Talking Dateline: Out There in the Dark

0:03Hi, everyone. It's Blaine Alexander, and joining me today is the one, the only Dennis Murphy. Hi, Dennis. Hey, Blaine. I'm delighted to be with you. It is a joy, my friend. Well, we are talking Dateline. We are going to be talking about Dennis' episode, Out There in the Dark. Now, if you haven't seen it yet, you can stream it on Peacock or listen to it on your Dateline podcast feed and then come right back here for the chat. So here's a quick recap. In 2014, 25-year-old Brandi Daniels was found shot to death, execution style, in her car at the top of her mother's driveway. It took just a few weeks for detectives to zero in on two prime suspects, Brandy's estranged husband, Josh Daniels, and his buddy, Sirius Underwood.

0:45But it took almost two years for them to find enough evidence and a surprising motive to tie them to this crime. Coming up later, we've got some podcast-exclusive interview clips for you, an excerpt from Josh Daniels' interview with police that didn't make it into Dennis' Dateline episode, and we've got more from Dennis' interview with Sirius Underwood's girlfriend. So, of course, we will also be answering some of your questions from social media. All right, Dennis, we've got a lot. Let's talk Dateline. Let's go. Let's dive in. I've got to say, I didn't see this ending coming. And that's the mark of a good Dateline episode, right?

1:18That's good. I'm delighted to hear that. Yeah. No, no, no. This one was very interesting. I mean, just from the start, when you talk about the notion of somebody driving along in the dark, and then they see headlights behind them, and you're kind of thinking, okay, is this just a weird driver or am I in some sort of serious trouble? I think that's something that all of us can relate to. And Blaine is especially chilling because this young woman is on her cell phone talking to her boyfriend. She's coming home from work. She's about to hang it up for the night. And she says, I see lights behind me.

1:49I'm being tailed. Yeah. And you know, which is the hair on the back of your neck. Well, I mean, I think the thing too, that makes it even more frightening just from a woman's perspective, you kind of think, okay, if I'm on the phone with somebody if I'm driving home or it's late at night. I'll be on the phone with my husband. I'm talking to him. It's fine. She was. She was on the phone with her fiance. She's reassured in the cocoon of her little car there, almost home. She was in her driveway. I was really moved by your interview with Brandy's mother. Oh, yeah. Because, oh God, I just felt terrible for her, especially the detail of She being right so close and being right there in her driveway and her saying that she sat there and looked and couldn't do anything.

2:32She was just watching all of this happen, right, as investigators were kind of processing the scene. She's seeing the police lights at the end of her driveway and her daughter's a minute from being inside her house, safe and sound. And she can't hurry justice along either, Blaine. I mean, this woman has to wait years and years for some kind of result. Who did this to my baby? And they just weren't getting answers. They all knew who did it, but they couldn't bring him to ground. I found myself just, I wanted to hear as much as I could from her, both from the feeling of losing a child. At the end, we learned that they took in the grandchild, of course.

3:07Yeah. But then just kind of this wait for justice and what that looked like. How was she dealing with all of that? I mean, I remember her face. It was just this mask of grief. You know, that had become her default setting. And, I mean, how do you put into words? You've got me in the other chair saying, how do you feel about that? What's happened? How do you feel about justice? And there are no good answers for her. I mean, she's mainly mourning the loss of her daughter. So let's talk about the two people that wind up becoming the focus of this investigation. Brandy's soon-to-be ex-husband, her estranged husband, who lives off in Alaska, and then his friend from the gym, Sirius Underwood.

3:50I mean, people talk about being thick as thieves, and that's what these two guys were because they were actually in their alter egos. They were stick-up guys. They'd put on masks and put a gun in somebody's face and grab the money and run. In addition to being admired people on campus where they worked, friends in the gym, thick as thieves. You know, I have to say that I've never heard of a story like this where there's no money exchanging hands. There's no insurance money. It's not a quid pro quo. It's not, if you kill my soon-to-be ex-wife, I'll do something for you. It's just, that's what dudes do for dudes, was the quote.

4:29Wasn't that a great line? That's what dudes do for dudes. And I sort of, you know, as a dude, I sort of get that you do things for your dude. Can I pick you up at the airport? Can I give you a run back from the auto shop when you do your drop? That's what dudes do for dudes. Healthy moves, perhaps. Yeah. And as you said, there's absolutely no evidence that any money changed hands. It's not like I'll give you my routing number. Here's a gym bag full of cash. That never happened. But it was what dudes do for dudes. A big reveal to me came kind of toward the end when you said Josh was heavily dependent on steroids.

