The Chief's Wife: Murder in Gig Harbor

0:00 [MUSIC] A woman in Gig Harbor, Washington sells a hanging plants at her family garage sale for $5. And then afterwards she goes over to the neighbor who bought it and asked them for a favor. Please don't tell anybody what you paid. She had a reason and her reason was the man she married. A Tacoma cop headed for the very top of his department. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] David Braim grew up in Tacoma and a family where police work was the family business.

1:03 Because his dad wore a Tacoma badge and so did his brother and so did his cousin. He played basketball at Lincoln High. When I got a degree came straight back to the only department he'd ever wanted to work for. He was 23 years old when he put in his application in the fall of 1981. Every recruit that year had to sit down with a psychologist before the city would hire them. And David went in for his. The psychologist told the city, do not hire him. He wrote that David was depressed and immature and insecure. And he warned that those traits would make David a danger on the job. A second psychologist liked him though. A third one broke the tie by calling David Marginal and saying that he could be hired if somebody supervised him closely.

1:50 That was a mistake. David got hired in December of 1981. His early supervisors wrote that he was wordy in his reports. And for a guy that talks into a microphone for living, I'm in no position to judge. The department commended him twice for how he handled domestic violence calls. About seven years into the job David's first marriage was ending. That same year a juvenile counselor he worked with went out to eat with him. She said afterward at his house he raped her and that he grabbed her by the hair and made her look at the gun on his nightstand. And that when it was over he cried and apologized. She told a TV news crew years later that she never called the police because he was the police.

2:32 If you're a young woman in 1988 and the man who hurts you carries a badge, you know how that phone call is probably going to go. David's childhood friend on the force got the secret out of her. He set up a meeting with both of them at his house and she said David looked at her and told her, "I know. I'm sorry." His friend reported it to internal affairs and two investigators there believed her. David of course denied it and that living room apology was worthless on paper because nobody had read him his rights. The chief closed the case as not sustained. That whole situation should have ended his career. Crystal Judson grew up in Tacoma also and a family so close that her mom, Patty, was still calling her a stopping by almost every day long after Crystal was grown and had kids of her own.

3:21 If you've ever had a freshman roommate who made you nervous, you'll understand why Crystal's roommate at the University of Washington said she was relieved the day they met because Crystal was tiny and she was very sweet. Crystal studied criminology and she wanted to be a lawyer. She graduated in 1990, took a job as a legal processing assistant at the District Court in Pierce County and that's where a young patrol officer named David Braim noticed her. It was a whirlwind romance that got married in 1991. A few years in with baby Haley, they moved across the narrow bridge to a gray shingled rambler on a gig harbor called a sack called Eagle Creek Lane. The neighbors noticed that one Christmas, the Braim's hung lights that were all red and this was big gossip for the street and if your neighborhood has ever had a group text message where they were talking about someone's tacky inflatable lawn sand tub, you know these people. And I say that with love mostly. Their son, David Jr. came next. Crystal stayed home with the kids and a close friend said that she loved being a mom.

4:27 Inside that house, the clock ran everything. David timed her trips to the store and check the odometer on her car. Every morning, he weighed her. He gave her $100 to run the household. That money had to last two weeks. A shoekeeper used to watch Crystal count out pennies at the register. One day, their little boy knocked a lamp off of a table and nick the wall and Crystal ran next door frantic begging someone to come help her sparkle it because David was already on his way home. Then there was a garage sale. The same neighbors who clocked the red Christmas lights watched Crystal whisper about the prices and glance over at David the whole time. One woman bought a hanging plant from her for $5. And afterward, Crystal came over and asked her not to tell anybody the price. She said, "If my husband finds out, he will kill me." The neighbor later said that people say that all the time and you just let it go. David confided to friends and embarrassed that his wife was the one abusing him and he quietly reported it to police. David was a trained cop who stood six feet tall.

5:32 Crystal weighed about 100 pounds just to put it into perspective. The city manager made David chief of police at the end of 2001. In Tacoma, the city manager has more juice than the mayor, which I didn't know was a thing because I figured that city managers were the people you call about potholes. The city manager had already heard about the old rape allegation from one of the city's attorneys and he promoted David anyway. Crystal said in her divorce papers that after he became the chief, he choked her and told her that he could snap her neck if he wanted to. And she told a neighbor that he pushed her into a closet and held a gun to her head. At February of 2003, she filed for divorce. David showed up to one hearing with three of his officers. That's a bad sign.

6:19 On April 11, he came to Crystal's parent's house for the kids and brought his assistant chief. And Patty said the woman refused to leave. If you're divorced with kids and you've ever had an ex bring back up to a pick up, you know exactly what that visit was for. Crystal caught 9-1-1 that night just to get it on the record. With David moved out, Crystal brought the kids back home to Eagle Creek Lane. A newer neighbor said that she was giggling about slumber parties and squirt gun fights. The Saturday before Easter, she walked up to the neighbor who remembered those red Christmas lights and told him everything. She said the chief wasn't supposed to be in the neighborhood. And if he ever saw him, he should call 9-1-1. Crystal told him all she wanted was a divorce and people got those all the time. The abuse allegations hit the news on Friday, February 25th. City leaders told reporters it was a private matter. And that was the wrong answer. Crystal spent that Saturday afternoon at a divorce class and then she stopped by the Harbor Plaza shopping center.

7:19 And BTW, a divorce class is a short court mandated educational program and it's for separating parents and it's designed to help protect children from the emotional stress of divorce. Crystal was walking across the lot on her phone with her mom around 3 o'clock when she said, "I think I see David." David had pulled in with the kids in the car. Her dad was home with Patty and said to tell Crystal to get out of there. Crystal said that she had to go and she hung up. Crystal walked back to her car and David slipped past her into the driver's seat and sat with his feet on the pavement so that she could not get in. All of this while Haley and David Jr. waited several feet away in his car.

7:59 With a said to each other in those last couple of minutes, nobody knows. David pulled out his 45 caliber service pistol and shot Crystal in the back of the head. Then he shot himself. A witness said everybody in that lot could hear the kids screaming and they were terrified. A sheriff's office spokesman said that a witness had to pull Haley away from her mom. She was 8 years old. Patty called her daughter's phone 7 times and if you're a mom, you know why she kept on and kept on dialing. David died about 2 hours later. Crystal was flown to Harborview in Seattle. She had turned 35 that Thursday. She held on for about a week and her dad made her a promise in that hospital. She died right around the same time David was being lowered into his grave.

8:46 The City Council fired the city manager by a single vote to coma paid $12 million to Crystal's children in her estate and it named the day of the shooting domestic violence awareness day. Washington passed a law in 2004 requiring every police agency in the state to have a policy for officers who abused their families and Congress created a federal program with Crystal's name on it and her dad kept his promise speaking to anybody who would listen. The Crystal Judson family justice center opened and downtown to coma. Portraits of every Tacoma police chief 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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