Fan Favorite - "Murder and Meditation"

0:00Today's episode is a fan favorite. The audio and the story has been remastered for today's episode. One September afternoon in 2003, a woman in Tucson, Arizona, heard a knock on her front door, and she answered it. And she was surprised to see a Tucson police detective standing on her front steps. And even more surprised when he started asking her a bunch of questions about her next door neighbor. Now, the woman tried to be as helpful as she could, but, you know, she just didn't have very good answers to this detective's questions. She really didn't know much about her neighbor. And so ultimately, the detective gave her his business card and told her to call back if she ever heard anything or saw anything or remembered anything unusual about her neighbor.

0:39Now, this woman didn't expect to ever call this detective back. That was until a few days later when she looked out her window and saw two sweaty men jump out of a van and walk up the steps into her neighbor's house. And the woman just stood there for several minutes, absolutely shocked, her heart racing, realizing what she was watching. Moments later, the woman picked up that business card and called the detective. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

1:16So if that's of interest to you, please secretly attach a harmonica to the front of the follow button's car so that everywhere they go, their car whistles. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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2:42On the evening of Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 45-year-old Michael Albert Dohaquez laid down flat on his back on his yoga mat in front of a room full of his students at a yoga studio in downtown Tucson, Arizona. The students all followed Michael's lead, laying down for a pose called Shavasana, which signaled the end of a long workout. Michael loved this final pose because it was all about meditation and it really helped him get centered for his day. And after a few minutes in this pose, when he sat up and told his students to rise as well, he felt both exhausted and recharged. He got to his feet and smiled at his class as everyone else rolled up their yoga mats and got ready to leave.

3:22Although Michael was a machinist by trade and spent his work days in his shop tinkering with tools and small engines, he was actually a very artistic and kind of zen person. He spent his free time giving music lessons on his guitar, and he also taught 15 different yoga classes every week in various gyms and studios all across Tucson. His genuine enthusiasm about the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of yoga were very infectious, and it put many of his students at ease around him. In fact, they were so comfortable with him that they called him M.A.D., which was short for his three initials, Michael Albert Dohaquez.

3:57Michael toweled the sweat off his face and looked up at the clock on the wall. It was almost 7 p.m., and his stomach was beginning to rumble. So, he asked the class, as they were getting ready to go, if anybody was feeling up to grabbing some food and a few drinks, which was actually a question they were all expecting, because hanging out socially was something that this Wednesday group typically did each week after their workout. One student immediately shouted out that they would, and a few others raised their hands as well. So Michael suggested they all meet at a bar on 4th Avenue, not far from where the yoga studio was located.

4:29The students that were going all nodded their heads in agreement, and then all of them, the ones who were going and the ones who were not, all shuffled through the studio's door and outside to the parking lot. But before Michael shut off the studio lights and followed the group outside, he picked up his cell phone and called his girlfriend, Amber Trudell. He'd been seeing her off and on for about a year after first meeting her through his yoga lessons. Recently, things have been a bit rocky between Amber and Michael, but Michael still wanted to invite her out for dinner and drinks. He figured that by having her be a part of a big group setting out at a public place, that would sort of give them a chance to have fun without the opportunity to argue, since if they argued, it would be in front of everyone.

5:08So that was a natural deterrent. After a few rings, Amber answered her phone, and Michael told her very enthusiastically about his plans and said that he would love it if she came out with them. But Amber hesitated, and Michael frankly knew why. In addition to the problems they were having in their relationship, Amber was just a very shy person. She preferred private lessons with Michael rather than being a part of a big group where you had all these other people sort of watching you stretch for an hour. But after a few seconds of awkward silence on the line, Amber said that she actually would meet up with Michael and his students at the bar.

5:43Michael was thrilled and told Amber he would see her there. Then he ended the call, shut off the lights in the studio, and walked out the door into the parking lot thinking about Amber. Michael and Amber were opposites, but that didn't really bother Michael. It also didn't bother him when Amber teased him about how he dressed like a hippie with his long hair and beaded necklace and sandals. Michael could take a joke, and above all, he liked to have fun. Which, in his mind, was what he was doing with an attractive woman like Amber, who was actually 17 years younger than he was. Their relationship really was pretty casual, and Michael intended to keep it that way.