5:03That he was, as the investigator said, he was roided out of his mind, right? Yeah, he's a major gym rat. Major gym rat. I loved the line that you had that said, after time in jail, his kind of muscles had deflated like spent balloons. Now, I'm not an expert on steroids, Blaine, but I think one of the consequences might be that you don't start thinking straight. Well, aggression. Aggression. Aggression. Aggression. That's a big consequence of it, right? And that's one of the, as soon as I heard you say steroids in there, that's what I thought of this. I think the real mystery in all of this was Sirius Underwood.

5:38He was almost this like Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde-like character. Exactly right. Right? I mean, he was the poster boy at his college. You know, he was the one that showed new students around. He was in the literature. This is an example of what we are at Zane State College. When he wasn't posing for photos and helping little old ladies across the street, he was putting a gun in somebody's face and grabbing their bag and their money. What a strange switch. Do you think that it was the thrill for him? You know, they were engaged in a wave of robberies in that part of Ohio. And I think, I don't know what that is.

6:14the adrenaline of that or whatever, or the mind state that, wow, we are bad guys, somehow spilled over into this becoming a killer. Because Underwood went out on his own. I mean, he was the one following that car. He took it upon himself to do what a dude's got to do for a dude. And the ease with which he suggested it was also really chilling to me. It wasn't like they worked up to it and, oh, what should we do? It was just like, ah, let's get rid of her. I mean, they're just like, hey, let's go get a pizza. That was very stunning. When we get back, we've got more from Josh Daniels' interview with police and more of the conversation Dennis had with Wendy, Sirius' girlfriend, who says she still can't believe that he committed murder.

7:01Let's talk about Zanesville, Ohio. I was very interested in this location because, one, I have to admit, I had not heard of Zanesville, Ohio. Been to another places in Ohio, but not Zanesville. That's always been the fun part of this job, Blaine, is going to places you would never, ever buy a ticket for. But there you are. All of a sudden, you're in Zanesville, Ohio. And what's it about? Well, it was one of the first capitals of the state of Ohio, you know, back in the mid-19th century. And there was a prosperous pottery industry that took place. The local clays were conducive to making really quality pottery.

7:39What really put him on the map, and I had to be reminded of this, there was a news story involving Zanesville in, I'm going to say, 2010, 2011. It was very strange. There was a guy who had a backyard exotic animal farm. He had Bengal tigers and grizzly bears and wolves, and they were all in his backyard. Oh, wow. And he decided that he was going to exit life. And before he killed himself, he released all the animals in Zanesville. So they're wandering around tigers and bears. And the guys in law enforcement had to get at their long guns and kill these. They ended up killing 48 exotic animals. Oh, my gosh.

8:20It really took a toll. I mean, these are big, uniformed guys with badges and guns and weapons. And it still affected them to have to go out and shoot Bengal tigers to keep their town safe. They said then, and it makes sense, they really didn't have a choice. They had no way of rounding them up. So the escaped animals of Zanesville is one of the first things you find when you look up the place. Wow. I vaguely remember that story, actually. Now that you say that, I do. I remember hearing about that. But I've got to say, Dennis, as an aside, every time I do a talking dateline with you, I always learn something new.

8:50And I appreciate that. That's it. That's today's factoid, boy. It's a great factoid. It's a great factoid. Which brings more entry to the town of Zanesville, Ohio. I mean, almost from the beginning, there are different characters within Zanesville. I mean, I think that long kind of road that Brandy was driving on, that was just a, that seemed like a creepy, a desolate type of place. The other place that seemed to be kind of like a focal point or a gathering point in this was the college where they all were, the local college there in Zanesville. I thought that it was so interesting that that's what brought this kind of cast of characters together in so many ways that they intersected there.

9:28Yeah. Zane State and everybody would be very proud to have a community college of that reputation in their town. and yet it was also this strange with occurrence of this awful event went through. Of course. Speaking of the people that we met there, Wendy. This is Sirius' girlfriend. I've been waiting to talk to you about her because, my goodness, Wendy I had a special sense of sympathy for. I agree. I mean, she was a student. She went back as a single mom at a certain age in life to get a degree, and she became a spokesperson and model for Zane State along with this guy, Sirius. And she thinks she has a catch.

10:08And they became a couple. They became close. And she could not put together these stories they were telling her of this Jekyll Hyde kind of personality of her boyfriend. That he could do it. I mean, she rode for him until the end. She said, I— She truly did. Even after. She said, there's no reason. Why would he do this? And it all brings you down to the what made this guy tick. Why would he give up this woman that he had, this life that he had? He was a pride of the community kind of character and then become a stick-up guy and a killer. Yeah. You spoke with her. I was fascinated by the interview.

