Kelly Moody
Appearances
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Yeah, so Eric Thompson is charged with murder in the second degree. John Takahara was killed in January of 2022. It was his mother who actually found him devastating. A month later, Eric Thompson was arrested, and the prosecution says that he disguised himself, that he parked his truck down the street from John's clinic. and burned the clothes that he was wearing afterward.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
But he had made a mistake, according to the prosecution, by dropping this white bucket hat. The hat was then tested, and in the first trial, a criminalist from the Honolulu PD crime lab testified that it was only likely that it was Thompson's DNA that was on the hat, but it wasn't 100% conclusive.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
So the defense has argued and now Eric has testified that he wasn't angry at John and never confronted him about this affair. And then his alibi was that he was actually on a completely different part of the island dumping construction waste at the time that John was shot. And Eric's first trial back in July to August of 2023 actually ended in a hung jury. So this is the second go around.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Yeah, the prosecution has made pretty much the same case and called a lot of the same witnesses, including two of the men whose partners also had affairs with John Takahara. One of the men was the first person that police had actually looked at, Daryl Fujita.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
The prosecution is saying, we looked at them and we ruled them out, leaving then Eric Thompson as their sole suspect.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Yeah, the white bucket hat is the proverbial glove, if you will. For Eric's second trial, the prosecution asked a new lab called Cyber Genetics to look at the evidence. And the short story here is that the inside of the crown of the hat and the side of the hat show that Daryl Fujita did not wear that hat. And Eric Thompson was 16.4 trillion times more likely to have worn the hat.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
On cross, defense notes that different pieces of evidence were actually stored together, and they're then implying that this could have been cross-contamination.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Right, so it took a bit for them to actually decide if Eric was going to take the stand himself in the second trial. He did in the first trial. As the defense was questioning him, they talked a lot about his relationship with his wife, Joyce. They were high school sweethearts. They showed their prom photos.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Eric said that their relationship was definitely one where opposites attracted, that they each did their own thing, which, of course, was aiming at countering what the prosecution had said in opening statements, that he was controlling and that they had the surveillance cameras on the house that he was looking at when he was away. I
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
So Eric has testified that they were able to put the affair behind them and they've been able to carry on with normal life. So he talked a lot about what happened on January 12, 2022 for him. That's the day that John Tokohara died. So he testifies that he had a pretty normal day. He had been doing a lot of construction around his house, and he was driving a bunch of bricks over to the dump.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
And then later in the evening, he went to the grocery store to buy the special milk that they give their toddler.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
And he went to buy beer. Where were you going to get beer from?
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
And a lot of that movement was captured on the Thompson security cameras as well as neighboring surveillance cameras.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Cross has been pretty focused on doing a compare and contrast of Eric's testimony at his first trial and what he's saying now.
Dateline NBC
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
It's off to the jury, so now we are waiting to see what will be the verdict in the second trial for Eric Thompson.