Murder in Glitterball City (2026) s01e01 Episode Script

1
This, uh, this is
to any concerned persons
regarding my death.
My name is Joseph Richard Banis,
mostly known as Joey.
I'm recording my death
for the purpose
of informing all informed
or all concerned
of my own willful suicide
and the complete non-involvement
or culpability of anyone else,
specifically of my boyfriend,
lover, life partner, and friend,
my one, Jeffrey Steven Mundt.
You'll notice that he is
sitting
or lying on the bed near me.
That is only because I have
a gun pointed at him.
The gun is right here,
and he is right there.
I'm holding him hostage
because I have failed him
and hurt him
and done terrible things,
which can
I can never recover from.
This includes killing
someone who
This includes killing someone.
Baby, can't you see
I'm calling? ♪
A guy like you
should wear a warning ♪
It's dangerous ♪
I'm falling ♪
911 Operator Walker.
Where is your emergency?
My ex-boyfriend is attacking me.
With a taste of your lips,
I'm on a ride ♪
Can somebody help?
You're toxic,
I'm slippin' under ♪
With a taste
of a poison paradise ♪
Please hurry.
I'm addicted to you ♪
Don't you know
that you're toxic? ♪
Please.
They're coming.
Taste of your ♪
I can't get rid of him.
My name's David Dominé
and I live
in Louisville, Kentucky.
Taste of your ♪
I work as a tour guide
and I write books
about the city.
Taste of your,
taste of your ♪
Welcome to the neighborhood.
A lot of you might not know
it was a Kentuckian back in 1917
who first patented
the disco ball.
Throughout the decades
they've called it other things.
Around here,
"glitter ball" still sticks.
So, Glitter Ball City,
one of Louisville's, uh,
lesser known nicknames.
Taste of your ♪
This is a really
remarkable neighborhood
just for its wonderful
architecture.
Its Victorian history.
Its hauntings.
They say this is America's
most haunted neighborhood.
You can't go more than half
a block down here, uh,
before you come across another
reportedly haunted house.
Taste of your ♪
I often write about ghosts
and-and hauntings
in the Old Louisville
neighborhood.
With a taste of your ♪
And when the story broke
of the murder in the house
on Fourth Street,
I knew I had to write
about that murder.
But I also wanted to write
about the neighborhood
and the many interesting
characters who call it home.
"Chapter One:
Get Your Cash Today."
Little John's,
near Churchill Downs Racetrack,
attracted tourists
from all over the world.
"In a presidential tone
and tailored suit"
"The diminutive
Filipino pawn broker explained
that gold was selling
at an awesome $1,500 an ounce."
I'm Little John.
You're at Little John's
Derby Jewelry in Kentucky.
We buy and sell gold.
I don't think of myself
as a superstar.
-No, he doesn't.
-By the way.
I'm just a humble servant.
-He doesn't.
-Always will be.
This is my wife of 32 years.
Melissa Tan.
-I'm known as Missy. Yes.
-We all call her Missy.
Uh, what I do here is
I write the commercials.
I guess the best one is, uh
Hey, hey, hey ♪
We're going
to Little John's today ♪
To get our cash today ♪
You will get a good deal
and you get paid for real ♪
So bring it
to Little John's ♪
Gold is trading
at an awesome $1,500 an ounce,
but not for long.
So bring it
to Little John's ♪
That's probably my favorite.
My shrink told me I was famous
and I'm in this book,
and she told me about A Dark
Room in Glitter Ball City.
It's about that couple
who killed someone
in their creepy old house.
Uh, I'm at page 220 right now.
I've been reading kind of slow.
I am not one that would sit down
and read a book.
I don't know why.
Just back and forth with my eyes
kinda make me dizzy.
So he just reads it
and then tells me.
"The commercials had earned
its originator cult status."
Remember, don't mail it in,
bring it in
and get your cash today!
I first heard about the murder
on the morning
of June 18th, 2010.
Now is the time to sell
your unwanted jewelry.
I was watching TV
and one of Little John's
commercials
was interrupted by a news flash.
This is WAVE 3 News.
WAVE 3 continues to follow
a developing story
out of Old Louisville.
Police were called out
for a fight between partners
and ended up finding a body.
A familiar-looking house
popped up on the screen.
That's when I realized it was
the house I had almost bought
just two years
before the murder.
Police called
to a South Fourth Street home
discovered more than a fight
between lovers.
Across the street,
the Richard Robinson house,
the one with the double columns,
1435 South Fourth Street,
a stigmatized property.
The tale of a love
triangle and grisly murder
in a basement
in an Old Louisville home.
I'd made an appointment
to go look at the house
when it was on the market,
and it-it was a wreck.
And the basement was like
a-a maze-like warren of rooms
that went one into the other.
And it was just a disaster.
I decided not to buy the house.
So I left my appointment
with the real estate agent,
and I was going down the stairs
when, up the stairs
in the opposite direction, uh,
someone rushed past me.
He actually kind of bumped
into me
and he didn't even say,
"Excuse me."
And, uh, it was Jeffrey Mundt.
Jeffrey Mundt and partner Banis
committed the murder inside
their Old Louisville home
six months earlier.
There he was
on my TV two years later,
accused of murdering someone
in that house.
I debated whether or not
this was a book I could write
because I knew it was going
to upset some people.
And it would also probably
portray the neighborhood
in a somewhat seedy light.
I'm a writer.
I'm not a famous writer.
I'm just a writer.
I told David that I didn't want
him to write the book
because we're
a front porch neighborhood
and we see each other
all the time.
People know things
about each other.
This neighborhood has secrets,
but he didn't listen to me.
"Kim had returned
with a silver platter
holding new hors d'oeuvres."
"Champagne flutes clinked
and applause echoed
after Sena gave
a brief reading."
I don't serve
chicken salad sandwiches
on a silver platter.
So it was creative nonfiction.
David wanted it
to look more fancy.
Everybody I know loved the book.
And when I heard about that
and I heard I was in the book,
I thought, "Oh my gosh,
what did he say about me?"
"Maria lived in the
stately Alice Hegan Rice House,
one of the largest
on St. James Court."
"With her petite frame
and training as an opera singer,
the bouncy blonde had caused
more than an eyebrow
to arch in surprise
when she announced her hobby
"as a big game hunter."
There is a zebra behind me,
a zebra beneath me.
There's a little more of a zebra
in the other room.
And this is a kudu.
That animal is a groundhog.
I used to go
to a Groundhog Day party
and I didn't have a date
one year,
and I dressed my groundhog up
in a tuxedo,
and I sat him by me at my table
at the Groundhog Day party.
"Fans of late 19th"
and early 20th century
American architecture
"could find a wonderland
of antique houses."
"Architecturally speaking,
it counted
as the most exuberant historic
district in the nation."
Now, because I am a local
historian and also a writer,
I wanna edit it,
but I know I can't.
It's not America's largest
Victorian neighborhood.
We have the largest collection
of continuous residential
Victorian architecture.
That's what our distinction is.
David didn't But that's okay.
Nobody's gonna know that but me.
My name is Deborah Stewart.
