expert?

Many times in these situations, you ask yourself, OK, the defense can call someone, but who?

And will that person actually be helpful?

Here it seems like she's got no friends that would be willing to testify on her behalf.

Her own mother looks like she may have been implicated in some of the cover-up to this.

Her boyfriend took the stand for the prosecution.

There's not many people left as far as character witnesses, and then as far as experts, remember,

this is in a case of she did it, but it was an accident or a case of self-defense or

a case of anything else, but her saying, I didn't do it.

So if your defense is, I didn't do it.

What is a medical examiner expert going to do for you?

Remember, she's saying, yes, he did die the way that the state has alleged.

I just didn't have anything to do with it.

Finally, let me take some questions from viewers.

O'Dell Burgess says, is it a good idea for the defense to paint Eric as a bad person

and quarry as a victim?

I think it was not a good calculation, not a great strategy, but also, again, they weren't

really left with much else.

They had to say that she didn't do this, and they're only explanation for who did do

it.

They could have gone in here and said, she didn't do it, and it's up to the prosecution

to show you who did, but she didn't do it.

But they wanted to offer some alternative.

And that alternative was to perhaps he did it to himself.

That may have misfired.

Eric's not a bad guy, no history of criminal record, no real history of drug use.

I know they struggled to establish that, but I don't think that they did.

So now you're taking a fairly nice-looking guy, a guy who peers that have been a led

of fairly good life, a fairly forgiving guy, as well, trying to paint him as the bad guy.

Good luck with that.

Someone says, why did the book come in?

Why was it relevant to the case?

I know a lot of people have asked about this as well.

And you could see where equal, reasonable minds might disagree on this one.

I could see judges saying, no, I'm not going to allow that in.

No, I don't see the relevance of it.

But remember, too, this is all during the time before she's been arrested.

And her post-crime pre-arrest conduct, I think, is very important.

It all has to do with this idea of consciousness of guilt and what was she up to.

And if part of their theory is that she was attempting to cover up her involvement

by even launching this sort of publicity campaign, then there is some relevance to

it.

The relevance of it great enough that it would make an argument over the probative value

of it.

I mean, is the probative value of it greater than the prejudicial value of it?

You could see an argument where it was not.

But then again, how prejudicial is the idea that you wrote a book, a children's book?

You might even say that there's an argument there for the defense to say, an innocent person

writes a children's book, not a guilty person.

In any case, I was not as shocked as others that the book came in.

Estelle says, why do you think defense asks for 30 minutes with their client after the

state rests?

I think it was to talk to her about whether or not she's going to testify.

This is that time.

They may have talked to her about it before.

She may have had thoughts about it before.

She may have told them, I'll make a game time decision.

This was that game time decision.

They're going to sit there and go, listen, we've already made a decision.

We're not calling any other witnesses.

The only witness that we're going to call is you.

What do you want to do, Cory?

We've suggested to you.

It's not a good idea, but this is your call, understandably so.

Christine Canary says, why would Cory's mom send a copy of the kids book to the police?

Because of what we said before, I think this was a publicity campaign and she wanted

the police to see that with the idea of, hey, she's so innocent, she's so uninvolved.

In fact, she's mourning the death of her husband and helping your children get through

that.

By the way, isn't she such a great person that she's decided to help others out along

the way?

And finally, Sunny Az says, is Nester a good attorney?

I think that she is.

I think that in this case, she was frustrated by the judge and maybe frustrated by the facts

more than anything.

It's difficult sometimes as a defense attorney to stand next to someone that you know there's

a no overwhelming amount of evidence pointing towards their guilt and still lodge some arguments.

Now, where I feel like she may have miscalculated is with some of the arguments that she made

to the judge, some of the things that she asked on Chromic cross-examination backfired,

I'm not going to attribute everything that the defense team did to her.

But I think she knows what she's doing.

I think she's a very qualified attorney.

It's just, you know, you can't pick the facts and circumstances of a lot of your client's

cases.

But what do you guys think?

You're the jurors on this.

Where do you stand on this?

Guilty or not guilty?

Please let us know in the comments.

Let's move now to Georgia with another case that has a lot of people scratching their

heads and a lot of people really concerned about how the administration of justice is being

handled here.

We're talking about the case of Jaden, also known as Jay Wallace, who's 18 years old,

and he was involved in a school prank that went horribly wrong when he went to go toilet

paper or roll the house of one of his teachers, a math teacher from North Hall High School,

Jason Hughes, who's 40 years old, this took place just on March 6th of this year in

Georgia.

And during that incident, during that prank, the teacher, Jason, ran out.

He was actually the accounts go that he was actually expecting them to show up.

He was kind of excited about it, wanted to catch them in the act.

Apparently, this is kind of a tradition that takes place at that school.

