State v Bradley Cooper - 3/25/11

[SleuthinNC]

Speaking of the phones, did anyone catch in Kurtz's opening that he said Cisco was not able to find one record of a call between 6-7AM in a worldwide data search that could have been the call in question.

Yes I caught that.

 

[NCEast]

Since the video depositions, and I have not gone back and watched them all, but when they were first done I had recently completed reading a book on Kinistetics. This is a study of the psychology of body language. There are people who are trained in this topic, and they can often serve as human lie detectors by reading the body language of the person being questioned.

You might have heard of some of the more common things. If you ask someone a question and they shift their eyes up and left it means they are trying to recall something. If they shift them another way, it means they are creating the image, so it likely never happened. There are other things as well.

One thing can rang out loud and clear to me was the way he was holding the pen during the depositions. He was fumbling and fidgeting with it a lot, and frequently holding it horizontally in front of him, which is a guarding/blocking signal. It indicated deception to me, and he almost never put it down.

I don't claim to be an expert in this area, but have read a bit about the subject, and find it interesting. :twocents:

I, too, find this subject very interesting. IIRC, when Stubbs came right out and asked Brad if he killed Nancy he slowly blinked his eyes and said 'no'. When Scott Peterson was asked the same question by reporter Lopez he answered in the same manner--a slow blink and a 'no'.

 

[SleuthyGal]

The software could have run on any of the computers they found in the house as far as I can tell.

I thought there was an HP workstation found in the house. Was there a Dell found as well? Do you know where in the house it was?

In Brad's office at home, as for computers:

1. an IBM thinkpad laptop
2. a Dell Poweredge server
3. an HP computer system

He also had various other equipment including routers, 2 monitors, and other things I could not identify.

 

[gracielee]

I watch the videos at WRAL but have the window here open with the deposition index so that I can jump to the specific place that I want to hear.

I tried to find Garry or Donna Rentz depositions online, but I couldn 't. Can anyone point me to where either of them bad-mouth Brad's mom?? I'd like to be able to hear or read that. I was up so late last night, listening to each and every one of those deposition tapes of Brad. :thud:

 

[SleuthinNC]

In Brad's office at home, as for computers:

1. an IBM thinkpad laptop
2. a Dell Poweredge server
3. an HP computer system

He also had various other equipment including routers, 2 monitors, and other things I could not identify.

Ok thanks. Yes any of these computers as well as the macbook could all have run the call manager server. The key is what was used as the voice gateway to the PSTN.

 

[SleuthyGal]

One of my big concerns is that even people who follow the case and seemingly pay close attention to the facts, sometimes get confused about what Brad had and didn't have, what he said and didn't say, when phone calls were made and were not made and lots of other little items that have to be remembered.

Even some people who watch the testimony, occasionally hear something that differs from what was actually said and the meaning of what they think they heard is changed.

This worries me because it demonstrates that without a big huge obvious smoking gun, people can (perhaps easily) lose focus, some have trouble retaining details, they forget what testimony they heard, they forget what they read and have to be reminded and sometimes literally shown again. This doesn't apply universally to everyone, and I don't mean to imply it does, but I am noticing a general pattern, which I suspect happens in many cases that have lots of little bits of details.

Because we live in a society and culture of TV crime and legal shows in which everything is solved within 42 minutes of air time, often with lots of physical and DNA evidence, and folks have shorter attention spans and cut-to-the-chase expectations, the reality of a case like the Cooper murder case shows these societal traits.

My fear is that the jury won't be able to retain much of anything in their minds, past the most recent hour of what they heard, and only if it's very very simple and clear. The state is going to have to work to break everything down to an 8th graders level, using big colorful and simple pictures and getting them to understand exactly how this murder went down (or likely went down) without getting mired in techie jargon and obscure references. They literally need to use simple words, short sentences, don't get into the lawyer double-negative-speak and use very simple graphics and pictures with something big and RED and flashing for the item they want the jury to focus on and remember. Yes, I'm serious. I'm not being condescending. They need to make it just THAT SIMPLE.

For instance, if they want to show a specific cell tower that Brad's phone pinged off of (the one that happens to be closest to NC's body) then they need to make that tower big and red and have it flashing on the screen...with an arrow pointing to where NC's body was found...and showing the mileage of how close it was. I believe the jury will need to see that kind of super obvious pointer.

If they want to highlight and have attention on a specific call at a specific time, they need to brightly highlight that line item in color, make it big, and point to the thing they want the jury to notice.