I'm a residential
real estate agent.
I like houses and I like
the spirits of the houses.
And I've had a great time
getting to know
all of these houses
and their stories.
The average house
down here in Old Louisville
has been around 135 years.
Probably seen some things.
You know, back in the day,
things happened in these houses.
People went crazy at home.
They killed each other.
They killed themselves.
And if you're really sick,
you languish on your deathbed.
You died at home.
So imagine all that happening,
generation after generation.
We're sitting at the, um,
on one of the quadrants
of Belgravia Court.
This entire area is
Louisville's first subdivision.
The intention was
to make it a very high end,
built on the British model
of walking courts,
tree courts in the center.
So the land was highly prized.
I am an architectural historian
and I'm a general neighborhood
pain in the ass.
That's what I do.
"Just then, a woman with
a frizzy head of auburn hair
emerged from behind Dale.
'Yeah, it's really sad, '
she said.
'More ammunition
for the East End housewives.
Fuck 'em. Let 'em stay out
in their McMansions.'
"Debra Richards
never minced words."
There's a saying
on Belgravia Court,
"Once a Belgravian,
always a Belgravian."
This is our life.
This is our world.
We love it. Don't mess with it.
"The end of World War II saw"
city dwellers across the nation
flee to the suburbs
"and the once grand mansions
became passe."
In the early sixties,
Belgravian houses
were boarded up and in danger
of being torn down,
and three gentlemen purchased
11 houses on the court
and renovated them.
This was grassroots.
Gay grassroots. Yes.
I'm Dale Strange
and welcome to my home
here in Old Louisville.
And I'm Bill Gilbert.
-Hey.
-Come on in.
I moved into Old Louisville
in the early eighties.
Nobody wanted this neighborhood
and nobody wanted us as gay men.
So where else should we go?
My personal theory is that gays
are the predictors of recovery.
If you have
a blighted neighborhood
and gays move in
and start renovating,
you know it's gonna be a go.
You know it's gonna be
a success.
We have historically
sheltered populations
that perhaps the rest
of society wouldn't have.
There was a long history
of the gay population here
that was able to be
above ground, if you will.
It really didn't matter.
If you were walking
down the street at 5:00 a.m.
in full drag,
it was like, "Okay."
It's a fabulous neighborhood.
All of the neighbors
have porch parties.
We invite each other over
for drinks
every other night or so.
I will usually sing
a tune or two.
So, some jazzy little thing
like
It's not the pale moon
that excites me ♪
That thrills
and delights me ♪
Oh, no ♪
It's just the nearness
of you ♪
It's just the nearness
of you ♪
-Do you wanna use it?
-Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
-Photographing me?
-I'm videoing you.
Breathe ♪
Jeffrey Jase, you're supposed
to say something.
Come here.
-Can I
-Nope.
It won't be long now,
breathe ♪
Joey and I, we met on a site
called Adam4Adam,
October 2009.
I was a technology consultant
for the University
of Louisville,
and Joey was had
that bad boy look, you know,
dyed hair, tattoos, jewelry,
and all of that.
And it was very attractive.
I was going through
a particularly difficult time
personally, and, you know,
it was one of the reasons
I was attracted to Joey.
He kind of had, you know,
a different image
from my normal boyfriend.
I had come out of a long-term
partnership with somebody.
Jase.
That's how I refer to Jeff.
It's his nickname.
And the first time
that I met him,
I went over to his house.
He seemed like a nice guy.
Joey seemed like such an
erudite and interesting person,
so forth, and well-spoken
on the telephone.
Very, you know
I'm a sucker for somebody
who's articulate,
enough cultural bon mots
thrown in, you know,
kind of something to laugh at
and sense of humor.
Jeff presented himself
as somebody who was
pretty well put together
and intelligent.
You know, he was supposedly
renovating this house
and turning it
into a bed and breakfast,
which, you know,
was pretty cool.
We had a frank
conversation about the fact
that I have I'm HIV positive
and a convicted felon.
I kind of was like,
"Why would this guy
be interested in me?"
You know, uh, because he didn't
have tattoos, a wild hairstyle,
or, uh, you know, uh, anything
out of the ordinary whatsoever.
We both kind of gravitated
to each other
and were able to communicate
well with each other
and, uh, on a certain
intellectual level.
Now is the time to sell
your unwanted jewelry
He came out to my parents' house
right around Thanksgiving
Remember, don't mail it in,
bring it in
and get your cash today!
And he had met
my-my mom and my dad.
Liked his parents,
came from a good family.
You know,
family's very important.
His parents and I would sit
around talking politics
and his dad talking about the
healthcare bill and all that.
Joey felt he was relegated
to sit there with the dog
because, you know,
he just didn't
he wasn't interested
in that type of stuff.
Right after Thanksgiving,
Jeff and I chose
to open our hearts
to the possibility
of a long-term relationship.
I was on top of the world.
And he moved in
with me and my cats.
I was looking for somebody
who was not a drug dealer
or a party boy
or anything like that.
I need somebody responsible
in my life.
He had told me that he worked
for the NSA at one point
and I was convinced
that he actually did work
for some sort
of US intelligence service.
It's not the pale moon
that excites me ♪
That thrills
and delights me ♪
Oh, no ♪
It's just the nearness
of you ♪
It's the most wonderful joy
in the 'Ville ♪
Two, three.
Where you buy
your gold chains ♪
And your diamond rings ♪
And things that bling ♪
Quinn, watch me.
It's the most wonderful joy
in the 'Ville ♪
Where you buy
your gold chains ♪
And your diamond rings ♪
And things that bling ♪
Little John ♪
The best jeweler
in the 'Ville ♪
And cut.
Okay, let's do it again 'cause
your rhythm's a little off.
I'm the director, the writer,
the producer, the costumer,
the
the makeup artist.
Uh, let's see, the dir
did I say director?
Okay. Start from the top!
It's the most wonderful joy
in the 'Ville ♪
Every commercial's got dancing
and singing,
so I just try to keep
a happy-go-lucky type feel
and really just try to push it
to the limits.
Shop Little John's! ♪
That gave me chills.
Gold chains,
diamond rings, custom jewelry.
Anything that blings.
Don't forget the
Anything that blings.
Anything that blings!
Anything that blings.
Shop Little John's ♪
-You okay, Officer Terry?
-Yeah.
When I first met Little John,
he was actually a manager
of a pawn shop.
Then when he started
the store down here,
I started doing some security
for them.
This place is very dangerous.
We hired Officer Terry
full time.
He would be there
from morning to close.
He's got multiple talents
besides keeping our city safe.
Yeah, I've done probably six
or seven commercials for him.
But the one that really put me
on the map was, uh,
the Super Gold Man.
I'm Super Gold Man ♪
The fairest in the land ♪
I'm taking you
to Little John's ♪
That's his shoes.
he pays you cash ♪
So bring it in
and get your cash today ♪
I walked into restaurants
and stuff and they said,
"Hey, that's
the Super Gold Man."
You wouldn't believe all
the chicks he would pick up.
Women would come here
not to buy jewelry,
but just to talk
to Officer Terry.