6:18He'd been married twice already and was a father to three kids as well as a grandfather. At this point in his life, he did not want to be tied down anymore. Amber, on the other hand, she did want to get serious. She kept asking Michael to marry her, and every few weeks, she'd break up with him for saying no. And so Michael knew that their relationship status would likely come up tonight in conversation. But since there were other people going out with them, he figured maybe he could dodge an argument about it. A few minutes later, Michael walked into the bar on 4th Street and found five of his students already sitting at a table.

6:53He sat down and ordered a drink, and shortly after that, Michael looked up to see Amber walk in through the front door of the bar. He stood up from the table, gave her a big hug, and then invited her to take a spot right next to him. From that point on, the group ordered some food and they drank and talked and goofed around until around 8.30 at night when folks started getting tired. At that point, they all paid their checks and then they left. Now, most of the students were heading home at this point, but Michael, Amber, and one of the students, Michael's friend Eli, decided to continue their night and go have a few more drinks at another bar.

7:27So, the three of them went to another establishment until around 10 p.m. And at that point, Eli decided it was time for him to call it a night. He took some cash from his wallet, put it down on the table, and then he headed home, leaving just Michael and Amber at the bar. And now that the couple was all alone, just as Michael expected, they began to fight. And so Michael began drinking faster and ordering more drinks for Amber, hoping that maybe more alcohol for both of them would mellow them out. Two hours later, at midnight, when the bartender turned the lights off and then back on again, and then announced out loud it was last call, both Michael and Amber were pretty drunk.

8:04Michael yawned, finished the rest of the drink in his glass, and asked Amber to come back to his house with him. She said she would, and so Michael and Amber paid their tab and then walked out the front door into the night. Shortly afterwards, the two of them stumbled up the walkway and onto the front porch of Michael's house at 2602 North Sparkman Boulevard. Michael unlocked the door, and then he and Amber stepped into the kitchen.

8:38A day and a half later, on Friday, September 26th, at around 6.30 in the morning, a woman was walking her dog along North Sparkman Boulevard in Tucson. The street was in a pretty rough neighborhood, where there were lots of burglaries and muggings, and so most people kind of kept to themselves when they were passing through. Usually, the woman walked her dog at a fast pace with her head down, avoiding eye contact with other pedestrians, and avoiding looking into other people's properties. However, when the woman passed in front of number 2602, something caught her attention. Just beyond some brush obscuring the front patio, she saw a flash of something light-colored that was obviously not vegetation.

9:16She turned her head to look and blinked for a second in confusion, because what she was looking at didn't make sense. It was a person's bare legs and shorts splayed out on the patio. Now, the weather had been excruciatingly hot and muggy and stifling for the last few days, including today, so the woman at first thought that maybe this person up on the porch had passed out from the heat. Now, as soon as she thought that, her first instinct was to walk up and investigate and make sure this person was okay. But since this was not really a safe neighborhood, the idea of just strolling up to some stranger's property seemed kind of risky.

9:52But just then, she saw another man walking on the street towards his car, and she called out to him and pointed over at the legs on the patio and asked if he would go see what was the matter. The man looked over at the house and saw what the woman was pointing at, sort of looked puzzled for a second. Then he turned back to the woman and gave a thumbs up, like, yep, I'll go check it out. Then the man walked over to the porch. The woman watched as the man walked up to the porch, and right as he got close to the legs, he called out the name Michael. And then the man who was doing this checkup, he began backing up, and then he turned and actually started running back towards the woman.

10:27And as he passed her, he just said, I'm calling 911.

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13:44Not long after that man called 911, Detective Ben Jimenez of the Tucson Police Department drove down North Sparkman Boulevard in his cruiser. He came to a stop just outside of number 2602, put his cruiser in park, and cut the engine. Around him, he saw other squad cars and ambulances doing the same thing. Jimenez stepped out of his air-conditioned cruiser into the hot, muggy morning air. He took off his suit jacket and tossed it onto the driver's seat and then shut the door. He rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, loosened his tie, and then walked from the curb up to the porch of the house, until he was standing next to the dead body of a man who was lying face up and wearing yoga pants and a tank top.

