Wrong Ride Home: Beyond the Book

Day 3,408. Thirty-three episodes. Eight months. One story that refuses to be forgotten. When I began this podcast, I wanted to take you beyond the pages of Wrong Ride Home . I wanted you to hear the testimony, examine the evidence, question the investigation, and decide for yourself whether justice was served. But before I close this final chapter, there's one more question I want to ask. Where ar...

There is a chapter of  Wrong Ride Home that no one has ever read. I wrote it. I finished it. And then I hid it. Not because I stopped believing there were serious questions surrounding Austin Burke's conviction, but because when I went back and read it, I could hear how angry I was. Somewhere along the way, this story stopped being just a book. It became something I carried. And this podcast force...

This episode takes us back to Pizza Joe's. Unlike so much of this case, this crime was captured on camera. We can see the robber. We can see the clothing. We can measure the time. But the one thing the video cannot clearly tell us is who was underneath the mask. So in Part Two, I go back through the employee statements, Shawn Marx's identification, the apartment across the street, the gray sweatpa...

How did conflicting witness statements become a conviction? In this episode of Wrong Ride Home: Beyond the Book, I revisit the testimony that helped convict Austin Burke of Brandon Sample's murder. We examine injuries that raised unanswered questions, allegations of burned clothing at the Roupe residence, and a timeline that becomes increasingly difficult to follow when the witnesses' accounts are...

Just when I think I finally understand this case, another file appears. Another report. Another interview. Another video. Another question that somehow survived for years without a clear answer. In Episode 29 of Wrong Ride Home: Beyond the Book, I continue Chapter Sixteen: But Wait There's More. This episode is not about pretending every new discovery proves Austin Burke is innocent. I've learned...

In Part One, I corrected something I wrote in my own book: Austin's defense did challenge the State's case. Part Two asks a harder question: What did they investigate for themselves? We look at Brandon's Malibu, his final phone activity, the video evidence witnesses claimed supported their stories, the experts Austin's defense did—and didn't—have, and physical evidence that was lost, destroyed, un...

When I wrote Chapter Fifteen of Wrong Ride Home , I believed Austin Burke's defense attorneys failed to challenge the State's case. After spending thousands of hours going back through the trial transcripts, exhibits, testimony, phone evidence, and court records... I need to correct my own chapter. Because Bradley Olson did challenge the case. He pushed Detective Greaver on what investigators fail...

One question should have been easy to answer: Was Preston Whitacre confined on June 12, 2017... or wasn't he? There should have been records. Admission dates. Release dates. Facility records. Something created at the time that could tell us where Preston actually was. Instead, that question opened another door. In Episode 26 of Wrong Ride Home: Beyond the Book , we continue Chapter Fourteen and fo...

The trial was over. Austin Burke had been convicted, sentenced to 47 years to life, and transferred into the Ohio prison system. But for Jamie, the fight was only beginning. In this episode of Wrong Ride Home: Beyond the Book , we enter Chapter Fourteen and a completely different part of the justice system. Appeals. Deadlines. Attorneys. Post-conviction relief. And eventually... eleven affidavits...

A guilty verdict ended the trial. But it didn't end the questions. In Episode 24 of Wrong Ride Home: Beyond the Book , we move into Chapter 13 and the day Austin Burke learned just how much of his life the State of Ohio intended to take. Before sentencing, his attorneys made one last attempt to challenge the conviction. They asked for an acquittal. They asked for a new trial. They pointed to confl...

In Part One, we looked at how the State's case was built. In Part Two, we test it. This episode looks at what happened after the pieces had already been arranged into one complete story. What evidence was lost, destroyed, never collected, or never fully tested? Which witnesses stayed closest to what they actually knew? What did the defense successfully expose? And what happened when closing argume...

By the time the State rested its case against Austin Burke, the jury had been given what sounded like one complete story. There were witnesses who said Austin confessed. There was Hatchet Man Road. There was a distinctive silver gun Austin had been photographed holding. There were phone records, deleted messages, gray clothing, cash found inside an apartment across from Pizza Joe's, and eventually...