He got famous off of it.
Yesterday I had to drive
to 25th and Broadway
because Officer Terry was there.
So I make sure
his costume fits him today.
So I put my hoodie up,
put my gun in my lap,
and try to hit
every green light,
so I don't have to stop.
If somebody comes up on me,
I'm gonna shoot 'em.
I'm gonna kill 'em.
If somebody tries to come up
to the car with a gun
at a red light,
'cause you just don't know.
The latest numbers
from LMPD show
an unrelenting number
of homicides
-over the last three years.
-Louisville is considered
the carjacking capital
of the state of Kentucky.
Louisville is
real quaint, but they have
two to three times
the national average
for pretty much all crimes
as far as assault, burglary,
and robbery.
When the murder happened
about 15 years ago,
-this place was really rough.
-Mm-hmm.
We have guns
scattered everywhere.
They're loaded, chambered,
ready to go.
Where there's danger,
there's money.
Every safe's got a gun.
You can just pull it out.
This shotgun right here.
Yeah, we know how to use them.
Rifle right there.
That's my son's semi-automatic.
It's a neat, dangerous place
that's full of happy,
sad people.
It's the God's honest truth.
911 Operator Walker.
Where is your emergency?
Please,
1435 South Fourth Street.
My ex-boyfriend is attacking me
in my house.
-Please come immediately.
-What's the address?
1435 South Fourth.
Please.
-What's your name?
-Jeffrey Mundt.
Okay.
Who is attacking your door?
-Joey Banis.
-This an ex-boyfriend?
He's in the house.
I'm not safe.
He's in the house
trying to break down
-the door to the bedroom.
-Stay on the phone with me.
Second floor. Please.
Please hurry.
Stay on the phone with me.
Is he a white male? Black male?
White male!
Please hurry!
Stay on the phone.
Stay on the phone with me.
I'm giving the police this
information. They're driving.
Please.
They're coming.
Is the door locked
to the bedroom?
The door's locked. I can hear
the wood breaking on the door.
Okay.
Please somebody help.
I can't get rid of him.
I'm scared.
-Ma'am?
-Yes, I'm still here.
-Okay.
-PD's forcing entry right now.
Just stay on the line with me.
They're coming.
They have one 10-15.
They have an arrest.
You need to come out.
They have arrested him.
-They've arrested him?
-Yes. He's 10-15.
-He is arrested.
-It's safe?
It's safe.
They have him in custody.
I had really no idea
of what we were
what we were dealing with.
So it was eye-opening for me.
My name is Donny Burbrink
and I run the homicide unit
here in Louisville, Kentucky.
When this murder happened,
The First 48 was filming
in Louisville.
It was a show that got sent
to multiple different cities
throughout the country.
Their chance of solving
a murder is cut in half
And they would film
the entirety of the case.
If they don't get a lead
within the first 48 hours.
So the night Joey was
arrested for domestic violence,
turns out that while he's
on his way to the station,
he claims to the officer
that he had witnessed a murder
and that the body was actually
buried in the basement.
So Joey is brought
into the station
for questioning by homicide.
I guess I'd use
the word "bizarre"
on how the events led.
He tells us that the house
that he was arrested at
is where the body is.
He tells us that the body
is buried in the basement
and that Jeff Mundt
is the one who did it.
Like, wow, that's very odd.
This guy's telling you this.
You kinda gotta believe it
and then you gotta go search
for it.
And that's-that's kind of where
this whole thing takes off.
And so the First 48 camera crew
starts filming the interviews.
You're okay with this
being recorded, right?
This is Detective Jon Lesher,
Louisville Metro Police
homicide unit.
Today's date is, uh, June 18th.
You told the, uh,
uniform officers that you had
some information about
a homicide that occurred?
Yes. My boyfriend had lied
somehow and gotten police there
and had me arrested
for something that I didn't do.
What's your motivation
today to come
to come forward
and tell us about this?
I wasn't able to tell anybody
in the beginning because, one,
I was scared for myself,
scared for my family,
and I was also in love
with this guy.
But over the past
seven or eight months,
one, I no longer love him.
And two
somebody's just got
to know the truth.
Based off of what Joey
was telling us,
we went to the house
on Fourth Street.
I remember sitting
on the stairs with Jeffrey
kind of talking to him.
The First 48 was there,
I was mic'd up.
Um, and they were filming
from the outside.
Did he ever go into detail
on how he was gonna frame you
for that?
Something wasn't matching up
on
when I when I was talking
with him,
just something wasn't there.
I couldn't put my finger on it.
"At some point I was like," Hey,
can we go down to the station,
just you and I,
to go down and talk
"and that way we can get
this on-on record?"
So he agreed to go down
to the station with me.
-I've got a pot of coffee going.
-Oh great. Thank you.
-Sorry, I was kinda nodding off.
-Do you do cream and sugar?
-Oh no, just black.
-Just black coffee.
Just the way I drink it.
The First 48 put added pressure
on the detective,
because you didn't want to be
the guy on the on the TV show
that couldn't solve your case.
Okay, I appreciate that.
Thank you so much for helping
with the cats.
If you were lazy
and you weren't doing your job,
it wasn't like
you could skate on by,
there was a camera in your face
the entire time.
You had to produce.
-Am I supposed to be facing
-No, no, they're not even here.
-Oh, okay.
-Okay?
"Detectives had left the door"
to the interrogation room
open wide
so the cameramen could film them
"in their interrogation
process."
Are you from Louisville?
If I'm not supposed
to talk to you,
I'm sorry. I'm just
Oh.
Will I be able to get my stuff
and feed the cats?
Absolutely. We'll-we'll get
all that stuff taken care of.
And I'm sorry for being
so freaked out about the cats.
-No.
-They've been through a lot.
It's your it's your animals
and-and-and no,
I'd do the same thing
for my pets.
We developed
a-a very good rapport
when we were talking to him,
like initially,
like we-we talked
about his past,
talked about his parents,
his cats.
He had me convinced
that he was a victim
of the domestic violence,
that he was
in an abusive relationship.
You're not gonna have to live
in fear anymore.
While I was talking
with Jeffrey,
the rest of the, uh, guys,
like Jon,
were conducting a search
of the residence
to include the basement.
Joseph Banis described to us
where the body was
and had actually made us a map
of the downstairs basement.
Let's talk about the basement.
What was stored down there?
Garbage. I mean, from
the prior owner of the house.
Said right in the middle
of the room.
Is that loose dirt right there?
We begin digging in the area
where Mr. Banis had told us
the ground was disturbed.
We literally had to dig
with shovels in this basement.
It wasn't something that they
could just kind of scrape off
a little bit of dirt
and pop open a trunk.
It was a hole dug
six to eight feet deep.
I mean, it was a deep hole.
When you've been
in homicide for a little while,
you know the-the smell of death.
And in that-that time,
we smelled death.
One step at a time.
This is gonna be taken
to the medical examiner's office
where the seal will be broken.
The lid will come off.
And we will then
at that time find out
what is actually inside.
The coroner has confirmed.
James Carroll
was the man found dead.