14:26Jimenez was not the first member of the Tucson PD on the scene, and one of the other officers who was already there told him that the body he was looking at belonged to the home's resident, who was named Michael Dohaquez. The officer told Jimenez that the rest of the property was empty. Michael was their only victim. Jimenez put on a pair of disposable gloves and squatted down next to the body. He could see there was a single bullet wound in the center of Michael's forehead. Around the bullet wound, Jimenez could see a black star-shaped gunpowder burn. There was lots of dried blood on the porch floor around the head, and more blood on Michael's clothes and legs.

15:03Jimenez mentioned to the officer to be on the lookout for any shell casings. Then Jimenez put his hand up to Michael's exposed skin and found that it was actually still warm. The fact the body had not gone cold yet suggested that Michael may have been killed only a few hours earlier, probably in the early hours of Friday morning. Jimenez looked at Michael's hands and saw that they were covered in scratches, which told him that Michael very likely must have fought with his attacker. Jimenez stood back up, but just as he was about to walk inside the house, he stopped, because he noticed that some guitar and violin cases were haphazardly stacked up outside on the porch.

15:40And this struck him as odd, because nobody in this neighborhood would ever store expensive musical equipment outside, or really anything sort of like obviously expensive outside, because it could get stolen. But regardless, Jimenez stepped through the front door and into the kitchen, and as he did, he saw more music gear. This time, it was an amplifier and a guitar stand that had been left to the side of the door just inside the house. On the floor near the gear, Jimenez saw broken glass from a shattered windowpane. And so already, Jimenez was beginning to develop a theory. He wondered if maybe Michael had interrupted a robbery.

16:15Maybe the thief or thieves had been in the process of shuffling the musical equipment out of the house onto the porch, kind of stacking it up near the door as they were doing it, when Michael came out and confronted them. The broken glass in the kitchen suggested that the fight maybe started there, or at least in part happened right there, and then from there, you know, they moved through the door onto the porch where Michael was ultimately shot. And then when Jimenez did a walkthrough of the rest of the property, he found in Michael's workshop that it was perfectly intact and none of the very obviously expensive tools had been taken or moved.

16:50And so to Jimenez, this cemented his theory that very likely Michael had interrupted a robbery. And so very likely, at least according to Jimenez's theory, after the robber shot Michael, you know, he figured that they must have panicked and then just taken off without finishing the job. By this point, the crime scene was swarming with members of the forensics unit and also uniformed officers. Jimenez knew it would take hours to process the scene for blood, fingerprints, and other trace evidence, and also officers were already out knocking on doors in the neighborhood looking for witnesses. So Jimenez decided to leave and go talk to detectives in the burglary division to see if they had any similar cases or usual suspects.

17:33Back inside a headquarters, Detective Jimenez walked quickly to the burglary division. He rapped on the open door of one of the offices there and caught the attention of a detective at a desk. Jimenez explained the case he just caught, laid out his theory about a home robbery gone wrong, and then asked the detective if he had any recent robberies on or around North Sparkman Boulevard. And the second Jimenez mentioned North Sparkman Boulevard, he saw this detective's eyes light up. He shot straight up in his chair and very excitedly said that yes, he did in fact have something. Just five days earlier on Sunday, he had arrested two men, Joseph Keyes and David Wynn, for robbing a home in that exact same neighborhood.

18:12But that wasn't all. First of all, Keyes and Wynn lived in a house that was just a mile away from Michael's place, and, most importantly, one of the items these two men had stolen was a guitar. Jimenez knew this was a great starting point, so he got Keyes and Wynn's home address from the detective, then Jimenez returned to his own desk and began filling out an application for a search warrant. While he waited for a judge to approve his request, Jimenez's phone rang. It was one of the officers who'd been knocking on doors over on North Sparkman Boulevard. The officer told Jimenez that nobody in the area heard any gunshots or any unusual noises coming from Michael's house early on Friday morning, and nobody seemed to have seen Michael at all for a day or two.

