The Killing of Botham Jean

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Welcome to ten Minute Murder, Brief
and Bingeible True Crime. My name is

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Joe, I'm the host, and
thank you for joining today. I was

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recently doing some reflecting thinking about this
past year and then back to what we've

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all been through over the last few
years, and it got me thinking that

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our current time is so weird.
It's so strange right now, Like nothing

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could pop up in the news that
would surprise me, including an alien invasion

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wouldn't surprise me at all. But
if you're near the same age as me

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and we've lived through the childhood or
childhoods, we're in the eighties and the

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nineties, it was a confusing and
complicated time in life back then. Like

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back in the nineties when the Looning
Tunes characters were in and on nearly everything.

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You couldn't walk in to a radio
shack without seeing three people wearing a

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taz or Bugs Bunny t shirt.
It was weird, and Pizza Hut was

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trying to give away free pizzas if
you just read some books. So I

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put the time that we're living in
today into perspective and being serious for a

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moment about this. Since the nineteen
eighties, there's been a sharp decline in

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serial killing. Everything else has gone
kind of bonkers, but police investigation techniques

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have improved. There's been advancement in
DNA collection and tracking technology and that's helped

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to catch killers before they have a
chance to become serial So if you're looking

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for a bright side as to how
crazy things seem to be right now,

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I think that that is a shining
example. And thank you for coming to

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my ted talk. Hey, if
this is your first time listening to ten

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Minute Murder, please subscribe now so
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back episodes and never miss any new
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see the visuals that we're talking about
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like the episode, please leave a
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that's possible. Your positive feedback is
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com for all things related to ten
Minute Murder. Now to today's story.

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Any fan of true crime knows that
one moment can change a person's life or

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even end it. The last minutes
of Botham John's life were incredibly mundane,

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eating a bowl of ice cream in
the living room of his apartment just before

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ten pm on the sixth of September
twenty eighteen. He had no way of

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knowing that he would not live to
see the next morning or have any opportunity

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to save his own life. The
sequence of events that happened was both unexpected

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and catastrophic. Somebody walked through the
door of Botham's apartment, which he had

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left a jar. The intruders saw
both them sitting on the couch and immediately

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shot him twice in the chest with
a handgun. After shooting him, the

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intruder realized that she had made a
terrible mistake. Her name was Amber Geiger,

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and she was a police officer who
lived in the same apartment complex as

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the man she had just killed.
In fact, Amber's apartment was in the

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exact same position as Botham's, but
located on the fourth floor instead of the

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third floor. At thirty years old, Amber had been a member of the

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Dallas Police Force for less than five
years. This is what Amber insisted happened

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that night. She had left work
at the end of a shift that had

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lasted almost fourteen hours, and had
removed her body camera but not her handgun.

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She called her partner on the way
home, parked her car in the

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apartment complex as parking garage and walked
back to what she thought was her apartment.

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Somehow, she had supposedly ended up
on the wrong floor and walked into

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Botham's apartment instead of her own.
Thinking the man sitting in the living room

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was an intruder, acted instinctively and
shot him out of fear. Amber called

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nine to one one just before ten
pm, and Botham was rushed to the

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hospital, but the wounds to his
chest were extensive and he was unable to

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be saved. With the victim dead
and the perpetrator a police officer, investigators

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had to unpack Amber's story. Was
it really believable that she had mistakenly entered

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the wrong apartment, and if she
had, was it a good enough defense

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to prevent her from being charged with
the murder of an unarmed man. Amber

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was placed on administrative leave immediately after
Botham's death, but the Dallas Police Department

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made the decision to fire her less
than a month later. Initially, she

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was charged with manslaughter for the killing, but this was not good enough for

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Botham's family or many members of the
public. The story made national headlines.

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An unarmed black man relaxing in his
own apartment being shot to death by an

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off duty white cop. The racial
elements were undeniable, result in protests across

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the country. Under scrutiny, Amber's
version of events from that night did not

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seem to match up with reality.
Botham's family hired an attorney who officially disputed

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Amber's description of what happened that night. The attorney stated that multiple witnesses had

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come forward independently telling lawyers that on
the night Botham died, they heard someone

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knocking on the door to his apartment. After the knocking, one of the

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witnesses heard a woman's voice, who
they assumed was Amber, repeatedly telling Botham

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to let her in. As well
as questioning the truth of Amber's story,

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Botham's family attorney criticized the Dallas Police
Department for making a police affidavit public that

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had the potential to damage the victim's
reputation. The affidavit in question stated that

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police had seized a sizable amount of
marijuana from the apartment after his death,

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which had absolutely nothing to do with
a sequence of events that led to his

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murder. Amber's trial began on the
twenty third of September twenty nine, the

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day before John Cruzoe, a district
attorney for Dallas County, violated a gag

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order to give an interview about Botham's
murder. The defense petitioned for a mistrial

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because of the violation, but after
questioning of the jury revealed that they had

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reportedly not viewed the interview, the
motion was denied and the trial began.