Police say
James Carroll was murdered
and buried in a basement
over six months
Jamie Carroll was found crammed
into a Rubbermaid container,
buried in the basement
of the home in June
"Jamie Carroll
usually told people"
his home was Martin.
"A small town, deep in
the heart of coal country"
"With a population
of well under a thousand."
It had the air of so many
small towns across the country
where downtown struggled
"and few people
strolled the streets."
Jamie looked like
a young Mikhail Baryshnikov,
and Mikhail Baryshnikov was
my crush back in the day.
I'm originally from Martin,
Kentucky.
Martin is a very unique
and depressing place.
It actually started out
as a coal mining town.
And, um, then all
of the coal mining jobs
and that industry dried up.
So you had a lot of people
who had no prospects
or no hope for a future there.
It was very religious.
Um, in some churches
they still handle snakes.
Your best shot of being
a success from there
is to leave there.
My grandmother had a house
that was right behind
Martin Elementary School
and I used to like to break
into the school after hours.
And I noticed Jamie was hanging
around the school more.
And so, um, I started hanging
around with him,
and for a couple of days
we played
and got to notice
that he never really went home.
And, um, my teacher said
that he had ran away from home,
and so he actually was living
at the school.
So we spent a lot of time
after school playing
and getting to know
each other better.
Had never kissed anyone,
and he told me,
"It's really simple.
I'm gonna put my tongue
in your mouth."
And I was like, "Oh no!"
And he's like, "Trust me,
this is how it's done."
And of course I fell in love
with him 'cause, you know,
he was gorgeous for that age.
He had perfect skin
and just blonde,
he was beautiful.
But he had to set me straight
that that wasn't, uh
Well, he set me straight,
he wasn't straight,
and, uh, at that time
I really wasn't quite sure
what that meant.
Um, but it was no big deal,
'cause we were friends.
And then I remember our teacher
telling us that Jamie
was in the hospital.
And that his dad had beaten him
almost to death,
and they didn't know if he was
going to make it or not.
From what we gathered,
he was beaten
because he was gay.
It was it was heartbreaking.
He could cut hair like nobody.
He had the gift of gab.
He could talk to anybody.
James was in one
of my first classes.
Cris, what year was it?
Um gosh.
-'96
-'95?
'95, '96.
I think I graduated in '96.
-So it was probably '95.
-Okay. '95.
When he finished his class
and we graduated him
and I took him to state board,
he said, "Ms. Owens,
I'm having a Bahama Mama."
I don't know what
a Bahama Mama is,
but evidently James knew well
what they were.
And I said, "No, you're not."
He said, "Yes, I am.
I'm having it."
And then after he finished that
and he says,
"I'm having
another Bahama Mama."
So he had two.
I remember he had a place called
Illusions by James.
And it was over in Rock City.
Was it over in Rock City?
-Illusions?
-Uh-huh.
Well, he thought it was
down here on the corner.
It was 924. Is that what
you're saying? We're 928.
So it had to have been
on the corner.
It was down here on the corner.
It was nice. He always had it
all decked out.
The hair salon, the nails,
the pedicures, tanning bed.
He usually had the whole works.
It was his illusion, I guess.
It was what he wanted life to be
perfect was.
And when you walked in,
it was perfect.
It was nothing outta place.
Marilyn Monroe posters.
And this was his illusion
of a happy life where
everybody accepted him like
it was and he was just happy.
That was his center where family
came to, his friends came to.
Kids come in and get
free haircuts before school.
It was everything to him.
He had a salon. His
salon was a block from mine.
I think all of us back then
were hairdressers.
I think that's all
we knew to do.
We could beat wigs
and beat some hair
and throw some makeup on
better than most women
in that area.
For a long time,
I cut Jamie's hair, you know,
'cause he kept it, he was
so fanatical about his hair.
He kept it trimmed.
He kept it highlighted.
He kept it just,
everything had to be perfect,
it had to be coiffed just right,
and if it wasn't,
you heard about it.
But
He loved to do wigs,
loved to do hair,
but could beat a hairline
in a wig that was phenomenal,
you know, and melt it down
with the blow dryer
and the hairspray.
Teasing, and
I couldn't do all that.
He was he was great
at what he did.
He could've done makeup
for the movie stars.
Like he was good.
There was no flaw
in anything that he'd done.
The first time I ever had
a real memorable experience
was this blonde woman came in
and she was beautiful.
And I was sitting at a table,
you know, 15 year old
and I was trying to flirt
with her.
And I was like, "Hey, you know,
I could make you feel 15 again."
I mean, I was trying my best
to throw everything I had
at this girl.
And she just kept telling me,
you know,
"No, you can't handle this,"
or "No, you don't want this."
And she pulled out her ID
and it was Jamie.
My heart hit the floor.
Made me think about my sexuality
at a young, young age, I mean.
To watch her perform
was breathtaking.
It was phenomenal
to watch her do it, uh,
because I'd never seen
somebody move like Jamie did.
She would do backflips, uh,
handstands, hair tossing.
And didn't care.
If the hair fell off
while she was on stage,
it didn't matter.
Absolutely amazing
how he could make
turn himself into that woman.
I mean, would have breasts,
I mean,
and just with the makeup,
the contouring
and all this and that.
It just looked like a woman.
Jamie did whatever
the hell suited him, ya know.
He would wear high heels to
the grocery store in Pikeville,
and that,
you just don't do that.
'Cause it's country.
Have you been?
Don't go alone
and the banjos get louder.
That's all I can say.
Jamie hated
not being able to be out
in the lights in the city.
But Jamie drove to Louisville
to ply his trade.
Typical Thursday
out with me, girl.
Shiny disco balls ♪
-Come on, Charlie's Angels.
-Okay!
I mean, you have the hair
for it. Why not?
I don't have the hair for it
right now. Girl, I refuse.
I'm Cameron Diaz.
Girl, I feel like Miranda
from Sex and the City.
Girl!
The gay community in general is
just small, but in Louisville,
it's even smaller,
so everybody knows each other.
So you can imagine
what it was like
when a dead body was found
in the basement
of a gay couple's house.
So anyway, so he went crazy
and ended up killing the guy
that they hooked up with,
then he buried the guy
in a bathtub in the basement.
-And
-Girl!
Enjoy the show!
Drugs, rock 'n' roll ♪
Bad-ass Vegas whores ♪
I found out the whole story
'cause the drag community
loves to talk.
I think I heard it
from Hurricane, my drag mom,
and like all the gory details,
and then they were like,
"You know this guy?
Yeah, this was the guy."
I was like, "Oh my God,
I know him."
Like, I worked with him.
I did know Joey Banis,
met him when he was bartending
at one of the bars.
And, uh, I found him
fascinating.
He really couldn't be bothered
with me.
I was just a crazy little drag
queen from down the street, so.
When Joey would come in the bar,
he would be very reserved,
very soft-spoken.
Two hours later, shirt was off,
tattoos were out, mohawk was up,
just rolling through the bar.
Joey was that punk, edgy,
club kid kind of guy.
Some people dress the part.
He owned it, you know.
"This is me, this is who I am,"
you know, "eat me," whatever.