 

[NCEast]

I tried to find Garry or Donna Rentz depositions online, but I couldn 't. Can anyone point me to where either of them bad-mouth Brad's mom?? I'd like to be able to hear or read that. I was up so late last night, listening to each and every one of those deposition tapes of Brad. :thud:

I did the same thing. I have watched most of them in parts but never straight through. I was so intrigued--and then our cable and internet service went out so I had to stop. Hope to finish today. Has anybody else noticed how Brad ends nearly each sentence with what I would describe as a higher vocal note? In music, it would be a sharp. I find him intelligent but very egotistical--above reproach-- in the depositions.

 

[SleuthyGal]

No other depositions other than Brad's have been made available for viewing. So you won't find them anywhere online.

 

[SleuthinNC]

One of my big concerns is that even people who follow the case and seemingly pay close attention to the facts, sometimes get confused about what Brad had and didn't have, what he said and didn't say, when phone calls were made and were not made and lots of other little items that have to be remembered.

Even some people who watch the testimony, occasionally hear something that differs from what was actually said and the meaning of what they think they heard is changed.

This worries me because it demonstrates that without a big huge obvious smoking gun, people can (perhaps easily) lose focus, some have trouble retaining details, they forget what testimony they heard, they forget what they read and have to be reminded and sometimes literally shown again. This doesn't apply universally to everyone, and I don't mean to imply it does, but I am noticing a general pattern, which I suspect happens in many cases that have lots of little bits of details.

Because we live in a society and culture of TV crime and legal shows in which everything is solved within 42 minutes of air time, often with lots of physical and DNA evidence, and folks have shorter attention spans and cut-to-the-chase expectations, the reality of a case like the Cooper murder case shows these societal traits.

My fear is that the jury won't be able to retain much of anything in their minds, past the most recent hour of what they heard, and only if it's very very simple and clear. The state is going to have to work to break everything down to an 8th graders level, using big colorful and simple pictures and getting them to understand exactly how this murder went down (or likely went down) without getting mired in techie jargon and obscure references. They literally need to use simple words, short sentences, don't get into the lawyer double-negative-speak and use very simple graphics and pictures with something big and RED for the item they want the jury to focus on and remember. Yes, I'm serious. I'm not being condescending. They need to make it just THAT SIMPLE.

I agree with needing to be able to simplify things. I was thinking the whole time they were going through the call records that it would have been so much easier if they had a diagram with phones labeled with the name/number and drew out the actual path of the call.

It is going to be so hard to correlate the AT&T records to the TWC records to the Cisco records if they don't do that.

 

[WolfpackWoman]

One of my big concerns is that even people who follow the case and seemingly pay close attention to the facts, sometimes get confused about what Brad had and didn't have, what he said and didn't say, when phone calls were made and were not made and lots of other little items that have to be remembered.

This is one of my concerns to. So, I'm confused as to why you posted that BC had a Dell PowerEdge Server. I can't for the life of me find that fact in either the search warrant from July 16, or the Search Warrant for after his arrest. Where did you get that information?

 

[gracielee]

I did the same thing. I have watched most of them in parts but never straight through. I was so intrigued--and then our cable and internet service went out so I had to stop. Hope to finish today. Has anybody else noticed how Brad ends nearly each sentence with what I would describe as a higher vocal note? In music, it would be a sharp. I find him intelligent but very egotistical--above reproach-- in the depositions.

Yes, and in everything, although he doesn't do it obviously, his round-about description of events always leaves him in the positive light, while Nancy, 'bless her heart', ( I hope that comes across as facetiously snide as it's meant to sound ), is always mean, catty, unreasonable, petty, hopeless, shruish, etc., to the enth..... Poor, poor Brad, tried his hardest, but Nancy was just soooo DEMANDING. No matter what POOR Brad did, he just simply couldn't appease her. And his COMPLETE AND CONTINUAL usage of WE. We did this, we did that, we decided this, we started that, even to the day of the deposition, he's still referring to each and every action he says, does, etc., is WE. I bet 'we' even used the bathroom together.

 

[SleuthyGal]

This is one of my concerns to. So, I'm confused as to why you posted that BC had a Dell PowerEdge Server. I can't for the life of me find that fact in either the search warrant from July 16, or the Search Warrant for after his arrest. Where did you get that information?