For nearly two weeks, the jury listened. They heard detectives explain the investigation. They heard friends accuse friends. They watched surveillance videos, examined photographs, and listened as experts tried to make sense of the evidence left behind. Now, the witnesses were gone. The evidence had been admitted. There would be no more testimony. Only two stories remained. In this episode of Wron...

After three days of testimony, the State rested its case. Jurors had heard from investigators, forensic experts, eyewitnesses, jailhouse witnesses, family members, and friends. They had been shown photographs, surveillance videos, phone records, and countless exhibits. By the end of the day, the prosecution argued it had proven Austin Burke was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But was the case re...

For the first time, the jury hears from the people who were together on the night Pizza Joe's was robbed. Friends. Witnesses who all describe the same evening—but not exactly the same way. What began as a day at Willow Lake ended inside Melanie Engle's apartment, where a group of young adults gathered after swimming. At first, their stories seem remarkably ordinary. Swimming. Friends. Searching fo...

Detective John Greaver spent nearly two days on the witness stand explaining how the State built its case against Austin Burke. But every investigation must eventually face its toughest test: cross-examination. In Part Two of this special episode, we slow down and examine what Detective Greaver acknowledged when the defense began asking difficult questions. What leads were investigated... and whic...

For the first time in this series, we're stepping away from the chapter-by-chapter format to focus on one witness whose testimony shaped nearly every part of the State's case. Detective John Greaver wasn't just another witness. He was the lead investigator. The detective who interviewed witnesses, executed search warrants, collected evidence, and ultimately built the case against Austin Burke. In...

The prosecution's case continues as the jury begins hearing from experts, investigators, and witnesses whose testimony was meant to strengthen the State's theory. But does the evidence actually support the stories the jury has already heard? In this episode, we examine testimony about cell phone records, firearms, DNA, and a recorded jail call. You'll also hear from Jessica Simms, whose testimony...

After two episodes filled with alleged confessions and conflicting witness accounts, the prosecution finally begins presenting the evidence jurors had been waiting for. In this episode, we hear from the officer who discovered Brandon Sample's abandoned Malibu, Brandon's father as he recalls the last time he saw his son alive, and Detective David Morris as he documents the recovery of Brandon's bod...

By the end of the day, the prosecution finally had what it had promised the jury during opening statements: witnesses who claimed that Austin Burke had confessed. Nathan Moats, Rickey Roupe, and Deidre Keener each took the stand and told jurors what they believed happened to Brandon Sample. The problem? Their stories didn't always match. Josh White said Brandon dropped him off around 12:30 AM. Nat...

After nearly nine months of investigations, motions, media coverage, and preparation, the trial of Austin Burke finally begins. In this episode, we take a detailed look at the opening statements presented to the jury and the first witnesses called to testify. Prosecutors lay out the timeline they believe proves Austin's guilt, while the defense argues that the state still lacks the evidence needed...

After nine months of investigations, interviews, arrests, media coverage, and legal battles, Austin Burke's case finally reaches trial. But before a single witness testifies, before opening statements begin, and before any evidence is presented, twelve strangers are selected to decide his future. In this episode, we examine the plea offer Austin rejected, the process of jury selection, and a littl...

Episode 11 takes listeners into the months before Austin Burke's trial, where the pressure surrounding the case was already building long before a jury heard the first witness. In this chapter, we examine the decision to combine two separate cases into one trial, the motions filed by the defense, media influence before trial, plea agreement pressure, and the growing concern that public perception...

Episode 9 dives deeper into the investigation that continued long after Austin Burke was already sitting in jail. In Chapter Five: Stepping into Ohio's Judicial System — Part Two, we examine the witness interviews, shifting timelines, and growing inconsistencies that continued unfolding behind the scenes in late June of 2017. This episode explores: Rickey Roupe's recorded interview and the detaile...