He was that type of guy.
He just boom.
I remember he had a mohawk,
believe it's colored,
and he had kind of big ears.
Um, and, I mean,
he was an attractive guy.
He wasn't ugly at all.
He never caused any problems.
He was never angry or mean
or anything towards anybody
that I saw anyway.
But I knew, uh, that he was
also into meth and stuff.
At the end of the night,
he was a voracious cleaner.
Joey would stay there
for hours afterwards cleaning,
you know,
like compulsive almost.
If there was anything
on the floor,
he would be down on the floor,
hands and knees, scrubbing it.
Later on, I figured
that was part of the drugs.
I remember,
'cause I used to stay after,
like the bars would shut down,
he was loading up
boxes of liquor.
I said, "What are you doing?"
He said, "I'm going down
to my other job."
I said, "Do they own both bars?"
He said, "No."
"So you're taking the liquor
from here and going down there?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, bye." You know?
One night my boss and I
came in the bar
and he just kinda had a really
shocked look on his face.
All of our top-shelf liquor
was gone.
Our ATM was open,
it was emptied out.
The safe was empty.
There were speakers gone
off the wall.
I mean, we had really been
cleaned out.
And then we started hearing
rumblings that Joey
was going to open
another bar in town,
and we never saw Joey again.
Glow was Joey's club.
I guess he got tired of being
just a bartender.
He wanted his vision
to shine through,
so he decided to open Glow.
Which confused us
because we knew
that Joey had been
in prison before.
He had been convicted
of a felony.
You can't hold a liquor license
in Kentucky
under those circumstances.
My name is Daniel Cissell.
I was in high school,
so I was about 16, 17
when I first met him, I think.
I had like a little crush
on Joey.
I hooked up with Joey
in the in the bar.
And then, um, I stuck around
for a little bit,
worked the bar.
I shouldn't have been there.
He knew how old I was.
I think he opened
on New Year's Eve, 2006.
And, you know,
people took pictures
and we could see
that the speakers
that were stolen
off our walls were ours.
I spent a lot of time
in that bar every night
painting it a different color.
He basically would lock us in
and we would be stranded there
because he would say
he was coming back
and he never would come back.
He was a nice boss.
He had like a little case
that he would carry around
that had like, full of different
drugs and stuff.
And he was like
very, very nice about,
like very generous when it came
to giving away his drugs.
But he, like, he had
a problem with, like,
paying employees on time.
It was short-lived, I guess.
Joey was sort of going
off the rails at that point.
My boss did go to the police
about it, um,
and they said they were trying
to build a case against Joey.
Um, they knew that he was
dealing drugs.
They knew that
he had stolen things,
and they told us
to just kind of sit on it
and, you know, and wait.
So that's what we did.
You have the right
to remain silent.
Anything you say can
and will be used against you
in a court of law.
You understand your rights?
Yes. I-I still want to be able
to talk to my dad
and get an attorney.
At this point it's the next day.
And I really should have
already been bonded out
or something
should have happened.
Do you see how muddy I am?
-Yeah.
-Okay.
-What-what you told me.
-Mm-hmm.
I just went and dug a body up
out of out of that basement.
Okay. Um
I-I just I just got done.
I've had nothing to eat.
I've had nothing to drink.
I was in a hot, sweaty basement
since two o'clock
in the morning,
it is now 10:00 a.m.
in the morning,
digging up a body
in the basement.
So at this time, are you
are you willing
to-to talk to me?
I don't want to speak to anybody
until I've spoken to a lawyer.
Okay.
We're with the homicide unit.
Okay? Obviously.
And you kind of put
two and two together. Okay?
-Um
-Jesus Christ.
Take your time.
Can you tell me whether there's
somebody buried in my house?
-There is.
-Oh my God.
Do you know who it is?
Uh, we have an idea who it is.
I just can't imagine
Well, we're gonna get
to the bottom of this.
Somebody killed in my basement.
We want to clear
your name is what we want to do.
Would you be willing
to take a polygraph
for one of our polygraph,
uh, examiners?
Yeah. I mean, I'm I mean,
I don't have anything to hide.
-Okay, we'll walk right over.
-Should I follow you?
Yes, sir.
In the First 48 show,
we walk out of the room
to the polygraph station.
He has this smirk on his face.
And I didn't notice it
because I was in front of him.
Looking back at it,
it was just-just kind of eerie
on it.
Jeff, my name is Mark Bratcher,
I'm one
of the three polygraphers.
You have to understand
today that
this is very important, okay?
You're here to clear your name.
Mundt agreed to do a polygraph.
So the, uh, polygrapher
at the time
did, you know,
a pre-polygraph interview.
I'm not in the room there
with him,
I'm watching it from a TV
from the room next to him.
But the First 48 camera crew's
right there,
and they're filming them.
I'm just gonna ask you,
did you kill somebody?
To murder somebody
is not something
I could ever
even contemplate doing.
Mundt kind of gets wishy-washy.
So the, uh, polygrapher says,
"Look, if you're on the fence,
you're gonna fail this
miserably.
You're not gonna pass
this test."
So if I ask you
if you knew anything
about this case
I was shocked.
I just got duped
for the last six hours.
Like, oh my gosh,
who is this guy?
Jeff really believed that he was
the smartest person in the room,
and that he was able
to outmaneuver, out think,
out-strategize anyone
in the room.
He was my project director
at Northwestern
from 2006 to 2008.
We were on the Project CAFE
at Northwestern, which was.
Comprehensive Access to
Financials for the Enterprise,
as named by Jeff Mundt.
Jeff was a little bit feared
as a boss,
had a little bit of a temper,
he had a certain way
he wanted things done.
Jeff wouldn't accept any reports
that were not done
in 14-point Garamond font.
If he was having a bad day,
if something
had not gone his way,
you could hear
really loud metal music
coming out of his office.
So you knew not to approach.
Jeff did speak
with a British accent
the entire time
that I knew him on the project.
He would say,
"Top of the morning to you."
And after we got to know
each other for a while,
I said, "Jeff,
did you grow up in the UK?
Did you go to school
in Britain?"
And he said, "No, I feel like
people give me,
uh, better respect if I speak
with an accent."
I remember, on a Thursday night,
I had locked my laptop
to my desk,
so went around the office
to try and find just anyone
to help me out,
and Jeff was one of the few
people still in the office.
He immediately said,
"Becky, I know just what to do."
He grabbed his keys.
And so we rode in Jeff's car,
went to the hardware store.
"What are we doing, Jeff?"
He said, "We have to get
bolt cutters."
I said, "Jeff, why do you think
this will work?"
And he said,
"Well, I used to steal bikes
in college and this is
what we would use."
I expensed them in
to the university.
He had told me
to expense them in.
And then he didn't even approve
my expense report.
He said, "You can't just
expense in bolt cutters,
you need to hide that."
And I said, "You want me
to-to lie on my expense report?"
He said,
"I would never say that."
Jeff was still
in Chicago when we met.
We were at a conference
and we chatted.
He said he always wanted
to come live back in Louisville
because he grew up here,
and I found out he grew up
in the same area of town
I grew up.