18:57However, one neighbor told police that on Thursday afternoon, Michael must have been working in his workshop, because they'd heard his compressor going. So, the neighborhood canvas had not produced a witness to the killing, but they were starting to build a picture of Michael's final hours. Jimenez thanked the officer for the good work and hung up the phone, feeling satisfied. Less than one full day into his investigation, and he already had a very promising working theory, he had a search warrant application out to a judge, and he was refining, you know, his victim's final moments to really get a sense of what actually happened here.

19:29But for now, it was late in the evening, and he knew he had a long day ahead of him tomorrow. So he shut down his computer and left his office. The next morning was Saturday, and Detective Jimenez arrived at his office to find that his search warrant application for the home of Joseph Keyes and David Wynn had been approved. He also found a copy of the autopsy report waiting for him, along with a couple of reports from other detectives who had begun to reach out to Michael's friends and family. Now, Jimenez was very eager to go search Wynn and Keyes' house, but first he picked up the autopsy report, flipped it open, and gave it a quick read.

20:05The coroner had found a.38 caliber bullet lodged in Michael's brain. The starshaped gunpowder burn around the entry wound meant it had been fired at close range, which Jimenez had already guessed. And also the coroner noted that the wounds on Michael's hands were indeed very likely defensive wounds. The most useful part of the report focused on Michael's time of death. When Jimenez got to the scene and he touched Michael's body, it was warm to the touch, and so he had assumed that very likely Michael had died recently. Jimenez just didn't know exactly when. And the coroner was able to confirm that suspicion.

20:41Because Michael had not yet gone through rigor mortis, the coroner was able to establish an actual time of death. Michael had been shot somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m. on Friday morning. And so this information meant that Jimenez could be very specific when he was investigating suspect alibis. This was great news. Jimenez rifled through the other reports, which laid out a rough timeline of Michael's activities before his death. He had taught a yoga class on Wednesday night and gone out for drinks afterwards with some students and a girlfriend whom Michael's friends knew only as Amber. Then on Thursday, he'd apparently spent the entire day holed up inside of a studio working.

21:19Jimenez put the reports down. He'd have to work on tracking down Amber later, but for now, that was not his priority. Instead, he gathered up a team of officers and drove over to the home of Joseph Keyes and David Wynn. When they got there, they knocked on the door, they didn't get an answer, and so eventually they forced their way inside, and immediately they discovered that there was nobody home. However, pretty quickly, once Jimenez walked into the kitchen, he knew coming to this house had put him on the right track. Because in the kitchen, there was this very random-looking pile of clothes.

21:53Jimenez put on his gloves, squatted down, and one by one, he picked up a bandana, a pair of pants, and some shoes. And he saw that every item in this pile was splattered with blood. Jimenez was thinking that at this point, all he would need to do to close his case was get these items over to forensics and match the blood on these to the blood of his victim. But the next morning, when Jimenez walked into his office, he got two pieces of bad news, one right after the next. The first piece of bad news was that the forensics did not match. The blood found on the bandana, the pants, and the shoes was the wrong type.

22:30It didn't belong to Michael. And the second piece of bad news was that even though Joseph Keyes and David Wynn appeared to be the perfect suspects on paper for this murder, robbery detectives had found one big problem. When Michael was shot early on Friday morning, Keys and Wynn were both already sitting inside of a jail cell. And so, just two days after Michael's body was found, Detective Jimenez found himself back at square one. Jimenez sat at his desk flipping through reports from the crime scene and hoping he'd stumble upon a detail that maybe he missed. And after about an hour of doing that, he did find something.

23:06On a list of items found inside of Michael's house, Jimenez saw a cell phone. At this time in 2003, not everybody had a cell phone yet, so it wasn't something police immediately looked for when they arrived on a crime scene. Also, cell phones at this time did not contain the kind of evidence that they would today. There was no internet access on any of them, and people didn't send a whole bunch of text messages or really use them nearly as much as we do now. So Jimenez got up from his desk and walked to the evidence room to get the cell phone. And once he had it, he went straight to the single most useful piece of information the phone contained.