10:45We have an extra clip, though, where she kind of talks about her thoughts about all of this. You don't think he's toying with your emotions and running a cruel con on you? A cruel con? People will tell you that Sirius is a con man of con men. Oh. Manipulator. No. Do you think he was doing that with you? No. No. I know it would be. Yeah, that's not even a question. So you don't think he... I mean, there were times that he lied. See, to be a cheater, you pretty well have to be a liar, right? That kind of goes hand in hand. I'm just saying it's not fair to just, you know, say that because someone, you know, you know, was smooth or they were, what was that word you used?

11:33Tarning. Or manipulator or whatever, you know? I think all of us are manipulators to some degree. No, I never felt that way at all. So you don't think he was out on that road that night and shot that woman to death three times execution style? No, I don't. I don't have a way. I'm going to be realistic. I don't have a way of knowing that. And neither do you and neither does anybody for absolutely sure. So I think Wendy really had a hard time coming to grips with it. That's what I was trying to understand in the interview with her. And she really, I mean, just listening to that clip, she's adamant that he did not shoot and kill Brandy Daniels.

12:14But she's also adamant that the love that they had was real. What she felt with him is real. The sweet, kind, hardworking person that he presented himself to be to her is in fact who he is. Like she's not even willing to cross that bridge that he lied to her. So she's got to doubt her own software system, her antennas, what that tells her about the people that she deals with in her life. How could you get something like that so wrong? That's a hard leap for people to make. She thought she had found her guy. Let's talk about the investigation. The detectives here were on a mission. I mean, I think what's unusual about this episode, it wasn't who did it, but it was why.

12:50I think the undercurrent of all of this is that the two perpetrators thought that they were just way smarter than these, you know, kind of slow local cops. And they were wrong as they could be. Yes. Because those cops got them. You know, there was a line in there that I loved. You said, smart investigative work with a healthy dollop of luck or a hefty dollop of luck. Yeah. And I think that's very real here. The big aha moment in the case, I think, Blaine, was the detective who clued to the identification of the burner phone. Now, I think we all know what burner phones are. You buy them at the store and you use them and throw them away and it doesn't tell much about you they're kind of anonymous phones and this cop did what cops do in 2010 it was a while ago maybe there's better technology now but you have to go to all of the towers and ask the tower what is this phone that's pinging on you what is this area code so you can imagine there's thousands and thousands of hits and this one sharp detective said wait a second right around the time of the murder there's an oddball area code here.

13:52And I want to know what that is. And that turned out to be the burner phone he tracked down to the place of purchase like a week before the murder. And that really, everything tumbled from there. They got burned by the burner phones. Burned by the burner phone. Burned by the burner phones. I mean, people talk about clearing their phone. And one of the guys did a reset on his phone and thought he was clean. Yeah. But my sense of dealing with technology is you're never, ever really clean. Something is out there to be found. I think that our faithful Dateline viewers and listeners know that if you delete something, it's not deleted.

14:24If you clear a picture, it's not cleared. Like if it's been on your phone, if it's been on this at some point, it's still there. It'll track you. It'll track you. I loved how we have this point where we know that Josh and Sirius are behind it. We know what's going on. And then it's who is going to crack first? Who are we going to sweat? Who's going to give it up? Yes, exactly. They have him in their separate areas for questioning. The one guy has to break. and is going to get a deal. As they always say, there's only one deal here. There's only one ticket for an easier way out. And which one of them is going to pick it off the table?

15:00Well, it turned out to be Josh. Josh was the weak link here. He really was. What do you think it was that made him break first? I don't think he was that strong character. You know, they sweated him, and I think he gave it up pretty quickly. Because it was his, one, the idea didn't hatch from his mind. It came from Sirius. So the biggest X to solve for here was the motive. There was talk about whether or not Brandy knew about their robbery scheme and was going to maybe tell authorities. Do we think that was the case? I think there's more than a whisper of that here, Blaine. You could see where Sirius would have a motive to not only help his friend to do what a dude's got to do for a guy who has an inconvenient woman in his life, but that she might actually snitch them out, that she knew some of the things.

15:44So as long as she was alive, he Sirius was at risk, you know. He really was. We talked about Josh and his confession. He took a plea deal, but he had to reveal the details of the crime to, you know, to the extent that he could. He talks with investigators, and we have some extra, an extra clip from his admission and whether or not Brandy knew about Josh's side hustle with Sirius. Let's take a listen to that. I think Sirius was really, really concerned when me and Brandy split up as far as what had I relayed to her? What had I told her?

16:22So he was afraid that when you two broke up, she had knowledge of some of the things you guys did. He wanted to eliminate. Well, because I would brag to Brandy. I would be, I never really elaborated on to her what I was doing. She's not stupid. But I would come home with this money. And to me and her, we didn't have anything. So me coming home with this mental amount of money, it was exciting. And she would be happy. You know, every time we do episodes like this, Dennis, I always just think, what trust one must have to enter into a relationship with somebody that you don't know, that you don't, if you don't know their background, I mean, and that's obviously the underpinning of love and a relationship, but.