So he became the consultant
on a big project
I was working on
at the University of Louisville.
And we just, uh, struck up
a good friendship from there on.
He mentioned
that he had broken up
with his boyfriend in Chicago.
And then I think the breakup
was part of why he wanted
to move back to Louisville.
"In 2008,".
Jeffrey bought
the house on Fourth Street
"with hopes of turning it
into a bed and breakfast."
He bought the house,
he wanted to fix it up.
He bragged about restoring it
back to its original state.
He sent me an email,
um, and said,
"I bought this big place
in Old Louisville
and I got big plans for it,"
yada, yada, yada.
I'm Kurtis Hord. Um,
I'm a preservation architect
and builder
here in Old Louisville.
His-his vision was
to have it museum-restored
and to-to have his big,
you know,
Victorian mansion showpiece.
That's what you do here
in the gay community.
You move to Old Louisville,
you get a big mansion showpiece,
and, boom, you've arrived.
He spent a lot
on his clothes and everything.
I mean, he was preppy.
He's always really,
really nicely dressed.
He's always gonna make sure
he's wearing something
to show off.
Like, I don't know,
really uninspired,
like $300 shoes.
Oh, he was big with money.
Always wanted his money.
He drove a BMW.
He liked the craft beers.
He's definitely not a Bud guy.
And he always come in with
his expensive bottle of water.
Voss.
We used to laugh about that.
He had an expensive bottle
of water.
That looks like a water bottle
from our house.
Did you ever watch Willy Wonka?
-The golden ticket, right.
-You get that golden ticket.
Look, this is this is Jeff's
golden ticket right here, okay?
That's your golden ticket,
and-and Willy Wonka
just gave that to you.
I want you to look
at that yellow piece of paper.
I want you to imagine
that's a golden ticket.
You're not
I need you to be totally honest
with me, okay, because
you-you know what happened.
-Well
-Hear me out, okay?
You know what happened.
And-and we need to know
the details of that night.
-Right.
-You know?
-I mean, you ready to
-Yeah.
And as much detail
as you can, okay.
Um
Joey had a friend from Lexington
who I'd met once before,
at least I think he was from
Lexington thereabouts. Um
His version of the story
mirrored up almost identical
to what Joey had told us.
Jeffrey wanted to,
uh, get some drugs.
So he invited Jamie over
to the house.
Joey wanted to "party,"
um, to do drugs.
It's not something
I would typically do.
Before I knew it,
Jeffrey stabbed Jamie.
Joey had a knife in his hand
and cut the guy's throat.
I was scared for myself,
scared for my family.
And I was so scared for my life,
me and my family,
and my damn cats.
I'm not the one
who killed anybody.
I'm not a murderer.
You can point your fingers
at each other all day long.
Who are we believing?
I'm not purposely leaving
things out.
I have tried to forget this
and I was given drugs
and when I don't
normally take drugs.
You've talked all night long
in a big circle.
Not once have you manned up
and said, "Yes, we did it."
You brought him over there
to rob him for his money,
to rob him for his dope
because nobody
would give a shit about him.
-I did not do this.
-Okay.
I did not know what had been
planned until it happened.
You are charged with robbery,
murder, and tampering
with physical evidence.
You're gonna be charged
with murder,
tampering with physical evidence,
unlawful imprisonment.
Stand up,
put your hands together
like you're praying here, okay?
Two men
in a romantic relationship
are arrested for murder
after police find a body buried
in an Old Louisville basement.
The tale of a love
triangle and grisly murder
Banis and Mundt
arrested for killing a man
James Carroll
stabbed, shot, and tied up
inside a 50-gallon
Rubbermaid tub.
Both men
are charged with burying
the container in the basement,
which took six months to find.
Jamie Carroll died
while all three were
in a bedroom of Mundt's home
on Fourth Street.
"Two days
after they found Jamie's body"
in the basement of the home
on South Fourth Street,
Dale and Bill held
a Pride-related fundraiser
"on South Third Street."
"A mane of white hair
swept back from his forehead.
Dale smiled and reached out
a hand as I approached."
When I first heard
about the murder,
we went to a party
at a house on Fourth Street,
and that's all
we really talked about.
You did come!
I stayed awake long enough
to see you, my love.
Hi! There we go.
Murder was not something
we were accustomed to.
-Cheers.
-Thank you. Welcome, everyone.
And the fact
that it had happened
right at the beginning
of Pride Week
and being as close as it was,
you know,
just a block or two away,
it was really difficult
to deal with.
It was kind of an embarrassment,
you know, for the neighborhood,
and for Louisville,
and gay men too.
Oh, of course. Yeah. It's just
a block and a half away.
Yes, everyone knew about it.
Hey, Dana.
Everyone knew about it,
but it was not common knowledge
who the men were
who lived there.
They were pretty much, according
to local lore, ghostlike.
Nobody ever saw them.
It didn't look occupied.
All I knew was that
one of the people involved
was the son
of a cosmetic surgeon.
I've never gone to him.
Maybe I should think about it,
but Dr. Banis is very,
very well known in Louisville.
One of the really bizarre
conversations we had is,
"Well, what would you do with
a body after you killed it?"
I heard that the body
had been cut up.
Just put in a container.
The bartender was a-a local EMT,
and he was involved
with transporting the body
to the morgue.
He'd actually been kind of
folded up and hogtied.
You can think
you know what you'd do
in a situation like that
and you don't do that,
but there's no way I would've
dismembered the thing.
When I moved in
across the street,
I didn't know
about the murder house.
"And I said," There's something
really odd about that house.
Is it haunted?"
I'm Angelique X Stacy
and I am a medium.
Yeah, you know.
Usually I don't tell folks
because you don't walk around
telling your friends,
"I see dead people,"
and most of my friends are, so.
It turns out,
1435 had been a sanatorium.
From about the early 1920s
to like the late '30s,
a sadistic doctor,
Dr. Stanley Bandeen,
used to experiment
on his patients.
He would take them down
to the basement area,
he would inject them, and then
he liked to tell these folks,
"Hey, you're dying,"
and see all the shock and horror
on their face.
And then Pauline,
the local nurse, Ms. Boren,
bought it in around 1961.
She moved into it
with her daughter
and they opened it up
as a boarding house.
Unfortunately,
one of her boarders
came after her with a hammer
and she later on died
as a result of those injuries.
Then I started hearing
from my neighbors
that somebody dies
every couple of years around it.
So yeah, that seemed
quite a lot over there.
Oh, I love this paragraph.
"Who would want to buy a home
where such a grisly murder
had taken place?
Some thought it better
to bulldoze the whole place.
For the time being though,
1435 South Fourth Street
"sat abandoned."
Nearly three years after a man
was found dead,
stuffed in a plastic bin
Some call it
a love triangle gone bad.
Joseph Banis is on trial
for the 2009 murder
of James Carroll
The victim's
mangled body was left to rot.
Banis could get
the death penalty
if he's convicted.
The body in the basement trial.
There are some trials
that, uh, stick with you
and this is one of them.
It was definitely a big story.
Every single station
had a reporter on it.