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The trial focused on one key aspect, the difference between the initial charge of

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manslaughter and the accusation of murder.
Convicting Amber of manslaughter only required proving that

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she had been reckless enough to cause
Botham's death, but charging her with murder

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meant that the prosecution had to prove
that she had the criminal intention of killing

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Botham deliberately. The prosecution had two
main pieces of evidence asserting that Amber had

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killed Botham deliberately. The first,
and perhaps the most significant, was the

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accusation that Amber had not accidentally arrived
on the wrong floor of the apartment building

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that night. Instead, the prosecution
alleged that Amber had gone to a different

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floor of the apartment because of the
phone conversation she had with her partner on

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the drive home, where they had
been attempting to arrange a meeting They argued

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that it was implausible that Amber had
not noticed that she had been on the

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wrong floor, and she certainly hadn't
entered Botham's apartment thinking it was her own.

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Botham's apartment had a bright red doormat
outside. Was it possible that Amber

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truly had not noticed any of these
differences between his apartment door and hers.

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The second argument brought forth by the
prosecution was directly related to Amber's role as

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a police officer. Police protocol stated
that as an officer, she should not

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enter a residence where a burglar is
potentially inside. Instead, they should retreat

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and call for backup. If Amber
had exited the apartment instead of shooting Botham,

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backup would have arrived quickly. The
police station was two blocks away from

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the apartment complex. Another police officer, Michael Lee, took the stand.

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Michael stated that in Amber's position,
he would have taken cover and called for

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backup using his police radio. He
stated that both he and Amber were trained

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to wait for backup to arrive before
entering premises where there is an intruder.

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Michael also insisted that had he been
in Amber's shoes, he would have immediately

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looked to the suspect's hands to see
if he was armed before shooting. If

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Amber would have done this, Botham
would have lived. He was holding an

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ice cream bowl and did not have
a gun. Meanwhile, the defense argued

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that Amber had genuinely believed that she
was in her own apartment because she thought

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that Botham was an intruder in her
home. She had believed that she was

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legally able to use deadly force and
self defense, regardless of the fact that

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Botham had not been aggressive to her
in any way. It took only six

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hours for the jury to reach their
conclusion. Amber Geiger was found guilty of

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murdering Botham John on the first of
October twenty nineteen. Previously, the last

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Dallas police officer to be charged with
murder had been victim in nineteen seventy three,

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and now the timer was reset to
zero. The following day, Amber's

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sentence hearing took place. She was
sentenced to serve ten years in prison.

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The sentencing hearing was highly emotional and
brought Amber's character even further into question,

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with racist and offensive social media posts
she had made in the past being broadcast

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to the courtroom. Incredibly, both
Botham's father, Bertram and his younger brother,

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Brandt publicly forgave Amber for her actions. Brandt even gave Amber a hug

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during her sentencing, while Bertram admitted
that although he forgave Amber, he wished

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her sentence had been firmer. In
October twenty nineteen, Joshua Brown, a

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key witness in the case, was
murdered. He had been Botham's neighbor and

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had moved to another apartment complex after
the killing took place. He was shot

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and killed in the parking lot of
his new apartment complex, and investigation later

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revealed that these murderers, three men, had been engaging in a drug deal

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with Joshua at the time of the
shooting. Later that year, the three

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men were indicted for capital murder.
In August of twenty twenty, Amber's attorney

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appealed her conviction, stating that there
was not sufficient evidence to prove that she

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should be charged with murder instead of
manslaughter. The appeal requested that Amber either

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be acquitted of her charges or that
her charges should be reduced to criminally negligent

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homicide. The appeal was unanimously denied. In two twenty one, the Fifth

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Court of Appeals of Texas upheld that
not only had the jury's verdict been reasonable,

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but that Amber's testimony in court had
a line with the charges she'd been

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convicted of. The fact remained amber
supposedly entering the wrong apartment did not change

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what happened inside, and it didn't
provide any defense for shooting and killing both

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of them in his own home.
Currently, Amber is incarcerated in the Mountain

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View Correctional Center and is eligible for
release in September of twenty twenty four.

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Everybody involved in the case has their
own opinion about the events that led Amber

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of Botham's door that night, but
Amber is the only one who knows the truth.