He was not bothered by it, not telling his wife to call the police.

He was actually looking forward to almost participating in the mischief of it.

And tragically, as he's running out to catch them, he slips and falls in his run over by

Jaden and kill.

Now, Jaden and his friends stop to help him.

They stop to administer aid and he's taken to the hospital and, unfortunately, succumbs

to his injuries.

Jaden now is facing first degree vehicular homicide, reckless driving and criminal trespass

and littering in faces three to 15 years in prison.

Four of the other students who are along with him are also facing criminal charges.

Jason's family has come out and said that he was aware of the prank, that he was hoping

to catch them and they said this, quote, our family fully supports getting the charges dropped

for all involved.

This is a terrible tragedy and our family is determined to prevent a separate tragedy

from occurring, ruining the lives of these students.

Then Jaden has also come out with his own statement saying, I pledge to live out the remainder

of my life in a manner that honors the memory of co-choose by exemplifying Christ.

He will never be forgotten.

So where do we stand on this?

What's happening here?

Well, first of all, I think this case demonstrates how hard a prosecutor's job can be when I was

in the prosecutor's office.

Many times you are confronted with cases where it's not just a bad guy, it's not just a horrible

thing that took place and a horrible person that you're going prosecuting.

Sometimes you have a good person who made a horrible mistake and what do you do about

them?

You can't simply ignore what took place, but you can't simply ignore the good person

that is in front of you now, which is, by the way, sometimes difficult to work yourself

out of because you're so used to this seemingly never ending conveyor belt of people who

do have criminal records and who have done incredibly horrible things.

And the prosecution has to balance all of that.

Now should the victim's voice matter or the victim's family's voice matter in all of

this?

Absolutely, they should.

They should take it into consideration, but should they be the ones calling the shots?

We've all heard on TV shows before where somebody says, well, I don't want to press charges

as if that somehow affects the case moving forward.

No, it doesn't.

The prosecution does not represent the victims.

The prosecution does not represent the victim's families.

The prosecution represents the state where they are operating out of.

I represented the people of the state of California.

Now that includes the victims and the victim's families.

And so of course, we're going to listen to their voice and we're, of course, we're going

to take that into consideration.

But if a crime has been committed, something needs to be done about that.

But that leads us to my last point, which is, was a crime committed here?

Why are we looking at this case?

Why can't, why does every case that involves the tragic death of another person have to

lead us to criminal charges?

It doesn't is the answer.

Sometimes it's simply an accident and simply a tragedy.

And I think that might be what is taking place here.

Now the theory under which the prosecution is pursuing this is that they're saying that

he was driving recklessly.

Well, that, I don't have the reports.

We're going to have to see what the reports actually say.

But that's going to have to be something more than him trying to just drive away as the

teachers trying to catch him.

I mean, reckless driving to the point to get this to a felony would have to be something

like breaking traffic laws, not, not just simply speeding, but driving through a red light,

driving on the sidewalk.

I don't know if any of that is present here, but if it's not, then I get us back to

the question of, yes, this is a tragedy, yes, someone lost their life.

But it is, is it actually a crime?

If there is a place for this to be resolved, it might be in civil pull.

But what do you guys think?

Do you think a crime was actually committed here?

Please let us know in the comments.

The last case I want to consider for the moment is the case of Lincoln smelling.

Do you remember this case arose back in August of 2025 out of Lexington, Kentucky, where

a baby boy was found wrapped inside of a towel inside of a trash bag in the closet of

this young woman who was a former University of Kentucky cheerleader.

Now this case had kind of been hanging around as prosecutors were trying to figure out

what to do with it.

Well, what they decided to finally do, and I think this was the right thing, is they brought

it to a grand jury.

Sometimes you can bring an indictment simply by the prosecution saying, I believe a crime

to a place here, and I'm going to file a criminal complaint and bring charges against

a person.

But other times, if it's a very complex case, if it's a case involving somebody of a

high profile, or if it's a case where you simply want to kind of get an understanding

of how the general public might feel about it, you can present it to the grand jury.

And I think that's what they've done here.

They've actually tried to, I think, test to some extent the strength of the case by actually

bringing it in front of the grand jury.

And that's why interestingly enough, they brought several options to the grand jury.

This is a quote from the Commonwealth's Attorney Kimberly Baird who said, they were given

the information about homicide, the four levels of homicide, and then deliberated and decided

that manslaughter first degree was the charge that should come out of the grand jury.

Isn't that interesting that they gave them all the different levels of homicide and said,

listen, you decide what if anything to charge her with here?

Well, they did charge her, like I said, with first degree manslaughter and she will appear

in court within the next two to three weeks.

So what's happening here?

Well, it's a horrible case anyway you look at it.

I know a lot of people feel very strongly about this, but I don't know the circumstances

of this young woman.