Joseph Banis is actually facing
the death penalty.
Banis's attorney
is trying to prove
that it was Mundt
who killed Carroll.
Not only did you have
this sensational case,
but the lawyers involved
are all interesting.
There was a lot of star power
in a way.
This was a death penalty case.
They actually were seeking
to execute our client.
So the-the stakes
could not have been any higher.
Jeff was a very intelligent,
well-educated,
successful professional.
He's never been in trouble
in 40 years.
He meets Joey
and six weeks later
he's got a body in his basement.
We don't often find
bodies buried in basements.
By the time that the trials
happened
three years later, it felt like
-the talk of the courthouse.
-Yeah.
"At the prosecution's
table, Conroy"
"Conroy unwrapped
a piece of candy
with a soft crinkle and popped
the sweet into her mouth."
"Popped a piece of candy"?
-I mean, this-this is
-That's important.
Yeah, "with a soft crinkle."
Joseph Banis
is the first of two men
to be tried
for Carroll's murder.
Banis and Jeffrey Mundt
blame each other
for Carroll's death.
Both face separate trials.
Typically, a prosecutor
wants to have one trial
with both defendants sitting
at the same table
so that one jury can hear
whatever everybody's gonna say.
From the very beginning,
both Mundt and Banis
blamed each other.
There are Supreme Court rules
that dictate
whether or not you can play
those statements
in a joint trial,
so we have two separate trials.
And I felt like
it would be more likely
that I would be able to be
successful at the first trial
against Joey Banis.
He had a criminal history
in a different way
than Jeffrey Mundt
obviously did.
There were all those pictures
of Joey Banis with guns.
Unfortunately, we judge people
sometimes by just
what they look like.
We can judge people
just on a photograph.
We have all seen
the infamous photograph of Joey
with the mohawk looking like,
if-if you had his picture up
next to Mr. Mundt's
famous photograph,
which looks like
an IT executive,
which of these two
would stab somebody
and-and bury him
in the basement?
"In the courtroom,".
Judge Mitch Perry
watched from his pulpit
as Bailiff Brown
ushered in the defendant
"and then announced
the arrival of the jury."
All rise for the jury, please.
I thought, "Oh, this is gonna
be a good one."
It's gonna be a trial
where the public
would be in the courtroom,
so I was expecting
a full courthouse.
Three men entered.
Two men left.
Jeffrey Mundt,
Joseph Banis,
and Jamie Carroll
entered into a bedroom
in 1435 South Fourth Street
for the purposes
of having group sex.
Jamie Carroll
didn't leave that bedroom,
didn't leave that house
until homicide detectives dug
his body out of the basement
on June 17th, 2010.
Jamie Carroll spent
approximately six months
in a 50-gallon
Rubbermaid container,
covered in lime,
sealed shut with foam,
strapped with duct tape.
Your job as a juror
is to take the evidence
that is presented to you
and focus in on that man,
Joseph Banis.
Today, the
prosecution's star witness
Jeffrey Mundt testifying today
against his former partner,
Joseph Banis.
Now Mundt was given a plea deal
to avoid the death penalty
in exchange for his testimony
against Banis.
I want to go to the night
of the murder of James Carroll.
Tell the jurors what happened.
The three of us started,
you know, stripped naked
and started, you know,
watching porn.
And I feel a jerk.
I'm thrown off of Jamie
and thrown into the table
that's on the bedside.
Jamie started screaming, "No,
Joey, no, no, no, please, no."
There was blood
that was literally everywhere.
I mean, you could actually smell
the blood.
Joey had a knife
and was slicing
at Jamie's throat.
Joey takes several steps back
and grabs a gun
and Joey shot him,
I believe twice.
Joey pointed the gun at me
and said I had a choice,
which was to help him or to be
killed right then and there.
He sets me to dig a hole in
the front part of the basement
and he locked me into that area
and we dig the hole.
It was not possible
for Mr. Carroll's body
to fit in the container
as it was.
Joey hit him with a sledgehammer
so that the bones broke,
and I guess the muscles relaxed
and moved, whatever,
and he was put
into the container.
I mean, he was just pressed
into the container.
I don't know
a better way to say it.
I don't remember it being
a particularly,
other than disturbing,
obviously, process,
I don't remember it being
a particularly difficult task.
He was cold, very calculating,
and he had no emotion
and it made him look
like a psychopath.
He was condescending too.
You went back
to your life somewhat as normal
when Jamie Carroll was buried
in your basement, right?
I don't know if "normal"
would be quite the word
of having somebody hold a gun
and a knife at you 24/7,
but yeah, if you define that
as normal,
yeah, my life went
back to normal.
These pictures,
where were they taken?
They're taken in the front hall
of my home
on 1435 South Fourth Street.
And time frame generally
of this photograph,
you said late,
around Christmas of
Around Christmastime of 2009.
And at the time
of this photograph,
is Jamie Carroll buried
in the basement?
Yes.
I thought,
"What on earth?"
You celebrate
Christmas together,
you're together
for over six months
after this happens?
I thought it was complete BS.
I'm Staci Huber, I, uh,
I was a juror
on the Joseph Banis trial.
I'm a true crime junkie.
I took a lot of psychology
classes in college,
so, uh, abnormal psychology
is probably my favorite.
Yeah. Yeah.
That and sex crimes.
Were you not concerned
with making sure
that bloody rags were not around
your house? I mean,
you already had a body
in the basement.
I was less worried about that.
I was worried about my cats,
quite honestly
is more than anything else,
what was gonna happen to them
walking around full of blood, yes.
Having a body in his basement
and his main concern
was his cats.
I got no sense of remorse
at all from Jeffrey Mundt.
Have you ever worked
for the US government?
-No, ma'am.
-Have you killed 35 people
in your line of work
with the US government?
That was a sex scene
that we had created.
I don't understand.
Role-play,
creation of a fantasy world
is what I am into.
That was the scene where.
I was being outwitted
and outsmarted by the criminal,
but I was the government agent.
-And who played the criminal?
-Joey.
"Darren Wolff
was champing at the bit"
when Jeffrey Mundt returned
to the witness stand
for cross-examination.
"Taking a long drink
from a bottle of water"
"The attorney seemed
to steel himself
with a slight jerk
of his head to the side,
"almost like a prizefighter
entering the ring."
Oh geez.
You swear and affirm
testimony you're about to give
will be the truth
and the whole truth?
Yes, sir.
Isn't it true that you led
Mr. Banis to believe
you were an agent of the
of a foreign government or
That was part
of a sex scene, sir.
Okay, so you would admit to me
or admit to this jury
that you did tell him
that you had, in fact,
a bullet in your head
from some work that you did
in a foreign country.
-I don't recall saying that.
-You don't recall saying that?
You don't recall saying to him
that you had
a bullet in your head
from Bratslavia?
-I'm sorry, where?
-Bratslavia?
-Does that sound familiar?
-Bratislava?
Yeah. Thank you.
You know where it is then?
Yes. I'm familiar
with Eastern Europe.
We're the ones that,
quite frankly, during our trial,
had to put Mr. Mundt on trial.