17:10Blaine, there's the thought of the day, you know, how do you open yourself up and extend yourself to somebody, anybody? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even, even if, let's say, even if the things had changed and she wasn't killed, you're still married to and have a child with an armed robber, like somebody who goes to the gym and picks up a crime buddy and starts this kind of like string of crime, how do you know if that's in somebody or not, right? You're right. When you go into a relationship, when you say, okay, I mean, do you hire a detective to check them out? I don't think so. If you watch a lot of Dateline, you probably do.

17:46Probably you do. You probably do. You probably do. Love advice from Blaine and Dennis. Up next, we're answering your questions from social media.

18:01you know i have to ask you took the the trip up to alaska that was some of the catnip here you know keaton the producer said murphy i got a story we're gonna have to go to alaska we have to go to alaska oh sign me up i know exactly we're there um tell me about that trip i'm curious one i saw your your range of coats it was clearly cold up there oh man i got so much grief for that park that I had, Blaine. You know, I live in Florida and we got palm trees. We don't have any glaciers. We don't have any mountains and we don't have much in the way of temperatures more than 70 degrees any time of year.

18:35So Kenan, the producer says, look, we were going to go to Alaska and thin-blooded me. I looked on the last hanger in the back of my closet and there was this old park that I got, because 30 years before Blaine, I used to work in London and one of the usual stops on the beat was Moscow where it really was cold. Yes. So I said, man, I've got to get a coat for this thing. And I found this parka-looking deal, you know. And that had been sitting for years in my closet. And when they said Alaska, okay, you're it. That coat is on. That was your 30-year-old, more than 30-year-old Moscow coat. That's true.

19:10That's amazing. That's true. But I thought it sort of looked like Alaska. It turned out I was wrong because the court of public opinion said, get that coat off that guy, you know. Well, I just thought, I said, my friend is so cold. Take Dennis home. Send him back to Florida. He is cold. I remember I looked at him. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Blake. But if anybody hasn't been to Alaska, they should put it on their things to do list because it is a wonderful, exciting place. I would love to go. Well, as you can imagine, we had a lot of thoughts about this from some of our listeners and some of our viewers.

19:43And there are a couple of social media questions I want to throw your way. um and webb jones wrote on facebook uh still a lot of questions unanswered like what kind of gang were they in how many people were in this gang that robbed all these places in town and they never had any ideas of these people before she was murdered yeah i mean they were busting guys they were they were known to law enforcement you know in several counties there but they never did really get a handle on them i mean they were the guys of the mask with the gun and the surveillance picture would show these horrible scenes of putting a pistol in a woman's face and grabbing her stuff and going, but they didn't know who they were.

20:23And it went on and on and on and on. Could you fault law enforcement on that end of the story? Not the murder investigation so much, but trying to crack that crime wave. Maybe they didn't come to terms with that. They didn't get them. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting to see how that escalated and then went to this. Another comment on Sirius's name, Martin Sanchez Jr. on Facebook wrote, Sirius Underwood, is this a Harry Potter character? Elaine, I'm too old for Harry Potter. I did read the first book, but that whole kind of thing went past me. But is there a character named Sirius in Harry Potter?

20:59Sirius, yes, there is. There is a Sirius Black from Harry Potter. I have to say the extent of my knowledge comes from my little sister. Shout out to Blake. She was a huge Harry Potter fan. And so everything that I know about the Potter series came from her. But I know enough to just kind of piece together, like I know some of the names of characters and I did think of Sirius. Yes. And I like to do crosswords and every now and then they throw a ringer at me like, who is the, you know, at Hogwarts hall, who is, and I know there's a guy named Snape in there because it always comes up in the crossword.

21:27That's all I know. There we go. All right. Well, for all the Harry Potter fans out there, I'm sure they got a special kick out of this episode. this was a fascinating one Dennis I really appreciate it I appreciate the conversation and you know just sending all the love to Brandy's family because that was a difficult one too yeah because it comes back down to the families I mean and we are putting these shows on television and maybe entertaining people but at the core of it I mean there's a horrible experience that happened to real live people a real life crime absolutely well Dennis my friend always a pleasure thank you so much for joining me always great Blaine lovely to see you You too.

22:03And that is it for talking Dateline this week. Remember, if you have any questions for us about Dateline, you can always reach us 24 seven on social media at Dateline NBC, or you can pick up the phone. You can leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. And of course, we'll see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Thanks so much for listening.