The Chief's Wife: Murder in Gig Harbor

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[MUSIC]

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A woman in Gig Harbor, Washington sells a hanging plants at her family garage sale for $5.

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And then afterwards she goes over to the neighbor who bought it and asked them for a favor.

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Please don't tell anybody what you paid.

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She had a reason and her reason was the man she married.

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A Tacoma cop headed for the very top of his department.

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[MUSIC]

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[MUSIC]

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David Braim grew up in Tacoma and a family where police work was the family business.

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Because his dad wore a Tacoma badge and so did his brother and so did his cousin.

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He played basketball at Lincoln High.

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When I got a degree came straight back to the only department he'd ever wanted to work for.

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He was 23 years old when he put in his application in the fall of 1981.

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Every recruit that year had to sit down with a psychologist before the city would hire them.

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And David went in for his.

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The psychologist told the city, do not hire him.

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He wrote that David was depressed and immature and insecure.

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And he warned that those traits would make David a danger on the job.

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A second psychologist liked him though.

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A third one broke the tie by calling David Marginal and saying that he could be hired

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if somebody supervised him closely.

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That was a mistake.

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David got hired in December of 1981.

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His early supervisors wrote that he was wordy in his reports.

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And for a guy that talks into a microphone for living, I'm in no position to judge.

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The department commended him twice for how he handled domestic violence calls.

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About seven years into the job David's first marriage was ending.

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That same year a juvenile counselor he worked with went out to eat with him.

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She said afterward at his house he raped her and that he grabbed her by the hair

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and made her look at the gun on his nightstand.

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And that when it was over he cried and apologized.

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She told a TV news crew years later that she never called the police because he was the police.

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If you're a young woman in 1988 and the man who hurts you carries a badge,

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you know how that phone call is probably going to go.

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David's childhood friend on the force got the secret out of her.

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He set up a meeting with both of them at his house and she said David looked at her and told her,

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"I know. I'm sorry."

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His friend reported it to internal affairs and two investigators there believed her.

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David of course denied it and that living room apology was worthless on paper because

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nobody had read him his rights. The chief closed the case as not sustained.

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That whole situation should have ended his career.

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Crystal Judson grew up in Tacoma also and a family so close that her mom, Patty,

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was still calling her a stopping by almost every day long after Crystal was grown and had kids of her own.

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If you've ever had a freshman roommate who made you nervous,

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you'll understand why Crystal's roommate at the University of Washington said she was relieved

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the day they met because Crystal was tiny and she was very sweet. Crystal studied criminology and she

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wanted to be a lawyer. She graduated in 1990, took a job as a legal processing assistant at the

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District Court in Pierce County and that's where a young patrol officer named David Braim noticed her.

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It was a whirlwind romance that got married in 1991.

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A few years in with baby Haley, they moved across the narrow bridge to a gray shingled rambler

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on a gig harbor called a sack called Eagle Creek Lane. The neighbors noticed that one Christmas,

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the Braim's hung lights that were all red and this was big gossip for the street and if your

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neighborhood has ever had a group text message where they were talking about someone's tacky inflatable

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lawn sand tub, you know these people. And I say that with love mostly. Their son, David Jr. came

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next. Crystal stayed home with the kids and a close friend said that she loved being a mom.

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Inside that house, the clock ran everything. David timed her trips to the store and check the

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odometer on her car. Every morning, he weighed her. He gave her $100 to run the household. That money

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had to last two weeks. A shoekeeper used to watch Crystal count out pennies at the register.

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One day, their little boy knocked a lamp off of a table and nick the wall and Crystal ran next door

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frantic begging someone to come help her sparkle it because David was already on his way home.

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Then there was a garage sale. The same neighbors who clocked the red Christmas lights watched Crystal

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whisper about the prices and glance over at David the whole time. One woman bought a hanging plant

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from her for $5. And afterward, Crystal came over and asked her not to tell anybody the price. She said,

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"If my husband finds out, he will kill me." The neighbor later said that people say that all the time

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and you just let it go. David confided to friends and embarrassed that his wife was the one

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abusing him and he quietly reported it to police. David was a trained cop who stood six feet tall.

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Crystal weighed about 100 pounds just to put it into perspective. The city manager made David

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chief of police at the end of 2001. In Tacoma, the city manager has more juice than the mayor,

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which I didn't know was a thing because I figured that city managers were the people you call

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about potholes. The city manager had already heard about the old rape allegation from one of the

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city's attorneys and he promoted David anyway. Crystal said in her divorce papers that after he

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became the chief, he choked her and told her that he could snap her neck if he wanted to. And she

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told a neighbor that he pushed her into a closet and held a gun to her head. At February of 2003,

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she filed for divorce. David showed up to one hearing with three of his officers. That's a bad sign.

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On April 11, he came to Crystal's parent's house for the kids and brought his assistant chief.

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And Patty said the woman refused to leave. If you're divorced with kids and you've ever had an

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ex bring back up to a pick up, you know exactly what that visit was for. Crystal caught 9-1-1 that night

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just to get it on the record. With David moved out, Crystal brought the kids back home to

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Eagle Creek Lane. A newer neighbor said that she was giggling about slumber parties and squirt gun

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fights. The Saturday before Easter, she walked up to the neighbor who remembered those red Christmas

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lights and told him everything. She said the chief wasn't supposed to be in the neighborhood. And if

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he ever saw him, he should call 9-1-1. Crystal told him all she wanted was a divorce and people got

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those all the time. The abuse allegations hit the news on Friday, February 25th. City leaders told

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reporters it was a private matter. And that was the wrong answer. Crystal spent that Saturday afternoon

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at a divorce class and then she stopped by the Harbor Plaza shopping center.

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And BTW, a divorce class is a short court mandated educational program and it's for separating parents

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and it's designed to help protect children from the emotional stress of divorce. Crystal was walking

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across the lot on her phone with her mom around 3 o'clock when she said, "I think I see David."

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David had pulled in with the kids in the car. Her dad was home with Patty and said to tell Crystal

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to get out of there. Crystal said that she had to go and she hung up. Crystal walked back to her car

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and David slipped past her into the driver's seat and sat with his feet on the pavement so that she

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could not get in. All of this while Haley and David Jr. waited several feet away in his car.

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With a said to each other in those last couple of minutes, nobody knows.

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David pulled out his 45 caliber service pistol and shot Crystal in the back of the head.

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Then he shot himself. A witness said everybody in that lot could hear the kids screaming and they were

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terrified. A sheriff's office spokesman said that a witness had to pull Haley away from her mom.

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She was 8 years old. Patty called her daughter's phone 7 times and if you're a mom, you know why she

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kept on and kept on dialing. David died about 2 hours later. Crystal was flown to Harborview in Seattle.

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She had turned 35 that Thursday. She held on for about a week and her dad made her a promise in that

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hospital. She died right around the same time David was being lowered into his grave.

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The City Council fired the city manager by a single vote to coma paid $12 million to Crystal's

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children in her estate and it named the day of the shooting domestic violence awareness day.

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Washington passed a law in 2004 requiring every police agency in the state to have a policy for

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officers who abused their families and Congress created a federal program with Crystal's name on it

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and her dad kept his promise speaking to anybody who would listen. The Crystal Judson family

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justice center opened and downtown to coma. Portraits of every Tacoma police chief

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line the wall of the chief's conference room but one of them is missing. The name "brain" isn't on Crystal's headstone.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories. Hello, I'm Joe, I'm the host

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doing your show instead of music for about eight months. I lost some weights which I'm going to credit

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to you. My neighbor asked me why I was laughing on a walk and I had to explain that I was listening to

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