I don't know what kind of past she had.

I don't know what kind of resources she had available to her.

I don't know what her family life was like.

I don't know what compelled her to hide this entire pregnancy and then hide the fact

that she had a baby.

But what I do know, or at least what the grand jury is telling us, is that she is now responsible

for the death of that baby and that is a horrible thing.

So whatever circumstances she was dealing with, whatever reason that she felt that she

couldn't come forward and say that she was pregnant, whatever reason that she felt that

she couldn't come forward and give that baby up for adoption or present that baby to

some sort of abandonment shelter, I don't know, but I do know that if she is responsible

for that baby's death and something that does need to be done about it, what do you guys

think about this case though?

Where do you fall on all of this?

Because this case bother you as much as it does me, please let us know in the comments.

Before we dive into the other cases, making headlines this week, I only asked one very

small favor and that is if you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe to the

channel now.

It's completely free and it's a great way to help support the work that we do here.

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best way that we can do that is through your support.

After making headlines this week, Dale Warner was convicted, found guilty on Tuesday, a

second-degree murder and tampering with evidence for the death of his wife, Dee Warner.

The trial lasts five weeks with 12 days of testimony by 35 different witnesses.

Warner himself did not testify.

Interestingly, one of the big points that I think may have turned the jurors in this case

if they weren't already convinced were a review of Dale Warner's electronic devices found

searches for get this one quote, what to do with a thousand gallon propane tank, chemical

cremation, what is liquid cremation and why is it illegal, and searches for the 10 widow

dating sites, not exactly the best type of stuff to be looking up when you're looking at

murder charges, sentencing is set for May 7th and he faces prison with a possibility of

parole.

Very far well was also in court this week.

He is accused of the murder of Sandra Birchmore, this case was in front of a judge because they

were trying to decide whether or not to dismiss the superseding indictment.

You remember that he was indicted first for the murder of Sandra and then later on for

the murder of the unborn child.

The judge did end up denying that motion and it all came down to the idea of federal jurisdiction.

Remember that the feds cannot bring straight murder charges.

They need what's called some sort of federal hook and here the judge felt that that was

established by the evidence, by the idea that this crime was committed to cover up a person

testifying against him and that he likely believed that Sandra was going to come forward

and report this and that might likely have led to federal charges against him.

So the judge felt that there was enough there at least to allow for federal jurisdiction

and he's going to face all of those charges coming here soon.

Also convicted this week were the Alexander brothers out of Florida, tall Alexander,

Orrin Alexander and Alon Alexander were all convicted found guilty on all charges for

a trial that lasted for four weeks of testimony with the testimony of 11 women coming forward

saying that they had suffered greatly at the hands of these three men and the testimony

was incredibly graphic and very brutal to the point that I can't even really explain

the details of it for you here now.

But after four weeks they were convicted sentencing, he's going to be set for August 6 and

they face up to life in prison.

Before we get to what's coming up next week, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you all for being a part of this growing community, but I wanted to give a very special

shout out to meme Karen for your review on Apple podcasts and to Stanley Thomas and Tracy

Pope for your comments on YouTube.

We can't thank you enough for your continued support.

Please leave us a review on Apple podcasts and Spotify and leave us a comment on YouTube.

We appreciate you helping spread the word about courtroom confidential.

On the docket for next week, Samuel Hushdettler, the Amish teen from Ohio facing charges in

the death of Rosanna Kinsinger will return to court on Monday, March 16th for a hearing.

Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Huerman will return to court on Tuesday, March 17th

for a hearing.

Aaron Spencer, the Arkansas man charged in the 2024 killing of Michael Fossler, who was

out on bond after allegedly sexually assaulting his daughter, has a status hearing on Wednesday,

March 18th.

California woman Ashley Buzzer, charged in the shooting death of her nine-year-old daughter

Melody Buzzer is set to return to court for a hearing Wednesday, March 18th.

Gregory Moore, a former diversity attorney accused of killing his client, Aliza Sherman

in 2013, has a pre-trial hearing on Thursday, March 19th.

Michael Smith, the Utah father who took his young children on a near deadly hike will return

to court on Friday, March 20th for a preliminary hearing.

And finally, please join us for our special question and answer series Sunday, Sunday coming

up this Sunday.

All are invited to leave us a voice message with a true crime question at thecourtroomconfidential.com,

which I will answer live during Sunday show at 90 in Pacific noon, Eastern.

You can find the live stream on YouTube, X, and Facebook.

And that is it for us folks.

I am your host, Josh Ritter.

You can find us on social media at CR Confidential on X at thecourtroomconfidential on Instagram

or at thecourtroomconfidential.com.

Thank you again for joining me.

Have a great weekend, and I will see you again next week for another episode of Corproom

Confidential.