We're gonna be using the term
"lie" a lot today.
I want you to define
for this jury
what a lie is to Jeffrey Mundt.
A false statement.
You lied, isn't that right?
-You did, right?
-Yes, sir.
I lied at the house
and I lied downtown as well.
Quite frankly, I was freaked out
by the fact that there were
TV cameras all over the place,
videotaping this thing,
and that was really not exactly
what I had in my mind
as telling the police
what had happened.
Okay. Alright. Now,
you know, let's talk about this.
There were
the television cameras
-that were up in the corner
-Right.
And the First 48 Hours,
they were the ones
sitting right outside the door
of the interrogation room.
I don't remember
where they were sitting.
You don't remember that?
I do remember there were
cameras there.
I can't speak
to where they were.
Okay. Do you remember
having conversations,
literally having conversations
with the First 48 Hour crew?
No.
Are you from Louisville?
If I'm not supposed
to talk to you,
-I'm sorry. I'm just
-You don't remember that?
You don't remember asking him
whether or not
you should not be talking
to him? You don't remember that?
-I don't remember any of that.
-You don't remember that? Okay.
Mundt tried to control
the story,
to control the narrative,
to control everyone involved.
Unlike Mr. Banis,
I don't have
a long history of interrogation
to fall back on.
-I don't know how I was treated.
-Wait, what did you just say?
What did you just say
to this jury?
Did I ask you a question
about that?
There were times
during that cross-examination,
I had to remind him who was
in charge, and it wasn't him.
I was the one asking
the questions.
I'm sorry, I thought
it was relevant. I apologize.
You thought it was relevant?
You know what?
When something's relevant,
I will ask you a question.
"Chapter Twenty:
Weird Rubber Stuff."
I'm going to show you a profile.
Um, it appears to be
a profile of me from a website.
Alright.
Under "Turn-ons,"
you've got, uh,
"Rubber, rubber, rubber, PVC,"
leather, bondage (all types),
"restraints (cuffs, collars,
hoods, gags, et cetera)."
And that's when a lot of us kind
of learned a lot of new words.
PnP?
It refers to drug use,
particularly methamphetamines.
"Party and play" is PnP.
-What's WS?
-Water Sports.
Primarily, I guess,
gay term for urine.
Ass play
and sensory deprivation.
What does CBT mean?
Cock and ball torture.
It means I like having my penis
and my testicles played with,
hard.
Gingering, right? Gingering?
A ginger root in the anus.
Is that right?
I went to places
that I have never gone to before
and do not plan to go back to
ever again.
It was definitely kink shaming.
One hundred percent,
kink shaming.
You can call it
whatever you want,
but as a defense attorney,
are we supposed to just sit back
and completely ignore
this completely
separate lifestyle
that's not being presented
to this jury?
What's this next one?
What in what is mummification?
We're like,
"What is mummification?"
And he basically liked to be
almost, you know,
clad completely in leather
or something else
and almost be
the air cut off.
I like having people
hold my head,
put a hood over my head
and smother me.
Obviously, only
to a certain degree.
Did he carry out
one of his fantasies?
That's the thing I learned
in my sex crimes class
"is that it could have been
a, "Wow, this can happen.
I can make this happen.
I can make my fantasies
"because mummification
is one of my fantasies."
You have to remember
the fantasy world of sex
is very different
to the reality world.
The best example
I can come up with
would be a heterosexual couple
maybe into the naughty nurse
and the patient
or the naughty nurse
and the doctor.
Sort of a role-playing
experience,
sort of like what you might see
in pornography.
I mean, the only reason
you fantasize about things
is because you think that maybe
one day they could be a reality.
If you're in a position
where, sexually,
basically being strangled
or almost dying or those kind
of asphyxiation sort of things
give you a thrill,
why wouldn't seeing
another individual die?
How does that not translate?
"Thundershowers
rattled the windowpanes"
in the Judicial Center
the next day
"when the defense put on
its case for Joseph Banis."
Your Honor, at this time
the defense would call
Mr. Kenny Robertson.
What kind of work
did Jeffrey Mundt
have you do to that home?
He asked me to come in
and give him an estimate on,
uh, pouring concrete
in basements.
I went around the walls
and I measured the walls
from the dirt, six inches,
because he wanted four inches
of concrete poured in there.
And he sat there
and he-he sat there
with his head like this
the whole time.
And I thought, you know,
every time I walked by him
I thought, you know,
"What's wrong with you?"
He would not go in that room.
And I thought that was
kind of strange
because I needed a little help
holding a tape measure.
And I told him, I said, "Look,
we got to get outta here."
I said, "It stinks in here."
Were you ever able
to concrete over his basement?
-No.
-What happened? Why not?
It was on the news, and they had
found a body in Jeff's home.
Had they completed
the finishing of that basement
and put down
a cement flooring on it,
absolutely they could have
gotten away with it.
You would agree with me.
It would've also been
a convenient way
to concrete over
a dirt floor basement
where a body had been buried.
Yes, it would've been
a convenient way
to hide that evidence.
Make sure
it was never discovered.
Well, less likely
to be discovered.
And I was like, "Wow."
That moment showed us
that Jeff Mundt
was more the mastermind.
I think the problem
for Joey Banis's attorneys
is that making Jeffrey Mundt
look bad
doesn't make Joey Banis
look good.
It just makes them both
look bad.
An unexpected turn
in the murder trial
of Joseph Banis.
The attorneys representing
Joseph Banis
rested their case today
without his testimony.
A surprise
because just a week ago
his attorney told jurors
that Banis himself would testify
in his own defense.
Joey was going
to testify at his trial.
Then we were able to remind him
of a particular piece
of evidence
that would contradict
his statement.
I'm recording my death
for the purpose of informing
all concerned
of my own willful suicide
and the complete non-involvement
or culpability
of my boyfriend,
Jeffrey Steven Mundt.
We knew there was
the threatening video
between him and Jeff Mundt
in the hotel room.
I have a gun pointed at him.
The gun is right here,
and he is right there.
At the conclusion
of the Commonwealth's proof
in the case,
they had not yet shown
that video.
I'm holding him hostage
because I have failed him
and hurt him
and done terrible things,
which can
I can never recover from.
This includes killing someone.
Our concern was
that if he testified,
then certainly, surely to God,
the Commonwealth
would have used that video
to just completely wreck
his credibility to the jury.
So we came to the agreement,
it was not worth the risk
for him to be impeached
with this damning video.
I'm sorry for any pain
that this causes.
Video shuts off,
you know, that's it.
But there's a start to this.
They didn't play
the start to this.
Hello.
And that's when you have Mundt
almost seeming to dictate
what Banis was gonna say.
If you look at the video,
you can truly see
that looks can be deceiving,
and in this case
looks were deceiving.
With a taste of your lips,
I'm on a ride ♪
You're toxic,
I'm slippin' under ♪
With a taste
of a poison paradise ♪
I'm addicted to you ♪
Don't you know
that you're toxic? ♪
With a taste of your ♪
Taste of your ♪
With a taste of your ♪
Taste of your,
taste of your ♪
Taste of your ♪