On the episode “The Witching Hour,” the show explored the case of 26-year-old law student Tracey Schoettlin. She disappeared after her shift as a waitress in Birmingham, Ala. Her body was found, naked except for knee-high stockings, under a bridge near the River Run shopping center by the Cahaba River in Jefferson County. She had been beaten, sexually mutilated, and stabbed 19 times. According to Bradley’s visions the killer went after “girls he thought were attractive enough to go out with even if he had to kill ’em before,” the confessions read. “He would kill simply for the fact that he’s done it before and he realizes that he can do it and that he can get away with that thought inside of himself that he has killed someone.” Bradley also knew that the killer burned Schoettlin’s driver’s license, or “he might have melted it with a cigarette lighter … Because he thought that it was a clue to who she was. He thought it would be a clue to who she was and it would enable them quicker to find him.” Bradley was arrested and charged with capital murder. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic, the state found him competent to stand trial. Bradley knew the killer had a knife in a designer-type pouch, and claimed the victim knew “she was going to be killed,” said it “was inevitable” and that “the victim had authorized herself to be killed because she had wilfully sinned.” According to the True Conviction episode, Bradley was driving around with some tarot cards, what “looked to be a Ouija board,” and a box of glitter. The prosecutor told Nicolazzi the office connected a single piece of glitter found on Tracey’s leg to Bradley’s practice of witchcraft. Glitter is not a dead giveaway to witchcraft, but it is more prevalent than the average viewer might know. The lay prosecution might not have been too far off with their assertions. “Sounds like he was using glitter as an offering to summon a spirit who liked glitter,” Divina theorizes. “He used the Ouija board to communicate with said spirit or channel,” Divina explains. “It’s portable, easy to carry. Maybe he took her life force to give it to the spirit he summoned.” “Her murderer believed himself to be the negative archetype of the witch in the same way that Richard Ramirez, the Vampire of Sacramento, believed himself to be the negative archetype of the vampire,” posits Marie Bargas, the Hollywood Witch. “The props substantiated the archetype but psychologically the archetype was a mask for a deeper pathology.” The defense argued that Bradley was insane and investigators used religion to manipulate him. Bradley’s defense included the expert testimony of psychologist Dr. Keith Harary to establish the visions were authentic. Harary characterized the “visions” as “extended perceptions” The doctor testified to cases he worked on where precise details were given without access to criminal investigations. The jury deliberated four hours before finding Bradly guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison. Bradley lost court appeals and serves his term at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer. He was the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit by the Southern Poverty Law Center which resulted in a 300 percent increase in mental health staffing at state prisons in Alabama. Nicolazzi, who served on the faculty of Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Program, breaks down the case with the prosecution and defense and comes to the same conclusion. The former DA tried over 50 felony cases to verdict, including the Fairfield College murder of football player Mark Fisher; the murder of Hunter College student Ramona Moore, the targeting and murder of Michael Sandy, the shooting death of New York City Police Officer Russel Timoshenko, and the murder of ABC news radio personality George Weber. She spoke with Den of Geek at Investigation Discover’s IDCon. Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi: He always believed there was more on this case, and ultimately he helped solve a case that had gone cold down in Florida where two women, a mother and a daughter, had been killed just randomly in their home and it ended up being the same Defendant who had left Wisconsin after killing his mother, and had, probably to create the alibi, had gone and killed these two women there. So he actually got justice for this family, unrelated to his case whatsoever, which was amazing. After so many years as a prosecutor, does that change you head when you’re actually on the set and doing investigations? It’s not just about pieces of paper and “are the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed” and how is the evidence gathered? It was a very methodical process and should be. It really intersperses all these different angles and you are also looking at it when the Defense brings something to you, you always have to look at it, because what if they’re right? I mean, what a horror if we miss something that’s there. If the defense brings something to you that changes the way you’re looking at the case, do you send the police back out to find another suspect? Do you have any specific memories of a case that you changed your mind on? No. I have two cases, one that I changed my mind on but it was actually before I was a homicide prosecutor. I was a prosecutor doing felonies and it was an assault case that, on paper, it looked pretty straightforward that they’d gotten to the person, they’d arrested this person for, I think it was a robbery if I remember, with assault attached. But when you looked carefully, it started not to add up, the way that they apprehended this person that was this the person who actually committed the crime? And then I had a case that I didn’t change my mind on, but the evidence became problematic that this … questions kept popping up during the prosecution of a homicide that it didn’t seem right to keep that person, the Defendant, incarcerated while we researched it and waited for more answers, so I let him out. Which is, you can imagine, not something that happens every day and you worry. Is there pressure against that? But not to the extent where some will be kept locked until you’re actually sure they’re not guilty. I think it does happen. I think TV highlights it because it makes for really fascinating stories and interesting TV. I don’t think it happens nearly as often as is portrayed and thank goodness for that. But I think if it happens once, I mean, that’s enough that we should be looking at it. Did you ever cover any mob that run Brooklyn? Tangentially. The Federal authorities usually handle the mob cases because they’re dealing with organized crime and conspiracy. There are a lot of overt acts that call into Federal jurisdiction. I’ve had a couple of cases that had mob or mob-like figures but they weren’t organized crime per se. Culture Editor Tony Sokol cut his teeth on the wire services and also wrote and produced New York City’s Vampyr Theatre and the rock opera AssassiNation: We Killed JFK. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol.