Testimony + pictures shown in court of his home office from the officer (Officer Ice) who was given the task to go to the Cooper house and seize the computers per the search warrant on 7/15-16. The Dell Poweredge is on the left side of his desk, underneath, in a vertical slot designed to hold a tower.

 

[SleuthinNC]

Testimony + pictures shown in court of his home office from the officer (Officer Ice) who was given the task to go to the Cooper house and seize the computers per the search warrant on 7/15-16. The Dell Poweredge is on the left side of his desk, underneath, in a vertical slot designed to hold a tower.

That was entered into evidence as an HP 4000 series Workstation. From the testimony in the trial.

 

[Albert]

So after watching the deposition there is one huge question that I would like to have answered.

He mentioned that he had replaced his home phone with the Cisco wireless IP Phones. Unless he was using a test network (which would have had a different phone extension) he had to have had a call manager (Cisco VoIP Server) installation at his house as well as some sort of gateway to the PSTN.

The big question is: You replaced your home phone with Cisco wireless IP Phones, what kind of equipment and software did you need to have in place to make that happen?

I didn't see that equipment in the evidence photos other than the wireless phone so where did that equipment go and when?

I am sure that BC used the CVO solution, this is very common. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/routers/access/cvo/880-870-cvo.html

 

[NCEast]

Yes, and in everything, although he doesn't do it obviously, his round-about description of events always leaves him in the positive light, while Nancy, 'bless her heart', ( I hope that comes across as facetiously snide as it's meant to sound ), is always mean, catty, unreasonable, petty, hopeless, shruish, etc., to the enth..... Poor, poor Brad, tried his hardest, but Nancy was just soooo DEMANDING. No matter what POOR Brad did, he just simply couldn't appease her. And his COMPLETE AND CONTINUAL usage of WE. We did this, we did that, we decided this, we started that, even to the day of the deposition, he's still referring to each and every action he says, does, etc., is WE. I bet 'we' even used the bathroom together.

I noticed the 'we' too in almost everything he said. I also noted that he continually referred to her in the present tense, rarely in the past tense. I don't know if that was a coaching hint or not but it stood out for me.

 

[SleuthSayer]

He mentioned that he had replaced his home phone with the Cisco wireless IP Phones. Unless he was using a test network (which would have had a different phone extension) he had to have had a call manager (Cisco VoIP Server) installation at his house as well as some sort of gateway to the PSTN.

That just seems like massive overkill to solve a fairly simple problem. One of the more trivial ways to initiate a call from home when you are not there would be to install a freeware auto dialer on your PC and set up a scheduled call.

If you are planning ahead and want to do it while leaving no tracking evidence, you could buy a $80 laptop hard drive and install/run Windows and the dialer on that, then toss that hard drive in the Harris Teeter garbage can on your way in.

 

[SleuthinNC]

I am sure that BC used the CVO solution, this is very common. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/routers/access/cvo/880-870-cvo.html

CVO is a fully IP solution. It doesn't allow the type of voice gateway connection to PSTN that would need to be in place.

 

[SleuthinNC]

That just seems like massive overkill to solve a fairly simple problem. One of the more trivial ways to initiate a call from home when you are not there would be to install a freeware auto dialer on your PC and set up a scheduled call.

If you are planning ahead and want to do it while leaving no tracking evidence, you could buy a $80 laptop hard drive and install/run Windows and the dialer on that, then toss that hard drive in the Harris Teeter garbage can on your way in.

Overkill yes but if it was already in place, not such a big deal to use it, no?

 

[gracielee]

I noticed the 'we' too in almost everything he said. I also noted that he continually referred to her in the present tense, rarely in the past tense. I don't know if that was a coaching hint or not but it stood out for me.

I was just trying to explain that to my husband. In the first couple tapes, you don't hear the pattern as easily IMO. But by tape 6, 7, 8, the self-serving nature of everything he says is so obvious. I think perhaps one has to listen to all the tapes, like I did yesterday, in their entirety, so really get the feel for the way Brad operates. And yes, I noticed the present tense rather than past. I did choke up when the attorney finally said 'who's *WE*?'

 

[SleuthSayer]

Overkill yes but if it was already in place, not such a big deal to use it, no?

I suppose it depends on what your objective is. If you want do so something involving multiple devices, multiple pieces of software, and multiple networks, thereby leaving all kinds of tracking evidence everywhere, yes I guess it's not a big deal.

If your goal is to do something simple that is pretty easy to clean up after, you wouldn't do it this way.